Yùjǐng jiǔtiān jīnxiāo wēishén wángzhù tàiyuán shàngjīng 玉景九天金霄威神王祝太元上經
Superior Scripture of the Supreme Origin, with the Invocation of the King of the Majestic Spirits of the Golden Empyrean of the Nine Heavens of the Jade Capital
anonymous
About the work
A short Shàngqīng 上清 apotropaic scripture in one juan (10 folios), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0256 / CT 256 = TC 255), 洞真部 方法類. The work centres on the Wēishén wáng 威神王 (“King of the Majestic Spirits”), a powerful exorcist deity of the Golden Empyrean (Jīnxiāo 金霄), whose name and visualisation form the core of an apotropaic method. The deity is also called Jǐngjīng zhōng wáng 景精中王 (“King within the Effulgence-Essence”); knowing his name causes “all the demons of the world to make submission.” The text directs the adept to perform the Dàzhù 大祝 (Great Invocation): clap the teeth thirty-six times, visualise the deity emerging from one’s own Liùhé dòngfáng gōng 六合洞房宮 in the brain, seven inches tall, in white jīnzhēn 金真 robes, exhaling a white-cloud breath that surrounds the body and transforms into hundreds of divine tigers (shénhǔ 神虎) which leap forward to slay all baleful sprites; then recite the prescribed incantation (“The Most High in his bright majesty…”). The text also gives instructions for inscribing the deity’s Huòluò shénfú 豁落神符 (in red on white silk three feet long, kept in a purple brocade bag and worn at the chest) and his Tàiwēi tiāndì jūn jīnhǔ zhēnfú 太微天帝君金虎真符 (concealed in the Tàiyuán shàngjǐng qiónggōng 太元上景瓊宮); these protect against demons, summon spirits, and control the Liùtiān 六天. The closing rules of transmission limit the work to three transmissions in seven hundred years (one variant gives 2,200 years), pledged with a gold tiger and jade carp.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the rules of transmission and the description of the deity.
Abstract
Isabelle Robinet, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:596–597 (§2.B.8, Dòngzhēn Division), establishes that the present text is later than the original Shàngqīng revelations: it includes Shàngqīng materials in pastiche form. The work may be identical with the Yùjǐng tàiyuán jīng 玉景太元經 mentioned at [[KR5a0304|DZ 304 Máoshān zhì]] 9.3b. The rules for transmission, given on pages 2a and 5a, place the work after the formation of the Língbǎo 靈寶 canon. The first six folios expound an apotropaic method based on the name and visualisation of the Wēishén wáng 威神王; from 7a to the end, the text is also found in [[KR5a1337|DZ 1337 Dòngzhēn tàiwēi jīnhǔ zhēnfú]]. The work is further mentioned as a register (lù 籙) under the title Tàishàng yùjǐng jiǔtiān jīnxiāo wēishén yùzhù jīng in [[KR5a1125|DZ 1125 Dòngxuán língbǎo sāndòng fèngdào kējiè yíngshǐ]] 4.10a, in a series of Shàngqīng registers conferring the title Dòngzhēn fǎshī 洞真法師. The frontmatter therefore brackets composition 600–800, within the Suí–Táng period of post-Língbǎo Shàngqīng codification.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Isabelle Robinet, “Yujing jiutian jinxiao weishen wangzhu taiyuan shangjing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §2.B.8, 596–597. On the formation of Daoist registers (lù 籙) for ordination: John Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao: Somme taoïste du VIe siècle (Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1981); on the Shàngqīng Wēishén wáng and jīnhǔ 金虎 talisman corpus: Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: EFEO, 1984), Vol. 2.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0257
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §2.B.8, 596–597.