Gāoshàng Yùhuáng běnxíng jíjīng (yī) 高上玉皇本行集經(一)
Collected Scripture of the Original Conduct of the Supreme Jade Emperor, Part 1 (Běnwén 本文 Scripture)
anonymous late-Southern-Sòng Qīngwēi-school 清微 scripture of the Jade Emperor cult, three juan in five sections (品), the běnwén 本文 “fundamental scripture” of the Yùhuáng 玉皇 complex preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0010 / CT 10), 洞真部 本文類; paired in the Daozang with DZ 11 (the attributed-to-Zhāng-Liáng commentary) and in the Dàozàng jíyào 道藏輯要 combined as JY088
About the work
A three-juan five-section scripture on the origin and transformative activity of Yùhuáng 玉皇 (“The Jade Emperor”), the supreme deity of popular and late-imperial Daoism. The scripture is set in the Qīngwēi 清微 heaven — the highest of the Three Pure Realms and the seat of the Qīngwēi-school pantheon — where Yuánshǐ tiānzūn 元始天尊 preaches the “pure, untainted, non-dual doctrine” (清淨真一不二法門) to an assembly including Yùhuáng himself. Yùhuáng then multiplies his body to address all regions of the cosmos, recombines, and narrates his own cosmic biography: his origin as an avatar of the Most High Dàojūn 道君, his 3,200 kalpa cultivation, his ascent to the rank of Golden Immortal (金仙) under the Mahāyāna title Rúlái 如來 (“King of Pure and Spontaneous Awakening,” 淨覺自然王如來), and his consequent teaching of the true dàshèng 大乘 doctrine to the host of bodhisattvas. The text concludes with an enumeration of the thirty wondrous merits attendant upon reverent recitation — including the destruction of the Tiěwéi 鐵圍 iron-ringed hells, the abolition of the sea of suffering, the breaking of the great prisons, the subjugation of evil mó 魔 demons, and thirty blessings ranging from “praise by the host of immortals” to “ascent in broad daylight.”
Structurally the three juan are divided into five pǐn: 清微天宮神通品 (“The Miracles of the Qīngwēi Heavenly Palace”), the scripture’s opening and revelation-scene, and four further sections treating the Jade Emperor’s past lives, cosmic preaching, salvational power, and the merits of recitation. Juan 2 contains an embedded revelation of the Língbǎo chìshū yùpiān zhēnwén 靈寶赤書玉篇真文 (“True Writs in Vermilion Writing on Jade Tablets”) drawn directly from [[KR5a0022|DZ 22 Yuánshǐ wǔlǎo chìshū yùpiān zhēnwén tiānshū jīng 元始五老赤書玉篇真文天書經]], integrating the Jade Emperor cult textually with the early Língbǎo corpus.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The received Daozang recension preserves the scripture alone, without the 1240 Hangzhou imprint-preface by Chéng Gōngxǔ 程公許 (jìnshì 1211) recorded in the Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志 “Fùzhì” 附志 (1249, at entry 1161). The Chéng Gōngxǔ preface would have given the direct textual witness for the Sichuan-origin ( Shǔběn 蜀本) text-history, but is lost. Each juan opens directly with the revelation frame.
Abstract
The Yùhuáng běnxíng jíjīng was not in circulation before the thirteenth century. The earliest documentary anchor is the bibliographical entry in the Fùzhì 附志 (1249) supplement to Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志 (item 1161), which records an edition printed in 1240 by the Chéngtiān língyìng guàn 承天靈應觀 in Hángzhōu, itself based on a Sichuan recension (蜀本), with a preface by Chéng Gōngxǔ 程公許 (jìnshì 1211). The Chéngtiān língyìng guàn is recorded in Xiánchún Lín’ān zhì 咸淳臨安志 75.8a; it was a cult-centre dedicated to Zǐtóng dìjūn 梓潼帝君 (i.e. Wénchāng 文昌) and received its name in 1236. Quotations of the scripture appear in a number of Yuán-era Daoist works, notably DZ 103 Yùqīng wújí zǒngzhēn Wénchāng dàdòng xiānjīng zhù 5.17a, 25b (Wèi Qí, 1310 — the commentary on DZ 5).
Kristofer Schipper’s entry in The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1097, §3.B.7 (“The Qingwei School”), identifies the Yùhuáng jīng as a scripture of the Qīngwēi 清微 school — the late-Sòng / Yuán Daoist movement that treated itself as successor to the Shénxiāo 神霄 and developed Thunder-rite (léifǎ 雷法) liturgies. Although the Yùhuáng jīng itself does not mention the Qīngwēi school by name, the related Gāoshàng Yùhuáng mǎnyuàn bǎozhàn 高上玉皇滿願寳懺 (DZ 194) explicitly invokes the Qīngwēi patriarchs, securing the affiliation. The extent to which the Yùhuáng jīng may be a reconstitution of the lost early-Língbǎo Língbǎo zhēnwén dùrén běnxíng miàojīng 靈寳真文度人本行妙經 (Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, p. 265) is difficult to determine.
The frontmatter brackets the composition notBefore 1180 (latest plausible late-Southern-Sòng window, consistent with both the undated textual anchor and the Qīngwēi-school chronology) / notAfter 1240 (the Hangzhou printing), with dynasty 南宋. The catalog meta lists no attributed author for DZ 10; persons is accordingly empty. (The DZ 11 commentary is spuriously attributed to Zhāng Liáng 張良, d. 187 BCE — see KR5a0011.)
Translations and research
No complete translation exists. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Gaoshang yuhuang benxing jijing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2, §3.B.7, 1096–1097 (the school introduction) and 1097 (the DZ 10 entry). The wider Jade-Emperor cult has received monographic treatment in: Paul R. Katz, Religion in China and Its Modern Fate (Brandeis University Press, 2014), with substantial earlier work in his Demon Hordes and Burning Boats: The Cult of Marshal Wen in Late Imperial Chekiang (SUNY Press, 1995); Lennert Gesterkamp, The Heavenly Court: Daoist Temple Painting in China, 1200–1400 (Brill, 2011), for the Jade Emperor in iconography. Matsumoto Kōichi 松本浩一, Sōdai no dōkyō to minkan shinkō 宋代の道教と民間信仰 (Kyūko Shoin, 2006), treats the Sòng-dynasty formation of the cult.
The Qīngwēi school’s own scriptural and ritual corpus, including the Yùhuáng jīng, is treated in Lǔ Guólóng 盧國龍, Zhōngguó zhòngxuán xué 中國重玄學 (Rénmín Zhōngguó chūbǎnshè, 1993), and in the entries of the Zhōnghuá Dàojiào dà cídiǎn 中華道教大辭典 (Zhōngguó shèhuì kēxué chūbǎnshè, 1995).
Other points of interest
The Yùhuáng běnxíng jíjīng is the most-recited scripture of the Jade Emperor cult through the Yuán, Míng, and Qīng and into the twentieth century; modern popular Daoist temple editions of the text — the Yùhuáng jīng 玉皇經 — descend directly from this Sòng recension. The text’s placement at DZ 10 in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng reflects its canonical importance in the Míng editorial conception: immediately after the core Shàngqīng and Língbǎo scriptures (DZ 1–9) stands the scripture of the Jade Emperor as supreme deity of popular worship — a placement that consolidated, editorially, the Jade Emperor’s displacement of more archaic deities from the centre of the canon.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0010
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.7, 1096–1097 — DZ 10 entry (Kristofer Schipper).