Tàishàng zhēnyī bào fùmǔ ēnzhòng jīng 太上真一報父母恩重經
Scripture of the Most High True One for Repaying One’s Debt to One’s Loving Parents
Táng Daoist filial-piety scripture, two folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0065 / CT 65), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A short two-folio Táng Daoist scripture framed as a request by Shàngzhì 上志 that Yuánshǐ tiānzūn expound the filial-piety teaching. Yuánshǐ tiānzūn recalls the heavy debt every human being owes his or her parents, then lists the rituals one may perform in repayment. If one’s parents suffered illness caused by evil demons, one should perform rituals of dàochǎng 道場. After the death of one’s parents, one should begin with the observation of a Retreat (zhāi 齋) of forty-nine days, and then on one’s own birthday remember that it was one’s parents who gave one life. The recitation of the scripture is advocated in [[KR5a1224|DZ 1224 Dàomén dìngzhì 道門定制]] 5.9a.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source.
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:558 (§2.B.7), dates the scripture to the Táng. The forty-nine-day post-mortem Retreat is a standard Táng Daoist-Buddhist practice (paralleling the Buddhist antarābhava forty-nine-day intermediate-state programme). The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 618 / notAfter 907, with dynasty 唐. No author is attributed.
Translations and research
No translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Taishang zhenyi bao fumu enzhong jing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.7, 558.
Other points of interest
The scripture is a Daoist companion to the widely-circulated Buddhist Fùmǔ ēnzhòng jīng 父母恩重經 (“Scripture on the Profound Debt to Father and Mother”), sharing the latter’s theme of the heavy debt of filial piety and adapting the Buddhist genre to the Táng Daoist ritual-repayment programme (Retreats, dàochǎng rituals). The pairing with the Daoist Filial-Piety Way tradition ([[KR5a0066|DZ 66 Chéngdào jīng]] and cognate xiàodào 孝道 scriptures) is systematic.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0065
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.7, 558 — DZ 65 entry (John Lagerwey).