Four Hundred Words on the Golden Elixir金丹四百字
- Also known as
- Four Hundred Words, Ziyang Zhenren Jindan Sibaizi (Perfected Ziyang's Four Hundred Words on the Golden Elixir)
- Author / transmission
- Zhang Boduan
- Period
- Northern Song · Attributed as a work given by Zhang Boduan to Ma Chuhou, dating from around the late 11th century; some hold it to be a later work composed under a borrowed name.
- Canon division
- Taixuan Section
- Collected in
- Zhengtong Daozang, Taixuan Section (Huang Ziru's commentary edition); also collected in the Xiuzhen shishu.
- Category
- Alchemical Texts
- Fascicles
- In one scroll, twenty rhymed couplets of five-character verse, four hundred characters total.
Synopsis
The Jindan sibai zi (Four Hundred Words on the Golden Elixir) is traditionally held to be alchemical instructions that Zhang Boduan transmitted to his disciple Ma Chuhou, eighty lines of pentasyllabic verse totaling four hundred characters, with a preface explaining that 'the essential point of the golden elixir lies in the divine water and flowery pool,' along with the meaning of the medicine, the fire phases, and the cauldron and furnace. Lines in the poem such as 'true earth captures true lead, true lead governs true mercury,' 'this aperture is no ordinary aperture — heaven and earth are joined and formed within it,' and 'grain upon grain, it grows from the subtle to the manifest,' distill the process of gathering the medicine, forming the elixir, warming and nourishing it, and shedding the embryo into a set of oral instructions, and the work has been regarded by later generations as an outline of the Wuzhen pian. Commentaries include those of Huang Ziru of the Song, Peng Zhizhong of the Yuan, Lu Xixing of the Ming, and Liu Yiming of the Qing.
Key Ideas
- True earth captures true lead, true lead governs true mercury
- The single aperture of the mysterious pass, where heaven and earth are joined
- From the subtle to the manifest; the ten-month shedding of the embryo
- The divine water and flowery pool; the fire phases of the cauldron and furnace
Structure
One preface, four hundred characters of pentasyllabic verse.
Editions
- Zhengtong Daozang edition (with Huang Ziru's commentary)
- Xiuzhen shishu edition
- Daozang jiyao edition
Commentaries
- Huang Ziru's commentary
- Peng Zhizhong's commentary
- Liu Yiming, Jindan sibai zi jie
Translations
- English translation by Thomas Cleary
- English translation by Fabrizio Pregadio
Full Text & Online Resources
Related scriptures
Awakening to Reality (Wuzhen pian), Secret Text of the Azure Florescence (Qinghua miwen)Related figures
Zhang Boduan, Liu Yiming- 任继愈主编《道藏提要》
- Fabrizio Pregadio, Taoist Internal Alchemy, 2019