Tàishàng dòngyuān Běidì Tiānpéng hùmìng xiāozāi shénzhòu miàojīng 太上洞淵北帝天蓬護命消災神咒妙經
Marvellous Book of Divine Incantations of Tiānpéng, for Protecting Life and Abolishing Disasters, a Most High Dòngyuān Canon Spoken by the Emperor of the North
late-Táng eschatological scripture of the Běidì 北帝 / Tiānpéng 天蓬 exorcistic-apocalyptic tradition, seven folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0053 / CT 53), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A seven-folio eschatological scripture that advocates the exorcistic rites of the Běidì 北帝 (Emperor of the North) and the Tiānpéng 天蓬 incantation tradition, in the voice of Yuánshǐ tiānzūn. The Běidì demon-slaying method (Běidì shā guǐ zhī fǎ 北帝殺鬼之法) is found in early Shàngqīng literature — e.g. [[KR5a1016|DZ 1016 Zhēngào 真誥]] 10.10a–11b, 15.1a–4b, [[KR5a0421|DZ 421 Dēngzhēn yǐnjué 登真隱訣]] 2.11a–13b, [[KR5a0140|DZ 140 Shàngqīng wòzhōngjué 上清握中訣]] 2.17a–18b — and consists primarily in calling out the names of the Six Heavenly Palaces of Fēngdū 酆都 in order to marshal the demon-killing armies, and in reciting the famous Tiānpéng zhòu 天蓬咒. The apocalyptic background of the present scripture is marked: traditional virtues have vanished, bandits and demons afflict people, wild animals and natural calamities cause injury and death, the number of victims of official exactions increases, the mingling of the living with the dead and the spread of the demon-forces of the Six Heavens signal the approach of the Sānzāi 三災 (“Three Catastrophes”) and the impending end of the kalpa. Only zhāi retreats and recitation of the names of the heavenly palaces, together with the Tiānpéng zhòu, can save the faithful.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source.
Abstract
Christine Mollier, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:511–512 (§2.B.6, “Dongyuan and Shengxuan Scriptures and Rituals”), dates the text to the late Táng. The Tiānpéng zhòu was revealed, according to Tao Hongjing’s commentary in DZ 1016 Zhēngào 11b, to Yáng Xī 楊羲 in the original Shàngqīng revelations; but the present scripture inherits the Tiānpéng incantation from an older and independent liturgical tradition (cf. [[KR5a0049|DZ 49 Dòngzhēn tàijí Běidì zǐwēi shénzhòu miàojīng]] above) rather than from the Shàngqīng direct. The text’s apocalyptic vocabulary (sānzāi, jiémò 劫末) places it within the late-Táng eschatological stratum. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 800 / notAfter 907, with dynasty 唐後期. No author is attributed.
Translations and research
Christine Mollier, “La méthode de l’empereur du nord,” Bulletin de l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 79 (1992), 221–252, is the definitive study of the Běidì exorcistic tradition. Standard scholarly entry: Christine Mollier, “Taishang dongyuan beidi tianpeng huming xiaozai shenzhou miaojing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.6, 511–512. See also Mollier, Une apocalypse taoïste du Ve siècle (De Boccard, 1990) on the wider Shénzhòu 神咒 corpus.
Other points of interest
The scripture is an important primary witness to the late-Táng integration of the Shàngqīng Tiānpéng incantation-tradition with the Dòngyuān 洞淵 eschatological-apocalyptic corpus, producing a specifically exorcistic-apocalyptic text that bridges the older Shàngqīng visualisation-and-invocation ritual and the later Sòng Thunder-rite tradition.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0053
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.6, 511–512 — DZ 53 entry (Christine Mollier).