Yuánshǐ gāoshàng yùjiǎn dàlù 元始高上玉檢大錄
Great Register of the Jade Rule of the Most High Primordial Beginning
Táng-dynasty Shàngqīng pantheon-register, twelve folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0168 / CT 168 = TC 167), 洞真部 譜錄類.
About the work
A Táng Shàngqīng register combining the titular phrase Yùjiǎn dàlù 玉檢大錄 (“Great Register of the Jade Rule”) from several older Shàngqīng works, in three parts: (i) a cosmological preamble framed as a revelation on the ninth day of the ninth month of Qīngxū 清虛 year 1 (a gēngyín year), when Yuánshǐ tiānwáng 元始天王 at long fast in the Shàngqīng Palace received the Sānyuán yùjiǎn wén 三元玉檢文 from the Three Heavens Jade Lads (三天玉童), who were enjoined to deliver the scripture to worthy adepts whose celestial names were already registered on the Cinnabar Tablet’s Jade Volumes; (ii) a tabular pantheon of the Shàngqīng realm, listing supreme deities by epithet (上清 混沌 自然 左/右 靈飛仙 玉虛侍郎, 高上空玄元始丈人道君, 高上九玄元始天王, etc.) each with huì 諱 (“taboo-names”); (iii) corresponding talismans.
Prefaces
Opening narrative: “In the first year of Qīngxū 清虛, a gēngyín 庚寅 year, on the ninth day of the ninth month, the shàngjiǎ zhíchén 上甲直辰, the Heavenly King of Primordial Beginning took long fast in the Shàngqīng palace, swearing before the Most High Nine Peaks, formless, shadowless, without mark, nameless, without ancestor, limitless, and of self-abiding empty light on high, after uncounted kalpas of the Way received the Three Primordials’ Jade Rule Scripture. The Three Heavens Jade Lads were appointed to deliver it to future adepts of Shàngqīng rank whose mysterious names were registered on the Dāntái jīncáng yùcè zǐwén qióngzhá 丹臺金藏玉策紫文瓊札. This scripture accompanies the holy sovereign in his flight through the Shàngqīng palace; it surveys the offices and guards of the Supreme True Ones, rules Heaven and Earth and Man, summons immortals and subdues demons, commands numina, and draws down the cloud-chariots for the reception of those received into the Law, as by the pact-text of the Nine True Ones.”
Abstract
Isabelle Robinet, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:604 (§2.B.8, Dòngzhēn Division), identifies the work as a Táng composite constructed on the basis of [[KR5a0354|DZ 354 Shàngqīng sānyuán yùjiǎn sānyuán bùjīng]], which it partly duplicates. The second part presents the same pantheon (but at half the number of divinities) as [[KR5a1387|DZ 1387 Shàngqīng yuánshǐ gāoshàng yùhuáng jiǔtiān pǔlù]], with divinities corresponding to those in [[KR5a1393|DZ 1393 Shàngqīng yuánshǐ biànhuà bǎozhēn shàngjīng jiǔlíng tàimiào guīshān xuánlù]], supplemented by the divinities of the Nine Shàngqīng Heavens; the third part corresponds to DZ 354 4b–11b. The frontmatter brackets composition notBefore 618 / notAfter 907.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Isabelle Robinet, “Yuanshi gaoshang yujian dalu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.8, 604. Background: Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: EFEO, 1984).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0169
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.8, 604.