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Nam bắc đẩu kinh 南北斗經 [Ch. Nan bei dou jing; Scripture of the Southern & Northern Dippers]

Nam bắc đẩu kinh 南北斗經 [Ch. Nan bei dou jing; Scripture of the Southern & Northern Dippers] by SCRIPTURES OF LONGEVITY, VIETNAMESE

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$5,500.00
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Seller: Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller, Inc.
Title
Nam bắc đẩu kinh 南北斗經 [Ch. Nan bei dou jing; Scripture of the Southern & Northern Dippers]
Author
SCRIPTURES OF LONGEVITY, VIETNAMESE
Seller
Jonathan A. Hill, Bookseller, Inc. (United States)
Description
One full-page woodcut illus. Woodblock-printed. [2], 21, [1] folding leaves. 8vo, orig. yellow wrappers with handwritten title on cover, old stitching, red edges. Hanoi: Đền Ngọc Sơn, 1859 (from title-page). This rare work contains Daoist scriptures of longevity printed at the Ngọc Sơn Temple 玉山殿, located within Lake Hoàn Kiếm in the center of Hanoi. Established in Thiệu Trị 1 (1841) by Vũ Tông Phan 武宗璠 (1800-51), president of the Benevolent Society (hội hướng thiện 向善會), the Ngọc Sơn Temple quickly became a center of literary and cultural revival in the ancient capital, where the Benevolent Society and its associates held public lectures, undertook scholarly editions, and disseminated spiritual and worldly writings through woodblock printing. The temple continued to play an important role during the French Colonial Period (1887-1949), as reform-minded intellectuals used its cultural influence to disseminate ideas of resistance and national sovereignty to the Vietnamese people, despite their suppression and displacement by the colonial authorities. The Scripture of the Southern and Northern Dippers is among the earliest of the Ngọc Sơn Temple's printing projects, before the temple's renovation and expansion in 1865. Likely composed in the 11th century, the scripture (which actually includes two texts, the Nandou yanshou duren miaojing 南斗延壽度人玅經 and the Taishang xuanling beidou benming yansheng zhenjing 太上玄靈北斗本命延生真經) constitutes the "core of Daoist star beliefs...[their emergence] during the mid-Northern Song period marked the fusion of the 'water-fire refining' philosophy in the ancient Lingbao scriptures with the concept of the Southern and Northern Dippers governing life and death, laying the foundation for the formation of the 'two Dippers - water and fire' refining rituals."-Qinsheng Shi, "The Southern Celestial Star Deities and the Refining and Transcendence Doctrine of the Ancient Lingbao Scriptures," Religions 16 (2025). The text of the scriptures tells the story of their own bestowal by the Daoist gods and the positive effects of the mantras and rituals contained therein for the longevity of individuals and the prosperity of families. The early printed books from the Ngọc Sơn Temple are very difficult to find today. A number of them are held by the National Library of Vietnam, but not this title, of which there are only three other known copies: two at the Institute of Hán-Nôm Studies in Hanoi (AC.686, AC.68) and one at the library of the Société Asiatique in Paris (SA.PD.2342). We do not find this title or any other printed at the Ngọc Sơn Temple in WorldCat. Excellent copy. Light worming and wear in the corners of the wrappers. ❧ 施秦生, 《五斗經》成書年代及作者新考, 《道教研究學報：宗教、歷史與社會》 14 (2022), pp. 145-83. 越南漢喃文獻資料庫, Academia Sinica (accessed Feb. 2026).

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