Precious Canon of the Mysterious Metropolis (Yuan)玄都宝藏（元）

Also known as

Precious Canon of the Mysterious Metropolis (Yuan), Song Defang's Daoist Canon (Xuandu Baozang)

Author / transmission

Song Defang, Qin Zhi'an and others

Period

Yuan · Directed by the Yuan-dynasty Quanzhen Daoist Song Defang (1183–1247), centered on the Xuandu Temple in Pingyang (present-day Linfen, Shanxi); completed around the third year of the regency of Empress Töregene (1244), in more than 7,800 scrolls. In the eighteenth year of the Zhiyuan era (1281), Kublai Khan ordered the burning of Daoist scriptures, and this canon was largely lost as a result.

Canon division

Daoist Canon (lost)

Collected in

Lost (only fragmentary copies survive after the Yuan burning of scriptures)

Category

Daozang Collections

Fascicles

over 7,800 juan

Synopsis

The Precious Canon of the Mysterious Metropolis (Yuan) (Xuandu baozang) is the largest Daoist canon in history. The Quanzhen Daoist Song Defang (sobriquet Pi Yunzi, a disciple of Qiu Chuji) directed the project from 1237, with the Xuandu Temple in Pingyang as its central office, mobilizing the Quanzhen order to establish twenty-seven branch offices across Shanxi, Shaanxi, and elsewhere; it took several years to print and amounted to more than 7,800 scrolls, over a thousand scrolls beyond the Jin canon, with Qin Zhi'an and others taking part in the work. Such Quanzhen cultural monuments as the Yongle Palace and the Longshan Grottoes in Shanxi are associated with the strength of the order during this period. However, in the Buddhist-Daoist debates held under the reigns of Emperor Xianzong and Emperor Shizu of Yuan (1255–1258 and 1281), Daoism was repeatedly defeated, and in the eighteenth year of the Zhiyuan era (1281) Kublai Khan decreed that all Daoist scriptures except the Daodejing be burned and their printing blocks destroyed. This canon suffered a devastating blow, and today only a very small number of fragmentary Yuan-printed copies survive (such as fragments held in certain collections in Japan and China). This event was the most severe documentary catastrophe in the history of Daoism, and it directly meant that many scriptures could no longer be found when the Ming-dynasty Zhengtong Daozang was compiled, so that the scale and content of the Yuan canon remain a major loss for Daoist textual scholarship.

Key Ideas

• The largest Daoist canon in history, more than 7,800 scrolls
• Organized by the Quanzhen order, with the Xuandu Temple in Pingyang as its central office
• Directed by Song Defang, with Qin Zhi'an and others taking part
• Burned and its printing blocks destroyed by Kublai Khan in 1281
• The most severe documentary catastrophe in the history of Daoism

Structure

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

Editions

• The original canon is lost; only fragmentary Yuan-printed copies survive

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: Song Defang

Related scriptures

Related figures