Dòngxuán língbǎo wúliàng dùrén jīng jué yīnyì 洞玄靈寶無量度人經訣音義
Formulas and Glosses on the “Book of Salvation”
early-Táng Daoist ritual and philological companion to the Dùrén jīng 度人經 by Zhāng Wànfú 張萬福 (fl. 713), nine folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0096 / CT 96 = TC 95), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A nine-folio Daoist ritual-and-philological commentary on the Dùrén jīng 度人經 (DZ 1) by Zhāng Wànfú 張萬福 (fl. 713) — one of the most consequential early-Táng Daoist liturgists. Zhāng quotes from a number of ancient Língbǎo scriptures on how to recite the Dùrén jīng and how to meditate on specific parts of it. The text (7b–9a) gives not only the pronunciation of certain terms but also their meaning — combining what would later be separated as jué 訣 (“ritual formula”) and yīnyì 音義 (“phonetic gloss and meaning”) into a single integrated apparatus.
The work opens with directions for preliminary ritual: “Whoever holds the Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo wúliàng shí bù zūnjīng should perform three obeisances to the east, stand facing north, turn left to face east, clap the teeth thirty-six times, visualize five-coloured clouds filling the room, and see the green dragon, white tiger, lion, dark-warrior, red bird, and phoenix guarding [him] fore and aft…” — providing the canonical Dùrén jīng recitation-protocol that governs the scripture’s use through the Táng and Sòng.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the ritual-instructions.
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:332 (§2.A.1.e, “Commentaries on Lingbao Scriptures”), dates the work to Zhāng Wànfú’s floruit (c. 713). The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 700 / notAfter 730, with dynasty 唐. Zhāng Wànfú is the sole catalog-meta person wikilinked.
Translations and research
No complete translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Dongxuan lingbao wuliang duren jingjue yinyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.1.e, 332. For Zhāng Wànfú more broadly: Charles D. Benn, The Cavern-Mystery Transmission: A Taoist Ordination Rite of A.D. 711 (University of Hawai’i Press, 1991), which treats Zhāng’s liturgical role; Schipper’s entries on Zhāng’s several liturgical-and-commentarial works in Schipper & Verellen (2004).
Other points of interest
Zhāng Wànfú’s commentary is the single earliest extant Daoist commentary on the Dùrén jīng — preceding Chén Jǐngyuán’s Sìzhù (DZ 87) by over three centuries — and establishes both the ritual-protocol and the phonetic-philological apparatus that will underlie all subsequent Dùrénjīng interpretation. Its integrated juéyīnyì format is itself a Táng innovation that is later separated into distinct commentarial modes.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0096
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.1.e, 332 — DZ 95 (TC) / KR5a0096 (Kanripo) entry (Kristofer Schipper).