Origins of the Five Peaks Talismans: Daoist Sacred Geography

Preface and Treatise on the True Form Diagrams of the Five Great Mountains

The compiler is unknown, and it is believed to date back to the Wei-Jin and Northern-Southern Dynasties period.

As early as the early Tang Dynasty, this text was already cited in A Brief Account of the Transmission of the Scriptures, Precepts, and Talismans of the Three Caverns by Zhang Wanfu.

The existing version in the Taoist Canon consists of one scroll and is included in the Orthodox Unity Division.

This text serves as the preface and treatise to the Wei-Jin Taoist work The True Form Diagrams of the Five Great Mountains. It first expounds on the story of the Queen Mother of the West bestowing The True Form Diagrams of the Five Great Mountains upon Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, as well as the geography and products of the Ten Continents and Three Islands. It then records the origin and transmission lineage of The True Form Diagrams of the Five Great Mountains among Taoist priests during the Wei-Jin period. It states that the diagrams were passed down from the attendants of the Supreme Lord of the Dao to Lu Nüsheng, who then transmitted them to Ji Zixun; Ji Zixun to Feng Junda; Feng Junda to Zuo Ci; Zuo Ci to Zheng Xuan; and Zheng Xuan to Ge Hong. The above content is mainly sourced from works such as Inner and Outer Biographies of Emperor Wu of Han, Records of the Ten Continents, and Baopuzi·Chapter of Distant Views.

At the end of the text, it also attaches the methods of sacrificing to the diagrams, the sacrificial texts for bestowing the diagrams, and the sacrificial texts for receiving the diagrams, all attributed to Zheng Xuan. Additionally, it includes the methods of wearing and using the true form diagrams as told by Bao Jing, as well as Preface to the Diagrams of the Five Great Mountains by Dongfang Shuo, which records the deities of the Five Great Mountains and Four Sacred Hills and the origin of the True Form Diagrams.

Volume 79 of The Seven Bamboo Tablets of the Cloudy Satchel contains two texts: Methods and Preface to the True Form Diagrams of the Five Great Mountains by Ge Hong and Preface to the True Form Diagrams of the Five Great Mountains by Dongfang Shuo, whose contents are roughly the same as the latter half of this text.