by Unknown
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
1. The six robbers or cauras refer to the six senses of the body, which impede enlightenment: hence they appear in this chapter’s allegory as bandits.
2. The term literally means to turn toward. It also refers to the bestowal of merit by one being on another.
3. As discussed in introduction I and III, this poem is an adaptation of an ode by the Song Quanzhen Daoist, Zhang Boduan. For documentation, see the end of introduction III, item 6.
4. Wang Mang (45 BCE–23 CE) was a prime minister during the Early Han who usurped the emperor’s throne. He was, however, also known as a reformer.
5. Literally, the word means shaken, shaken off, or cleansed. It points to the practice of asceticism as an antidote to worldly attachments. Hence it is also used in the Chinese vernacular as a name for any mendicant.
6. Literally, the Chinese term xingzhe means a novice who practices austerities or asceticism, and who is also a mendicant.
7. This is another lyric to the tune of “Moon Over West River.”
8. A pun: sugar in Chinese is also expressed by the phoneme tang.
9. “The same illustrious clan”: Tripitaka’s remark here is based on the principle articulated in the Records of Rites, which states, “those of the same patrilineal name belong to the same clan .” See Liji, j 39 in SSJZS 2: 1507.
10. “Horse-face fold”: a colloquialism in the southern dialects that refers to the making of a folded lining. The term is still in use in Cantonese.
11. The tenth month of the lunar year is often referred to as Little Spring.
12. This is another lyric to the tune of “Celestial Immortal.”
13. Huang Shigong (, Squire of the Yellow Stone): a legendary figure who became an immortal. He was also the putative author of the Sushu , an extra-canonical Daoist text.
14. Zhang Liang (d. 187 BCE), legendary Daoist tactician who assisted Liu Bang in securing the Han empire.
15. “Made his plans . . . away”: a quotation from the Shiji , j 8, “Gaozu benji .” It was Liu Bang’s own compliment to Zhang Liang, then used subsequently as a hyperbole for the achievements of any military strategist.
16. Master Red Pine (Chisong zi ), a legendary immortal of high antiquity. For stories and texts associated with him, see the entries in ET 1: 271–73.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1. According to the Daoist religion, the Three Corpses are spirits resident in different parts of the human body as parasites: the head, the chest, and the abdomen (in certain texts, the feet are mentioned as a variant location). They thus also have the name of the Three Worms (sanchong ), able to “cause disease, invite other disease-causing agents into the body, and report their host’s transgressions to heaven so as to shorten his life span.” These spirit-worms are regarded as variously connected to human appetites and desires and thus must be subdued through ritual and the practice of austerities. See entry on “sanshi and jiuchong (three corpses and nine worms)” in ET 2: 844–46. For a scriptural account, see the Taiqing zhonghuang zhenjing in DZ 817, 18: 386.
2. “Thusness”: that is, zhenru or bhūtatathatā, thus always, eternally so, hence the Real.
3. The cow, the sheep, and the pig.
4. The cow, the sheep, the pig, the dog, the chicken, and the horse.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
1. This is the sexennial assembly of Buddha’s disciples.
2. Monkey is mocking the proverb by literalizing the saying, which usually is employed to mean, “if you live and work as a monk, you might as well do the work for the duration.”
3. Grapevine: literally, dragon whiskers (Juncus effusus), a kind of rush used for weaving mats.
4. Suiren: the legendary Chinese Prometheus, who was said to have invented fire by rubbing sticks of wood together.
5. Red Cliff Campaign: the famous episode in The Three Kingdoms (chapters 48–50) when Cao Cao was defeated by the combined tactics of Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu, who attacked Cao’s larger fleet with burning boats.
6. A palace built in the capital, Xianyang, in Shaanxi, by Shihuangdi (221–209 BCE) of the Qin. It was razed by the warrior and contender for the throne, Xiang Yu, and the fire was said to have lasted for three months.
7. The Chinese text here had Beijing, , which was impossible. This was probably an inconsistency or a deliberate use of the late Ming capital’s name as a metaphor caused by the constraint of rhyme in the regulated poem.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1. The tripod and the oven may refer to the utensils of external alchemy, or they may be metaphors for different parts of the viscera in the human body. White snow and yellow sprout are metaphors for mercury and lead, but such chemical substances also may be used as metaphors for physiological elements within the body.
