Xūhuáng tiānzūn chūzhēn shíjiè wén 虛皇天尊初真十戒文
The Ten Precepts for the First Stage of Perfection, Spoken by the Heavenly Worthy of Empty Imperium
a Táng-period precept-text for the kāidù 開度 ordination of novices, with substantial sub-commentary
About the work
An eight-folio Táng-period precept-text preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0180 / CT 180 = TC 180), 洞真部 戒律類. The work transmits the Chūzhēn shíjiè 初真十戒 (“Ten Precepts for the First Stage of Perfection”), the precept-set conferred at the kāidù 開度 (“opening-the-passage”) rite — the first formal initiation marking entry into the religious life. Each precept is followed by a substantial sub-commentary unfolding its meaning and ramifications: the first, on loyalty and filial piety, opens with the classic formula “ten thousand juan of immortality-classics, with loyalty and filial piety placed first” 仙經萬卷忠孝爲先, and lays out the doctrine of the Four Debts (四恩) — to ruler, to parent, to teacher, to Heaven and Earth. The second through tenth precepts treat malice and slander, killing, lust, slander of family bonds, slander of the worthy, drunkenness and forbidden meats, avarice, the choice of friends (with the famous tripartition of yúnpéngxiáyǒu 雲朋霞友, liángpéngzhīyǒu 良朋知友, and kuángpéngguàiyǒu 狂朋怪友), and frivolity of speech.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the revelatory frame: “Respectfully derived: Xūhuáng tiānzūn 虛皇天尊 said: To leave the family and transcend the common world is in every case to be conditioned in former lives by good causes — therefore one is able alone to step out of the common ranks. If one ends as one began, refining oneself with utmost sincerity, the merit accruing extends to seven generations of ancestors and the blessing flows through one’s whole house. As the saying goes: a nine-storey terrace begins with a heap of earth; a thousand-li journey starts under the foot. The threshold of entering the Way and the foundation of accumulating virtue must also begin from this. At the moment of kāidù 開度, you should receive the precepts of the first stage of perfection. Their precepts are ten in number; you should receive them.”
Abstract
Hans-Hermann Schmidt, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:586–587 (§2.B.8 Dòngzhēn Division), identifies the text as a Táng-period precept-collection. Zhāng Wànfú 張萬福 (ca. 700–730), in [[KR5a0179|DZ 178 Sāndòng zhòngjiè wén]] (preface) and [[KR5b0241|DZ 1241 Chuánshòu sāndòng jīngjiè fǎlù lüèshuō 1.1b]], records that novices (xīn chūjiā 新出家) received the Chūzhēn jiè 初真戒, but does not specify their number; alongside the present set, other Chūzhēn jiè sets are attested ([[KR5b0381|DZ 339 Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo chūjiā yīnyuán jīng]] 4b–5b lists ten prohibitions paired with ten prescriptions; [[KR5b0234|DZ 1237 Sāndòng xiūdào yí]] 3b mentions eighty-one rules under the same name). The present ten rules — without their explanatory commentaries — are also found in [[KR5a0867|DZ 1033 Zhìyán zǒng 至言總]] 1.6b–8a (= [[KR5c0303|Yúnjí qīqiān]] 40.7a–8b). On comparison, the present text appears to be later than the Zhìyán zǒng version: in Zhìyán zǒng the rules are pronounced by a heavenly Perfected (tiānzhēn 天真), but the present text more specifically credits Xūhuáng tiānzūn 虛皇天尊; the rule on loyalty and filial piety, which stands ninth in Zhìyán zǒng, has been moved to first place in the present text, with an explanatory commentary that explicitly emphasises that in the immortality-classics loyalty and filial piety occupy the foremost place (a hallmark of mid-Táng to Sòng synthesis with the Xiào 孝-ethic). The work was later widely received into Quánzhēn 全真 monastic discipline, where it provided the basic precept-curriculum for the lay novitiate; for the Quánzhēn usage and a German translation see Heinrich Hackmann, “Die Mönchsregeln des Klostertaoismus,” Ostasiatische Zeitschrift 8 (1919–1920), 142–170.
Translations and research
German translation: Heinrich Hackmann, “Die Mönchsregeln des Klostertaoismus,” Ostasiatische Zeitschrift 8 (1919–1920), 142–170. Standard scholarly entry: Hans-Hermann Schmidt, “Xuhuang tianzun chuzhen shijie wen,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §2.B.8, 586–587. On the precept-set’s later Quánzhēn reception: Vincent Goossaert, The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007), esp. ch. 5; Pierre-Henry de Bruyn, “Daoism in the Ming,” in Livia Kohn ed., Daoism Handbook (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 594–622.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0181
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §2.B.8, 586–587.