Tàishàng dòngzhēn ānzào jīng 太上洞真安竈經
Scripture of the Most High for the Placation of the Stove-God, from the Dòngzhēn Canon
earliest Daozang scripture of the Stove-God (Zàowáng 竈王 / Chuīmǔ 炊母) cult, two folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0069 / CT 69), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A two-folio Daoist Stove-God cult scripture. During an “audience before the Origin” (cháoyuán 朝元) of all the gods of the Three Worlds, the Mother of the Flames (Chuīmǔ 炊母) presents herself before the cinnabar throne; in her capacity as petty officer of the Emperor of the North (Běidì 北帝), she is a Director of Destiny (Sīmìng 司命) and Commissioned Officer of the Heavenly Offices (zhìjú 職局), whose duty is to supervise all transformations between raw and cooked and to record infractions of the taboos. Each day of the new moon she ascends to Heaven to make her report and “wait for the saintly instructions.”
These instructions are given, in gāthā form, at the end of the scripture: to love oneself means to love the Dào, because the Dào loves life; to worship the Sīmìng ensures peace in the home, because thus “the thousand evil forces have no means of returning.” Before this gāthā, Tàishàng briefly describes the taboos to be observed in front of the hearth and the monthly offerings that should be made to the goddess and to the divine maidens of the Six Guǐ 癸 periods. After the gāthā, all those present promise to “follow forever the instructions of the Saint.”
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source.
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:957–958 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī), reports Robert Chard’s judgment that the text is the oldest of the three Daozang works concerning the Stove-God cult — possibly of Sòng date (960–1279). Chard, “Master of the Family” (PhD thesis, Berkeley, 1995), 217–223, gives a complete résumé of the text. The title’s Dòngzhēn 洞真 designation is no doubt a result of its inclusion in that section of the Míng Daozang rather than of any original Shàngqīng provenance. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 960 / notAfter 1279, with dynasty 宋. No author is attributed.
Translations and research
Robert Chard, “Master of the Family: History and Development of the Chinese Cult to the Stove” (PhD thesis, University of California, Berkeley, 1995), 217–223, provides the principal study and a complete résumé of the text. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Taishang dongzhen anzao jing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 957–958. The companion [[KR5a0364|DZ 364 Tàishàng língbǎo bǔxiè zàowáng jīng]] is a later and more developed Stove-God cult scripture.
Other points of interest
The scripture is one of the earliest Daoist canonical witnesses to the mature Stove-God (Zàowáng) cult that becomes ubiquitous in late-imperial Chinese domestic religion: the Stove-Goddess as Sīmìng 司命 who reports to Heaven on the monthly new-moon — the doctrinal basis for the popular belief that the Kitchen God rises to Heaven at year’s end to report on the household’s conduct — finds here one of its cleanest Daoist scriptural formulations.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0069
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 957–958 — DZ 69 entry (John Lagerwey).
- Robert Chard, “Master of the Family” (PhD thesis, Berkeley, 1995).