Commentary on the Primordial Tao Te Ching 元始说先天道德经注解

Annotated by Li Jiamou of the Southern Song Dynasty and published by Zhang Shanyuan of the Yuan Dynasty.

It consists of five volumes and is included in the Benwen (Scripture Text) category of the Dongzhen (Perfected Mystery) Section of the Daozang (Taoist Canon).

Commentary on the Primordial Tao Te Ching

The scripture Xiantian Daode Jing (Scripture of the Way and Virtue of the Innate Nature) in this book is modeled after Laozi’s Daode Jing (Classic of the Way and Virtue). It is divided into five parts: Miao (Subtlety), Yuan (Origin), Shen (Spirit), Zhen (Truth), and Dao (Way). Each part has nine chapters with one thousand characters, totaling forty-five chapters and five thousand characters. Its content is abstruse, roughly explaining the meanings of the five terms Miao, Yuan, Shen, Zhen and Dao as well as their inter-generative relationships, and based on this, expounding the principles of subtlety, being and non-being, movement and stillness, yin and yang, the Five Elements, the Eight Trigrams, the Nine Palaces, the Dao and virtue, the Dao following nature, and clarity and non-action, as well as the principles of cultivating the true self and nourishing life. Li’s annotations quote scriptures from Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism, explaining the original text chapter by chapter and paragraph by paragraph in a relatively clear and lucid way. He holds that the order of the generation of heaven, earth and all things is from "Miao" (emptiness and non-being) to "Wei" (subtlety and being), and those who cultivate the Dao should return from the subtle to the fundamental source of Miao. This is the purpose of the entire book.