Scripture of the Yellow Court

At the same time, though, Shangqing also integrated several features of the earlier southern traditions into its own doctrines and practices, and incorporated some of their texts into its own revealed literature. The best-known instance of integration of earlier methods concerns the meditation and visualization techniques described in the Scripture of the Yellow Court Huangting jing), a third-century work that represents the human being as... 

Both the meditation practices and the relevant terminology continued to be transmitted in the subsequent centuries, first within traditions related to meditation, and later within traditions related to neidan. The two main sources that document the relation of these traditions to both tvaidan and neidan are the Central Scripture of Laozi (Laozi zhongjing) and the Scripture of the Yellow Court (Huangting jing), both of which circulated in Jiangnan during the third century. One detail is sufficient to show the continuity between these two texts and those quoted above. In its descriptions of the inner body, the... 

Central Scripture mentions the Yellow Court, the Cinnabar Field, and the Purple Chamber, i.e., three of the four terms found in the two epigraphs of 165 CE. The Scripture of the Yellow Court mentions the Hut, the Yellow Court, and the Cinnabar Field in one of its two versions, and all four terms in the otherC... 

The meditation methods surveyed earlier in the present chapter were relevant to these developments in the history of alchemy in two ways. First, the Scripture of the Yellow Court provided the Token for the Agreement of the Three with imagery and technical vocabulary. One of the most noticeable examples is the description of the elixir in the Token, where it is said to be square and round and with a diameter of one inch (fangyuan jingcun). This corresponds to a description found in the Yellow Court, where the Gate... 

La revelation du Shangqing, i 176-80 Bo en amp, Early Daoist Scriptures, 289-95 (especially p. 2,92). It should be noted that in this respect Shangqing actually did not innovate, but developed traditions documented by earlier sources on meditation practices, especially the Central Scripture ofLaozi (Laozi zhongjing) and the Scripture of the Yellow Court (Huangting jing). See my Early Daoist Meditation and the Origins of Inner Alchemy, and Chapter 12 of the present boo . 

On the salivary juices and their role in the practices of the Scripture of the Yellow Court see Robinet, Taoist Meditation, 90-94. 

I approximate a literal translation of shuji as pivotal mechanism, as this is the way the term is understood in the Cantong qi. More exactly, shuji denotes in the Scripture of the Yellow Court the hinges of the door-shutters (or their door-post and catch in Paul Kroll s translation of this passage Kroll,... 

Body Gods and Inner Vision The Scripture of the Yellow Court, 154) that one should shut in order to protect the loci of one s inner body. 

Laozi zhongjing, sec. 5 Huangting neijing jing (Scripture of the Inner Effulgences of the Yellow Court in Yunji qiqian, j. rr-rz.zjh), sec. 29. 

Huangting waijing jing ft [Scripture of the Outer Effulgences of the Yellow Court], Originally third or early fourth century. Commentary by Bai Lizhong SSlS. (fl. 722-29). Yunji qiqian (CT 1032), i2.28a-56b. 

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