Tàishàng zhūtiān língshū dùmìng miàojīng 太上諸天靈書度命妙經
Marvellous Scripture of Salvation in the Numinous Writing of the Numerous Heavens
an early-Língbǎo gǔjīng 古經 scripture of c. 400 CE, nineteen folios, corresponding to number 16 of Lù Xiūjìng’s Língbǎo jīngmù 靈寶經目 (437), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0023 / CT 23), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A short scripture framed as the revelation of Yuánshǐ tiānzūn 元始天尊 at the Dàfútáng guó 大福堂國 (“Land of the Great Good-Fortune Hall”), in the Chánglè shè 長樂舍 (“Dwelling of Eternal Joy”), to Tàishàng Dàojūn 太上道君 and an assembly of flying-sky shénwáng 神王 (“divine kings”). Tiānzūn asks whether in the Dàfútáng guó — a paradisiacal realm whose inhabitants have not experienced mourning or aging for seven and a half million kalpas — any lament or cry is ever heard. Dàojūn replies: no. Tiānzūn then laughs, emits a five-colour radiance from his mouth, and discloses that the Língbǎo zhēnwén 靈寳真文 — the foundational True Writs of DZ 22 — have sustained even this paradise’s immunity to suffering, and that the scripture is now revealed to extend this salvation-guarantee to the peoples of remote border regions to whom no prior revelation had reached.
The scripture concludes with four stanzas addressed to the Sìtiān dìwáng 四天帝王 — the Four Heavenly Rulers of the cardinal directions — which constitute the “core of the revelation” (Cedzich, in Schipper & Verellen 2004, 1:230–231). The stanzas promise that when the mythical Lónghàn 龍漢 epoch renews itself, lesser teachings — the dǎoyǐn 導引 gymnastics, yǎngshēng 養生 cultivation, the Tàiqīng 太清 talismans-and-diagrams, the Tàipíng dàojīng 太平道經 — will perish, while the Three-Cavern Língbǎo scriptures shall outlast all cosmic catastrophes.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the Dàfútángguó revelation-scene and closes with the four Sìtiān dìwáng stanzas.
Abstract
The scripture is one of the early-Língbǎo gǔjīng 古經 corpus. Its dating and attribution follow the same framework as DZ 22: composed c. 395–402 within the ancestral-Língbǎo revelations redacted by Gě Cháofǔ 葛巢甫 at Jùróng 句容, and listed as number 16 in Lù Xiūjìng’s 陸修靜 Língbǎo jīngmù 靈寶經目 (437). Citations in the late-sixth-century Wúshàng bìyào 無上秘要 (WSBY), the early-Táng Sāndòng zhūnáng 三洞珠囊 (SDZN), and the Buddhist Xiàodào lùn 笑道論 (9.150b, compared with our text 14b–15a) confirm the sixth-to-seventh-century circulation of the text, although some cited passages are considerably abridged and carry variant readings. Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:230–231, places the text among the foundational Lingbao scriptures. The frontmatter accordingly brackets composition notBefore 395 / notAfter 402, with dynasty 東晉.
The scripture is accompanied in the Daozang by a Táng-era commentary, [[KR5a0098|DZ 98 Zhūtiān língshū dùmìng miàojīng yìshū 諸天靈書度命妙經義疏]], which offers a free philosophical interpretation with “strong Buddhist overtones” on the relative-and-illusory nature of even paradisiacal happiness, and their overcoming through zhēnxìng 真性 (“true nature”) and dàomìng 道命 (“original destination”).
No author is attributed; no persons are listed in the catalog meta.
Translations and research
No complete translation. Standard scholarly entry: Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, “Taishang zhutian lingshu duming miaojing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.B.3 (early Lingbao scriptures), 230–231. For the Táng commentary DZ 98, see Cedzich’s separate entry at 1:— (adjacent to commentaries on Lingbao texts). Bokenkamp, “Sources of the Ling-pao Scriptures,” in Tantric and Taoist Studies II (IBEO, 1983), and Early Daoist Scriptures (California, 1997), provide the foundational analysis of the early-Lingbao corpus to which the text belongs; Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾, Shoki no dōkyō (Sōbunsha, 1991), and Wáng Chéngwén 王承文, Dūnhuáng gǔ língbǎo jīng yǔ Jìn-Táng dàojiào 敦煌古靈寶經與晉唐道教 (Zhōnghuá shūjú, 2002), situate it in the wider early-Lingbao context.
Other points of interest
The scripture’s doctrinal move — to include the peoples of remote border regions in the scheme of universal salvation under the guarantee of the Língbǎo zhēnwén — is an important primary witness for the early-Língbǎo universalist soteriology, extending to geographical rather than merely ontological peripheries. It complements the Dùrén jīng’s 度人經 (DZ 1 juan 1) claim of salvation across the ontological Sānjiè 三界 (Three Realms) with a geographical claim of salvation across cultural-ethnographic peripheries, thereby assembling the full Daoist universalist doctrine that was to underwrite the tradition through the Táng.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0023
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.B.3, 230–231 — DZ 23 entry (Ursula-Angelika Cedzich).