About XuanXuanQiJing(玄玄棋經) - 玄(Xuan)玄(Xuan)棋(Qi)經(Jing). First of all, its name is two part - XuanXuan (玄玄) and QiJing (棋經). QiJing(棋經) just means it is a Go Book (of classic), and the description of XuanXuan (玄玄) comes from the 1st paragraph of the Tao Te Ching (道德經, the foundation text of the philosophy and the religion of Taoism) - “玄之又玄，眾妙之門” - the concluding sentence of the paragraph (where I am definitely not qualify enough to properly translate it, and certainly doesn’t just mean “mystery”). It has a deeper layer inside a layer, complexity on top of another, or foundation beneath the foundation meaning, like turtles all the way down, with an ambition to integrate all the known knowledge of Go at the time - a theory of everything and practices of Go.
As to the book, roughly, there are three families of them.
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Ancient Chinese versions -
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the oldest of them all, and divided into 6 parts named after the classic Six Arts, “禮(Rites)”、“樂(Music)”、“射(Archery)”、“御(Chariotry)”、“書(Calligraphy)”、“數(Mathematics)”. The first part of Rites is mainly a collection of texts and theories of Go. The second and third part - Music and Archery, are collections of what we today would call joseki and famous ancient recorded games. The last three parts - Chariotry, Calligraphy and Mathematics, are collections of about 300+ local variations of what we today would call tsumego problems. Problem 2 and Problem 3 come from the part of Chariotry, while a slightly different version of Problem 1 comes from the part of Mathematics.
And if you can read Chinese, here is the link to the tsumego problems of last three parts. Not -
Ancient Japanese versions -
There are two books of different but with overlapping context currently stored in the National Archives of Japan. One titled - 元版 玄玄碁經
One titled - 爛柯経
They are both transcribed by hands (unlike the ancient Chinese versions, printed using woodblock printing) using ancient Japanese kanji (slightly different but mostly the same as Chinese), and their prefaces clearly indicate they were transcribed from Chinese sources. From the afterward with date of the last collection owner, we know they came to Japan definitely no later than the year 1808 (in Japanese calendar - 文化5年 probably much earlier). From the preface description with the date of compiling this version of 爛柯経 - the year of 1508 (Chinese Emperor calendar - 正德3年), as well as this Japanese version of 玄玄碁經 includes tsumego problems and content from 爛柯経. They both probably arrived in Japan sometime in the 16th century. Also, in the preface of both the ancient Chinese versions and Japanese versions of 玄玄碁經 (which are almost the same, except some errors in transcribing), the compiler of the book wrote the date of the collection in the year of 1347 (Chinese Emperor calendar 至正7年).One interesting thing about the ancient Chinese versions, is that they also include covers of the woodblock printing, which also has the person who “published” them. And the oldest surviving ones is believed to be in the year of 1528 (Chinese Emperor calendar 嘉靖7年), and the next major versions (which have many corrections and additions to the previous ones) between 1572 and 1620 (Chinese Emperor calendar period of 萬歷). And by comparing the content, the source of the Japanese version was likely an earlier or the same as the ancient Chinese 1528 version, while the Japanese version has some errors/variations and missing many tsumego problems (with less than 200, including those from 爛柯経).
The Japanese versions also split the book in different ways. The text and theories collections (the Rites part from the Chinese version) is like a prologue, followed by a table of content and split the remainder into first and second volume, roughly mapped to first volume - Chinese version part 2 and 3, and second volume - part 4, 5, 6, but their order and some names of these problems or records are completely different. And only problem 2 can be found in the old Japanese version
And the solution given is very different from the modern versions
Summary
- Modern versions -
Already too late, I’ll finish the history of how they evolved from the old sourced to the modern ones in the 20th century later (to be continued …)