Yuánshǐ wúliàng dùrén shàngpǐn miàojīng zhíyīn 元始無量度人上品妙經直音
Phonetic Glosses on the “Wondrous Scripture of the Upper Chapters on Limitless Salvation of the Primordial Commencement”
anonymous zhíyīn 直音 (phonetic-gloss) aid to the sixty-one-juan Dùrén jīng 度人經 (DZ 1), one juan, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0002 / CT 2), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A one-juan phonetic-reading aid for the sixty-one-juan received text of the Língbǎo wúliàng dùrén shàngpǐn miàojīng (DZ 1). The work presents, juan by juan matching the parent scripture, a list of difficult or unusual graphs together with their readings, given either by homophonous single-character gloss (zhíyīn 直音 — e.g. 黎土 (下音杜), 鞅 (音仰), 勃勃 (並音拂)) or by fǎnqiè 反切 spellings (e.g. 粗 (徂古切), 邅 (音氊), 霐 (烏宏切)). Many entries also mark tone (e.g. 棐 音匪; 欹 音欺; 恊 上聲), and a few add semantic clarification where graphs have homographic but distinct liturgical meanings (e.g. 尸解 下佳買切; 種親 上音腫). The glosses are organised under the chapter headings of the received sixty-one-juan recension (玉宸大道品卷第二, 天地八維安鎮國祚品卷第三, 永延劫運保世昇平品卷第四, 消禳國君王侯世土災祥品卷第五, …), confirming that the text was produced after the sixty-juan Shénxiāo expansion of the Dùrén jīng (i.e., post c. 1120) and before the closing of the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (1445).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The work opens directly with the head-gloss of juan 1 and proceeds mechanically through the sixty-one juan of the parent scripture; no author-preface, postface, or colophon is carried in the transmitted text.
Abstract
The Zhíyīn is anonymous and undated in the received text. It is catalogued in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng immediately after DZ 1 (and near DZ 87 Yuánshǐ wúliàng dùrén shàngpǐn miàojīng sìzhù, Chén Jǐngyuán’s four-commentaries recension of 1067), positioning it squarely within the recitation-support apparatus that accreted around the sixty-one-juan Sòng Dùrén jīng. John Lagerwey’s entry in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) confirms that the glosses are reading aids for the sixty-one-juan scripture and cross-references Michel Strickmann, “The longest Taoist scripture,” History of Religions 17 (1978), 331–354 (at p. 341).
The dating is bracketed only by its subject (the sixty-one-juan version, completed c. 1117–1120) and by the printing of the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (1445). No internal evidence narrows the bracket further. The mixed use of zhíyīn and fǎnqiè is consistent with Sòng and Yuán phonological practice and offers no decisive terminus. The entry is therefore dated here notBefore 1120 / notAfter 1445, with 宋元 given as the conventional dynasty label and uncertainty noted in prose.
The text has no attributed author and no persons are listed in the catalog meta. As a practical liturgical reading aid for the canonical opening scripture of the Daoist canon, it belongs to the same Northern-Sòng Shénxiāo editorial project that produced the sixty-juan expansion of DZ 1 itself, but cannot be more precisely attributed.
Translations and research
No translation or monographic study exists. The text is treated in passing in Michel Strickmann, “The longest Taoist scripture,” History of Religions 17, no. 3/4 (1978), 331–354 (at p. 341), and catalogued in Kristofer Schipper & Franciscus Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (University of Chicago Press, 2004), entry by John Lagerwey on DZ 2 in Vol. 2 adjacent to the sixty-one-juan Dùrén jīng entry. No dedicated study of DZ 2 is known.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0002
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 — DZ 2 entry (John Lagerwey).
- Michel Strickmann, “The longest Taoist scripture,” History of Religions 17 (1978), 331–354.