黃帝陰符經

Huáng dì yīn fú jīng 黃帝陰符經

The Yellow Emperor’s YīnFú Scripture

base scripture: anonymous, Táng or earlier; (i) commentary by 張果 Zhāng Guǒ (Táng Tōngxuán xiānshēng, c. 700–745); (ii) commentary by 王道淵 Wáng Dàoyuān (Yuán Húnránzǐ, fl. mid-14th c.); (iii) text-collation by 高時明 Gāo Shímíng (late-Míng Sīlǐjiān eunuch, fl. 1610s–1640s)

The composite-commentary recension of the Yīn fú jīng — the famous short Daoist scripture (~ 400 characters) on the cosmology of yīnfú (the secret signature) and the alchemical-political-strategic principle of “stealing-and-snatching” (盜) — here printed in the Dào zàng jí yào with a four-handed apparatus: the canonical Tang base text, Zhāng Guǒ’s Táng commentary, Wáng Dàoyuān’s Yuán commentary, and Gāo Shímíng’s late-Míng collation. The composite recension ultimately derives from the late-Míng inner-court Sīlǐjiān printing under Gāo Shímíng’s supervision — i.e., the same imperial-workshop print establishment behind KR5i0020.

Prefaces

Preface (Zhāng Guǒ). “The Yīnfú has been with us since the Yellow Emperor — it is the sage’s mechanism for embodying Heaven and using the Way. The scripture says: he who attains the mechanism, through ten thousand changes only grows greater, until he reaches kingship; he who loses the mechanism, through ten thousand changes only grows weaker, until he reaches extinction. Later, YīLǚ obtained their fragmentary share and were still able to rescue the living-souls — how much more in the case of the sage! Its writing is sparing, its meaning mysterious; the earlier sages have several houses of commentary, mutually obscuring or revealing — later students find it hard to refine. Although there are points-of-anchorage, it is like climbing the heavens without a ladder. — Your servant in his foolishness has often said: in the morning to hear the Way, in the evening to die, with no regret. By chance in the Daoist scripture-store I obtained a Yīnfú zhuàn — I do not know of what era — its words deep and far, as if matching the spontaneous; therefore I have edited it and appended my own annotation, hoping that the gentlemen of times to come may not lose the scripture’s purport. Your servant Zhāng Guǒ respectfully prefaced.”

Preface (Wáng Dàoyuān). “Heaven models on man, man models on Heaven — that is why the Yīnfú was made. Of old the Yellow Emperor in his eagerness for the Way went to the Kōngtóng Mountain to revere Guǎngchéngzǐ and ask for the supreme Way; he received the formula of return-and-return and long life. Later at the Émēi Mountain he revered the Tiānzhēn Huángrén and received the Wǔ yá sān yī document. He kept it secret and cultivated it, and ascended to the upper-immortals; concerned for the Way of later ages, fearing it would lose its truth, he then composed the Yīnfú jīng in three sections — divided into upper, middle, lower — to correspond to the Three Powers and to clarify how the Three Vital Forces (jīngqìshén) each have their summit-of-purport… The whole-real Way (quánzhēn) is no other: first to make the jīng whole, second to make the qì whole, third to make the shén whole. Through shōushì the shén is real, through fǎntīng the jīng is real, through jiānyán the qì is real… — Nánchāng Xiūjiāng Húnránzǐ Wáng Dàoyuān prefaced.”

The cover-page signature reads: Táng Tōngxuán xiānshēng Zhāng Guǒ zhù — Yuán Húnránzǐ Wáng Dàoyuān zhù — Míng Fùchū dàorén Gāo Shímíng dìng zhèng.

Abstract

This composite-commentary recension assembles the two oldest commentaries of the Yīn fú jīng — Zhāng Guǒ’s Tang and Wáng Dàoyuān’s Yuán — under the late-Míng Sīlǐjiān imperial-workshop standard set by the eunuch official Gāo Shímíng (cf. 高時明). The base scripture is conventionally placed in the Táng (the earliest external citation is the late-Táng Lǐ Quán Yīn fú jīng jí zhù DZ 109; modern scholarship continues to disagree about whether the underlying text could be earlier). The dating bracket notBefore 700 / notAfter 1644 records (i) the latest plausible Táng floruit of the base scripture and Zhāng Guǒ’s commentary, and (ii) the terminus ad quem of Gāo’s collation (Gāo died 1644). The recension is thus late-Míng inner-court and was incorporated into the DZJY in 1809.

For the Yīn fú jīng tradition more broadly: Reiter, The Aspirations and Standards of Taoist Priests in the Early T’ang Period (Wiesbaden 1998), and the Schipper-Verellen entries on the Yīn fú jīng commentary corpus (DZ 109, 110, 111, etc.).

Translations and research

• Reiter, Florian C. Various studies on the Yīn fú jīng, esp. “The Discourse on the Thearch’s Cosmic Pact (帝皇陰符經): Some Critical Considerations.” Monumenta Serica (1990s).
• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon. Entries on DZ 109–122 (the Yīn fú jīng commentary corpus).
• Komjathy, Louis. The Way of Complete Perfection (SUNY 2013) — touches on the Wáng Dào-yuān commentary in its Quán-zhēn context.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5i0031
• Commentators: 張果, 王道淵; collator: 高時明.