The Origin of the Mysterious Gate of the Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of All Taoist Scriptures 一切道经音义妙门由起

The Origin of the Mysterious Gate of the Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of All Taoist Scriptures was compiled by the Taoist priest Shi Chong of the Taiqing Temple, along with scholars Cui Shi and Xue Ji, among others, under imperial decree during the Tang Dynasty.

The General Records·Bibliographical Treatise lists "One Volume of the Preface to the Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of All Taoist Scriptures," which corresponds to this work. The current version is included in the Taiping Section of the Taoist Canon.

This work originally served as the introductory treatise to the officially compiled Tang Dynasty Taoist text, Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of All Taoist Scriptures.

The beginning of the volume contains the "Preface to the Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of All Taoist Scriptures," authored by Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. In it, he ordered eminent Taoist masters from various temples and scholars from the two academies to discuss doctrinal principles, examine numerous texts, and compile the Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of All Taoist Scriptures in 140 volumes.

Additionally, there is a "Preface to the Origin of the Mysterious Gate" written by Shi Chong, which states that he, along with over forty scholars from the two academies and eminent Taoist masters from various temples, based on more than 2,000 volumes of Taoist scriptures stored in the capital, compiled a phonetic and exegetical guide titled Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of All Taoist Scriptures. They also composed six chapters of The Origin of the Mysterious Gate, along with The Catalog of Scriptures with Phonetic Annotations and The Catalog of Old Scriptures, totaling 113 volumes. According to this preface, the Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of All Taoist Scriptures, also known as Catalog of the Phonetic and Semantic Analysis of the Taoist Canon, was an officially compiled Taoist dictionary and catalog during the Tang Dynasty. It is recorded in both the New Book of Tang·Treatise on Arts and Literature and the General Records·Bibliographical Treatise.

The main text of this work has been lost, with only the prefaces and the six chapters of The Origin of the Mysterious Gate surviving. The chapter titles are as follows: "Clarifying the Transformation of the Dao," "Clarifying the Heavenly Worthy," "Clarifying the Dharma Realm," "Clarifying the Abodes," "Clarifying Liberation," and "Clarifying the Scriptural Teachings."

Each chapter extracts and cites explanations from various Taoist scriptures, providing a general overview of the transformation of heaven and earth, the origin of Taoism, and the transmission of Taoist scriptures and teachings.

The work references approximately over eighty Taoist texts, making it a valuable resource for researchers studying Taoist scriptures.