Yùzhì xiāoyáo yǒng 御製逍遙詠
Imperially Composed: Encomiastic Verses on Free-Roaming by 太宗趙炅 (撰)
About the work
An eleven-juan imperially composed Buddhist-Daoist syncretic verse-encomium collection, by Sòng Tài-zōng 太宗. The work uses the Daoist xiāo-yáo 逍遙 (“free-roaming”) concept — drawn from the Zhuāng-zǐ 莊子 Xiāo-yáo yóu 逍遙遊 chapter — as its organizing trope, integrating it with Buddhist prajñā / śūnyatā doctrine in a sustained verse-meditation. Each verse is followed by interlinear-gloss commentary explaining both the Daoist source-material and the Buddhist doctrinal application. The third of four imperially-composed Buddhist works of Tài-zōng preserved in the Korean canon (KR6s0057, KR6s0058, KR6s0059, KR6s0060). Preserved at K1260.
Prefaces
The text opens with an interlinear-glossed preface. In paraphrase:
“The dark-origin great Way’s principle envelops the deep-and-far” 玄元大道理包深遠 — (玄元 means the empty-extreme’s wonderful root, the original essence of heaven-and-earth, pure-deep One Truth, congealed-and-naturally fundamentally-still. Therefore Bóyáng [Lǎozǐ] revered its ultimate Way and the teaching expounded Five Thousand [the Dàodé jīng], embracing emptiness — it can be called deep-and-far indeed.)
“Xiāoyáo’s ultimate discussion’s meaning pervades the refined-subtle” 逍遙至論義貫精微 — (逍遙 is the name of the suspended-untying, the meaning of penetrating-empty broad-attaining. The great peng-bird soars in the boundless-emptiness; the ultimate-person roams in non-action. Indulging intent in the field of self-attaining, separating things, things follow their nature; then [one] can wonderfully accord with the three nothings, transforming the six combinations, causing the depraved-thinning customs to recover the pure-plain wind. The dawn of the refined-subtle: it is in this.)
Abstract
Authorship and date: imperially composed by Sòng Tàizōng during his reign (980 – 997 plausibly). notBefore = 980, notAfter = 997. Catalog dynasty 宋.
The work is the principal exemplar of Northern-Sòng imperial Buddhist-Daoist syncretism at the highest court level. Tài-zōng’s appropriation of the Daoist xiāo-yáo trope — explicitly framed in the preface through the Zhuāng-zǐ opening (the péng-bird, the ultimate-person) and the Dào-dé jīng (Lǎo-zǐ as Bó-yáng, the “Five Thousand” treatise) — and its integration with Buddhist prajñā doctrine reflects the early-Sòng court ideology of Three-Teachings unity (sān-jiào yī-zhì 三教一致) that would become characteristic of the Sòng-Yuán intellectual mainstream.
The choice of xiāo-yáo as the structuring concept is significant: it positions Buddhism’s prajñā as the deeper expression of what the Daoists had described as “free-roaming” — making Buddhism the doctrinal completion of Daoist intuitive insight. This positioning was the foundational move of much subsequent Sòng sān-jiào discourse.
Translations and research
No substantial dedicated Western-language secondary literature located. See KR6s0057 for general Tài-zōng-Buddhism references. Specific to Buddhist-Daoist syncretism:
- Christine Mollier, Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face (Hawai’i, 2008) — context for the centuries of Buddhist-Daoist literary cross-influence that culminated in works like this.
- Albert Welter, Monks, Rulers, and Literati (Oxford, 2006) — Sòng-period imperial Buddhist-Daoist negotiations.
- Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen (eds.), The Taoist Canon (Chicago, 2004) — context for Daoist Zhuāng-zǐ commentary tradition relevant to Tài-zōng’s source-base.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the principal pre-modern Chinese imperial syntheses of Buddhist and Daoist doctrinal vocabulary, anticipating the more famous Sòng literati-syncretic works of figures like Sū Shì 蘇軾 and Wáng Ānshí 王安石. Tàizōng’s institutional position as emperor — sponsoring both the Kāibǎo Buddhist canon (971–983) and the Zhāngyīzhōu Daoist canon-printing projects — gave his syncretic literary work an authoritative weight that no later Sòng literati syncretic-syntheses could match.
Links
- DILA authority: (no preserved authority entry for the imperial author)
- CBETA: K35n1260
- Author: Sòng Tàizōng 太宗 (Zhào Jiǒng 趙炅, 939–997, r. 976–997)
- Companion imperially-composed works: KR6s0057 Liánhuá xīnlún, KR6s0058 Mìzàng quán, KR6s0060 Yuánshí, KR6s0061
- Source-text references: Zhuāngzǐ 莊子 Xiāoyáo yóu 逍遙遊; Dàodé jīng 道德經