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

164 II. Commentaries, Essays, and Related Works
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from Zhejiang) wrote his Fenshi guzhu Cantong qi (An Analytical
Explication of Ancient Commentaries to the Cantong qi) in jail,
where he was serving a sentence for uxoricide. A short colophon
signed by Qintian Shuiyue 秦 田 水 月 tells that he had received the
Cantong qi on Mount Wuyi (Wuyi shan 武 夷 山 , Fujian) from a
Nangdao zhe 囊 道 者 , also known as Qingteng shanren 青 藤 山 人 .
Despite ten years of attempts, says the colophon, Qintian Shuiyue had
not yet succeeded in ascertaining Nangdao zhe’s identity. Both characters
in this account are Xu Wei’s alter egos, since their names are
known as his pseudonyms. 13
Except for the fanciful colophon, Xu Wei’s work does not bear a
preface or a postface. His collected works, however, include an undated
essay entitled “Preface to a Commentary to the Cantong qi” (“Zhu
Cantong qi xu” 注 參 同 契 序 ). 14 In this essay, Xu Wei maintains that the
present Cantong qi contains not only Wei Boyang’s Canon, but also Xu
Congshi 徐 從 事 ’s Commentary. He rejects, however, the arrangement
of the Ancient Text, disputing the view that Canon and Commentary
respectively consist of the portions in four- and five-character verses.
According to Xu Wei, the portions that in most redactions of the Cantong
qi correspond to Book 1 are Wei Boyang’s Canon; those that correspond
to Book 2 are Xu Congshi’s Commentary; and those that correspond to
Book 3 are equally divided between Canon and Commentary.
On the basis of this understanding, Xu Wei Xu Wei divides the
Cantong qi into three Books, followed by a Postface (“Houxu”). Each
section of the Canon is immediately followed by the corresponding
section of the Commentary. The result of this rearrangement is
actually similar to the version that Xu Wei criticized: the correspondences
between the sections that he designates as Canon and Commentary
often match those pointed out by commentators of the
Ancient Text. The main difference is that, in Xu Wei’s text, Canon
and Commentary are not set apart from one another according to
13
“Qintian Shuiyue” 秦 田 水 月 is a wordplay on Xu Wei’s name, created
by reading the graph xu 徐 as formed by sanren 三 人 and he 禾 , and reassembling
these graphs into the graph qin 秦 ; and by breaking the graph wei 渭
into its components tian 田 , shui 水 , and yue 月 . Xu Wei has a biography in
Mingshi, 288.7387–88. See also Goodrich and Fang, eds., Dictionary of Ming
Biography, 609–12, and Nienhauser, ed., Indiana Companion to Traditional
Chinese Literature, 1:436–37. On his relation to Taoism, see Zhang Songhui,
“Tan Xu Wei de daoshi shenfen ji qi yu Daojia Daojiao de guanxi.”
14
Xu Wei ji, 19.543–44. See also p. 186, note 6 below.
© Fabrizio Pregadio and Golden Elixir Press 2012