Língtái jīng 靈臺經
Scripture of the Numinous Terrace
Anonymous Táng astronomical-divination treatise, twenty-one folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0288 / CT 288 = TC 288), 洞真部 眾術類. Bound in a single juan with [[KR5a0301|DZ 289 Chèngxīng língtái bìyào jīng]] under the heading èr jīng tóng juàn 二經同卷.
About the work
The term língtái 靈臺 (“numinous terrace”) in Chinese scientific literature denotes any kind of observatory tower used for astronomical, meteorological, or other purposes. The present text is a fragment of an astronomical treatise of unknown origin. The Tōngzhì·Yìwén lüè 通志藝文略 44.14a lists a Língtái jīng 靈臺經 in three juan; the present version preserves only four headings, numbered 9 to 12 — a commentary explains that headings 1 to 8 are lost. Heading number 10 (3a–14b), the most extensive and important, is devoted to a divination practice using a set of twenty-eight palaces, certainly linked to the Twenty-Eight Xiù 二十八宿.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the surviving headings, beginning with Dìng sānfāng zhǔ dìjiǔ 定三方主第九 (“Determining the Master of the Three Quarters, Number Nine — the headings from the first to the eighth being lost”): “On yínwǔxū days, daytime-born receive the day-mùtǔ, night-born receive the mùrìtǔ…”
Abstract
Marc Kalinowski, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 1:337 (§2.A.2, Divination and Numerology), dates the Língtái jīng with some certainty to the beginning of the tenth century, on the basis of its similarities with [[KR5a0301|DZ 289 Chèngxīng língtái bìyào jīng]] which immediately follows in the Daozang. The mantic world evoked by the procedures preserved in this text betrays a strong influence from the astrocalendric calculations of Indian origin that were widespread in China during the second half of the Táng (618–907), including the system of the nine luminaries (jiǔyào 九曜) and the Greek zodiac. Titles cited within the text belong to the Greco-Indian astrological corpus — for instance the Dūlì yúsī jīng 都利聿斯經 (4b), introduced into China between 785 and 805 (cf. the entry on DZ 289 Bìyào jīng), and the Sīmén jīng 四門經 (1b; cited in Zhízhāi shūlù jiětí 直齋書錄解題 12.373), which also dates from the Táng (cf. Xīn Táng shū·Yìwén zhì 新唐書藝文志 3.1548). One peculiarity worth noting is the advanced sinification of the system of the nine luminaries: the typically Chinese Tiānyī 天乙 and Tàiyī 太乙 are used in place of Jīdū 計都 (Sanskrit Ketu) and Luóhóu 羅睺 (Rāhu). The frontmatter brackets composition broadly to the Táng (618–907).
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Marc Kalinowski, “Lingtai jing,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.2, 337. On Indian-derived astrology in Táng China: Jiang Xiaoyuan 江曉原, Tiānxué wàishǐ 天學外史 (Shanghai 1999); Bill M. Mak, “The Last Chapter of Sanskrit Astrology in China: A Comparative Study of the Vasiṣṭhasaṃhitā and the Duli Yusi Jing,” International Journal of Asian Studies 11/1 (2014), 1–27.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0300
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 1 §2.A.2, 337.