Verified Path of Inner Alchemy 金液还丹印证图

Composed by Long Meizi, a Taoist priest of the Southern Song Dynasty. It consists of one scroll and is included in the Spirit Diagram Category of The Dongzhen Section within The Daozang.

There is a self-preface by the author dated the Wuyin year of the Jiading reign period (1218) at the beginning of the scroll, which states: "I have narrated my master’s teachings and compiled them into diagrams and chapters. I composed nine chapters on external symbolic manifestations, to fully elucidate the subtle mysteries of elixir refinement; and nine chapters on internal symbolic manifestations, to detail the step-by-step practice of elixir nourishment. ... The preceding Awakening and the subsequent Return to the Origin together form twenty chapters." From this, it can be known that the original work comprised twenty chapters.

Verified Path of Inner Alchemy

Each chapter opens with a diagram, followed by a seven-character regulated poem. The diagrams include the Original State, Heaven and Earth, Cauldron and Tripod, Medicinal Ingredients, Extraction and Supplementation, Bathing, Embracing the Origin, and Returning to the Origin, all arranged in accordance with the steps of Internal Alchemy cultivation. The purpose is to verify the way of elixir refinement, distinguish the genuine from the false, and teach practitioners to avoid straying into heretical paths.

Appended at the end of the scroll is a postscript by Lin Jing dated the Jiyou year (1249), which praises the book, stating: "Its methods for collecting and refining medicinal ingredients, nourishing the spirit to achieve immortal embryo transformation, follow a graded order of practice, much like climbing a staircase step by step to ascend."