The named recipient of a distinctive small corpus of early-Táng Daoist register-revelations and the attributed author of one of the most important Táng Daoist regulatory codes. The name — literally “the Seven Perfected of the Brilliant Gold” — is a pseudonymous or legendary designation; no independent biographical tradition establishes a historical figure of this name, and modern scholarship (Cedzich in Schipper & Verellen 2004, 1:452–53, 1:461–62) treats Jīnmíng Qīzhēn as the hagiographic persona of one or more anonymous Táng Daoist systematisers.
Attributed works. The corpus attributed to Jīnmíng Qīzhēn comprises five Daozang texts:
- DZ 1125 Dòng xuán líng bǎo sān dòng fèng dào kē jiè yíng shǐ 洞玄靈寶三洞奉道科戒營始 — the most significant of his works, a comprehensive Táng Daoist regulatory code covering the institutional life of Daoist monasteries (dào guān 道觀), rites of ordination, liturgical and administrative practices. Originally in 3 juàn (Chóngwén zǒng mù 崇文總目 9.3b records the title as Sān dòng fèng dào kē jiè); the received text is in 6 juàn with some lacunae. Translated into English by Livia Kohn as The Daoist Monastic Manual (OUP, 2004).
- DZ 164 Shàngqīng sān zūn pǔ lù 上清三尊譜籙 — a Shàngqīng-framed register of the Three Honoured Ones.
- [[KR5c0055|DZ 674 Wú shàng sān yuán zhèn zhái líng lù]] 無上三元鎮宅靈籙 — household-protection register.
- DZ 1388 Shàngqīng jīn zhēn yù huáng shàng yuán jiǔ tiān zhēn líng sān bǎi liù shí wǔ bù yuán lù 上清金真玉皇上元九天真靈三百六十五部元籙 — the 365-section celestial register. The embedded cyclical dates in this text are the principal evidence used by Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡義豐 to argue for a sixth-century dating of the Jīnmíng corpus; Cedzich rejects this argument.
- DZ 1390 Shàngqīng dòng tiān sān wǔ jīn gāng xuán lù yí jīng 上清洞天三五金剛玄籙儀經 — the Three-Five Adamantine register liturgy.
In each text, Jīnmíng Qīzhēn appears as the human recipient of a revelation delivered by one of the supreme Daoist deities — in DZ 674 by the Wú shàng shàng shàng Yuán shǐ Tài shàng Yù huáng Wú jí Dà dào jūn 無上上上元始太上玉皇無極大道君; in DZ 1388 and related works by the Gāo shàng Tiān bǎo Yù huáng 高上天寶玉皇.
Dating. The Jīnmíng corpus contains cyclical dates that Yoshioka interpreted as referring to 552 CE (Liáng dynasty 梁朝); Ursula-Angelika Cedzich and Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾 argue, on the basis of the elaborate institutional apparatus presupposed by DZ 1125 and the corpus’s clear dependence on mid-Táng Zhèngyī developments, that the corpus originates in the mid-to-later seventh century (c. 630–700 CE). The four register-texts “originated around the same time from the same tradition” as DZ 1125 and possibly slightly postdate it (Cedzich 2004, 1:452–53). The early-Táng dating is now the scholarly consensus.
Significance. Whatever his historical identity, Jīnmíng Qīzhēn is one of the most important systematisers of Táng Daoism. The DZ 1125 Sān dòng fèng dào kē jiè set the standard for the Táng hierarchical-bureaucratic organisation of Daoism — a standard “that was to retain validity throughout the Táng dynasty” (Cedzich 2004, 1:452). The register-corpus (DZ 164, DZ 674, DZ 1388, DZ 1390) elaborates the ritual apparatus through which lay households and Daoist clergy were to be integrated into this system. Together, the Jīnmíng corpus constitutes the key textual foundation for the formal institution of Táng Daoism alongside the new state-sponsored Daoist academies (Chóng xuán xué 崇玄學) established under Xuánzōng 玄宗.
Ecclesiastical lineage. The pseudonymic qī zhēn 七真 (“Seven Perfected”) in the name Jīnmíng Qīzhēn is resonant with later Quán zhēn jiào 全真教 usage (“Seven Perfected of Quán zhēn”, Quán zhēn qī zǐ 全真七子: Mǎ Yù, Tán Chùduān, Liú Chùxuán, Qiū Chùjī, Wáng Chùyī, Hǎo Dàtōng, Sūn Bù’èr), but the Táng designation is independent and considerably earlier. In the Jīnmíng corpus itself, the “seven” is not given definite explanation, but is plausibly cognate with the qī zhēn 七真 of the Běi dǒu 北斗 (seven stars of the Dipper, each a Perfected), or with the seven-fold cosmic hierarchy of the Táng Daoist heavens.
No CBDB record; no Buddhist DILA authority (this is a Daoist figure).