Dòngxuán língbǎo zhēnlíng wèiyè tú 洞玄靈寶真靈位業圖
Table of the Ranks and Functions of the True Numinous Ones in the Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
by 陶弘景 (纂, ca. 500) and 閭丘方遠 (校定, before 893)
About the work
A twenty-nine-folio pantheon-organogram first compiled by Táo Hóngjǐng 陶弘景 (456–536) around 500 CE, preserved here in a Táng recension edited by the Tiāntāi master Lǘqiū Fāngyuǎn 閭丘方遠 (d. 902; edition completed before his move to the Dàdì 大滌 Grotto-Heaven at Hángzhōu in 893). Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0167 / CT 167 = TC 166), 洞真部 譜錄類. The work catalogues the names, ranks, and administrative responsibilities of the denizens of the seven-tier spiritual hierarchy — heaven, the earthly Zhēn 真 officials, the nine palaces (jiǔgōng 九宮), the Tàiqīng 太清 and Tàijí 太極 celestial spheres, and the underworld — giving each a position (left, right, center) relative to the presiding deity of its tier, with Táo’s brief annotations on the provenance and career of individual gods and former historical persons. The work is foundational for the Shàngqīng pantheon but also uses non-Daoist material for former mortals.
Prefaces
Táo’s preface (carried forward by Lǘqiū at the head of the revised edition): “Looking upward to the mirror of the dark essence and observing the magnitude and minuteness of the luminaries, gazing down on the level plain and seeing the heights and depths of crag and sea; investigating the disposition of men and probing the order of court ranks; synthesizing the classics of Heaven and measuring the graded offices of the True Numinous — but when names and titles are obscure or manifest, and studies and appellations shift, within the four palaces the apparent similarities are mixed. Here I now compare them systematically, collate the scriptures, and rank their robes so as to distinguish the high from the low, and to delimit each palace’s territory. Some are single-titled (as ‘Shànghuáng Dàojūn’ or the examples of ‘Five Emperors, Seven Elders’), some are sketched by name only (as ‘Mòyǔ’ or ‘Mèngzhuó’); some share office but differ in rank (‘Jīnquē sìdì’; ‘Tàijí sìzhēn’; the ‘sub-instruction’ series); some have the same career but diverging records (as with the various ‘step-net’ examples); thus Xīlín Zhēnrén is Right Duke of Tàiwēi and also director of Jiǔgōng Shàngxiāng — not fully confirmable, so I say he succeeds to his charge and proceeds to the higher sphere… If one does not know the lineage clearly, it is like a rustic coming to court, mistaking every red-robed man for a lìng shǐ, or a Koguryŏ tribesman coming to the Central Kingdom and calling everyone a cānjūn — how can he distinguish gentleman from commoner, or discriminate one title from another?” Signed 陶弘景序.
Abstract
Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:109–111 (§1.A.6, Sacred History and Geography), notes that the title Zhēnlíng wèiyè tú is not attested in early contemporary sources because the work originally formed a subsection of [[KR5a0421|DZ 421 Dēngzhēn yǐnjué]]; the citation of a Zhēnlíng wèiyè jīng in [[KR5a1128|DZ 1128 Dàomén jīngfǎ xiāngchéng cìxù]] 2.16a, the parallel in DZ 446 7.13b–14a and 8.9b–10b, and the material reproduced in Wúshàng bìyào (WSBY) 83–84 all derive from that embedded text. Táo compiled much of the “terrestrial” material from [[KR5a1016|DZ 1016 Zhēngào]] 12–16. Comparison with the Wúshàng bìyào citations reveals substantial shortcomings in Lǘqiū’s recension: he flattened the graphic two-dimensional layout of ranks into a linear sequence, occasionally misread summarizing lines as independent entries, and — since it is unlikely Táo wrote a separate preface for a subsection of Dēngzhēn yǐnjué — probably reworked Táo’s general introductory remarks into the standalone preface found here. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 500 (Táo’s original compilation) / notAfter 893 (Lǘqiū’s revision).
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, “Dongxuan lingbao zhenling weiye tu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.A.6, 109–111. Further: Ishii Masako 石井昌子, “Shinkō no seiritsu o meguru shiryōteki kentō” 『真誥』の成立をめぐる資料的検討. On Táo Hóngjǐng see Michel Strickmann, Le taoïsme du Mao chan: Chronique d’une révélation (Paris: Collège de France, 1981).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0168
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.A.6, 109–111.