Precious Canon of the Mysterious Metropolis of the Great Jin大金玄都宝藏

Also known as

Precious Canon of the Mysterious Metropolis of the Great Jin

Author / transmission

Compiled by Imperial Decree of Emperor Zhangzong of Jin, Directed by Sun Mingdao and others

Period

Jin · Around the first year of the Mingchang era of Emperor Zhangzong of Jin (1190), Sun Mingdao and others were charged with searching out and supplementing the Song Zhenghe printing blocks and collating the canon; it was completed around the second year of Mingchang (1191), in 6,455 scrolls; the original canon is now lost.

Canon division

Daoist Canon (lost)

Collected in

Lost

Category

Daozang Collections

Fascicles

6,455 juan

Synopsis

The Precious Canon of the Mysterious Metropolis of the Great Jin (Dajin xuandu baozang) is the Daoist canon compiled under the Jin dynasty. After the Jin took Bianjing, they acquired the printing blocks of the Northern Song's Wanshou Daoist Canon of the Zhenghe Era and moved them to Tianchang Temple in the Central Capital (present-day Beijing) — the predecessor of the later Changchun Palace and White Cloud Temple. Under Emperor Zhangzong of Jin, the prior Sun Mingdao and others were charged with searching out surviving scriptures and supplementing, carving, and collating the canon, which was completed during the Mingchang era, amounting to 6,455 scrolls, nearly a thousand scrolls more than the Zhenghe edition. The canon was compiled and printed with the Xuandu Temple of the Central Capital (some say Tianchang Temple) as its center, hence the name 'Precious Canon of the Mysterious Metropolis.' In the chaos of the late Jin, most of the printing blocks and copies of the canon were destroyed by warfare, but its supplementary achievements were carried forward by the Xuandu baozang compiled under Song Defang's direction in the early Yuan. The significance of this canon lies in showing the northern dynasty's regard for and continuation of Daoist scripture: Quanzhen Daoism, which arose in Hebei and Shanxi at the Jin-Yuan transition, built its doctrine and its work of printing scriptures upon this textual foundation, and Song Defang, who directed the Yuan-dynasty Xuandu baozang, himself came from the Quanzhen school.

Key Ideas

• Compiled by searching out and supplementing the Song Zhenghe printing blocks
• 6,455 scrolls, an increase over the Zhenghe edition
• Compiled and printed at Xuandu Temple in the Central Capital
• Destroyed by warfare at the end of the Jin
• Carried forward by the Yuan-dynasty Xuandu baozang

Structure

Arranged according to the Three Caverns and Four Supplements, with cases numbered by the Thousand Character Classic.

Editions

• The original canon is lost

Commentaries

• Examined in detail in Chen Guofu's Studies on the Origins and Development of the Daoist Canon

Full Text & Online Resources

• Wikipedia: Daozang
• Wikipedia: White Cloud Temple

Related scriptures

Related figures