Yùhuáng yòuzuì xīfú bǎochàn 玉皇宥罪錫福寶懺
Precious Litany That Moves the Jade Emperor to Grant Absolution from Guilt and the Allotment of Good Fortune
by 辛漢臣 (著, Léitíng měnglì dūdū 雷霆猛吏都督, fourteenth century)
About the work
A twenty-four-folio Yuán bǎochàn 寶懺 of repentance addressed to the Jade Emperor (Yùhuáng 玉皇), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0193 / CT 193 = TC 193), 洞真部 威儀類. The title-page attributes the work to Xīn Hànchén 辛漢臣 with the office-style “Commander-in-Chief of the Fierce Messengers of Thunder and Lightning” (Léitíng měnglì dūdū 雷霆猛吏都督) — a title that places the work in the orbit of Qīngwēi 清微 and léifǎ 雷法 (Thunder-rite) practice. The opening invocation calls down the founding pantheon of the Yùhuáng běnxíng jíjīng tradition: Yuánshǐ tiānzūn 元始天尊, the Jade Emperor’s father (Wonderful-Joy-State King 妙樂國王 Guāngyán 光嚴 Shèngfù tiānzūn 聖父天尊) and mother (the Empress Bǎoyuèguāng 寶月光), then the shàngdì and the various zhēnxiān 真仙. The litany proper is structured around the great invocation of Yùhuáng (bǎohào 寶號) drawn from [[KR5a0010|DZ 10 Gāoshàng Yùhuáng běnxíng jíjīng]], with eight specialized supplementary sections in which a Daoist priest acts on behalf of a lay client, presenting the client’s distress to specific deities and reciting the appropriate litany for each.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The title-page bears only the line “雷霆猛吏都督辛漢臣著” — “Compiled by Xīn Hànchén, Commander-in-Chief of the Fierce Messengers of Thunder and Lightning.”
Abstract
Florian C. Reiter, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1099–1100 (§3.B.7, The Qīngwēi School), notes that the work “is attributed to Xin Hanchen, who was ‘commander-in-chief of the fierce messengers of Thunder and Lightning’ (Leiting mengli dudu 雷霆猛吏都督; see also [[KR5a1308|DZ 1307 Hǎiqióng Bó zhēnrén yǔlù]] 2.14a and [[KR5a1221|DZ 1220 Dàofǎ huìyuán]] 61.2b).” The work opens with a reference to [[KR5a0010|DZ 10 Gāoshàng Yùhuáng běnxíng jíjīng]] and gives the great invocation of Yùhuáng (bǎohào 寶號) from that scripture (5a). Eulogies of the might and glory of the gods introduce the work, framing the guilt of man and the desire to do penance; repentance can be realized by reciting this litany, and at the end of each phrase the honorary title of a deity is to be added. These prayers were to be spoken together with a Daoist priest. Eight paragraphs follow this part of the work; they present texts used by Daoist priests as petitions to specific deities — the priest introduces the lay person on whose behalf he is acting and explains the distress of his client, and litanies appropriate to each case are provided. The first and second part (1a–5b) of this work, however, do not feature such litanies. The dating to the fourteenth century follows from the title’s pairing with [[KR5a0195|DZ 194 Gāoshàng Yùhuáng mǎnyuàn bǎochàn]] (which Reiter dates internally to the fourteenth century) and the ascription to a Qīngwēi-school léifǎ practitioner; the frontmatter accordingly brackets composition 1300–1400.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Florian C. Reiter, “Yuhuang youzui xifu baochan,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.7, 1099–1100. On the léifǎ tradition see Florian C. Reiter, Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007); on the rise of the Yùhuáng cult under the late Sòng, Suzanne Cahill, “Taoism at the Sung Court: The Heavenly Text Affair of 1008,” Bulletin of Sung-Yüan Studies 16 (1980): 23–44.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0194
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.7, 1099–1100.