Tàizhēn yùdì sìjí míngkē jīng 太真玉帝四極明科經
Scripture of the Sworn Code of the Four Poles, [Promulgated by] the Jade Emperor of the Great-Perfection
a Six-Dynasties Shàngqīng 上清 codebook for the transmission of the sacred scriptures
About the work
A five-juan Shàngqīng 上清 codebook, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0184 / CT 184 = TC 184), 洞真部 戒律類. The title — read with míng 明 as a graphic substitution for méng 盟 (sworn) — is among many similar codebook-titles named in the original YángXǔ Shàngqīng revelations (most of those imaginary titles never realised in surviving texts). The five juan are placed under the authority of the Five Palaces of the Capital of Mystery (Xuándū 玄都) and under the jurisdiction of the Five Emperors of the Five Directions; each juan comprises twenty-four articles, dispersing the codebook’s prescriptions across a hundred-and-twenty-article structure that encompasses the rules for the transmission of the sacred scriptures (chiefly Shàngqīng but with Língbǎo 靈寶 and Sāndòng 三洞 entries also: 4.2b, 3b) and the rites to be observed by those in possession of them.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the standard transmission frame: “At that time Tàishàng dàdàojūn 太上大道君 conferred upon Gāoshèng tàizhēn yùdì 高聖太真玉帝 the hundred-and-twenty articles of the Five-Coloured Divine Officials’ Sworn Code of the Four Poles 五色神官四極明科 — above to inspect the heavenly Perfected, in the middle to test the flying immortals, below to govern the men of sin.” The remainder of the preface frames the code’s manufacture: it was incised in gold and bound in white silver by the Lord of the Golden Pavilion (Jīnquè dìjūn 金闕帝君), at the command of the Nine-Numen Jade Lady (Jiǔlíng Yùfēi 九靈玉妃), with the Tortoise-Mother (guīmǔ 龜母) brushing the strokes and Tàizhēn 太真 dusting off the writing-mat — the Daozang’s standard hyperbolic register for a high-Shàngqīng revelation.
Abstract
Isabelle Robinet, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:193–194 (§1.B.2 Shàngqīng), traces the work’s complex textual history. A Sìjí míngkē is explicitly cited by such early Shàngqīng works as [[KR5b1466|DZ 1331 Dòngzhēn shàngqīng shénzhōu qīzhuàn qībiàn wǔtiān jīng]] (29a) and [[KR5b1454|DZ 1321 Dòngzhēn tàishàng bāsù zhēnjīng xiūxí gōngyè miàojué]] (2b), but those quotations do not appear in the present text — meaning the present Sìjí míngkē is a recension later than the late-fourth-century citations. Closer correspondences appear in later sources: [[KR5b1448|DZ 1314 Dòngzhēn tàishàng sūlíng dòngyuán dàyǒu miàojīng]] gives an exact rendering of a passage; quotations in [[KR5b1466|DZ 1332 Dòngzhēn tàishàng tàixiāo lángshū]] 2a–13b, [[KR5b1339|DZ 1203 Tàishàng sāntiān zhèngfǎ jīng]] 8b–9a, and the Wúshàng bìyào 無上祕要 all have equivalents in the present work. The preface incorporates excerpts from [[KR5b1486|DZ 1344 Dòngzhēn tàishàng shuō zhìhuì xiāomó zhēnjīng]] 1.5a–b and a quotation from the now-lost Tàizhēn kē 太真科, also found in Sāndòng zhūnáng (SDZN) 7.16b. Analysis of the contents and quotation-set indicates that the present text has undergone several revisions tracking the scriptural development of Shàngqīng; in its current state it is later than [[KR5b1448|DZ 1314 Sūlíng dòngyuán]] (giving a more coherent synthesis of the scriptures) and later than the Língbǎo revelation (ca. 400), but earlier than [[KR5b1339|DZ 1203 Sāntiān zhèngfǎ jīng]], whose quotations match the present version exactly. The frontmatter accordingly brackets composition to the Six Dynasties (early-fifth to late-sixth century), with TC’s specification of “Six Dynasties (220–589)” understood as the received-recension span.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Isabelle Robinet, “Taizhen yudi siji mingke jing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.B.2, 193–194. Robinet’s earlier study: Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984), 2:189–199. On the Shàngqīng kējiè 科戒 / míngkē literature more broadly, Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0185
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §1.B.2, 193–194.