Jiǔtiān Sān Máo sīmìng xiān dēngyí 九天三茅司命仙燈儀
Lamp Ritual in Honour of the Director of Destiny of the Nine Heavens and the Three Máo Immortal Brothers
Anonymous Yuán–early-Míng Daoist dēngyí 燈儀 of the Máoshān 茅山 cult, five folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0204 / CT 204 = TC 204-1), 洞真部 威儀類.
About the work
A lamp-ritual addressed to the Three Máo Brothers — Máo Yíng 茅盈, Máo Gù 茅固, and Máo Zhōng 茅衷, the patron immortals of Máoshān 茅山, with Máo Yíng as Sīmìng 司命 (“Director of Destiny”) at the head — performed on the festival days of the brothers (in the third month and on the second day of the twelfth month). Five lamps are lit; the deities, whose presence is symbolically indicated by the unrolling of their painted images, are invoked one after another, offered incense and flowers, and praised in hymns. The hymn-texts are taken, with slight modifications, from a famous early stele-inscription in honour of the brothers, the Tiānhuáng tàidì shòu Máojūn jiǔxī yùcè wén 天皇太帝授茅君九錫玉冊文 engraved on a stele on Máoshān in 522 (preserved in [[KR5a0304|DZ 304 Máoshān zhì]] 1.1a–2b).
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text is structured as a continuous liturgical script with rubrics (“法事如儀” — “the rite as in the ordinary form”).
Abstract
Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:967 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī, “Lamp Rituals”), explains that the ritual was held on the festival days of the immortalized Máo brothers and that the deities are invoked one after another with the unrolling of their images, offered incense and flowers, and praised in hymns; the text of these hymns “comes, with slight modifications, from a famous inscription in honor of the brothers that was engraved on a stele on Máoshān in 522.” Crucially, “since the honorary titles of the patron saints contain the expansions Zhēnyìng 真應, Miàoyìng 妙應, and Shényìng 神應, bestowed upon them in 1316 (see Yánjiā jiāhào sānjūn lǐguān sānfēng gào 延祐加號三君立官三峯誥, [[KR5a0304|DZ 304 Máoshān zhì]] 4.19a–21a), the date ‘forty-second year of the holy government’ (239) could refer to the year 1321. However, if we take into account the other texts of this group (197–203), some of which seem to date to the Ming, the reference could also be to the year 1409.” This places composition either in the early Yuán (1321) or the early Míng (1409). The frontmatter brackets accordingly: notBefore 1316 (the conferral of the Zhēnyìng / Miàoyìng / Shényìng expansions, the first internal terminus post quem) and notAfter 1409. On the wider Máoshān cult and the canonization of the Three Brothers see [[KR5a0173|DZ 172 Sān Máo zhēnjūn jiāfēng shìdiǎn]] and [[KR5a0304|DZ 304 Máoshān zhì]].
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Ursula-Angelika Cedzich, “Jiutian San Mao siming xian dengyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 967. On the Three Máo Brothers and the Máoshān cult: Edward H. Schafer, Mao Shan in T’ang Times (Boulder: Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, 1980); Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: EFEO, 1984); for the late-imperial canonization see DZ 172.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0205
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 967.