Chún yáng sān shū 純陽三書
The Three Books of Pure-Yáng
planchette-attributed to 呂洞賓 (Lǚ Dòngbīn / 純陽); preface added 1929 by 彭一清 (Péng Yīqīng, zì 乾陽 Qiányáng) of 新津, Sìchuān, aged 71
A late-Qīng / Republican-era addition to the Dào zàng jí yào corpus, brought to the Èr xiān ān press by Péng Yīqīng of Sìchuān in 1929. The “Three Books” are: (i) Xuán zǎo mì zhǐ 玄藻秘旨, (ii) Zhěn zhōng mì zhǐ 枕中秘旨, (iii) Xìng gōng mì zhǐ 性功秘旨. All three are spirit-written Lǚ-zǔ-cult inner-alchemical manuals on xìngmìngshuāngxiū (dual nature-and-life cultivation) using fǎzhōngyǒuqiào (within method there is the orifice) and qiàozhōngyǒumiào (within the orifice there is the wonder).
Prefaces
Preface (Péng Yīqīng, 1929 / 民國十八年己巳). “The Pure-Yáng Three Books are Lǚzǔ’s books for delivering-and-transforming the world. The first is the Xuán zǎo mì zhǐ, the second the Zhěn zhōng mì zhǐ, the third the Xìng gōng mì zhǐ. The three books speak of Heaven-and-man-united, nature-and-life-dual-cultivation; fǎzhōngyǒuqiào, qiàozhōngyǒumiào — all dissecting the supreme principle, exhausting the leak of mystery-subtlety; inner-and-outer joining together never departing from the inch-of-field; from the start of yùyè / jīnyè until cháoyuán’s jīnyán, only this circle of work — earnestly to make-fault-and-accumulate-virtue, of itself transcending the common to enter the holy. Lǚzǔ said: ‘when the time arrives and the affair is pressing, Heaven does not begrudge the Way, specially having this transmission.’ This indeed is no falsification.
— I, in Guāngxù 26 gēngzǐ [1900], having re-engraved the Dào zàng jí yào at the Èr xiān ān and consulted-and-verified this book for some time, found word-by-word matches. In dīngwèi [1907] I returned from the south-tour without seeing this book, and lacking it had it on my heart; last year, on 8/25, I went to Lǎoréncūn to inspect my elder brother’s grave, and on the bookshelf there, among broken-pieces and scattered-leaves, again found this book and brought it home for posterity. Wáng Yúnpéng of Èr xiān ān having again been chief abbot wished to continue-engrave it within the Dào zàng jí yào to make it available to the world — his heart is universal and far. Yúnpéng and I have been close for the longest time, with real verifiable conduct in the study of refining-the-heart and tempering-the-nature. With the book now done and circulating in the universe, those with mind for the Way may obtain the Three Books and follow them, and the climb to the Way’s bank will easily be made. — Republican 18, jǐsì, Péng Yīqīng Qiányáng of Xīnjīn respectfully recorded at the Cúngǔ Xuéshè (Antiquity-Preservation School), aged 71.”
Abstract
A Lǚ-zǔ-cult inner-alchemical compendium added to the DZJY only in the Republican-era continued-engraving of 1929 — i.e., this is a late stratum of the DZJY corpus, post-dating both Jiǎng Yǔpǔ (1809) and Hé Lóngxiāng (1906). The text itself is older — Péng’s preface implies that he had encountered it during the 1900 Èr xiān ān re-engraving and was lamenting its absence — but the printing in DZJY is 1929. The base text composition is Qīng (the spirit-writing register implies post-1700); precise dating is not internally available.
The 1929 preface is also a useful witness to the late history of the DZJY engraving project: Péng Yīqīng of Xīnjīn (Sìchuān) was a Republican-era Lóngmén lay scholar, recovering this book from the bookshelves of his deceased elder brother in 1928 and bringing it to the Èr xiān ān press the following year. The abbot at the time was Wáng Yúnpéng. CK-BS in the source-Witness label (rather than CK-KZ for the standard Chóngkān Dào zàng jí yào) marks this text as part of the Bǎoshàn supplementary engraving.
Translations and research
- For the late history of the DZJY engraving see Mori Yuria, “Daozang jiyao and Quanzhen Daoism,” cited at KR5i0003; Esposito, Facets of Qing Daoism, ch. on the Èr xiān ān.
- No substantial secondary literature located on the Pure-Yáng Three Books specifically.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0051
- 1929 preface: 彭一清.