Alchemical Verses - A Mystical Collection 还丹显妙通幽集

Originally attributed to "Qianzhenzi of Shaoshi Mountain" (Shaoshi Shan Qianzhenzi Shu), it was presumably compiled during the Song Dynasty.

Consisting of one scroll, it is included in the Methods Category of the The Dongzhen Section within the Taoist Canon (The Daozang).

Alchemical Verses - A Mystical Collection

The scroll opens with a preface by the author, stating that this work was modeled after Yuanyangzi’s Golden Fluid Collection (Jinyi Ji). It contains thirty seven-character jueju poems titled "Poems of Revealing Wonders and Penetrating the Mysterious," which clarify the Dao of the Golden Elixir. The described alchemical method belongs to external alchemy, asserting that concepts such as dragon and tiger, gold and water, lead and mercury, Yin and Yang, Kan ☵ and Li ☲, husband and wife, man and woman—though bearing different names—all originate from the same source, essentially referring to true lead and true mercury, the foundation of the Great Elixir.

Appended to the end of the book are three sets of alchemical instructions that contradict the core tenet of Qianzhenzi’s poems (as they expound Internal Alchemy (Neidan)), presumably added by later generations. These include twenty seven-character jueju poems titled Ziyan Zhenren’s Commentary on Odes to the Great Elixir, ten ci-poems titled Commentary on Qinyuanchun, and eleven poems titled He Xiangu’s Odes to Lü Chunyang’s Qinyuanchun Ci-Poems.

According to the medical section of History of the Song Dynasty·Treatise on Arts and Literature, Qianzhenzi also compiled another work: Two Scrolls of Divine and Immortal Golden Cabinet Dietary Prescriptions (Shenxian Jinkui Fushi Fang Er Juan). The book is also recorded in General Records·Bibliographic Outline (Tongzhi·Yiwen Lue) but without an attributed author.