Huánglù pòyù dēngyí 黃籙破獄燈儀
Yellow Register Lamp Ritual for the Breaking of the Underworlds
Anonymous Sòng–Yuán Daoist dēngyí 燈儀, five folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0213 / CT 213 = TC 212), 洞真部 威儀類, in the same Dàozàng fascicle as [[KR5a0215|DZ 214 Huánglù wǔkǔ lún dēngyí]].
About the work
A five-folio Huánglù 黃籙 (Yellow Register) lamp-liturgy for the “breaking” (pòyù 破獄) of the nine hells, designed to be performed within a funerary or memorial offering to deliver the souls of the dead from the Fēngdū 酆都 underworld. The opening doxology, framed as a pronouncement of the True Person of the Supreme Void (Tàijí tàixū zhēnrén 太極太虛真人), grounds the rite in a cosmology: yīn and yáng forming images, heaven and earth parting their shapes; the nine heavens constituting the dwelling of the former sages, the nine earths the office of demons; above the nine heavens all yīnqì is dispelled, below the nine earths all yáng-light is permanently cut off — so that even in broad day the lower realm is as thick fog, and in the night-hours thicker still. The “Long night” (chángyè 長夜) obscures the fate of those fallen into the Northern Office (Běifǔ 北府). The tiānzūn then, out of supreme compassion, kindles these nine shén dēng 神燈 (“divine lamps”) to break open the darkness, relieve the sufferings of the deep springs, and deliver the sunken souls. Each of the nine sub-sections names a hell and sets a lamp toward it, requesting its officiating deities (三官九府百二十曹五帝考官巨天力士) to consent to the release.
Prefaces
No separate preface in the source. The opening oracular statement by the Tàijí tàixū zhēnrén serves as the introduction.
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:969 (§3.B.1, Zhèngyī), classes this among the Huánglù lamp-liturgies of the DZ 197–214 series keyed to the rescue of the dead. The underlying cosmology — nine strata of underworld beneath nine heavens, with the living world between — and the distinctive pòyù (“hell-breaking”) motif are long-standing in Sòng Huánglù ritual. The frontmatter brackets composition broadly 1100–1300.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Huanglu poyu dengyi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 969. On the pòyù (“hell-breaking”) rite see Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body (Berkeley 1993); Kenneth Dean, Taoist Ritual and Popular Cults of Southeast China (Princeton 1993).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0214
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.1, 969.