Sānguān dēngyí 三官燈儀
Lamp Ritual of the Three Officials
Anonymous Sòng–Yuán Daoist dēngyí 燈儀, four folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0202 / CT 202 = TC 202), 洞真部 威儀類. The first of five lamp-rituals copied together (under the heading “五燈儀同卷為三”) with [[KR5a0204|DZ 203 Xuándì dēngyí]], [[KR5a0205|DZ 204 Jiǔtiān Sān Máo sīmìng xiān dēngyí]], [[KR5a0206|DZ 205 Wànlíng dēngyí]], and DZ 206.
About the work
A short lamp-ritual addressed to the Three Officials (sānguān 三官) — Heaven, Earth, and Water — the great judicial-hierarchical triad of early Daoism, dating in cult to the second-century Celestial-Master sān guān shǒu shū 三官手書 confession-petition. The rite is set in a Pure Offering (qīnggòng 清供) performed for an individual on the days of the Three Principles (sānyuán 三元): on the fifteenth of the first, seventh, and tenth lunar months, days on which “the Three Officials correct the accounts and the Nine Heavens grant happiness.” Three lamps are lit in turn, each accompanied by a confession of faults addressed to the corresponding Official, and a request for the cancelling of the votary’s debts in the celestial registers.
Prefaces
No preface in the source.
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:965 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī, “Lamp Rituals”), describes the work succinctly: “This lamp ritual belongs to a Pure Offering performed for an individual on the days of the Three Principles, on which days ‘the Three Officials correct the accounts and the Nine Heavens grant happiness.‘” The text follows the standard structural and linguistic pattern of the editorial group DZ 197–214 (the zhìxīn guīmìng homage formula and fúyuàn statement of wishes), and concludes with the prescribed reading of a memorial (shū 疏) and the recitation of a sacred text. On the antiquity of the Sānguān cult — which goes back to the first generation of the Way of the Celestial Masters in the second century — see [[KR5a1411|DZ 1411 Mǐngzhēn kē]] and the sān guān shǒu shū discussed in Stephen Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley 1997). The frontmatter brackets the work 1100–1400, the canonical Sòng–Yuán range of the editorial group.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Sanguan dengyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 965. On the Three Officials cult and its history: Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: U. of California Press, 1997), 78–79 and passim; Vincent Goossaert, “The Three Officials and the History of Daoist Confession,” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 21 (2012); Terry F. Kleeman, Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in Early Daoist Communities (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2016).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0203
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 965.