2. Mount Penglai is one of the three famous mythical mountains in the Eastern Sea or Ocean, where immortals live.
3. This is the first of three long regulated poems (pailü) articulating part of the autobiography of each of the human-like disciples of Xuanzang in the novel (see chapters 19 and 22 for similar declarations from the other two disciples). The dragon-horse was not given this privilege. Each poem details the initial stage and attainment in terms of the disciple’s religious pedigree, making clear that the person had succeeded in distilling the inner elixir of alchemy to become an immortal before further transgression banished him to suffer again in the human world.
4. Mount Lingtai: that is, the Mountain of Spirit Platform or Heart and Mind (see chapter 1). Notice that Monkey’s verse here is reaffirming that the residence of his teacher, Master Subhodi, is squarely located in a mountain which can be interpreted as the Heart and Mind. Thus the entire narrative episode, in view of such double meanings, may suggest that all those entertaining events of “seeking and learning the Way (fangdao and candao )” are only allegorical depictions of mental or psychic experiences.
5. Literally, “sun and moon copulated as male and female (li, kan) in my body.” According to the discourse of internal alchemy, the sun and the moon may be the metaphors for the heart and the kidneys, respectively, which in turn are further correlated with the male and female symbols (li and kan ) in the eight trigram lore of the Classic of Change. When the pneumatic vitality (i.e., qi ) of the heart and the kidneys are in proper balance or restored to their primordial condition, the internal elixir (neidan) is formed and immortality is achieved.
6. “Without leaks”: wulou or loujin , “cessation of overflow,” a Daoist adaptation of the Sanskrit āsravakṣaya for describing part of the process taught in what was called the “Greater Celestial Circuit (da zhoutian )” process of internal alchemy. See ET 1: 688–89.
7. Xiansheng: that is, the Immortal Master of Illustrious Sagacity, the God Erlang (see chapter 6).
8. The Buddha is said to have luminous eyebrows the color of white jade.
9. The references to the tiger and dragon in these two lines are likely descriptive metaphors for postures or movements (zhao ) in Chinese martial art.
10. “Ingesting . . . breath”: fuqi . Internal or physiological alchemy places great emphasis on the manipulation of pneumatic vitality (qi) in the human body for retention, circulation, and refinement. See SCC V/5: 142–51, and the entry on “Nourishing Life, yangsheng ,” in ET 2: 1148–50.
11. “Knowing one’s destiny or life (zhiming )” is a venerable concept in the Chinese history of ideas, though the term also has accrued a variety of meanings down through the centuries. Beginning with Confucius’ declaration in Analects 2. 4, that “at fifty [he] understood the will of Heaven or the fate ordained by Heaven (wushi er zhi tianming ),” the phrase zhiming signals different notions in different traditions, including all three major religions. Monkey’s description of the monster is intentionally ironic in a twofold manner. As a fiendish creature (guaiwu ), his foe is not supposed to entertain such a lofty sense of self-understanding, but the oxymoron (no less than the cave-dwelling’s refined beauty) may also indicate Monkey’s dawning recogn
ition of the monster’s resemblance to himself, the perception of which is further validated by the subsequent conversation between Monkey and his master, and by the monster’s submission to Guanyin later in the chapter.
12. The numbers, “three times three” and “six times six” likely refer to the lines of the Qian Hexagram (three unbroken lines on top and three on the bottom) and the Kun Hexagram (six lines on the left, and six on the right, with a space in between), as found in the Classic of Change. They are not only regarded as the parental gua of all the sixty-four hexagrams, but they are also the definitive symbols of male and female; hence, of the yin and the yang. For a translation of the received text, see The I Ching or Book of Changes, the Richard Wilhelm Translation rendered into English by Cary F. Baynes, with a preface by Hellmut Wilhelm (1967), Bollingen Series 19 (Princeton, 1971), pp. 3–20. For a translation of an older text more recently discovered, see I Ching: The Classic of Changes, trans. Edward L. Shaughnessy (New York, 1996), pp. 38–39, 102–03.
