The Esoteric Dao De Jing 无上金玄上妙道德玄经

Abbreviated as Daode Xuanjing (Scripture of the Way and Virtue). The author is unknown. It seems to have been compiled at the end of the Northern and Southern Dynasties or between the Sui and Tang dynasties.

It was not included in the Zhengtong Daozang, which is the core corpus of the Daozang (Taoist Canon). An existing incomplete manuscript copied by Tang-dynasty scribes (P2002) preserves 250 lines of the scripture. The content can be divided into two parts. The first part, titled True Explanations to the Thirteen Chapters of the Sublime Mystery Scripture (eleven chapters survive), is a text modeled after the Daodejing (Classic of the Way and Virtue), which mainly propagates the profundity of the Dao and virtue as well as the thought of emptiness and spontaneity. The second part is titled Chapter on the Great Awakening of Natural Spiritual Wisdom in the Supreme Golden Mystery and Sublime Scripture of the Way and Virtue. Its stylistic format is similar to that of the Numinous Treasure school classics, mainly extolling the profundity and spontaneity of the Great Dao as well as its boundless radiance.

The Esoteric Dao De Jing

The core tenets of the entire scripture are consistent with the Chongxuan (Twofold Mystery) philosophy of Taoism, whose theoretical system is rooted in the Taiji thought of primal unity and transformation.