Annotated Verses on the Golden Elixir 还丹金液歌注

Originally attributed to "composed by Yuanyangzi, annotated by Mr. Tongxuan".

Yuanyangzi is suspected to be Yang Canwei, a figure of the Tang Dynasty, and Mr. Tongxuan should be Zhang Jianming, a Taoist priest of the Five Dynasties period.

The Comprehensive Records of Literature·Bibliographic Survey catalogs "One Scroll of the Dragon-Tiger Ballad of the Golden Fluid Reverted Elixir" by Yuanyangzi, which presumably refers to this very work.

Annotated Verses on the Golden Elixir

The existing version is included in the Methods category of the Dongzhen Section of The Daozang.

Yuanyangzi’s ballad is a twenty-eight-line five-character poem, eulogizing the art of External Alchemy. Its essential tenet takes dragon-tiger (lead and mercury) as the alchemical ingredients and mercury as the foundation of the elixir. The poem states: "Harmonious qi unites with the primal beginning, and the primal qi ultimately returns to the One. Mother and child are inherently generated from each other, yet their generation brings separation as well." The annotation reads: "The Crimson Maiden is mercury, the profound yin is the water foundation; the two qi merge into a single entity, thus forming the Reverted Elixir." This poem also appears in the second scroll of Ballads of the Reverted Elixir compiled by Yuanyangzi.