Zhu Xi and the Text of The Secret of the Golden Flower -- A Series of Doctoral Dissertations on Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism

Author: Qin Weigang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2004-11-01
Features: It is generally believed that the Zentongqi (The Unity of the Three) is the earliest theoretical work of the alchemical school of Taoism written by Wei Boyang during the reigns of Emperor Huan and Emperor Shun of the Late Han Dynasty. The Zentongqi Fen Zhang Tong Zhen Yi (Comprehensive Exposition of the Chapters of the Unity of the Three) annotated by Peng Xiao, published in the late Five Dynasties, is considered the earliest extant annotated version of the Zentongqi. However, during my research on Taoist alchemical texts, alchemical books, and literary classics before the publication of Zhu Xi's Zentongqi Kao Yi, I discovered that the so-called earliest extant (late Five Dynasties) annotated Zentongqi Fen Zhang Tong Zhen Yi was little known until it was recorded in the Zhou Zhai Shu Zhi (1511). In the early Southern Song Dynasty, the Zentongqi literature remained in a state of confusion, intertwined with Tang and Song alchemical texts. During my research, I also found that Zhu Xi selected Peng Xiao's annotated Zentongqi Fen Zhang Neng Zhen Yi from the numerous, mixed-up Zentongqi texts. From his perspective that the "primordial Yi studies" originated from the alchemical text Zentongqi, he introduced the "primordial Yi studies" of the late Five Dynasties and Northern Song Dynasty into the interpretive framework of the Zentongqi. From the interpretive angle of "primordial Yi studies," he revised the canonical text of the Zentongqi, and on this basis, completed his collation and annotation work, Zentongqi Kao Yi. The Zentongqi Kao Yi completed in the fourth year of the Qingyuan era (1198) had a significant impact on the annotated and published versions of the Zentongqi in the late Song and early Yuan Dynasty, and it ended the unstable state in which the Zentongqi literature was mixed with Tang and Song alchemical texts. Zhu Xi's use of "primordial Yi studies" to interpret and understand the annotators of the Zentongqi converged with the alchemical thought of the Southern and Northern Schools of the Jindan (Golden Elixir) tradition, exerting a profound influence on the evolution and development of Taoist inner cultivation thought after the Song and Yuan Dynasties. To date, research on the Zentongqi has paid little attention to the impact of Zhu Xi's Zentongqi Kao Yi on the evolution of the Zentongqi literature and the history of Taoist inner cultivation thought. I believe that in-depth research and discussion on this issue should be conducted in the future.