Yùhuáng shíqī cíguāng dēngyí 玉皇十七慈光燈儀
Lamp Ritual of the Seventeen Lights of the Compassion of the Jade Emperor
Anonymous Sòng–Yuán Daoist dēngyí 燈儀 (“lamp ritual”), twenty folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0197 / CT 197 = TC 197), 洞真部 威儀類.
About the work
A lamp-ritual addressed to the Jade Emperor under his seventeen aspects of salvific light. The work opens with a hymn taken from the Yùhuáng jīng (i.e. [[KR5a0010|DZ 10 Gāoshàng Yùhuáng běnxíng jíjīng]] 1.8b–9a) and ends with the recitation of [[KR5a0013|DZ 13 Gāoshàng Yùhuáng xīnyìn jīng]]. Each of the seventeen lights is announced, the appropriate lamp lit, and the corresponding hymn (chéngyáng 稱揚 — “to praise”) sung. The seventeen aspects are the same as those enumerated in DZ 10 1.9b–10a, where the votary is told that meditating on them and praising the Worthy’s names will allow him to “see the face of the Compassionate One” (cíyán 慈顔) and so be saved. The work is the head member of the eight dēngyí manuals (DZ 197–204) collected together in the Daozang’s 威儀類 (“Liturgical Norms”) section.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text begins directly with the ritual rubric “玉皇十七慈光燈儀為一” (“The Yùhuángshíqīcíguāng dēngyí makes the first [of the lamp rituals]”), placing the manual at the head of the canonical dēngyí sequence.
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:963–964 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī, “Lamp Rituals”), explains that lamp rituals (dēngyí) were known already in the fifth century — the [[KR5a1411|DZ 1411 Dòngxuán língbǎo chángyè zhī fǔ jiǔyōu yùguì míngzhēn kē]] gives the early model, distinguishing the lamps that save souls from the “Long Night” (the dead) from those that prevent natural disasters and unlucky events. Du Guangting 杜光庭 in [[KR5a0507|DZ 507 Tàishàng huánglù zhāiyí]] 56 set the classical form; the Southern-Sòng and Yuán manuals (notably [[KR5a1221|DZ 1221 Shàngqīng língbǎo dàfǎ]] 34 and [[KR5a0466|DZ 466 Língbǎo lǐngjiào jìdù jīnshū]] juans 15, 25, 34, 35, 127, 174, 199, 200, 236) attest a proliferation of lamp rituals. Lagerwey identifies the present text as the first member of a coherent set (DZ 197–214) reworked by a single editor, sharing a common formula of homage (zhìxīn guīmìng 志心歸命), a common style of expressing wishes (fúyuàn 伏願), and the addition of a sacred recitation at the end of each rite. The title’s “seventeen lights” corresponds exactly to the seventeen aspects of the Jade Emperor’s salvific light enumerated in DZ 10 1.9b–10a; the text is therefore probably composed in the Sòng (after the Yùhuáng cult was canonically fixed) but may have reached its present form only under the Yuán. The frontmatter brackets the work 1100–1400 to span the SòngYuán possibility.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Yuhuang shiqi ciguang dengyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 963–964. On the dēngyí genre and Daoist liturgical lamps: John Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (New York: Macmillan, 1987), 55–57 and passim; Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body, trans. Karen C. Duval (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1993).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0198
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 963–964.