Tàiyǐ huǒfǔ zòugào qíráng yí 太乙火府奏告祈禳儀
Ritual of Announcement for an Exorcism, from the Fire Court of the Great Monad
Anonymous Yuán Daoist thunder-rite manual, seventeen folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0217 / CT 217 = TC 217), 洞真部 威儀類.
About the work
A qíráng 祈禳 (prayer-and-exorcism) liturgy of the Tàiyǐ huǒfǔ 太乙火府 (“Fire Court of the Great Monad”) tradition, a branch of the late Sòng–Yuán Léifǎ 雷法 thunder methods. The rite combines a zhāo 召 invocation of the masters and Thunder-marshals with a triple offering and the presentation of a memorial petitioning the lords of the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper. The opening jǐng tiāndì 淨天地 sequence summons the Nine-Phoenix Pollution-Breaking General, the Eight-Direction Mighty Spirit, the Five-Dragon Spirit-Lords, and other purifying officers to cleanse the fǎtán 法壇 (ritual altar). The lineage of patriarchs invoked is unusually full and culminates with “the Wind-and-Rain Commander of the Western Terrace, the Yùtián Yèzhēnrén” 西臺風雨令玉田葉眞人 (Yè Yúnlái 葉雲萊, late thirteenth century), confirming a date no earlier than the late thirteenth century. The text contains an invocation, a triple offering with three memorials, a litany on the redemptive powers of the lords of the Seven Stars (twenty-five “great Sage Běidǒu qīyuán jūn able to dispel the X-calamity” formulae), a divinatory rite using a basin and talisman (tóupén fú 投盆符), and a final sending-off of the spirits.
Prefaces
No separate preface in the source; the opening invocation serves as the introduction. The text begins: “Striding the Void; burning the talisman in the water-bowl, purifying defilement. The Great Void has no body; pure and defiled are alike empty. Once a delusory awareness arises, dust-conditions vie to spring up. Since this is no real realm, it is the demon’s palace. Therefore, in performing the rite, one must first wash and sweep clean. Reverently, by means of the True Talisman, I summon: the Nine-Phoenix Great General Who Breaks Pollutions; the Mighty Spirit of the Eight Directions; the Qiánluódánà 乾羅怛那, Dònggāng Tàixuán Envoy 洞罡太玄使者; the Spirit-Lords of the Five Dragons of the Five Directions; the Lady of the Bath of Bloomed Bathing of the Flower Pool; the Embroidered-Robe Envoy of Cāngshuǐ; the General who Eats Demons and Devours Ghosts; the bronze-headed iron-faced cavalry officials…”
Abstract
John Lagerwey, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1089 (§3.B.6, Shénxiāo and related Thunder-rites), identifies this manual as a condensed version of the much larger Tàiyǐ huǒfǔ wǔléi dàfǎ 太乙火府五雷大法 in [[KR5c1220|DZ 1220 Dàofǎ huìyuán]] 188–94. The introduction to the Dàofǎ huìyuán version, written in 1271 by Huáng Yīxuán 黃一玄, explains that the thunder of the Fire Court of the Great Monad is a huàshēn 化身 (“emanation-body”) of the true qì of the Northern Dipper; the Great Monad is the master of the yuèbó 月孛 (calendrical “moon-comet”) methods; and the founding lineage runs through “seven ancestral masters” (the Purple-Mansion Féngzhēnrén 馮真人, Xīyí Chénzhēnrén 希夷陳真人 = Chén Tuán 陳摶, Tōngxuán Liúzhēnrén 通玄劉真人, Fúmó Xǔzhēnrén 伏魔許真人 = Xǔ Xùn 許遜, Pīyún Yángzhēnrén 披雲楊真人, Yúnzhuāng Huángzhēnrén 雲莊黃真人, and the present text’s apparent terminus, Yùtián Yèzhēnrén 玉田葉真人). According to Fǎhǎi yízhū 法海遺珠 3.5 (DZ 1166), the Great Monad is identical with the Celestial Emperor of Great Redness (Dàchì tiāndì 大赤天帝) — the deity addressed throughout the present rite by the formula “急急如大赤天帝敕”. The frontmatter brackets composition 1271–1400.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: John Lagerwey, “Taiyi huofu zougao qirang yi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.6, 1089. On the Léifǎ tradition more broadly: Florian C. Reiter, Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007); Piet van der Loon, “A Taoist Collection of the Fourteenth Century,” in W. Bauer ed., Studia sino-mongolica: Festschrift für Herbert Franke (Wiesbaden 1979), 401–405. On the place of the rite in the larger Dàofǎ huìyuán corpus see John Lagerwey, “Daofa huiyuan,” Taoist Canon 2:1105–1113.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0218
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.6, 1089.