The c. 350 BCE Neiye () is the oldest Chinese received text describing Daoist breath meditation techniques and circulation. After the , a political and philosophical compendium, included the around the 2nd century BCE, it was seldom mentioned by Chinese scholars until the 20th century, when it was reevaluated as a "proto-Daoist" text that clearly influenced the , , and other classics. traditions also influenced Chinese thought and culture. For instance, it had the first references to cultivating the life forces "essence", "vital energy", and "spirit", which later became a fundamental concept in Daoist "internal alchemy", as well as the Three Treasures in traditional Chinese medicine.
Alluded to by Mencius and others, including other parts of the Guanzi, the Neiye was the most influential and detailed of the preserved older texts on self cultivation until the Mawangdui silk texts. The Mawangdui's texts on cultivation only went into broad circulation much later, a couple generations after the late Warring States period Han Feizi.
Book Sinologist A. C. Graham regarded the as "possibly the oldest 'mystical' text in China".(Graham 1989: 100) Professor of religious studies Harold D. Roth describes it as "a manual on the theory and practice of meditation that contains the earliest references to breath control and the earliest discussion of the physiological basis of self-cultivation in the Chinese tradition",(Roth 1991: 611–2) and perhaps the oldest extant text of Daoism.(Roth 1994: 37)
Title The title is a compound of two common Chinese words: meaning "inside; inner; internal" and .
In ancient Old Chinese that was used when the was compiled, the two titular component words had complex meanings. Bernhard Karlgren's classic Grammata Serica Recensa dictionary translates as "enter; to bring in, to present; take to heart"; and says the early characters for depicted a "horizontal board of a bell stand or frame", which was used as a phonetic loan character for "initiate; work; action; deed; profession; fortune, inheritance; strong; terrible".(Karlgren 1957: 695e, 640a)
While many English-language authors transliterate the title as or Nei-yeh, some translate it as: The Workings of the Inner(Riegel 1978) Inner Workings(Rickett 1985) Operation of the Inner(Harper 1987) Inner Cultivation or Inner Development(Kirkland 1997, 2008) Inward Training(Graham 1989, Roth 1999, Komjathy 2023 ) Inner Training(Campany 2005) The Inner Enterprise(Eno 2005) A. C. Graham's and Harold D. Roth's Inward Training is apparently the most common English title, owing to Roth's articles and translation.(Roth 1991, 1994, 1996, 1997, and 1999).
Literary form The is a collection of poetic verses describing a method of guided breathing meditation and the underlying cosmology of the on which it is based. Roth calls the mystical method "inner cultivation", the goal of which is to directly apprehend this "all-pervading cosmic force".(Roth 1999: 11).
The text contains a total of 1,622 characters, and the verses are written almost exclusively in rhymed prose. Most of the lines of verse are tetrasyllabic, that is, they contain four syllables each of which is represented by one character, but other patterns of five or more syllables sometimes occur. The rhymes occur most often at the end of every second line.(Roth 1999: 12). Both the 's rhymed literary form and philosophical content are similar to the more renowned , which is about three times longer.(Kirkland 2008: 771).
Take for example, Verse 2 (with rhyme words shown in Old Chinese reconstruction) discussing "vital energy": Therefore this vital energy is: Bright!—as if ascending the heavens ; Dark!—as if entering an abyss ; Vast!—as if dwelling in an ocean ; Lofty!—as if dwelling on a mountain peak . Therefore this vital energy Cannot be halted by force, Yet can be secured by inner power . Cannot be summoned by speech, Yet can be welcomed by the awareness . Reverently hold onto it and do not lose it: This is called "developing inner power" . When inner power develops and wisdom emerges, The myriad things will, to the last one, be grasped . (tr. Roth 1999: 48–49) Scholars infer two kinds of contextual evidence that the redactor of an initial written edition brought together a series of originally distinct verses: the variety of meter and rhyme in the lines, and the two usages of the conjunction “therefore".(Roth 1999: 14) Riegel proposes that these poetic features of the would have facilitated memorization and recitation, suggesting that they might have been transmitted orally for a period of time before the compiler assembled and wrote them down.(Riegel 1978: 148)
Although extant editions of the text have only two or three general divisions, it is possible to identify distinct units based on semantic, syntactic, and phonological criteria. Some different proposed textual separations are: fifteen separate verses with some subdivisions;(Ma Feibai , W. Allyn Rickett 1985–98) eighteen verses plus four subdivisions;(Gustav Haloun and Jeffrey Riegel 1978) and twenty-six separate verses.(Roth 1999: 14).
Dating The date when the was compiled is uncertain. Rickett dated the text to the late 4th or early 3rd century BCE, Graham to the 4th century BCE, and Roth to the mid-4th century BCE;(Kirkland 1997: 3) it is thus generally dated to around 350–300 BCE.(Kirkland 2008: 771) Campany rejects Roth's arguments for dating the to the 4th century BCE because they are based on his "speculative and wishful assumption" that political considerations were added only later to an "original Dao".(Campany 2005: 26).
