Tàishàng kāimíng tiāndì běnzhēn jīng 太上開明天地本真經
Scripture of the Most High on Elucidating the Original Truth of Heaven and Earth
short SòngYuán syncretic three-teachings scripture, four folios, transmitted under the authority of a “Rénshòu 人壽, Méishān Master Who Penetrates the Mystery of the Three Teachings,” preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0034 / CT 34), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A four-folio scripture of the sānjiào 三教 (“Three Teachings” — Daoism, Confucianism, Buddhism) syncretic tradition, transmitted under the authority of an otherwise unrecorded figure styled Rénshòu 人壽, “Méishān [zhě] tōngxuán sānjiào zhǔ” 眉山通玄三教主 (“Méishān Master Who Penetrates the Mystery of the Three Teachings”). The text begins with a cosmological and anthropological argument: humanity once possessed an original truth (本真) in the Dào, which it lost through the development of knowledge (智識). In response, the Sānjiào were born — each with its special area of competence (morality, dialectics, gōngfū 功夫 alchemy) but each claiming to “embrace Heaven and Earth” in its teaching. The present age has, however, lost even the Three Teachings’ original truths. It is therefore the task of those who would “penetrate the Mystery of the Three Teachings” to kāimíng 開明 (“elucidate”), out of compassion for the living and the dead, that there is no Heaven higher than human nature (xìng 性) and no Earth more stable than the human heart (xīn 心). All paths to salvation depend on the body; to recover the zhēnyuán 真原 one must “recite the True Book that is hidden from human eyes” — which in practice requires finding a “superior man” (shàngshì 上士) to transmit “the way of the scriptures” orally and by heart-seal (xīnyìn 心印), for “the True Book of the Great Way depends on oral transmission and the seal of the heart.”
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the Dào-speech-framed exposition.
Abstract
The scripture is anonymous in the sense that Rénshòu 人壽 is a fictional honorific “three-teachings master” figure; it is undated. John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:— (entry on DZ 34), notes its adoption of Neo-Confucian vocabulary (xìng 性, xīn 心) and its xīnyìn 心印 (“heart-seal”) idiom — both characteristic of Sòng and Yuán three-teachings syncretism, directly continuous with the Chán-Daoist-Neo-Confucian synthetic literature of Shào Yōng 邵雍’s, ChéngZhū 程朱, and LùWáng 陸王 era. The gōngfū 功夫 technical-term usage is likewise diagnostic of SòngYuán date. The Méishān 眉山 reference may allude to the Sichuan county famous as the home of the Sū 蘇 family (Sū Xún 蘇洵, Sū Shì 蘇軾, Sū Chè 蘇轍), suggesting a notional Sòng-Sichuan provenance, though this is a mise-en-scène device rather than a real localisation. The frontmatter accordingly brackets composition notBefore 1200 / notAfter 1400, with dynasty 宋—元. No author is wikilinked (Rénshòu is not a historical person).
Translations and research
No translation or dedicated study. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Taishang kaiming tiandi benzhen jing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 — DZ 34 entry. For the Sòng-Yuán sānjiào syncretic doctrinal literature: Timothy Brook, “Rethinking Syncretism: The Unity of the Three Teachings and Their Joint Worship in Late-Imperial China,” Journal of Chinese Religions 21 (1993), 13–44; Judith Berling, The Syncretic Religion of Lin Chao-en (Columbia, 1980), for the later Míng trajectory of which DZ 34 is an early-stage specimen.
Other points of interest
The scripture is a clean example of SòngYuán Daoist three-teachings syncretic prose-scripture: the doctrinal framework adopts Neo-Confucian anthropology (xìng / xīn), the transmission-idiom adopts Chán-Buddhist formulae (xīnyìn), and the scriptural frame adopts the Daoist Tàishàng title. The fusion is declared programmatic: the true Daoist scripture is preserved in an oral, heart-to-heart transmission within the lineage of those who have mastered all three teachings.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0034
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 — DZ 34 entry (John Lagerwey).