Yúnzhuàn dùrén miàojīng 雲篆度人妙經
Marvellous Book of Salvation in Seal Script
Southern-Sòng “cloud-seal script” (yúnzhuàn 雲篆) transcription of the Dùrén jīng 度人經, thirty-five folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0080 / CT 80), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A thirty-five-folio scripture containing a transcription of the Dùrén jīng 度人經 ([[KR5a0001|DZ 1 Línɡbǎo wúliàng dùrén shàngpǐn miàojīng]]) in “cloud-seal” (yúnzhuàn 雲篆) graphs — a decorative-talismanic seal-script that renders the scripture’s text into a form resembling celestial sigils. This transcription-practice was “very popular” during the Southern Sòng (1127–1279); Jīn Yǔnzhōng 金允中 criticises the practice at length in [[KR5a1223|DZ 1223 Shàngqīng língbǎo dàfǎ]] 10.7b: “In this fashion, people make a seal out of every eight characters in the text. Thus, there is extant a ‘celestial seal-character’ (tiānzhuàn 天篆) Dùrén jīng, and it would be possible to transcribe the entire text into innumerable seals.” Indeed, the Tiāntāi Língbǎo dàfǎ 天台靈寶大法 school did precisely that (see [[KR5a0219|DZ 219 Língbǎo wúliàng dùrén shàngjīng dàfǎ]] 5–7).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source.
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1102–1103 (§3.B.7, “The Qingwei School”), identifies the Yúnzhuàn dùrén miàojīng as a Southern-Sòng transcription-practice specimen. One of the chief functions of the seal in Taoism is to summon spiritual beings; in [[KR5a0563|DZ 563 Tàishàng língbǎo jìngmíng fēixiān dùrén jīngfǎ]] 1.6a, for example, writ in celestial seal-characters is described as a kind of “true writ for summoning the spirits of the Ten Directions.” The characters that most closely resemble those in the present text are found in [[KR5a0223|DZ 223 Qīngwēi yuánjiàng dàfǎ 清微元降大法]] (Grand Method of the Descent from the Primordium of the Supreme Heaven); Lagerwey notes that this resemblance may reveal the scripture’s origin in the Qīngwēi school’s planchette-revelation tradition — the term jiàng 降 (“descent”) being often used with bǐ 筆 (“brush”) to refer to mediumistic writing. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1127 / notAfter 1279, with dynasty 南宋. No author is attributed.
Translations and research
No translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Yunzhuan duren miaojing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.7, 1102–1103. For the yúnzhuàn 雲篆 cloud-seal tradition see Schipper’s work on Daoist talismans, and Despeux & Kohn, Women in Daoism (Three Pines, 2003).
Other points of interest
The scripture is a material witness to a distinctive Southern-Sòng transcription-practice: the foundational Dùrén jīng is “encrypted” into celestial seal-characters, transforming it from a recitable scripture into a talismanic object — a practice critiqued by Jīn Yǔnzhōng as a reduction of scripture to mere spell but defended by its Tiāntāi Língbǎo and Qīngwēi school proponents as revealing the scripture’s true celestial form. This tension reflects an ongoing debate within late-Sòng Daoism about the proper relation between scriptural text and ritual object.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0080
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.7, 1102–1103 — DZ 80 entry (John Lagerwey).