Heart-Mind Transmission from the Purple Primordial 紫元君授道传心法

No author was originally indicated for this text.

According to the author's preface at the beginning of the scroll, dated the 25th year of the Guangzheng reign (962 CE): "Seizing a moment of leisure, I compiled excerpts from immortal scriptures, revised the maxims of the ancient sages, and preserved them as a model for later generations, naming this work The Mirror of Enlightenment for Ascending to Immortality."

Heart-Mind Transmission from the Purple Primordial

From this, it can be confirmed that the text was compiled by a Taoist monk of Later Shu at the end of the Five Dynasties period.

It is recorded as One Scroll of The Mirror of the Great Elixir of Return for Ascending to Immortality in the Secret Catalogue of the Southern Song Dynasty, General Records·Bibliographic Outline and History of the Song Dynasty·Treatise on Arts and Literature—all referring to this very work.

The existing version in the Daoist Canon (The Daozang) consists of one scroll, included in the Alchemical Arts Category of the Dongshen Section.

This text expounds the essential tenets of Neidan (Internal Alchemy). The author denounces external alchemy and the art of transmuting base metals into gold, criticizing such practices for "misidentifying lead and mercury, and vainly seeking red and white elixirs", stating they are not the way to attain immortality and become a true immortal. The entire text is divided into thirty-four chapters, mostly in the form of verse formulas. Drawing on the principles of creation in heaven and earth, the sun and the moon, and the theories of the Kan and Li trigrams, the dragon and tiger, as well as Yin and Yang and the Five Elements, it discourses generally on the essential principles of cultivating lead and mercury to form the elixir. Preceding the main text are verse formulas of the Five Directions, chanting the alternative names and designations of true water, true gold, true fire, true wood and true earth.