Shàngqīng sānzūn pǔlù 上清三尊譜錄
Shàngqīng Genealogical Record of [the Affiliation with] the Three Worthies
Anonymous early-Táng or late–Six-Dynasties Shàngqīng 上清 ordination-transmission scripture, twelve folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0164 / CT 164 = TC 164), 洞真部 譜錄類
About the work
A twelve-folio Shàngqīng 上清 / Língbǎo 靈寶 ritual-text setting out the visualization, salutation, and oblation of the Three Worthies (sānzūn 三尊) — the Daoist hypostasis of the Three Jewels (sānbǎo 三寶, Sanskrit triratna), here directly identified with the scriptures of the Three Caverns (sāndòng 三洞). The work belongs — together with [[KR5a1126|DZ 1125 Dòngxuán língbǎo sāndòng fèngdào kējiè yíngshǐ]], DZ 674 Wúshàng sānyuán zhēnzhái línglù, [[KR5a1389|DZ 1388 Shàngqīng jīnzhēn yùhuáng shàngyuán jiǔtiān zhēnlíng sānbǎi liùshíwǔ bù yuánlù]], and [[KR5a1391|DZ 1390 Shàngqīng dòngtiān sānwǔ jīngāng xuánlù yíjīng]] — to the corpus of texts associated with the enigmatic celestial master Jīnmíng qīzhēn 金明七真 (“Seven Perfected of Golden Brightness”), who is understood here as a divine being who descended at the end of the Chìmíng 赤明 era to bring forth the Way of the Three Caverns. The work was compiled and provided with commentary by Jīnmíng’s disciples — Xūhuáng dàojūn 虛皇道君, Xūwú zhēnrén 虛無真人, Jiǔtiān zhàngrén 九天丈人, and others (10b) — figures said themselves to have already transcended the historical-terrestrial sphere. The text gives the secret names, vestments, retinues, and dwelling-palaces of three “transmission-masters” (dùshī 度師): (1) Shàngxuán zhēnmíng dàojūn 上玄真明道君 (= Yuánshǐ shàng huáng zhàngrén 元始上皇丈人), (2) Wúshàng xuánlǎo 無上玄老 (= Gāoshàng jiǔtiān tàishàng zhēnwáng 高上九天太上真王), and (3) the present-time master Jīnmíng qīzhēn himself; each section closes with a vow (祝) and a prescription that the adept “salute three times in the heart” while visualizing the master in the indicated palace. A second part (Xù jīnmíng xuányīng pǐn 序金明玄應品) treats the cosmology of the Jīnmíng revelation: the Daoist sacred geographies of Dòngluó fúguāng tōngfàn tiān 洞羅浮廣通梵天, Jīnmíng yùguó 金明玉國, Dòngmíng yùtái 洞明玉臺, and Língdū dòngzhōng 靈都洞中, each glossed by an attendant Perfected (Xūwú zhēnrén 虛無真人 most often).
Prefaces
The text opens directly with the genealogical record itself, with only an internal frame-narrative spoken by Xūwú zhēnrén 虛無真人 (“My master Jīnmíng came of old in response to the calendrical cycle of Chìmíng”). The closing colophon (10b) explains that the text was transmitted on the express command of Jīnmíng to the disciples Xūhuáng dàojūn, Xūwú zhēnrén, Jiǔtiān zhàngrén, and others, with the instruction to “record this [as a treatise] for posterity” — and that the commentator (the work’s gloss-writer, signing himself as having “narrowed his vision to a tube” — 管窺) inscribed the present record for transmission.
Abstract
Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:454–455 (§2.B.1, the General Liturgical Organization of the Táng), groups the work with DZ 1125 (Jīnmíng qīzhēn’s main work, the Sāndòng fèngdào kējiè) as part of an interrelated corpus that “sets the standard for the integral, hierarchically structured system of Daoism” of the Táng. Yoshioka Yoshitoyo, on internal evidence (especially dates given in DZ 1388), argued for c. 552; Ōfuchi Ninji preferred c. mid-seventh century; Cedzich and the consensus position favour the early Táng (c. 600–700) on the basis that none of the Jīnmíng-corpus texts plays any role in DZ 1125 Fèngdào kējiè despite their thematic interlock, suggesting they slightly postdate that principal work. Information about Jīnmíng qīzhēn in DZ 446 Shàngqīng zhōngjīng zhū zhēnshèng bì 7.11a–b appears to be drawn from the present text (3b). The intention of the work — to confirm Jīnmíng qīzhēn as the divine ancestor of the Daoism of the Three Caverns — is clearly registered in its central commentarial framing. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 600 / notAfter 700.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, “Shangqing sanzun pulu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.1, 454–455. On Jīnmíng qīzhēn and his corpus see Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡義豐, “Sandō hōdō kakai gihan no seiritsu ni tsuite” 三洞奉道科戒儀範の成立について, in Dōkyō to Bukkyō 道教と佛教 III (Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1976), 75–219; Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾, Tonkō dōkyō: Mokurokuhen 敦煌道經・目錄篇 (Tokyo: Fukutake, 1979), 115ff.; Florian C. Reiter, The Aspirations and Standards of Taoist Priests in the Early T’ang Period (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1998).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0165
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.1, 454–455.