Nine Tripods

Secret Written Instructions on the Elixirs of the Nine Tripods ( Jiuding dan yin wenjue ) Songs ( Ge )... 

Instructions on the Scripture of the Divine Elixirs of the Nine Tripods of the Yellow Emperor Huangdi jiuding shendan jingjue)... 

In the Inner Chapters, Ge Hong provides an extended summary of the introduction, followed by descriptions of the properties of each elixir. Both correspond to the received version of the Scripture " Ge Hong s synopsis is quoted in four works in the Daoist Canon, testifying to the prestige that the Nine Elixirs enjoyed also beyond the waidan adepts. This prestige is also attested by the existence of other texts based on the Nine Elixirs, which include two works in poetry, a short piece entitled Explanations ( Jue, possibly derived from a lost third recension of the scripture) concerned with the first of the Nine Elixirs, and especially the Secret Written Instructions on the Elixirs of the Nine Tripods ( Jiuding dan yin wenjue ), which provides valuable details on all nine methods. 

After you achieve gold, take one hundred pounds of it and arrange a major ceremony. For the procedure there is a separate scroll, but this is not the same ceremony as the one performed for compounding [the elixirs of] the Nine Tripods. For this ceremony you separately weigh and arrange different quantities of gold. 

The text translated below is found in the first chapter of the Huangdi jiuding shendan jingjue (Instructions on the Scripture of the Divine Elixirs of the Nine Tripods of the Yellow Emperor). This and other works on the Nine Elixirs (see below, Appendix B) are referred to in my comments as follows ... 

The final chapter of the Jiudan jingjue is devoted to taboos, interdictions, and ceremonies to be performed while compounding the elixirs. Moreover, it reproduces some talismans, contains the text of the Secret Written Instructions on the Elixirs of the Nine Tripods, and ends with directions for opening the crucible, testing the elixirs, and ingesting them. ... 

On the nine tripods of Emperor Yu see Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China, 269-70. It should be noted that, although the Nine Elixirs mentions the Nine Tripods in its title, the vessel used for the methods it describes is a normal earthenware crucible (tufu). 

As already noted above, the Nine Elixirs mentions the Nine Tripods in its title, bnt its methods are performed nsing an earthenware crucible tufu). 

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