Tan Qiao's Scripture of Transformation 化书

Written by Tan Qiao, a Taoist priest of the Five Dynasties period.

Comprising six volumes, it is included in the Taixuan Section of the Daozang.

The Supplementary Daozang also contains this work, with one additional volume of contents compared to the version in The Daozang.

This book is a renowned classic of Taoist philosophical thought in the late Tang Dynasty and Five Dynasties period. Divided into six volumes—Tao Transformation, Technique Transformation, Virtue Transformation, Benevolence Transformation, Food Transformation, and Frugality Transformation—it consists of 110 chapters in total. Based primarily on the thoughts of Laozi and Zhuangzi, it also incorporates Confucianism. The author holds that all things in heaven and earth are ceaselessly generating, endlessly transforming, and circulating in cycles, all never departing from the fundamental nature of the Dao. The Dao takes emptiness and non-being as its essence, and purity and unity as its virtue. Therefore, for people to cultivate the Dao, nourish life, govern their bodies, and administer the state, they must conform to the principles of natural transformation, return to their origin and simplicity, and empty their minds to align with the Dao.

The theories of health preservation and cultivation expounded in the book mainly develop Zhuangzi’s doctrines of equalizing all things and sitting forgetting, and echo the connotations of Internal Alchemy. It states that all things are one thing, and all spirits are one spirit; "All things can be empty, and my body can be non-existent. Uniting my non-existence with their emptiness, I can naturally be hidden or manifest, die or live, without any constraints." Thus, those who cultivate the Dao should forget both things and themselves, emptying their minds to align with the Dao. "Forget the body to nourish qi; forget qi to nourish spirit; forget spirit to nourish emptiness. The mutual penetration of emptiness and reality is called great penetration." This refers to the transcendent realm described by Zhuangzi—where things and self are merged, heaven and humanity are unified, and one is identical with great penetration.

The theories of imperial governance expounded in the book take morality as the foundation. The author fiercely criticizes rulers for governing the state through deception, punishment, and rewards, imposing heavy taxes to deprive the people of food, and enforcing harsh corvée to exhaust their strength. These practices lead to the loss of simplicity, the decline of morality, and widespread hunger and hardship among the people, which are deemed extremely unjust and unrighteous. Consequently, the author advocates restoring governance based on pure and frugal morality, implementing policies of frugality and equal distribution of food, to save the world from wars, chaos, poverty, and destitution. This is the so-called Taoist way of governing the world with purity and frugality. Though rooted in the thoughts of Laozi and Zhuangzi, this theory also reflects the aspirations of ordinary people during the turbulent Five Dynasties period.