Nǚ dān hé biān 女丹合編
Combined Edition of Female Inner-Alchemy
anonymous compilation, post-1809
The principal Qīng compendium of female inner-alchemy (nǚ dān 女丹) literature — a 12-text compilation in 2 juàn — preserving the canon of kūn dào 坤道 (women’s Way) cultivation literature for the late-imperial / Republican-era nǚ dān tradition. The 12 component texts: (1) Kūn jué 坤訣 (Kūn-Way formulas), (2) Nǚ dān shí zé 女丹十則 (Ten Rules of Female Alchemy), (3) Qiáo yáng jīng nǚ gōng xiū liàn 樵陽經女工脩煉 (the Qiáoyáng scripture’s woman-work cultivation), (4) Nǚ dān liàn jǐ huán dān tú shuō 女丹煉已還丹圖說 (Female Alchemy Refining-the-Self Returning-the-Elixir Diagram-and-Discourse), (5) Nǚ dān cuō yào 女丹撮要 (Female Alchemy Essentials), (6) Nǚ dān huì jiě 女丹彙解 (Female Alchemy Collected Expositions), (7) Xī chí jí 西池集 (Western-Pool Collection), (8) Nǚ dān shī jí qián biān 女丹詩集前編 (Female Alchemy Poetry Anthology First Volume), (9) Nǚ dān shī jí hòu biān 女丹詩集後編 (Second Volume), (10) Nǚ zhēn dān jué 女眞丹訣 (Female-Real Elixir Formulas), (11) Nǚ dān yào yán 女丹要言 (Female Alchemy Essential Sayings), (12) Páng mén lù 旁門錄 (Side-Door Record — likely a polemic against alternative cultivation methods). The compendium centres on the chì lóng zhǎn (slaughter the red-dragon = ceasing menstruation) phasing characteristic of female nèidān.
Prefaces
No external preface in the source; the text opens directly with the table of contents.
Abstract
The standard late-Qīng compendium of nǚ dān literature, preserved in the DZJY post-1809 supplement (CK-EX source-Witness). The compilation is the principal vehicle of female inner-alchemy transmission for the late-imperial / Republican era, supplementing the canonical Sūn Bùèr materials at KR5i0063 and KR5i0064. Composition c. 1700–1906; the work was added to DZJY most likely through Hé Lóngxiāng’s 1906 expansion.
The component Xī chí jí derives from the Wáng Mǔ Xī chí (Queen-Mother of the West / Western-Pool) cult-tradition, a major nǚ dān anchor. The component Páng mén lù polemic is a useful witness to the internal boundary-policing of orthodox vs. heterodox female cultivation that became increasingly important in the late-Qīng / Republican era — particularly against the “yīn yáng schools” of sexual-yoga that the orthodox nǚ dān tradition rejected.
Translations and research
- Cleary, Thomas, trans. Immortal Sisters: Secrets of Taoist Women. Shambhala 1989.
- Despeux, Catherine. Immortelles de la Chine ancienne. Pardès 1990.
- Despeux, Catherine, and Livia Kohn. Women in Daoism. Three Pines Press 2003.
- Wile, Douglas. Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics (SUNY 1992) — for the broader female-cultivation context.