Dòngxuán língbǎo běnxiàng yùndù jiéqī jīng 洞玄靈寶本相運度劫期經
Scripture on the Root Appearance, Revolving Measures, and Kalpa-Periods of the Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
About the work
A single-juàn revealed scripture of the later Língbǎo 靈寶 tradition in which the Língbǎo Heavenly Worthy (Língbǎo tiānzūn 靈寶天尊) discourses to the Daoist Yánmíng 炎明 on the paradisiacal land of Dòngfú shān 洞浮山, the “spontaneously generated characters of the celestial environment and Great Chaos” (tiānjǐng dàhùn zìrán wénzì 天景大混自然文字), and the successive calamities that mark the end of a cosmic period. The text circulates together with a family of cognate Běnxiàng scriptures known both in the canon (DZ 1131 Tàishàng miàofