Origin Identification of Elixir Formulas 丹方鉴源

Compiled by Du Guitao of the The Tang Dynasty.

Both General Catalog of Chongwen Library and Bibliography of Arts and Literature in Comprehensive Records of the Song Dynasty recorded this book as Origin Identification of Alchemy Workshop in three volumes, which is exactly the present work.

Origin Identification of Elixir Formulas

The existing version in The Daozang consists of three volumes, included in the Methods category of the The Dongshen Section.

This book is a key text for Taoism external alchemy, divided into twenty-five chapters. It lists 231 entries of metallic and mineral medicines used in external alchemy and gold-lead transmutation, detailing their names, producing areas, alternative names, properties, and functions. At the end of the book, an appendix titled "Formula for Preparing Five Yellow Pills" describes the method of making Five Yellow Pills using medicines such as realgar, orpiment, arsenic sulfide, sulfur, and yellow alum. Additionally, according to He Bingyu’s modern essay Origin Identification of Elixir Formulas in The Daozang, a handwritten copy of this book is collected in the National Diet Library of Tokyo, Japan, attributed to Du Guitao of the Sui Dynasty. This handwritten version contains six additional entries compared to the Daozang version, including "silver in lead", coal, saltpeter, camel horse juice, sesame juice, and wolfberry juice, which can be used for textual emendation and supplementation.