Zǐtóng dìjūn huàshū 梓潼帝君化書
Book of Transformations of the Divine Lord of Zǐtóng
revealed through planchette (扶鸞) to 劉安勝 (spirit-medium) and presented to the Yuán throne in 1316
About the work
A four-juan first-person hagiography of the Wénchāng 文昌 cult-god through ninety-four successive incarnations, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0170 / CT 170 = TC 169), 洞真部 譜錄類. The text stands at the head of the small cluster of Wénchāng scriptures preserved in the Canon — it is followed here, in the same section, by [[KR5a0170|DZ 169 Qīnghé nèizhuàn]] and by the related DZ 28 / DZ 29 — and is a foundational work of the Chinese morality-book (shànshū 善書) genre. Through concrete episodes drawn from the god’s many temporal and divine incarnations, each huà 化 teaches a basic virtue: filial piety, loyalty to the sovereign, honesty, compassion, official rectitude, the chastisement of corrupt clerks, and the like.
Prefaces
Opening preface (騰七): “Transformations have two principles and two natures. There is the transformation of change (biànhuà 變化) — moving from non-being into being, from the past into the present, from youth through maturity into old age and death, and from old age and death back into infancy: this is the transformation of change. And there is the transformation of moral instruction (jiàohuà 教化) — the Three Cardinal Bonds and Five Constants, right and wrong, straight and crooked; from above, the ruler stirs those below by his fēng 風, while from below, subordinates present their corrections to those above: this is the transformation of moral instruction. Now I have descended ninety-seven transformations…” There follows an enumeration of the titles and morals of each transformation: Yuánmìng 元命 orders the Grand Beginning; Liúxíng 流形 traces back to the Grand Substance; Shēngmín 生民 illuminates nature and habit; Yìsú 易俗 transforms barbarism into rite; Jīgǔ 稽古 awakens later generations; Fèngzhēn 奉真 follows the way and the law; Níngqīn 寧親 repays parental toil; Yōuhūn 幽婚 warns against casual unions; Yuān shí 淵石 values offspring; Xùn zhì 馴雉 verifies sincerity; Jiàng wēn 降瘟 proves the roll-call; Hǎoshēng 好生 practices medicine; Tiānguān 天官 perfects it; Jiànxián 薦賢 opens the public way; and so on — with episodes running through the god’s appearances in Shǔ 蜀, his protection of filial widows, his punishment of evil officials, his denunciation of gratuitous killing, his ascent to the celestial bureaucracy to manage the Cinnamon Register (桂籍) of examination candidates. The preface concludes: “Therefore the sages, in their divine way, set up their teachings; only then did Heaven and man mutually condition each other…”
Abstract
Terry Kleeman, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1204–1205 (§3.B.11, The Wénchāng Cult), traces two recensions: (i) a Southern-Sòng Wéndì huàshū 文帝化書, preserved in Dàozàng jíyào 道藏輯要 (“Xīng” 星 section), whose prefaces record that the first seventy-three huà were revealed to the medium Liú Ānshèng 劉安勝 and three of his kinsmen in a temple on Bǎopíngshān 寶屏山 near Chéngdū in 1181, and the next twenty-one in 1194; the final three, on internal evidence, date to around 1267. (ii) The present Dàozàng recension, presented to the Yuán throne in 1316 at the time of the god’s ennoblement as Wénchāng, descends from a northern edition revised by the deity himself, with passages unfavourable to non-Chinese peoples emended or deleted and the text rearranged. A number of other Wénchāng scriptures were revealed to Liú during the same twelfth-century planchette sessions, including an earlier version of [[KR5a0005|DZ 5 Tàishàng wújí zǒngzhēn Wénchāng dàdòng xiānjīng]] (1168), [[KR5a0170|DZ 169 Qīnghé nèizhuàn]] (1168–1181), and [[KR5a1214|DZ 1214 Gāoshàng dàdòng Wénchāng sīlù zǐyáng bǎolù]] (1181). The frontmatter brackets the span from first revelation (1181) to presentation (1316).
Translations and research
Full translation and study: Terry F. Kleeman, A God’s Own Tale: The Book of Transformations of Wenchang, the Divine Lord of Zitong (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994). Standard scholarly entry: Terry Kleeman, “Zitong dijun huashu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.11, 1204–1205.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0171
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.11, 1204–1205.