13. The Goulou ( = , also articulated as Julou) may refer to a mountain in northern Guangxi Province. It is so named because it has many caves or grottoes which are joined to one another. Legend has it that the famed alchemist Ge Hong (283–343) did some of his work here.
14. Shao Weng was supposed to be some kind of magician from the state of Qi. See the Shiji, j 12 and 28. See Ershiwishi 1: 0043b–c, 0116c.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
1. After rites involving sacrificial offerings, the sacrifical meats and fruits are then distributed among the celebrants. Hence the name “blessing.”
2. Moth-brows (i.e., mothlike eyebrows) is a common term describing a woman’s delicately painted and curved eyebrows.
3. That is, thirty-six (see chapter 2). The Heavenly Ladle is the name for the thirty-six stars of the Big Dipper revolving around the North Star.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
1. Seeking the Real: literally, cultivating authenticity or immortality (xiuzhen).
2. Cold and heat (hanwen ): a phrase usually glossed (e.g., XYJCD, p. 121) as a reference to the weather used in conventional greetings (hanxuan ). This is erroneous, for the context here, unlike that in Outlaws of the Marshes, chapter 81, suggests an actual reference to alchemical processes inside or outside the body. Its source may be found precisely in a relatively early text (the received version established probably no later than the sixth century CE), ZhouYi cantongqi , in DZ 999, 20: 78. The two lines of verse therein (“Add caution to watch periodically;/Inspect to adjust cold and heat , ) may allude to both chemical processes external to the body and physiological activities as developed in later theories of internal alchemy.
3. The eight woes (banan ) refer to eight conditions or states of being (the state of hells; the state of animals; the state of hungry ghosts; the states of being deaf, blind, and dumb; the state of no affliction; and the state of the intermediate period between a Buddha and his successor) that make it difficult for one to see Buddha or hear his law. The three ways (santu ) are that of fire, where one is burned in hell; of blood, which is the realm of predatory animals; and of the sword, with which hungry ghosts are tortured.
4. The term, jiuzhuan huandan means the “Reverted Cinnabar/Elixir of Nine Cycles,” and its production has been discussed in many texts of the Daoist Canon of different periods and practices. Joseph Needham’s explanation for the basic concern in Daoist alchemy for “reversion, regeneration, and return” is succinct: “For the proto-chemical alchemist the term huan tan meant an elixir or part of an elixir prepared by cyclical transformation, such as may be brought about by repeated separation and sublimatory re-combination of mercury and sulphur, reducing cinnabar and reforming mercuric sulphide. If this were accomplished nine times it could be the [Reverted Cinnabar of Nine Cycles] described in many of the books. On the other hand, the phrase huan tan was applied by the ‘physiological alchemists’ . . . to a chhi [qi, pneumatic vitality, breath] or substance generated by techniques purposefully within the human body which would bring about a reversion of the tissues from an ageing state to an infantile state.” See SCC V/5: 25.
5. What follows in the next eight lines are allusions to the various techniques and stages in the process of internal or physiological alchemy. To understand the process, students will need to consult not only the relevant Daoist texts but also the important illustrations or diagrams (tu ) scattered throughout these texts that have served to assist visualization of internal or invisible realities, to pictorialize the frequently and variously used didactic device of analogous symbolism (piyu ). For overviews of Daoist anatomy and physiology related to the alchemical process, the best reproductions of several Ming and Qing diagrams (untranslated) may be found in Taoism and the Arts of China, eds. Stephen Little and Shawn Eichman (Art Institute of Chicago, 2000), pp. 348–51. Catherine Despeux’s Taoïsme et corps humain, Le xiuzhen tu (Paris, 1994), provides an excellent discussion of this “Diagram for Cultivating Immortality.” For another similar study of the “Diagram of Internal Pathways, Neijing tu ,” see the essays by Louis Komjathy, “Mapping the Daoist Body, Part One,” in Journal of Daoist Studies 1 (2008): 67–92, and “Part Two” in Journal of Daoist Studies 2 (2009): 64–108.
6. Mud-Pill Palace: niwan gong , a term used by the Daoists to refer to the upper part of the head or, in Joseph Needham’s words, “the Daoist brain.” The term is controversial since the same phonemes (as construed by historical phonology and not modern Mandarin) are used in Buddhist writings, but the orthography therein is often changed to . See brief discussion in SCC V/5: 38.
