Tàishàng qiúxiān dìnglù chǐsù zhēnjué yùwén 太上求仙定錄尺素真訣玉文
Precious Writs and True Formulas on Silk-Lengths, Determining the Rank of Those Who Seek Immortality
Six-Dynasties Shàngqīng ordination-transmission document, thirty-one folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0129 / CT 129 = TC 128), 洞真部 本文類
About the work
A thirty-one-folio Six-Dynasties collection of sacred writs from a number of ancient scriptures of the Shàngqīng 上清 and Língbǎo 靈寶 canons, assembled as a document for transmission on ordination and kept (within the fiction of the text) by Xī wángmǔ 西王母, the “Royal Lady, Golden Mother of the Western Fortress.” The head of the text (1a) gives her name as the notional author. At the beginning of the collection is a model certificate for transmission: the ordinand, having already obtained investiture in the sacred liturgy of the Great Sworn Alliance (dàméng shàngshēng língkē 大盟上昇靈科; see [[KR5a1241|DZ 1241 Chuánshòu sāndòng jīngjiè fǎlù lüèshuō]] 1.2a), is now entitled to receive the Secret Characters on the Lengths of Silk (chǐsù mìzì 尺素密字) — implying that transmission of the present collection corresponded to an ordination at the Shàngqīng level.
The hybrid nature of the collection — which includes at 9b–10a the nèiyīn 內音 (“Esoteric Sounds”) of [[KR5a0001|DZ 1 Língbǎo wúliàng dùrén shàngpǐn miàojīng]] — makes it unlikely that this is a product of the Táng Daoist institutions; it is therefore earlier.
Prefaces
Model transmission-certificate at the head of the text.
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:209–210 (§1.B.2, Shàngqīng), dates the text to the Six Dynasties. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 420 / notAfter 589, with dynasty 六朝. No author is attributed.
Translations and research
No translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Taishang qiuxian dinglu chisu zhenjue yuwen,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.B.2, 209–210.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0129
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.B.2, 209–210 — DZ 128 (TC) / KR5a0129 (Kanripo) entry.