Tàixuán bājǐng lù 太玄八景籙
Register of the Eight Effulgences of the Great Mystery
anonymous
About the work
A long Daoist register-text in one juan (43 folios), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0258 / CT 258 = TC 257), 洞真部 方法類. The text is identical with [[KR5a1407|DZ 1407 Dòngxuán língbǎo èrshísì shēng tújīng]] 3a–48a, but is here separated and treated as a register (lù 籙) used in initiatory transmission. The work consists of three parallel sections, one each for the Upper, Middle and Lower Cinnabar Fields (shàng, zhōng, xià yuán 上中下元) of the body, with eight jǐng 景 (“Effulgences” or luminous spirits) in each — twenty-four in all. Each section follows the same fourfold structure: (i) eight numbered diagrams of practices, each accompanied by a poem in five-character verse (Zhēnrén mùyù dōngjǐng tú 真人沐浴東井圖, Shénxiān wǔyuè zhēnxíng tú 神仙五嶽真形圖, Tōnglíng juéjīng bāshǐ tú 通靈決精八史圖, etc.); (ii) a list of the eight luminous deities of that section, with their hidden names and zì — for the upper section: brain-spirit Jué Yuán 覺元 (zì Zǐdào dū 子道都), hair-spirit Xuántiānhuá 玄天華, skin-spirit Tōngzhòngzhòng 通衆仲, eye-spirit Língjiànshēng 靈鑑生, vertex-spirit Língmóyì 靈謨益, and so on; (iii) talismanic charms (fú 符) to be inscribed; (iv) lengthy enumerations of the heavenly officers and immortal hosts attached to each Effulgence — counted in groups of fourteen, ten, eighty-one, three thousand two hundred, and “nine hundred million horse-and-rider” (jiǔyì wànqí 九億萬騎). The text is framed by a long mythological preamble in which the Dìyī zhēnjūn 帝一真君 (the One True Lord) issues the register at the Chìmíng 赤明 (“Red Brilliance”) era, the second day of the ninth month of the Shànghuáng 上皇 1st year, on the Nánhuò 南霍 mountain in the Dānlíng dònggōng 丹靈洞宮, transmitting it through the Hēidì zhēnrén 黑帝真人 Jùjūn 巨君, then to Yángjūn 楊君 (= Yáng Xī 楊羲), and so on.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the mythological narrative of the Hòushèng Lǐjūn 後聖李君’s encounter with the Yuánshǐ tiānwáng 元始天王 by the western river.
Abstract
Fāng Líng, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:566–567 (§2.B.8, Dòngzhēn Division), establishes that the present text is identical to [[KR5a1407|DZ 1407 Dòngxuán língbǎo èrshísì shēng tújīng]] 3a–48a, but its utilisation as a register (lù 籙) for ordination came into use only in the Táng — hence its placement in the section of registers of the Dòngzhēn 洞真 division. The name of the Eight Effulgences (bājǐng 八景) derives from twenty-four sacred diagrams written in “golden script and jade characters” (jīnshū yùzì 金書玉字), produced by the spontaneous transformation of the three times eight luminous spirits of the body of the Hòushèng Lǐjūn 後聖李君 (“Lord Lǐ, the Saint Who Is to Come”). The register was the second in importance to be transmitted to initiates into the Língbǎo canon, that is, to the Tàishàng língbǎo dòngxuán dìzǐ 太上靈寶洞玄弟子 (see [[KR5a1125|DZ 1125 Dòngxuán língbǎo sāndòng fèngdào kējiè yíngshǐ]] 4.8a, which gives the more complete title Sānbù bājǐng zìrán zhìzhēn yùlù 三部八景自然至真玉籙). The same register is also mentioned at [[KR5a1239|DZ 1239 Zhèngyī xiūzhēn lüèyí]] 18a under the title Tàishàng bājǐng chéntú lù 太上八景晨圖籙. Zhāng Wànfú 張萬福, in his catalogue of the Língbǎo scriptures, mentions a Bājǐng nèiyīn 八景內音 probably referring to the present register (see [[KR5a1241|DZ 1241 Chuánshòu sāndòng jīngjiè fǎlù lüèshuō]] 1.8a). The frontmatter brackets composition within the Táng dynasty (618–907), in line with its emergence as an ordination register.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Fāng Líng, “Taixuan bajing lu,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.8, 566–567. On Daoist ordination registers in the Táng: Charles Benn, The Cavern-Mystery Transmission: A Taoist Ordination Rite of A.D. 711 (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1991); on the bājǐng concept and Shàngqīng meditation: Isabelle Robinet, Méditation taoïste (Paris: Dervy, 1979); Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme (Paris: EFEO, 1984).
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0259
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.B.8, 566–567.