Tǔsī dēngyí 土司燈儀
Lamp Ritual for the Soil Lord
Anonymous Sòng–Yuán Daoist dēngyí 燈儀 (“lamp ritual”), eight folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0207 / CT 207 = TC 206), 洞真部 威儀類; printed in the same Dàozàng fascicle as [[KR5a0209|DZ 208 Dōngchú sīmìng dēngyí]].
About the work
An eight-folio liturgical manual for a lamp-rite performed within a Pure Offering (qīngjiào 清醮), designed to expiate offences committed against the earth-deity (Tǔsī 土司, “Soil Lord,” and his astral counterpart Tàisuì 太歲) in the course of a recent building, excavation, or relocation project. The rite is divided into nine sections addressed to the stellar deities of the eight Trigrams and the center: the Zhèn 震 Sānlù xīngjūn 三碌星君 (east), the Xùn 巽 Sìbì xīngjūn 四碧星君 (southeast), and so on round the compass. Each section gives a prose invocation outlining the faults committed against the direction in question, pledges formal refuge, and concludes with a four-line praise-quatrain. The sequence of star-deities and their titles closely parallel those of [[KR5a0466|DZ 466 Língbǎo lǐngjiào jìdù jīnshū]] 199.
Prefaces
Opening invocation: “Reverently I have heard: when the Primordial Unity first divided, the two qì were parted; they turned the four seasons to complete their work, laid down the eight directions to fix their stations. Gazing upward one sees the order of the constellations’ paths; gazing downward, the private division of the fields. All that lives trusts to the great potter’s wheel; no creature is unsupplied by the great creating. But man, noblest of all, stands at the centre; his every dwelling and movement is given by Heaven and Earth. Grievously, in my common dullness, I have accumulated faults: leaving the cave to build a nest, raising roof-beams and eaves, digging wells and moving earth, my work has offended the directions; rafter-beams and flying spans have frequently transgressed the taboos. The day or the hour has been ill-chosen, the year or the month ill-matched; I consulted neither tortoise nor milfoil, but took the words of common wizards; measuring the hidden against the manifest, everything is but fault. And above all, the revered Tàisuì 太歲 and Tǔsī 土司 control taboos, govern fortune and misfortune, regulate the directions, shift with the liùjiǎ 六甲, turn with the Seven Stars. All my dwellings and creations have offended the directions. Yet thanks to their instruction, there is a jīnkē 金科 Rule-Book and a yùzhóu 玉軸 Jade Scroll: he who forgets them calls up disaster; he who practices them extinguishes misfortune. Today I, so-and-so…”
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:967–968 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī), identifies the text as part of the Dàozàng standardized series of lamp-rituals (DZ 197–214), keyed here to the expiation of breach-of-taboo offences against the earth-deity following excavation and construction work. The divisions and divine titles closely follow DZ 466 199, which suggests circulation within the same Sòng–Yuán ritual milieu. The frontmatter brackets composition broadly 1100–1400.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Tusi dengyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 967–968. On the dēngyí genre: Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body, trans. Karen C. Duval (Berkeley 1993); John Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (New York 1987).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0208
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 967–968.