7. Jetting-Spring Points: yongquan xue , a term referring to two points at the center of the soles. The xue is the name for the sensitive nodal points spread out in the entire human body for connecting and conducting the circulation of vital energetics or pneumatic vitalities. As such, they form the crucial “relay stations,” so to speak, in the sinarteriology discursively constructed in Chinese materia medica and supplemented in Daoist anatomy. See Manfred Porkert, The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine: Systems of Correspondence (Cambridge, 1972), pp. 197–345. “The hole [associated with] the kidneys is located in the center of the sole of the foot,” and it is sometimes written as yongquan . See Nan-Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues, trans. Paul U. Unschuld (Berkeley, CA, 1986), p. 462.
8. The Floral Pool, huachi , refers to the spot beneath the tongue in the mouth, where saliva supposedly originates. The idea is that the energetics refined in the renal system (which corresponds to the phase Water, shui , of the Five Phases) flows throughout the body and can be directed to a specific spot or area by alchemical action. See Porkert, Theoretical Foundations, pp. 140–46, 162–63.
9. One of the most important terminologies in both traditional Chinese medical theories and Daoist physiology, the name dantian is often translated as Cinnabar Field. The English rendering, however, fails inevitably to convey the doubleness of meaning inherent in the Chinese nomenclature, which refers to both the imagined features of the inner abdominal region of the alchemist and the imagined space where the elixir (also called dan, the same Chinese graph) is forged. As Needham rightly points out, the visual and physical properties of dan are construed as scarlet red (hence the use of cinnabar for translation because of the mineral’s color) and harboring fiery warmth. See SCC V/5: 38. These characteristics reflect, in turn, the physiological alchemist’s venerable analogy drawn between zones of the human body and the material vessels of oven or furnace and cauldron or tripod (lu, ding) employed in the earlier practice of physical or proto-chemical alchemy. In the internal alchemist discourse, furthermore, dantian is an imagined abdominal space “devoid of material counterparts,” additionally classified into different levels or parts, and indispensable for the production of the elixir. Thus its name also has the meaning of the “elixir field.” See the entry on “dantian” for more detailed elaboration in ET 1: 302–03.
10. Baby and Fair Girl: ying’er chanü . As noted in the introduction to this volume, th
e term “baby boy” often means the state of realized immortality in Daoist discourse. But in the huge corpora of writings authored by internal alchemists, the terms acquire further symbolical meanings in different schemes of correlation and correspondence. As annotators have pointed out, “baby boy” here may point to lead and “fair girl” to mercury, but these chemical elements, in turn, may symbolize energetics or pneumatic vitalities (qi) harnassed from different anatomical regions.
11. As explained in chapter 17, footnote 5, Li and Kan are names of two trigrams () developed in the Classic of Change to symbolize the male and female. In different schemes of correspondence elaborated in alchemy texts, they also acquire further correlative significance with symbolic animals, of which the dragon and the tiger are a prominent pair. Along with the turtle and the snake, they form the characteristic creatures indicating opposite but complementary signs of physiological functions and potencies.
12. Spirit turtle, gold crow: linggui and jinwu , both names of somatic elements in alchemy. The spirit turtle here may be another name for the dark liquid of the kidneys, while the gold crow indicates the sun or the heart. The line refers to the union of yin and yang through the absorption of yang energy by yin.
13. Literally, three flowers (or florescences) congregate on top (sanhua juding = ). It refers to the completion of the process whereby the three vital elements of the body (spermal essence, jing; pneumatic vitality, qi; and spirit or energy, shen) are brought back (reverted) to the top of one’s head. The elixir so distilled would be regarded as the “fruition (jiezi )” of the union of the three “flowers.” For scriptural source, see, for example, the “Taiqingjing Huangting jing ,” in Taishang sanshiliu bu zunjing , DZ 8, 1: 606, and the Jindan sibai zi , DZ 1081, 24: 161. This second text’s author was Zhang Boduan, the founding patriarch of the Southern Order of Quanzhen Daoism, discussed in our introduction.