Tàishàng língbǎo cháotiān xièzuì dàchàn 太上靈寶朝天謝罪大懺
Great Litany of Atonement for the Audience in Heaven, of the Most-High Língbǎo Liturgy
a late-Yuán cháotiān litany of atonement to twelve hundred Heavenly Worthies
About the work
A ten-juan litany (chàn 懺) of atonement, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0189 / CT 189 = TC 189), 洞真部 威儀類 — the longest of all extant Daoist litanies in the Canon, listing no fewer than 1,200 Heavenly Worthies (tiānzūn 天尊) to be invoked across the ten juan. The form is the cháotiān 朝天 (“audience-in-Heaven”) litany, in which the celebrant — assisted by the lay petitioner whose sins are to be confessed — recites in turn the title of each Heavenly Worthy and pleads for the xièzuì 謝罪 (atonement-of-sin) of his client. The litany covers the major sin-categories of late-imperial Daoism: those of rulers and their officials (slaughter and oppression of the people; cruelty in punishment; sexual indulgence; defilement of monasteries; abuse of monastics); those of male and female commoners (slander of monastics, fornication in monasteries, defilement of sacred sites). Among the great Heavenly Worthies invoked at the head of each juan stands prominently the Zhēnmíng dàshèng jiǔtiān yīngyuán léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn 真明大聖九天應元雷聲普化天尊 — the “Daoist Samantabhadra,” chief deity of SòngYuán léifǎ 雷法 (thunder-ritual) literature, introduced in [[KR5a0017|DZ 16 Jiǔtiān yīngyuán léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn yùshū bǎojīng]] — fixing the litany firmly in the late SòngYuán léifǎ synthesis.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the cosmic-assembly frame: “At that time Yuánshǐ shàngdì 元始上帝, Tàishàng dàojūn 太上道君, and Tàishàng lǎojūn 太上老君 were on the Great-Lá Heaven above, in the Jade-Pure holy realm of the Great-Blessing Heaven, seated upon the seven-jewelled Purple-Wēi terrace, in great assembly with the host of immortals…”
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1024–1025 (§3.A.5 Atonement Rituals — listed at p. 26355 of TC vol. 2), establishes the work as the longest of all extant Daoist litanies in the Daozang and “of a late date.” The decisive marker is the prominence of the Léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn 雷聲普化天尊 — Daoism’s Samantabhadra-equivalent — among the great Heavenly Worthies invoked at the head of each juan, since the deity is introduced and codified by [[KR5a0017|DZ 16 Jiǔtiān yīngyuán léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn yùshū bǎojīng]], a Northern-Sòng/early-Yuán léifǎ compilation. The recitation of the present Cháotiān xièzuì is in turn explicitly mentioned in [[KR5b0691|DZ 467 Dà Míng xuánjiào lìchéng zhāijiào yí 大明玄教立成齋醮儀]] 10b, dated 1374 — providing a firm terminus ante quem. The frontmatter brackets composition between 1300 (the early-Yuán flourish of léifǎ in the canon) and 1374 (the Dà Míng xuánjiào citation); TC’s bare “late date” is given a sharper bracket here on the basis of these two anchors.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Taishang lingbao chaotian xiezui dachan,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.5, 1024–1025. On the Sòng-Yuán léifǎ synthesis that frames this litany see Florian C. Reiter, Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007); Lowell Skar, “Administering Thunder: A Thirteenth-Century Memorial Deliberating the Thunder Rites,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 9 (1996), 159–202. On the late-imperial cháotiān genre see John Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (New York: Macmillan, 1987).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0190
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.A.5, 1024–1025 (TC entry under DZ 189, fasc. 79–80).