Tàishàng dēngzhēn sānjiǎo língyìng jīng 太上登真三矯靈應經
Most-High Scripture on the Ascent to Truth and the Magical Efficacy of the Three Nimble Movements
Anonymous Sòng-period Daoist ritual manual on the sānjiǎo 三矯 (“three nimble movements”) of dragon, tiger, and deer, seven folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0286 / CT 286 = TC 286), 洞真部 眾術類. Bound in a single juan with [[KR5a0297|DZ 285 Huángdì shòu sānzǐ Xuánnǚ jīng]] under the heading èr jīng tóng juàn 二經同卷.
About the work
A short ritual treatise describing three minor visualization-rites by which the adept can move at will across earth and air: the lóng jiǎo 龍矯 (“dragon move”), hǔ jiǎo 虎矯 (“tiger move”), and lù jiǎo 鹿矯 (“deer move”). The text is presented as “the inner-secret writing of the Shàngqīnggōng” (上清宮内隱祕之書): the dragon-move is qì — and qì is the Way; long contemplation of it refines body into qì and conjoins with the Way, producing clouds. The tiger-move is the “mother of wind, the son of water”; practiced for three years, the tiger spontaneously rides the wind and conjoins with the yángqì of heaven and earth as one. The deer-move is “the constant”; it can speed the adept a thousand lǐ a day, and lead him to numinous língzhī 靈芝 mushrooms whose location the deer alone can know. The text continues with rùfǎ 入法 (“entering the method”) sections: the deer-rite requires three days of bathing in fragrant water and a small altar set on the jiǎzǐ or gēngshēn night, with one lamp, one censer, three flowers, eighty-one stalks of báimáo 白茅 grass, seven peach leaves, and the recitation of a zhòu 咒 incantation while holding a Wǔdì yìn 五帝印 seal in the mouth. The tiger-rite calls for seven days’ fasting and a gēngyín midnight altar; the dragon-rite calls for the second day of the first month on a jiǎyín day, with a wooden plank inscribed with a six-character formula, a paper cut-out red dragon set on water, a mirror, the Yùdì yìn 玉帝印 seal, and the recitation of a nine-character incantation. The text closes with detailed instructions for the manufacture of the Yùdì yìn seal.
Prefaces
No formal preface in the source. The text opens directly with a frame-statement: “All who would learn the Way of cultivating immortality, on encountering the Sānjiǎo jīng, can enter the marvellous Way; this is unlike all other methods, unlike all other arts; using it is like striking sparks from stone, setting it like setting up smoke and clouds, applying it like a lightning-flash — one swiftly travels to the immortals’ isles.”
Abstract
Hans-Hermann Schmidt, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1239 (§3.B.14, Other Popular Cults), identifies the Sānjiǎo jīng as a Sòng-dynasty (960–1279) Daoist ritual text. Three minor rituals — for the visualization of deer, tiger, and dragon — enable the adept to move at will across earth and air. The techniques depend on the use of the Yùdì yìn 玉帝印 (“Jade Emperor’s Seal”), and the text concludes by explaining in detail how this seal is to be made. The frontmatter brackets composition broadly to the Sòng (960–1279); on internal evidence the text quotes Liè zǐ 列子 and Sūn zhēnrén 孫真人, but its specific liturgical apparatus and the Yùdì yìn / Wǔdì yìn combination are characteristic of post-Táng Daoism.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Hans-Hermann Schmidt, “Taishang dengzhen sanjiao lingying jing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.14, 1239. Substantial study: Maxime Kaltenmark, “Un procédé de vol magique à l’usage des taoïstes,” in Mélanges de sinologie offerts à Monsieur Paul Demiéville II (Paris 1974), 167–172.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0298
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.B.14, 1239.