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

1. Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties 117
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(qian huanghua 鉛 黃 花 ), add it to quicksilver, refine it, and make a
purple powder; they take cinnabar, quicksilver, realgar, orpiment,
laminar and nodular malachite, alum, and mica, and mix and refine
them to be fixed by fire; they take the azure stones, the alums, the
green stones, and the ashes, mix them with quicksilver and make red
silver (hongyin 紅 銀 ), and then again transmute it into powder; they
boil sulphur in other ingredients to make powder of jade; they dye
leaves of copper with sulphur, and refine them into red cinnabar; they
transmute copper with arsenic, and shrink tin with iron. This is not
what I do. Some say that gold, silver, copper, iron and tin are the five
metals. Others say that realgar, orpiment, arsenic, alum, chalcanthite,
laminar malachite, nodular malachite and alum are the eight minerals.
I say: This is not what I mean. Zi 子 and wu 午 form the 3, wu 戊 and
ji 己 make the 5. This is what I call the “eight minerals.” 20
In his discussion, Liu Zhigu touches upon several subjects, including
the emblematic roles of the Dragon and the Tiger; the symbolism
of the five agents and the eight trigrams; and the cycles of the sixty
hexagrams (associated with the thirty days of the month) and the
twelve “sovereign hexagrams” (bigua 辟 卦 , associated with the twelve
months of the year). In doing so, he repeatedly quotes passages of the
Cantong qi. These citations consist of four- and five-character verses
found in different parts of the present version, and confirm that, by
the mid-eighth century, the Cantong qi existed essentially in the same
form as we know it today. Liu Zhigu quotes or alludes to the passage
on the Flowing Pearl and the Green Dragon in section 28; several
verses in section 41; the description of the cycle of the year in section
51; the verses “The 9 reverts, the 7 returns, the 8 goes back, the 6
remains” in section 55; the initial portion of section 64; and the verses
on realgar and the eight minerals in section 87. Some verses from the
“Song of the Tripod” (“Dingqi ge” 鼎 器 歌 ) are also quoted. Other
significant details are the references to passages in sections 23 and 58
as found in the first (“upper”) and the second (“middle”) Books
(shangjing 上 經 and zhongjing 中 經 ) of the Cantong qi, respectively.
This attests that by the mid-eighth century the Cantong qi was already
divided into three parts.
20
Daoshu, 26.5b-6a (the corresponding text in the Quan Tang wen,
334.19a, is much shorter). For the final sentences on the “eight minerals,”
compare Cantong qi 32:1–4.
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