Weng Baoguang翁葆光

Style & Daoist names

style name Yuanming, sobriquet Wumingzi (Nameless Master)

Period

Southern Song

Dates

? — ?

School

Southern Lineage of the Golden Elixir (Nanzong)

Role

Internal Alchemy MastersScripture Commentator

Birthplace

Siming (present-day Ningbo area, Zhejiang)

Life

Weng Baoguang, courtesy name Yuanming, sobriquet Wumingzi (Master Nameless), was a Southern Song Daoist priest whose dates of birth and death are unknown; he was active roughly during the reigns of Emperor Xiaozong and Emperor Guangzong. He was the most important early commentator on Zhang Boduan's Awakening to Reality (Wuzhen pian); his three-fascicle Commentary on the Wuzhen pian (also titled Weng Baoguang's Commentary on the Wuzhen pian of the Perfected Ziyang), together with the Detailed Explanation of the Secret Essentials of the Three Vehicles: A Direct Guide to the Wuzhen pian and related works, form the basic framework for interpreting the alchemical methods of the Southern Lineage. The core thesis of Weng's commentary is a division into "Three Vehicles": the Lesser Vehicle of prolonging life and curing illness, the Middle Vehicle of the dual cultivation of nature and life, and the Greater Vehicle of the Reverted Elixir of Liquefied Gold; he explicitly interprets the dragon and tiger, lead and mercury of the Wuzhen pian through the doctrine of "same-kind yin and yang," rejecting readings of the alchemical scriptures based on furnace-and-fire smelting or on bedchamber techniques with a female partner, while also declining the approach that reduces the elixir entirely to a doctrine of mind and nature. His commentary was enormously influential: the Yuan-dynasty scholar Dai Qizong took Weng's commentary as the base text for his own Commentary and Subcommentary on the Wuzhen pian, and Ming- and Qing-dynasty alchemists who discussed the Wuzhen pian almost invariably cited Weng's views; at the same time, his interpretation of "same-kind yin and yang" became the focal point of later disputes among the Eastern Lineage, the Western Lineage and the school of pure (solitary) cultivation. Historical sources on Weng Baoguang's life are lacking, and what can be known of him must be inferred from his own preface and from citations in Yuan-dynasty commentaries.

Contributions & Influence

• Produced the first systematic commentary on the Wuzhen pian, establishing the paradigm for interpreting the alchemical scriptures of the Southern Lineage
• Proposed the Three Vehicles classification of alchemical method, distinguishing the levels of curing illness, dual cultivation of nature and life, and the Reverted Elixir of Liquefied Gold
• Interpreted the symbolism of the alchemical scriptures through "same-kind yin and yang," excluding misreadings based on furnace-smelting and bedchamber techniques
• His commentary served as the basis for Dai Qizong's Yuan-dynasty Commentary and Subcommentary on the Wuzhen pian and for Ming- and Qing-dynasty alchemists

Works

• Commentary on the Wuzhen Pian (Ziyang Zhenren Wuzhen Pian Zhushu)
• Weng Baoguang's Commentary on the Wuzhen pian
• Ziyang Zhenren Wuzhen Pian Shiyi (Gleanings on the Wuzhen Pian of the Perfected Ziyang)