Léitíng yùshū yòuzuì fǎchàn 雷霆玉樞宥罪法懺
Ritual Litany for the Forgiving of Sins from the Jade Pivot of Thunder
Anonymous Sòng–Yuán Daoist fǎchàn 法懺 of the Shénxiāo / Léifǎ tradition, nine folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0196 / CT 196 = TC 196), 洞真部 威儀類. Paired with DZ 195 Jiǔtiān yìngyuán léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn yùshū bǎochàn in the same juǎn (“二懴同卷”).
About the work
A short tóuzuì fǎchàn 投罪法懴 (“ritual of casting-down-of-faults”) cognate to DZ 16 Jiǔtiān yìngyuán léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn yùshū bǎojīng. The opening invocation summons the Gāoshàng Shénxiāo zhī tiān 高上神霄之天 and the Jiǔtiān yìngyuán zhī fǔ 九天應元之府, threading the ritual into the Thunder-rite cosmology. The Jiǔtiān yìngyuán léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn 九天應元雷聲普化天尊 — the principal Thunder-deity, here invoked as Lord of the Thirty-six Heavens — is the addressee of the central litany; the votary confesses the sins that obstruct the descent of his rain, his lightning, and his merciful awe. A hymn in seven-character verse on 4a–b carries an unusually popular flavour, suggesting the ritual was used in lay-supported community offerings as well as in priestly jiào 醮 services.
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1093–1094 (§3.B.6, The Shenxiao Fa and Related Thunder Rites), characterizes the work as “a Tóuzuì fǎchàn short ritual, cognate to DZ 16 Jiǔtiān yìngyuán léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn yùshū bǎojīng. The Jiǔtiān yìngyuán léishēng pǔhuà tiānzūn is invoked as the Lord of the Thirty-six Heavens. A hymn in seven-character verses on 4a–b has a distinctly popular flavor.” Like its companion DZ 195, the high rank accorded to the Pǔhuà tiānzūn marks the text as late, contemporary with the late-Sòng diffusion of the Yùshū jīng and the consolidation of the Thunder-rite tradition in the hands of Bó Yùchán 白玉蟾 (1194–1229) and his Yuán-period successors. The frontmatter brackets the work 1200–1400, the canonical span of the Thunder-rite bǎochàn / fǎchàn literature.
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Leiting yushu youzui fachan,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.6, 1093–1094. On the Thunder-rite tradition see Florian C. Reiter, Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007); on Bó Yùchán and the diffusion of the Yùshū jīng, Judith M. Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature (Berkeley 1987), 26–38, 173–179; Lowell Skar, “Administering Thunder,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 9 (1996–97): 159–202.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0197
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.6, 1093–1094.