Central Scripture of Laozi老子中经

Also known as

Taishang Laojun Zhongjing (Central Scripture of the Most High Lord Lao), Zhugong Yuli (珠宫玉历, Pearl Palace and Jade Calendar)

Author / transmission

Anonymous

Period

Late Han to Jin · Composed around the period from the late Han to the Western Jin, one of the oldest of the scriptures on visualizing the body gods; listed in the "Xialan" chapter of the Baopuzi.

Canon division

Dongshen Section, Methods (Fangfa) category

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Taiqing Section (as the Taishang Laojun zhongjing, in 2 juan); also included in juan 18–19 of the Yunji qiqian

Category

Early Daoist Scriptures

Fascicles

In two scrolls, fifty-five chapters (according to one account, fifty-five deities).

Synopsis

The Central Scripture of Laozi, also called the Pearl Palace and Jade Calendar, is one of the earliest surviving Daoist scriptures to describe the spirits within the human body systematically. In fifty-five chapters it lists one by one the perfected spirits that correspond between Heaven and Earth and the human body: the upper chapters treat cosmic deities such as the Supreme Supreme One, the Limitless Most High Primordial Lord, the King Father of the East, the Queen Mother of the West and the August Heaven Sovereign on High; the middle and lower chapters treat the spirits of the various parts of the body (Niwan, the Crimson Palace, the cinnabar field, the five viscera, the four limbs and so on), giving their names, the colours of their robes, their dwelling places and the methods of visualizing them, and holding that the human body is itself a small Heaven and Earth, so that visualizing the body gods and ingesting the essences of the sun and moon can bring deathlessness. Its system is the counterpart of that of the Scripture of the Yellow Court while being more archaic, and it is regarded as a key document in the transition from Han and Wei fangshi arts to Shangqing visualization practice. Its nourishing-life thought can be cross-verified with the medical bamboo-slip manuscripts recently excavated at Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan. Scholars such as Kristofer Schipper have devoted specialized studies to this scripture.

Key Ideas

• The human body as a small Heaven and Earth, with fifty-five spirits each in its place
• Visualizing the body gods and ingesting the essences of the sun and moon
• The Supreme One, the Primordial Lord and the three regions of the cinnabar field
• The source of the early system of body gods

Structure

Fifty-five chapters, each treating one spirit or one group of spirits.

Editions

• Zhengtong Daozang edition
• Yunji qiqian edition

Translations

• Kristofer Schipper, "The Inner World of the Lao-tzu chung-ching" (1995), a study

Full Text & Online Resources

• Wikipedia: Laozi zhongjing
• CTEXT search

Related scriptures

Related figures