The Seal of the Unity of the Three — Vol. 2 - The Golden Elixir

Introduction 1
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first major scholar to dispute the traditional date of the text.
Other important articles have been published by Pan Yuting 潘 雨
廷 , Hu Fuchen 胡 孚 琛 , and Yang Xiaolei 楊 效 雷 . 15 Also worthy of
note is Wang Qiming’s 汪 启 明 study of the rhyme patterns in the
Cantong qi, whose results, however, are affected by the author’s
intention to demonstrate that the whole received text is a product of
the northern cosmological traditions. 16
The above-mentioned book by Xiao Hanming and Guo
15
See especially Pan Yuting, “Cantong qi zuozhe ji chengshu niandai” 『 参
同 契 』 作 者 及 成 年 代 (The author and date of the Cantong qi), and other
studies collected in his Daojiao shi fawei 道 教 史 發 微 (Elucidating the fine
points in the history of Taoism); Hu Fuchen, “Zhongguo kexue shi shang de
Zhouyi cantong qi” 中 国 科 学 史 上 的 『 周 易 参 同 契 』 (The Zhouyi
cantong qi in the history of Chinese science), and “Zhouyi cantong qi
mizhuan xianshu de lailong qumai” 『 周 易 参 同 契 』 秘 仙 术 的 龙 去 脉
(Origins and development of the secret arts of immortality in the Zhouyi
cantong qi); and Yang Xiaolei, “Zhouyi cantong qi yanjiu” 『 周 易 参 同 契 』
研 究 (A study of the Zhouyi cantong qi). The latter work contains one of the
best short overviews of the text in Chinese.
16
Wang Qiming, “Zhouyi cantong qi zuozhe xinzheng” 『 周 易 参 同 契 』
作 者 新 (New evidence on the authorship of the Zhouyi cantong qi). The
author—a specialist of historical phonology—suggests that the Cantong qi
was written in the northern dialects of Qi 齐 and Lu (approximately
corresponding to present-day Shandong) during the Han dynasty. Using a set
of about 130 examples, he focuses on three patterns, characterized by the
concurrent use (tongyong 同 用 ) of: (1) the yu 魚 and the hou 侯 rhyme groups
(21 examples); (2) the zhi 之 and the you 幽 rhyme groups (22 examples); and
(3) the zhi 之 and the yu 魚 rhyme groups (33 examples). While the second
pattern is typical of northern poetry, Wang Qiming acknowledges that the
first and the third patterns are usually deemed to be typical of the Huainan zi
淮 南 子 (a Han-dynasty southern text) and of the southern dialects, respectively.
Nevertheless, he provides a few examples of their use in northern texts,
and concludes that the Cantong qi was written in Shandong during the Han
dynasty. He ties this conclusion with his suggestion that the place name Kuaiji
會 稽 (Wei Boyang’s reputed birthplace) does not indicate an area in Jiangnan
江 南 , but in Shandong. — In a much earlier, unpublished study entitled
“Dating the Chou i ts’an t’ung ch’i through Rhyming Analysis” (presented at
the Second International Conference of Taoist Studies, Tateshina, Japan,
1972), Robert A. Juhl had analyzed the same rhyme patterns and had concluded:
“The rhyming of the Chou i ts’an t’ung ch’i shows some similarities with
the rhyming of the Huai nan tzu, which is of southern origin. The Chou i
ts’an t’ung ch’i may be written in a related, but not identical southern
dialect.”
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