Yuánshǐ shuō gōngdé fǎshí wǎngshēng jīng 元始說功德法食往生經
Scripture on the Merit of Effecting Rebirth by Ritual Distribution of Food, Spoken by [the Heavenly Worthy of] Primordial Beginning
Sòng Daoist Pǔdù 普度 ritual-food distribution scripture, three folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0076 / CT 76), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A three-folio Daoist scripture on the salvational importance of donating food (fǎshí 法食) for the souls of the deceased, enabling them to leave hell. The Dàcí dàhuì zhēnrén 大慈大慧真人 (“Perfected of Great Compassion and Great Wisdom”) asks by what means the souls suffering in hell may be saved. Yuánshǐ tiānzūn replies in the form of gāthās: the dead who are ritually nourished will be reborn in Heaven, and the merits of such food-distribution are boundless. The gāthās are reproduced in [[KR5a0547|DZ 547 Língbǎo yùjiàn 靈寶玉鑑]] both as invocations with associated magic characters and pseudo-Sanskrit secret formulas (36.8a, 36.10a–b) and in the context of the rite for the transformation of ritual food (biànhuà fǎshí 變化法食; 17a).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source.
Abstract
Hans-Hermann Schmidt, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:985 (§3.B.3, Língbǎo), identifies the scripture as part of today’s Pǔdù 普度 (Universal Salvation) ritual in Taiwan (cf. Kristofer Schipper, “Táiwān zhī dàojiào wénxiàn” 臺灣之道教文獻, 178). Its integration into the Língbǎo yùjiàn ritual-compendium of the late Sòng fixes its Sòng-era use, while the gōngdé fǎshí wǎngshēng vocabulary — Mahāyāna-calqued merit-transfer-for-rebirth doctrine in Daoist ritual frame — is characteristic of Sòng Daoist soul-salvation. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1100 / notAfter 1279, with dynasty 宋. No author is attributed.
Translations and research
No complete translation. Standard scholarly entry: Hans-Hermann Schmidt, “Yuanshi shuo gongde fashi wangsheng jing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.3, 985. On the Pǔdù ritual: Kristofer Schipper, “Tái-wān zhī dàojiào wénxiàn” 臺灣之道教文獻 (article, 1966); John Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (Macmillan, 1987).
Other points of interest
The scripture is a foundational text of modern Daoist Universal-Salvation Pǔdù liturgy, continuously recited in Taiwanese and Fujianese temple practice from the Sòng to the present. Its biànhuà fǎshí 變化法食 doctrine of the ritual transformation of offering-food into spiritually efficacious “dharma-food” is a direct Daoist parallel to the Mahāyāna āhāra-buḥūta 食體 transformation-ritual, and one of the clearest specimens of Sòng Daoist-Buddhist ritual-conceptual integration.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0076
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.3, 985 — DZ 76 entry (H.-H. Schmidt).