元始無量度人上品妙經註

Yuánshǐ wúliàng dùrén shàngpǐn miàojīng zhù 元始無量度人上品妙經註

Commentary on the “Wondrous Scripture of the Upper Chapters on Limitless Salvation”

late-Southern-Sòng / Yuán body-visualisation commentary on the Dùrén jīng 度人經 by Dōnghǎi Qīngyuán zhēnrén 東海青元真人, with hymns by Qīnghé lǎorén 清河老人 and editorial eulogies by Jìngmíng dàozǐ Guō Wǎngfèng 靜明道子郭罔鳳, three juan, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0088 / CT 88), 洞真部 本文類

About the work

A three-juan commentary on the original one-juan Dùrén jīng 度人經 (= juan 1 of DZ 1) by the otherwise-unknown Dōnghǎi Qīngyuán zhēnrén 東海青元真人 (“Perfected of Green Origin from the Eastern Sea”), preserved together with hymns by Qīnghé lǎorén 清河老人 (“Elder of Qīnghé”) and editorial eulogies by Jìngmíng dàozǐ Guō Wǎngfèng 靜明道子郭罔鳳 (hào Jìngmíng dàozǐ 靜明道子). Qīnghé lǎorén, in an undated preface, states that he decided to publish Qīngyuán’s commentary because it represented a “breakthrough” in the understanding of the Dùrén jīng. A short postface — presumably added by Guō Wǎngfèng — contains five efficacy-tales of Dùrénjīng recitation, dated between 1174 and 1204.

Judith Boltz dates the text to the late thirteenth century on the grounds that the district of Qīnghé 清河 (in Huáiān 淮安 prefecture, Jiāngsū) was created around 1270 (Survey of Taoist Literature, 328, n. 572); she notes that Dōnghǎi 東海 was also in the same prefecture. Thus Qīngyuán, Qīnghé lǎorén, and Guō Wǎngfèng were all Huáiān-area Daoists of the late Southern Sòng / early Yuán. Qīngyuán’s version of the Dùrén jīng includes not only the standard Yuánshǐ língshū shàng/xiàpiān and the hymn of Tàijí zhēnrén found in the Shénxiāo edition (DZ 1, 1.15a–16a, 18a–20b) but also a “fourth” Yuánshǐ língshū, the Shàngpiān lóngzhāng fèngzhuàn wén 上篇龍章鳳篆文 (3.22b–23b) — an editorial peculiarity shared only with Chén Guānwú’s 陳觀吾 1336 recension (DZ 91).

Qīngyuán’s interpretive key is the linking of each element of the scripture to an aspect of the Daoist body: the three categories of listeners in the Heavenly Court are identified with jīng 精, qì 氣, and shén 神 in the body (1.5b); the chariots of the gods are “the product of the yáng-essence,” the dragons and birds “born of the qì of the yīn-essence,” and the saint creates them by breathing in and out (2.12b–13a); the fú and registers held by Tàokāng 陶康 represent the qì and the blood (3.8a). The text is rich in allusions to Daoist practice and imagination: a form of “corpse-liberation by suicide” (1.24b); the redemptive mechanism of scripture recitation (1.27b–28a); the comparison of celestial writs composed of qì with “traces of ink,” their poor terrestrial cousins (2.6a); the Yùjīng shān 玉京山 as the celestial origin of the Dùrén jīng, linked to Kūnlún 崑崙 here below (2.9a); references to xìngmìng 性命 (1.10b); and the demonstrative zhègè 這箇 (a Sòng vernacular diagnostic, 1.7b).

Guō Wǎngfèng’s editorial comments make frequent use of the concept of xìngmìng (1.3a, 1.16a, 3.44b) and refer often to Confucian (1.3a, 1.16b) and Buddhist (especially juan 2) texts. Guō states himself (2.35a) that while Qīngyuán insists on inner work (nèigōng 內功) and outer practice (wàixíng 外行), he is primarily interested in comparing Daoist and Buddhist texts. He uses [[KR5a0318|DZ 318 Dòngxuán língbǎo zìrán jiǔtiān shēngshén zhāng jīng]] (2.11a, 32b) and [[KR5a0141|DZ 141 Zǐyáng zhēnrén Wùzhēn piān zhùshū]] (3.9b). His hào “Jìngmíng dàozǐ” 靜明道子 identifies him as a member of the Jìngmíng 淨明 school, and he uses [[KR5a0563|DZ 563 Tàishàng língbǎo jìngmíng fēixiān dùrén jīngfǎ]] directly (1.28a ff. = DZ 563 1.17b ff.).

Prefaces

• Preface by Qīnghé lǎorén 清河老人 (undated), announcing the publication of Qīngyuán zhēnrén’s commentary.
• Postface with five efficacy-tales dated 1174–1204, presumably added by Guō Wǎngfèng.

Abstract

John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:713–715 (§3.A.1), and following Judith Boltz, Survey of Taoist Literature: Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries (Berkeley Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987), 328 n. 572, dates the text to the late thirteenth century on the evidence of the Qīnghé toponym. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 1270 / notAfter 1300, with dynasty 元. The three catalog persons are wikilinked.

Translations and research

No complete translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Yuanshi wuliang duren shangpin miaojing zhu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.1, 713–715. Judith Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature (1987), 328 n. 572, is the key note for dating.

Other points of interest

The commentary is the most extensively “body-visualising” of the major Dùrén jīng commentaries: where Chén Jǐngyuán’s Sìzhù presents four distinct commentaries as parallel voices, Qīngyuán’s unified commentary reconstructs every element of the scripture as a component of the internal body — an interpretive strategy that anticipates and influences Yuán and Míng inner-alchemical Dùrén jīng reception.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5a0088
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.1, 713–715 — DZ 88 entry (John Lagerwey).