The problem of the dating of the is connected to some other texts within the . Four chapters () have descriptions of meditation practices: "Techniques of the Mind I and II" (chapters 36 and 37), "The Purified Mind" (38), and "Inward Training" (49). The is a heterogenous collection of writings by diverse Legalist, Confucianist, and Daoist authors; compilation probably began around 300 BCE and material may have been added until 26 BCE when Liu Xiang edited the received text.(Roth 1999: 18).
Since these four texts are the only chapters to mention the significance of breath meditation, researchers tend to consider them together (Roth 1999: 18). Furthermore, all four exhibit the irregular rhyme patterns thought to be characteristic of the Chu region variety of Chinese.(Roth 1994: 11). Many scholars have debated over the relationship between , , and . Most concur that these texts were written by Huang-Lao Daoist philosophers at the Jixia Academy in the Qi capital of Linzi, but many disagree over the dating of the texts and identity of the redactors. After analyzing the structure and rhetorical characteristics of the , , , and , The Chinese linguist William H. Baxter proposed that they constitute a specific literary genre, which emerged from "a distinctive tradition of philosophical verse with strong oral elements and little concept of individual authorship".(Baxter 1998: 240–243, 249).
In order to estimate the dates of compilation for these writings about breath circulation techniques, Roth analyzed the linguistic features of the , , and ; and concluded that the is a genuine 4th-century BCE text while the others are derived from it.(Roth 1999: 23–25) The first three works have close conceptual and textual parallels, but the —which is a mostly prose essay on how a sage ruler can apply the meditation techniques to governing—is considered the latest work in the group. Three types of evidence support the antiquity of the . First, its distinctive literary structure as a composition of originally independent, rhythmic and rhymed verse is a sign of oral transmission before literacy became widespread in the latter half of the 4th century BCE. Second, the does not contain the kind of sustained argumentation typically found in 3rd-century BCE philosophical essays, and it shows only a loose principle of organization between its verses. Third, the absence of the correlative cosmology of yin and yang and the Five Phases, characteristic of 3rd-century BCE texts. Using redaction criticism – analyzing the production a text from how the redactors (editors, compilers) combined and arranged the source materials – Roth found that the is an original prose essay in which the redactor deliberately extracted and rearranged verses for the purpose of advocating the political benefits of inner cultivation methods.(Roth 1994: 34). It thus complements and accounts for the labeling them as parts of one essay.(Roth 1999: 26).
More specifically, Roth proposes that the 's exclusively verse format and absence of political thought would support a date of mid-4th century BCE at the latest. The first part of contains verses that are almost as old, but since they begin to advocate applying inner cultivation techniques to the task of governing and show evidence of interaction with rival intellectual positions, he dates them to about 300 BCE. The commentary contained in the second part of shows the influence of the and so must be dated to a later time after this work became influential in intellectual circles about 250 BCE.(Roth 1999: 26–27).
A 45-character inscription on a Warring States era jade artifact may possibly be an earlier record of breath meditation than the .(Harper 1999: 881). This rhymed passage entitled was inscribed on a dodecagonal block of jade, with nine trisyllabic phrases describing the stages of breath cultivation. While the dating is uncertain, estimates range from earlier than 400 BCE (Joseph Needham), 380 BCE (Guo Moruo), to late 4th century BCE (Harper). In any case, some scholars claim that it contains the earliest Chinese epigraphical evidence on the practice of breath meditation.(Roth 1999: 162; cf. Komjathy 2023a, 2023b).
Basic concepts The ancient presents a "seamless web … connecting the psychological, physiological, and spiritual aspects of the human being".(Roth 1999: 106). It is the earliest known text that explains self-cultivation through daily, practiced regulation of a group of life forces. Namely, "vital energy" (the universal force that gives life to all things), "vital essence" (one's innate reservoir of ), "heart-mind", "spirit; spiritual consciousness", "the Way", and "inner power". These terms later became keywords in Chinese philosophy, but the sometimes used them idiosyncratically, for instance, was effectively interchangeable with and .(Kirkland 2008: 771).
Qi, which Roth translates as "vital energy" or "vital breath", integrates the physical with the psychological. Kirkland describes "life-energy" in the as "a powerful salubrious reality" that is present everywhere and within all things.(Roth 1997: 5). According to the , human beings are made up of systems containing various manifestations of ; the Five Orbs/Viscera system includes not only the physical organs (lungs, kidneys, liver, gallbladder, and spleen), but also the psychological range of mental and emotional states—presciently similar to the contemporary idea of neural correlates for consciousness.(Roth 1999: 41–42).
Jing "vital essence" is a central concept in the , with meanings that span from the universal life-giving essence contained in all creatures to the particular physiological substrate that allows sages to achieve profound tranquility. Within each person, energy is centered in the essence, which Roth describes as "the source of the vital energy in human beings the basis of our health, vitality, and psychological well-being".(Roth 1999: 42). Verse 8 provides the following clear equation: "The vital essence : it is the essence of the vital energy ." Thus, it is concentrated and subtle form of vital energy.(Roth 1999: 101).