Wànlíng dēngyí 萬靈燈儀
Lamp Ritual for the Myriad Numina
Anonymous SòngYuán Daoist liturgical dēngyí 燈儀 (“lamp ritual”), four folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0205 / CT 205 = TC 204), 洞真部 威儀類.
About the work
A short liturgical manual for a lamp-offering (dēngyí) within a Pure Offering (qīngjiào 清醮) addressed to the divinity of the officiant’s choice — despite the title “Myriad Numina,” the rite is keyed to a single god, with a placeholder “某神” (“a certain god”) throughout, to be filled in for the occasion. The fǎshì is announced by an opening invocation (qǐbái 啓白), followed by a sequence of seven praise-hymns (zànyǒng 讚詠) whose quatrains frame the god as “numinous-sagely-martial-civil” (乃神乃聖乃武乃文), as the vice-regent of Heaven’s mandate below, as the bestower of blessings, the dispeller of disaster, and the protector of the household. The intentions throughout are general: prosperity of country, family, and all beings.
Prefaces
Opening invocation (啓白): “Reverently: of all that is between Heaven and Earth, the most numinous is man; and most sagely in the Way of the upright is the god. They are numinous, they are sagely; they can be revered, they can be honoured; some pass into the hidden and enter the dark, some ascend aloft and descend below — all alike they receive the virtue of the Potter’s shaping-power, but who among them knows the source of its turning? When grace reaches the people, their bright names are set up and they receive sacrifice; when they confer merit upon the state, they are granted honorific titles and their shrines are planted. This is manifestly so; the principle is not false, but marvellous — the words are hard to tell forth. Reverently, we consider that this spirit, majestic in appearance, radiant in presence, protects the realm and saves the people, benefits man and relieves the creatures; whatever is sought, he answers; whatever is prayed without, he yet penetrates. The four seas honour him, the throngs look up to him, everywhere shrines are built to him and temples raised; house by house men draw his image. Reverently I, such-and-such, now according to the regulated formula erect the altar-ground; the incense and the lamps are cleanly prepared, the better to draw down the chariots of the god. I pray that the Great Bestowing-Ones make known their light, that their vast grace descend and accept this diligent service of rite, and attest this perfection of kindness…”
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:966 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī), identifies the work as part of the Dàozàng collection of brief lamp-rituals (DZ 197–214), a set of short liturgies sharing a common structural and linguistic pattern. Though the title might suggest a comprehensive summons of all divinities, the rite is actually focused on a single god of the officiant’s choice; its intentions are general rather than specifically ordinal. No colophon or preface dates the text, and its placement in the liturgical series (which includes texts probably reaching down to the Ming) makes its precise dating uncertain; the frontmatter brackets it broadly, 1100–1400, to accommodate the range of the series.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Wanling dengyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 966. On the dēngyí genre: Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body, trans. Karen C. Duval (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); John Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (New York: Macmillan, 1987).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0206
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 966.