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 sometime between the late Han and the Western Jin, one of the oldest scriptures in the genre of visualizing the body's spirits, listed in the "Xialan" chapter of the Baopuzi.

Canon division

Dongshen Section, Methods (Fangfa) category

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Dongshen Section, Methods Category (as the Taishang Laojun Zhongjing); also included in scrolls 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 (Laozi zhongjing), also called the Pearl Palace Jade Calendar (Zhugong yuli), is one of the earliest surviving Daoist scriptures to systematically describe the spirits within the human body. The work is in fifty-five chapters, listing one by one the perfected spirits corresponding to Heaven, Earth, and the human body: the upper chapters describe cosmic deities such as the Supreme Supreme One, the Limitless Supreme Primordial Lord, the King Father of the East, the Queen Mother of the West, and the August Lord on High; the middle and lower chapters describe the spirits of the various parts of the human body (such as the spirits of Niwan, the Crimson Palace, the cinnabar field, the five viscera, and the four limbs), giving their names, robe colors, dwelling-places, and methods of visualization, and holding that the human body is itself a small cosmos, so that visualizing the body's spirits and ingesting the essence of the sun and moon can bring immortality. Its system is closely related to, yet more archaic than, that of the Huangting Jing, and it is regarded as a key text in the transition from the arts of the fangshi in the Han and Wei to Shangqing visualization practice. Its nourishing-life thought can be cross-verified with the medical manuscripts recently excavated at Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan. Scholars such as Kristofer Schipper have made specialized studies of this scripture.

Key Ideas

• The human body as a small cosmos, with fifty-five spirits each dwelling in their place
• Visualizing the body's spirits and ingesting the essence of the sun and moon
• The Supreme One, the Primordial Lord, and the three regions of the cinnabar field
• Source of the early system of body gods

Structure

Fifty-five chapters, each describing one spirit or a 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

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