Wúshàng Yùhuáng xīnyìn jīng 無上玉皇心印經
The Sūtra of the Mind-Seal of the Unsurpassed Jade Emperor attributed to 杜順法師 (造)
About the work
A single-juan brief Daoist devotional text, preserved in the Fángshān shíjīng 房山石經 collection at F29 no. 1099, paralleling KR6s0076. The work is structured as a sequence of four-character verse-mantras — addressing the cultivation of the Daoist internal alchemy triad of shén 神 (spirit), qì 氣 (vital-breath), and jīng 精 (essence). The byline attributes the work to Dùshùn fǎshī 杜順法師 — almost certainly a pseudonymous attribution to the famous first Huáyán patriarch Dùshùn 杜順 (557–640), who was a Buddhist patriarch and not a Daoist; the attribution is a Daoist appropriation of Buddhist-master authority for a Daoist text, parallel to the Daoist appropriation of Buddhist canonical-style framing in KR6s0076.
Prefaces
The text has no separate preface; it opens directly with the verse:
上藥三品 神與氣精 恍恍惚惚 杳杳冥冥 存無守有 頃刻而成 廻風混合 百日功靈 默朝上帝 …
(The supreme medicine has three classes: spirit, qì, and essence. / Hazy and indistinct, dim and dark. / Preserve the non-being, guard the being — a moment and it is accomplished. / Cycle the wind, mix and combine — a hundred days the work is effective. / Silently audience the Supreme Emperor…)
Abstract
Authorship and date: the byline attributes the work to Dùshùn fǎshī, but this is pseudepigraphic — Dùshùn 杜順 (557–640) was the first patriarch of the Huáyán Buddhist school, not a Daoist. The attribution is a Daoist convention of borrowing prestigious Buddhist-master authority. The work itself is a Daoist internal-alchemy (nèidān 內丹) text, plausibly SòngYuánMíng in origin (the Daoist nèidān tradition reached canonical maturity in the Sòng under the Quánzhēn 全真 and Zhèngyī 正一 schools). notBefore = 1000, notAfter = 1500. Catalog dynasty 明.
The work is one of the principal pre-modern Chinese examples of Daoist internal-alchemy verse-text in concise mnemonic form — distilling the foundational shén / qì / jīng triad of Daoist physiology and the nèidān practical-soteriological framework into a memorizable verse. Its preservation in the Fángshān stone-sūtra collection (parallel to KR6s0076) reflects the pre-modern Chinese canonical-comprehensive approach to religious texts.
The pseudepigraphic attribution to Dùshùn is itself a culturally significant marker — it shows that even by the late-medieval period when the work was produced, the borrowing of Buddhist-patriarch authority by Daoist text-producers was a recognized convention. This is the converse of the Buddhist canonical-preservation of Daoist texts (cf. KR6s0076): both phenomena reflect the late-medieval Chinese canonical-syncretic intermingling that became standard in the YuánMíngQīng period.
Translations and research
- Liú Yī-míng 劉一明 and modern Daoist nèi-dān studies tradition.
- Isabelle Robinet, Catherine Despeux, and the modern French Daoist-studies tradition for nèi-dān.
- Livia Kohn and Russell Kirkland, English-language Daoist scholarship.
Other points of interest
The xīnyìn 心印 (“mind-seal”) term in the title is conventionally a Buddhist-Chán technical term referring to the direct master-to-disciple transmission of awakening. Its appropriation here in a Daoist nèidān text reflects the Daoist absorption of Buddhist-Chán terminology into the Daoist alchemical tradition — paralleling the converse Buddhist absorption of Daoist xiāoyáo terminology in works like KR6s0059 and KR6s0075.
Links
- DILA authority: (no preserved authority entry; the Dùshùn attribution is pseudepigraphic)
- CBETA: F029n1099
- Pseudonymous attribution: Dùshùn 杜順 (557–640), first patriarch of the Huáyán Buddhist school
- Doctrinal framework: Daoist internal alchemy (nèidān 內丹) shénqìjīng triad
- Companion Daoist-canonical work in the Buddhist canon: KR6s0076 Gāoshàng Yùhuáng běnxíng jí jīng suǐ
- Preservation context: Fángshān shíjīng stone-sutra project