The Shangqing Sanzhen Zhiyao Yujue 上清三真旨要玉诀

Shangqing Jade Commentary on the Essential Meaning of the Three Trues (Shangqing Sanzhen Zhiyao Yujue), author unknown.

Judging from its content and wording, it should have been written by Taoist priests of the Shangqing School during the Southern Dynasties.

Liu Shipei, in his Notes on Reading the Daozang (Du Daozang Ji), suspected that this text is a missing scroll of Secret Instructions for Ascending to Immortality (Dengzhen Yinjue) compiled by Tao Hongjing of the Liang Dynasty. The number of scrolls in the original version is unknown.

The existing version in the Daozang (Taoist Canon) consists of one scroll and is included in the Yujue Lei (Jade Commentaries Category) of the Dongxuan Bu (Mysterious Grotto Section). Additionally, there are two fragmentary Dunhuang manuscripts (P.2576V and S.6219) of this text. Among them, the P.2576V manuscript contains 215 lines of text not found in the Daozang version, which proves that the existing Daozang version is also incomplete.

The content and structure of this text are similar to those of Tao Hongjing’s True Declarations (Zhengao) and Secret Instructions for Ascending to Immortality (Dengzhen Yinjue).

It is mainly an excerpt of techniques and secrets related to cultivating the Dao and ascending to immortalhood from early Shangqing School classics.

The text records dozens of essential principles for Dao cultivation, covering techniques such as guided stretching (daoyin), inhaling vital energy (qi), swallowing saliva, tapping teeth, contemplating deities (cunshen), inward visualization (neishi), and reciting incantations. Some of its content is copied from True Declarations (Zhengao).