Xiao Yingsou萧应叟

Style & Daoist names

self-styled Guanfu, Perfected Man Guanfu

Period

Southern Song

Dates

? — ?

School

Southern Lineage of the Golden Elixir (Nanzong), Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) School

Role

Daoshi (Daoist Priest)Scripture CommentatorInternal Alchemy Masters

Birthplace

unknown (one account gives Jianchang)

Life

Xiao Yingsou, sobriquet Guanfu, was a Daoist priest of the late Southern Song whose life details are unknown; he was active roughly during the reigns of Emperor Lizong and Emperor Duzong. His five-fascicle Yuanshi Wuliang Duren Shangpin Miaojing Neiyi (composed around 1226 or later) interprets the Lingbao Duren Jing through the lens of internal-alchemy learning, glossing 'Yuanshi' (the Primordial Beginning) as the innate, pre-celestial true unified qi, and transforming the scripture's recitation for the salvation of others into a diagrammatic scheme of cultivation practiced within the body — a representative work of interpreting scripture through the alchemical Way during the Song and Yuan, which influenced the Yuan-dynasty scholar Chen Zhixu and the commentaries on the Duren Jing in the Ming dynasty. His thought is close to that of the Bai Yuchan line of the Southern Lineage, and he is regarded as an extension of the Southern Lineage in the field of scriptural interpretation. His dates of birth and death are unknown. This work is placed alongside several other commentaries on the Duren Jing in the Ming Zhengtong Daozang, and marks an important sign of the maturing of alchemical scriptural hermeneutics at the turn of the Song and Yuan.

Contributions & Influence

• Interpreted the Duren Jing through internal-alchemy learning, pioneering the alchemical interpretation of scripture
• Fused Lingbao scriptural teaching with the Southern Lineage's joint cultivation of Nature and Life
• Provided a model for Ming and Qing alchemical commentaries on the Duren Jing

Works

• Inner Meaning of the Wondrous Scripture of the Upper Chapters on Limitless Salvation