上方天尊說真元通仙道經

Shàngfāng tiānzūn shuō zhēnyuán tōngxiān dàojīng 上方天尊說真元通仙道經

Scripture of the Way on the [Deity of the] True Origin Who Attained Immortality, Spoken by the Heavenly Worthy of the High Regions

Míng-dynasty Daoist-Confucian syncretic scripture in three chapters (piān 篇), twenty-two folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0057 / CT 57), 洞真部 本文類

About the work

A twenty-two-folio Daoist scripture divided into three piān 篇 (“chapters”):

1. Tàijí jiàngdé shàngpiān 太極降德上篇 (“Revelation of the Virtue of the Highest Ultimate”): this describes the hierophany of Shàngfāng tiānzūn 上方天尊 as born from the Zhēnyuán hàohào yīqì 真元浩浩一氣 (“Very Great One Pneuma of the True Origin”). At the beginning, Shàngfāng tiānzūn pronounces the Shí hào 十號 (“Ten Names”) of the supreme deities of the universe.
2. Dé guī sùwú 德歸素無 (“Virtue’s Return to Simplicity and the Void”; 5a): this piān advocates the sānfēn zhī diǎn 三墳之典 — the union of all Daoist scriptures of the canon with the classics of Confucianism.
3. Zhēnyuán tōngxiān 真元通仙 (“The God of True Origin’s Attainment of Immortality”): this narrates the revelation of cosmic texts (zhāng 章) written in “cloud-seal” (yúnzhuàn 雲篆) characters as instruments for salvation.

An appendix (16a–21a) contains ritual-practice instructions attributed to a Master Shī of the Highest Purity (Tàiqīng Shīgōng 太清施公) — perhaps referring to Shī Yǒng 施永, zì Yàomín 堯民, hào Xiāoyáo 逍遙. The ritual practices are two: recitation of the Ten Names, and invocation of protective deities by writing cloud-seal characters on paper on given days and making fúshuǐ 符水 (“charm-water”) with them.

Prefaces

No prefaces in the source, though an appended ritual-instruction section attributed to Master Shī serves a preface-like framing function.

Abstract

Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1218–1219 (§3.B.13, “The Zhenyuan Scriptures”), dates the scripture to the Míng on the basis of its characteristic Míng-era Daoist-Confucian syncretic doctrinal vocabulary — especially the programmatic advocacy of “union of the two” (Confucian and Daoist) scriptures under the sānfēn zhī diǎn 三墳之典 rubric — and its association with the Míng Xuántiān shàngdì cult-apparatus and related texts (e.g. DZ 995 Yuányuán dàomiào dòngzhēn jí piān). The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1368 / notAfter 1644, with dynasty 明. No author is attributed.

Translations and research

No translation or dedicated study. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Shangfang tianzun shuo zhenyuan tongxian daojing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.13, 1218–1219. For the Zhēnyuán scripture cluster more broadly see Schipper 2:1217–1221 (“The Zhenyuan Scriptures”).

Other points of interest

The scripture’s combining of a divine hierophany-narrative with a programmatic Daoist-Confucian ecumenical claim (the Dé guī sùwú chapter) is a signature feature of Míng Daoist scripture-writing; the integration of practical fúshuǐ ritual instructions as an appendix supplies the working liturgical basis for lay devotional deployment.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5a0057
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.13, 1218–1219 — DZ 57 entry (Kristofer Schipper).