Sāndòng zànsòng língzhāng 三洞讚頌靈章
Supernatural Stanzas, Hymns, and Lauds of the Three Caverns
Anonymous Yuán liturgical anthology, in three juan, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 0314 / CT 314 = TC 314), 洞真部 讚頌類.
About the work
A three-juan anonymous Yuán-period collection of liturgical zàn 讚 (lauds), sòng 頌 (hymns), zhāng 章 (stanzas), and gē 歌 (songs) for ritual recitation in the Three Caverns (Sāndòng 三洞 = Dòngzhēn 洞真, Dòngxuán 洞玄, Dòngshén 洞神). The hymns (sòng) and stanzas (zhāng) are usually in seven-character verse; the songs (gē) and lauds (zàn) are in five-character verse. The text appears to have been compiled in the milieu of the Máoshān 茅山 movement during the Yuán dynasty: at 3.11b–13a there is a Laud to the Heaven of the Lord of Pervading Mystery, Chōngmiào xiānshēng 沖妙先生 — most probably the hào of Jiāng Zōngyīng 蔣宗瑛 (d. 1281), thirty-eighth patriarch of the Shàngqīng 上清 lineage, fixing the Yuán dating. The work is structured as a comprehensive ritual-recitation manual, with hymns to the Three Pure Ones (Sānqīng 三清), to the cosmic gods Yùhuáng 玉皇 and Běidǒu 北斗, to the patriarchs of the various lineages, and to the celestial functionaries of the zhāi 齋 (Daoist Retreat) liturgy.
Prefaces
No preface in the source. The text opens directly with the first liturgical block.
Abstract
Kristofer Schipper, in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004) 2:1219 (§3.C.1, Hymnody and Gāogōng), establishes the Yuán dating: the text could have been compiled during the Yuán dynasty in the milieu of the Máoshān 茅山 movement, on the basis of the Laud to Chōngmiào xiānshēng 沖妙先生 at 3.11b–13a — probably the hào of Jiāng Zōngyīng 蔣宗瑛 (d. 1281), thirty-eighth patriarch of the Shàngqīng lineage. The frontmatter brackets composition broadly to the Yuán (1280–1368). The hymn structure — the seven-character sòng and zhāng, the five-character gē and zàn — corresponds to the standard divisions of late-imperial Daoist liturgical poetry; the work is one of the major Yuán-period sources for the zhāi recitation tradition.
Translations and research
No full translation. Standard scholarly entry: Kristofer Schipper, “Sandong zansong lingzhang,” in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.C.1, 1219. On Daoist liturgical hymn-anthologies of this kind: Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body (Berkeley 1993); John Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History (New York 1987). On Jiāng Zōngyīng and Yuán-period Máoshān: Florian C. Reiter, “Maoshan zhi,” in TC 2:911–912.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5a0326
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), Vol. 2 §3.C.1, 1219.