Qīngwēi xuánshū zòugào yí 清微玄樞奏告儀
Qīngwēi Ritual for Memorializing to the Mysterious Pillar
A Yuán-period Daoist ritual of the Qīngwēi 清微 (“Pure Tenuity”) school, composed in the immediate circle of 葉雲萊 (Yè Yúnlái, fl. late 13th cent.), thirteen folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0218 / CT 218 = TC 218), 洞真部 威儀類.
About the work
A hybrid liturgy belonging to the Qīngwēi (Pure Tenuity) thunder-rite school, composed by the immediate disciples of 葉雲萊 (Yè Yúnlái, fl. late thirteenth century), one of the heirs of Huáng Shùnshēn 黃舜申 (fl. 1224–1286) and a senior member of the branch to which the well-known Yuán Daoist Zhāng Shǒuqīng 張守清 (fl. 1315–1332) belonged. Xuánshū 玄樞 (“the Mysterious Pillar”) is a metonym for the Heavenly Chancellery — the celestial bureau of the Northern Dipper to which the priest’s memorial is directed. The rite addresses the seven imperial Xīngjūn 星君 of the Běidǒu 北斗 along with their attendants, asks them to grant xiāozāi dùèr 消災度厄 (the dissolution of calamity and the crossing of misfortune), and seeks divinatory confirmation of the petition through a tóupén fú 投盆符 (“basin-cast talisman”) rite of mantic interpretation. Internally the ritual divides into a long invocation of the masters (1a–3b), the dispatching of Dǒuzhōng xiānshǐ 斗中仙使 (immortal envoys within the Dipper) to carry the memorial, the lighting of the seven Dipper lamps with the consequent descent of the Seven Sovereigns (qī yuán 七元), the burning of the memorial proper, and the fǎlú 復爐 dismissal-of-the-burner formula. The lineage of zǔshī 祖師 invoked culminates with “the Sect-Patriarch Yùntián Yèzhēnrén” 宗師雲萊葉眞人 (i.e., Yè Yúnlái), with no successor — the diagnostic signature of composition in his disciples’ generation.
Prefaces
No separate preface in the source; the opening invocation serves as the introduction. The text begins: “Entering the altar; burning the purifying-defilement talisman in the water-bowl; reciting the Heaven-and-Earth incantation; kneeling, silently announcing. Reverently: in the realm of Xuándū 玄都 (the Mysterious Capital), the wondrous-being penetrates spiritually; an inch of sincerity is hard to convey, but the Língbǎo incense — the unconditioned, the pure-and-still — once a single stick is lit, is universally heard. Your servant, so-and-so, in fear and trembling, twice prostrate before the zǔshī: the Pure-Tenuity Yuán-mystery Wondrous-Transformation Heavenly Emperor; the Pure-Tenuity Purple-Audience Great-Brilliance Heavenly Emperor; the Pure-Tenuity Tàichū Heavenly Lord; the zǔshī Mysterious-Heaven Benevolent-Awe Highest Emperor (Zhēnwǔ 真武)…”
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1102 (§3.B.7, the Qīngwēi school), identifies this as a hybrid liturgy composed by the disciples of Yè Yúnlái, one of the successors to Huáng Shùnshēn and a senior member of the branch to which Zhāng Shǒuqīng belonged (cf. [[KR5c1311|DZ 1311 Xiānquán jí 仙泉集]] 1.19a; on Zhāng see also [[KR5a0223|DZ 222 Qīngwēi shénliè bìfǎ]] 1.3b). In the present work the lineage of patriarchs ends with Yè Yúnlái (1b and 2b); this ordering, in the context of the Qīngwēi school, means that the ritual was composed by Yè’s direct disciples — hence the frontmatter date-bracket 1280–1368 (Yuán dynasty). The ritual opens with a long invocation of the masters (1a–3b), followed by the invitation to the emissaries to be charged with the transmission of the memorial; thereafter follows the presentation, a mixture of a dàochǎng 道場 ritual and a lamp rite for the cult of the Dipper-stars. On the wider Qīngwēi school see also DZ 222, DZ 223, and DZ 224 in the same Dàozàng cluster.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Qingwei xuanshu zougao yi,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.7, 1101–1102. On the Qīngwēi school: Florian C. Reiter, The Aspirations and Standards of Taoist Priests in the Early T’ang Period (Wiesbaden 1998); Boltz, Judith M., A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries (Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987), 38–41.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0219
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.7, 1101–1102.