Huánglù jiǔzhī dēngyí 黃籙九巵燈儀
Yellow Register Lamp Ritual of the Nine Goblets
Anonymous Sòng–Yuán Daoist dēngyí 燈儀, seven folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0212 / CT 212 = TC 211), 洞真部 威儀類, in the same Dàozàng fascicle as [[KR5a0212|DZ 211 Huánglù jiǔyáng fànqì dēngyí]].
About the work
A seven-folio Huánglù 黃籙 (Yellow Register) lamp-liturgy structured around nine libation-goblets (jiǔzhī 九巵) set at the nine stations of the compass (the Eight Trigrams and the center), each corresponding to a direction, a jiǔzhōu 九州 administrative region, and a stratum of the underworld. At each station the officiant invokes the direction’s Suíyāo jiùkǔ tiānzūn 隨方救苦天尊 (hence: Dōngfāng Qīnghuá yuányáng zhīmén 東方青華元陽之門, Dōngnán Shǐyáng shēngqì zhīmén 東南始陽生炁之門, etc.), lights a goblet-lamp, and invokes the corresponding stratum of the underworld to have its sufferers released. The rite is oriented simultaneously toward the living (dispelling evils from their province) and toward the dead (dissolving their sufferings in the corresponding hell).
Prefaces
No separate preface in the source; the opening invocation serves as the introduction. The text opens: “Burning incense in offering to: the Three Pure Way-Lords, the Four Heavenly Emperors of True Origin, the Ten-Direction Jiùkǔ Tiānzūn, the Holy Host of those who have attained the Way, the Nine-Province Territorial Lords, the underworld officials of the Nine Depths, the Three-World office-holders and the True Arbiters. I pray you to set your compassion in motion, to witness in proof of this invocation, on behalf of the sacrificial officiant — so-and-so — following the clear science, to kindle and point the Nine Goblet Lamps. Above let them shine into the Three Realms, illuminating the palaces of blessing in all the heavens so their light is bright and clear; across the Ten Directions let their radiance be reflected. In the middle let them shine into the central palace, through the territory of Shénzhōu, so that spirits of malice are dispelled and catastrophes are cut off. Below let them shine into the Nine Walls of layered darkness, through all the great underworlds, so that wherever the yáng light reaches, the sufferings of the guilty are pardoned…”
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:969 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī), identifies this lamp-rite as an adjunct of a Huánglù offering, designed to illuminate simultaneously the heavens, the central realm of the living, and the Nine-Deep underworld, and so to relieve the sufferings of each of the nine strata of the netherworld. The frontmatter brackets composition broadly 1100–1300.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Huanglu jiuzhi dengyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 969. On Huánglù ritual: Matsumoto Kōichi 松本浩一, “Sōdai no Kōroku sai” 宋代の黄籙齋 (1978); Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, “Introduction” to the TC (2004).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0213
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 969.