Page 71 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

OVERVIEW 31

jing 1:. BA *.:i1!;JiU~ (Scriptures in Supplement to the Taoist Canon of the Great
Ming). It is more popularly known as the *Wanli xu daozang (Supplementary
Taoist Canon of the Wanli Reign Period), in reference to its compilation by
order of the Wanli Emperor (r. 1573-1620). The responsibility for it fell to the
fiftieth Celestial Master *Zhang Guoxiang (?-16rr).

Modern editions. Access to the Ming Canon remained limited until the Hanfen
Iou ~[i!i3rfJ branch of the Commercial Press in Shanghai issued a thread-
bound edition in 1923-26. The former Minister of Education Fu Zengxiang it
m ;tB (1872-1950) played a major role in the achievement of this landmark in
publication. His persuasive endorsement of the academic value of the Canon
convinced President XU Shichang y;f-tit ~ (1855-1939) to authorize a govern-
ment subsidy for the project.
The copy of the Ming Canon photolithographically reproduced in 1,120
threadbound fascicles by Hanfen Iou came from the *Baiyun guan (Abbey of
the White Clouds) in Beijing. Missing portions of it are known to have been
replaced in 1845. Reprints of the Hanfen Iou edition have made the Ming Canon
even more accessible, beginning with the threadbound copy issued in 1962 by
the Yiwen ~ X Publishing House in Taipei. Among the more widely available
editions in modern binding is the 60-volume Zhengtong daozang produced by
the same publishing house in 1977- Another edition, the 36-volume Daozang,
appeared in 1988 as a joint publication of Wenwu chubanshe }( to/! tI:l !t& U in
Beijing, the Shanghai shudian L ~ ~ m, and the Tianjin guji chubanshe 7(
~ rj fiN tI:l !t& ft:. This new edition overcomes a number of defects in earlier
editions, replacing missing texts as well as correcting misplacements, but it
also retains and introduces new defects.
A reorganized, punctuated edition of the Taoist Canon is now in print.
Intermittent reports on this team effort began to appear as early as 1997 in
Zhongguo daojiao c:P ~ ill qJ (Chinese Taoism), a publication of the *Zhong-
guo daojiao xiehui (Chinese Taoist Association) headquartered at the Baiyun
guan in Beijing. The final product is the 49-volume Zhonghua daozang r:p ~
:i1!i~ (Taoist Canon of China) published by Huaxia chubanshe in 2003·
Indices. Available indices are not in agreement on the total number of titles
contained in the Ming Canon. This discrepancy primarily reflects the occa-
sional difficulty in determining where one text ends and the next begins. The
earliest annotated table of contents to the Ming Canon, the *Daozang mulu
xiangzhu (Detailed Commentary on the Index of the Taoist Canon) ascribed
to Bai Yunji E:l % ~, dates to 1626. It has been superceded by the Daozang zimu
yinde :i1!~ -T § IJ I i~ (Combined Indices to the Authors and Titles of Books
in Two Collections of Taoist Literature), compiled in 1935 by Weng Dujian
~ ~ 1Jt. This volume in the Harvard-Yenching Institute Sinological Index