Dragon and Tiger Manual of Diagrams 龙虎手鉴图
Paul PengDragon and Tiger Manual of Diagrams
Author unknown.
Judging from its content and wording, it was presumably compiled by a Taoist priest in the Song Dynasty.
Consisting of one scroll, it is included in the Spirit Diagram Category of The Dongzhen Section within The Daozang.
Dragon and Tiger Manual of Diagrams
It opens with a diagram that correlates the Heavenly Stems, Earthly Branches and hexagram directions with mercury, silver, black silver, cinnabar, loess, the Green Dragon, the White Tiger, smelted lead and refined mercury. Attached is a diagrammatic explanation that indicates the operation order of heavenly Yin and Yang and the fire timing for Internal Alchemy cultivation.
It proclaims: "Without following the way of heaven, the return to the elixir can never succeed"; "Going round and beginning again, moving like a wheel on its axle, with all restraints firmly set and the days and hours without error, the motion and stillness of Yin and Yang in the way of heaven can then be held in the palm of one's hand."
After the diagrammatic explanation, there are eighteen seven-character quatrains, all expounding the techniques of internal alchemy cultivation.
