Book
Taiping Jing 太平青領道
About this item
The Taiping Jing (Taiping Qingling Dao) is the divine book in more than a hundred scrolls that the Daoist Yu Ji is said to have obtained. The Zhilin (Forest of Records) of Yu Xi, quoted in Pei Songzhi's commentary, records that in the time of Emperor Shun, Gong Chong of Langya came to the palace gates and presented a divine book that his teacher Yu Ji had obtained on the waters of a spring at Quyang, written on white silk ruled with red lines and called the Taiping Qingling Dao. In Chapter 29 of the Romance, Yu Ji, seized by Sun Ce, himself tells how he obtained this book. Records, Wu 1 §36Romance, Ch. 29 §13
Neither the Taiping Qingling Dao nor Yu Ji appears in Chen Shou's text. Pei Songzhi's commentary records this book by quoting the Zhilin on Sun Ce's record in the Biographies of Sun Jian and Sun Ce in Records of Wu 1, and the Romance uses this name once, in Chapter 29. Records, Wu 1 §36Romance, Ch. 29 §13
In the Records
Chen Shou records only that in the 5th year of Jian'an (200) Sun Ce, intending to raid Xu, was killed before he could set out by a retainer of Xu Gong, the former Administrator of Wu Commandery, and says nothing of Yu Ji. The Jiangbiao zhuan quoted in Pei Songzhi's commentary on that passage records that the Daoist Yu Ji of Langya traveled about Wu and Kuaiji, set up a retreat, burned incense, read Daoist books and cured illness with talisman water, so that many people served him, and that Sun Ce beheaded him as a sorcerer. The Jiangbiao zhuan does not name the Daoist books Yu Ji read. Records, Wu 1 §36
The Zhilin (Forest of Records), quoted next, records that in the time of Emperor Shun, Gong Chong of Langya came to the palace gates and presented a divine book that his teacher Yu Ji had obtained on the waters of a spring at Quyang, written on white silk ruled with red lines, called the Taiping Qingling Dao and numbering more than a hundred scrolls in all. The Zhilin argues that since fifty or sixty years had passed from Emperor Shun's time to the Jian'an era, Yu Ji must then have been nearly a hundred years old, and that to inflict a harsh punishment on him when his offense did not merit death was a wrongful execution. Pei Songzhi notes that the stories of Yu Ji in the Jiangbiao zhuan and the Soushen ji (In Search of the Supernatural) differ, and that it cannot be known which is right. Records, Wu 1 §36
In the Romance
In Chapter 29 of the Romance, when Sun Ce is holding a banquet on the city gate tower and his generals go down one after another to bow to the Immortal Yu, Sun Ce angrily has him seized and brought. Yu Ji says that he is a Daoist of the Langya Palace who, in the time of Emperor Shun, went into the mountains to gather herbs and obtained a divine book on the waters of a spring at Yangqu, called the Taiping Qingling Dao, in more than a hundred scrolls, all of them arts for curing people's illnesses. When he says that since obtaining this book he has only spread enlightenment on Heaven's behalf and saved multitudes without ever taking anything from anyone, Sun Ce calls him one of the ilk of Zhang Jue of the Yellow Turbans and orders him beheaded. Romance, Ch. 29 §11–14
Zhang Zhao and the other officials remonstrate, and Yu Ji is put in prison for the time being; afterwards Sun Ce's mother, Lady Wu, also intercedes. When, on Lü Fan's advice, Sun Ce has him pray for rain, Yu Ji brings down three chi of welcome rain, but Sun Ce, angered at seeing officials and people bowing to Yu Ji, has him beheaded in the end. Romance, Ch. 29 §14–15 · 18–22
Where the Romance differs
How the book was obtained: In Chapter 29 of the Romance, Yu Ji calls himself "a Daoist of the Langya Palace" and says he obtained this book on the waters of a spring at Yangqu while gathering herbs in the mountains in the time of Emperor Shun. The Zhilin in Pei Songzhi's commentary records that Gong Chong of Langya presented at the palace, in the time of Emperor Shun, the divine book his teacher Yu Ji had obtained on the waters of a spring at Quyang. Romance, Ch. 29 §13Records, Wu 1 §36
The book's form and content: Chapter 29 of the Romance says that its more than a hundred scrolls are all arts for curing people's illnesses. The Zhilin records only its form, as a book of more than a hundred scrolls written on white silk ruled with red lines. Romance, Ch. 29 §13Records, Wu 1 §36
Written by 3KDEX (not yet reviewed) — The tags at the end of each paragraph link to the exact passage in the Records volume or Romance chapter it is based on.
Ownership history
| Owner | Period | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Yu Ji | Novel & History 「師于吉所得神書於曲陽泉水上…號太平靑領道」 · 「得神書於陽曲泉水上，號曰《太平青領道》」 |
Ownership is checked against the source texts (3KDEX) — each entry rests on the passage where the item changes hands. Owners not in the People index are not shown.