Cān tóng qì chǎn yōu 參同契闡幽
Bringing Out the Hidden Meaning of the Cāntóngqì
by 朱元育 (Zhū Yuányù, hào 雲陽道人 Yúnyáng dàorén); transcribed (筆錄) by his disciple Pān Jìngguān 潘靜觀
A 7-juàn early-Qīng nèidān commentary on the Zhōu yì cān tóng qì 周易參同契 (= KR5c0162) — the foundational alchemical scripture attributed to Wèi Bóyáng 魏伯陽 — written by Zhū Yuányù (cf. 朱元育) at the Huáyáng mountain retreat in the dīngyǒu year (= 1657, Shùnzhì 14) with his disciple Pān Jìngguān keeping the brush-record. The work assembles and harmonises the SòngYuán Cāntóng commentary tradition (Péng Xiǎo, Zhū Xī, Yú Yǎn, Chén Zhìxū) within the Lóngmén southern-school xìngmìng synthesis Zhū had received from his teachers Zhāng Bìxū and Língbǎo lǎorén.
Prefaces
Self-preface (Zhū Yuányù). “The great Way is originally without speech and without name-and-form, mixed-up and chaotic, no end can be known. But unless one borrows speech-and-name to display it, the Way will not in the end be made manifest. Of old, Fùxī made the Yì, pointing directly at Qián and Kūn; Lǎozǐ wrote his scripture, comprehensively raising up Dào and Dé. By relying on these two sages chiselling-through chaos’s face, every man in his own portion knows where the root-and-source of xìngmìng lands, and the great Way is from this clear. The two books emerge from a single spring; afterwards, alas, they were divided into Confucian and Mystery Houses. The followers of the Yì fell into the small-Confucianism of xiàngshù (image-and-number); the followers of the Mystery fell into the fāngshì of life-extending. The study of guīgēn fùmìng (returning to root, restoring the mandate) almost expired. Who could integrate them? It must be the Cān tóng qì. — This book, from the Hàn era, was made by Wèi Bóyáng zǔ, who borrowed Yì-trigrams and Yì-figures to manifest the root-source of xìngmìng. Xìng is the unbreakable primal spirit of ten-thousand kalpas; mìng is the empty-no ancestor-pneuma, the primordial-most-pure-essence… — In my youth I longed for the Way and first revered Northern-school Zhāng Bìxū shī, who pointed me to the mystery-pass; in this book I found a gate, but had not yet seen its inner halls. From there I exhausted my feet on the Five Marchmounts, broadly consulted in every quarter; few opened up my accumulated doubts. At last I entered the deep places of the Zhōngnán mountains and met Língbǎo lǎorén, who opened the heart-and-easement, exterior and interior penetrated through; only then I knew that a single grain may store a world, a dust-mote may turn the wheel of the dharma — these are real-true sayings… When I bid farewell, the old man at parting earnestly enjoined me to broadly deliver later men, not letting [the lineage] be cut, with the further note that my qīyuán lay south of the great river. Putting up my pack and returning south, I entered the Garden to do the Way, with all you law-companions of Pílíng exhausting your strength to protect-and-uphold; we roughly accomplished one great matter. — In the dīngyǒu year [1657], with Pānzǐ Jìngguān I went into seclusion at Huáyáng and meanwhile read the Daoist canon. By chance I drew out from the shelf a copy of the Cān tóng qì; reading it through several times, like a poor man finding a treasure-store, I rejoiced beyond all measure. I privately reflected: this book is the most ancient in source, truly the elixir-scripture’s first ancestor and the various perfected-ones’ lifeline. Wèizǔ once gave it directly to the Qīngzhōu Provost-officer Xú Gōng, who hid the lineage and annotated it; that work is now lost. Since then the various annotators have all gone wrong, some falling into outside-house lúhuǒ and other side-doors, and the zǔyì (founder’s intention) has grown more obscure. In pity I thought to expose its hidden — therefore stopping my feet I bound the winter, daily reciting one or two zhāng of the original text and discussing its great meaning with Pānzǐ, having him brush-record. In a deep mountain still night, holding a candle, encircling the brazier, the two of us discussed in detail the affairs of the inner halls; thinking but not getting, ghosts and gods came to inform; long after, suddenly we penetrated through. Eighty more days of dawn-and-dusk and the draft was done. Title: Chǎn yōu, meaning that this book had hitherto been buried in the Nine Earths and now first ascended above the Nine Heavens…”
Abstract
The most influential early-Qīng Cān tóng qì commentary, completed in 80 days at the Huáyáng mountain retreat after a thirty-year preparation, with the disciple Pān Jìngguān serving as scribe. Terminus a quo is 1657 (Zhū’s start at Huáyáng); terminus ad quem is c. 1670 (no later than Zhū’s likely subsequent work on the Wù zhēn piān). Zhū’s hermeneutic threads the entire Cān tóng qì through the Quánzhēn / Lóngmén southern-school xìngmìng dual-cultivation framework, organising the canonical 7 juàn into a tripartite structure (yù zhèng / yǎng xìng / fú shí gates each containing three sub-houses).
The companion Wù zhēn piān chǎn yōu at KR5i0059 completes Zhū’s Cān tóng / Wù zhēn dyad.
Translations and research
- Pregadio, Fabrizio. The Seal of the Unity of the Three: A Study and Translation of the Cantong qi. Mountain View: Golden Elixir Press, 2011. (And later expanded editions.)
- Pregadio, Fabrizio. Cantong qi: Commentaries (Golden Elixir Press, 2014). — includes selected translation from Zhū Yuán-yù’s Chǎn yōu.
- Schipper-Verellen, The Taoist Canon II, on the Cān tóng qì commentary corpus.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0037
- Commentator: 朱元育.