Yuánshǐ tiānzūn shuō Fēngdū mièzuì jīng 元始天尊說酆都滅罪經
Scripture of Redemption from Sins in the Netherworld of Fēngdū, Pronounced by Yuánshǐ Tiānzūn
three-folio Daoist scripture on the Ten-Kings cosmology and ritual, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0073 / CT 73), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A three-folio Daoist scripture on ritual measures for the salvation of deceased parents. For a period of two years, while the deceased is brought before the ten judges (Shíwáng 十王) of the netherworld courts, the living accompany the dead by accumulating merits through the performance of rites — Retreats (zhāi 齋), Offerings (jiào 醮), recitation of scriptures. These rites finally cancel the burden of guilt and exempt the deceased from punishment in one of the twenty-four hells situated under Mount Fēngdū 酆都.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source.
Abstract
Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:959–960 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī), treats the scripture within the Daoist Ten-Kings literature. The idea of a bureaucratic otherworldly tribunal with ten courts presided over by ten royal judges originated in a Buddhist-inspired popular milieu in China; the earliest transmitted manuscript of the apocryphal Scripture of the Ten Kings dates from 926, although the belief in the ten kings — and possibly also rituals focusing on them — probably existed considerably earlier. The Dà Táng nèidiǎn lù 大唐內典錄 of 664 lists a Shíwáng zhēngyè jīng 十王證業經 by a monk Fǎyún 法雲 of roughly the same period.
The date of the present Daoist Ten-Kings scripture — which lists new Daoist names for each of the deities, in addition to names borrowed from earlier Buddhist sources — is uncertain. Rituals addressed to the ten otherworldly judges are propagated in some twelfth- and thirteenth-century Daoist liturgical compilations (e.g. [[KR5a1221|DZ 1221 Shàngqīng língbǎo dàfǎ]] 54.19b–20b) but heavily criticised in others (e.g. [[KR5a1223|DZ 1223 Shàngqīng língbǎo dàfǎ]] 44.19a). The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 900 / notAfter 1279, with dynasty 唐—宋. No author is attributed.
Translations and research
Standard scholarly entry: Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, “Yuanshi tianzun shuo Fengdu miezui jing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 959–960. For the Ten-Kings tradition: Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Hawai’i, 1994), the definitive monograph; Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡義豊, “Chūgoku minkan no jigoku jūō” 中國民間の地獄十王, in Dōkyō kenkyū 道教研究 (Shōwa shobō, 1965).
Other points of interest
The scripture provides the Daoist counterpart to the Buddhist Shíwáng jīng 十王經 tradition documented by Teiser, and specifically attaches Daoist divine names to the ten judges — an important witness to the Sòng Daoist appropriation of the Buddhist-derived Ten-Kings cosmology into a specifically Daoist ritual programme.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0073
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 959–960 — DZ 73 entry (U.-A. Cedzich).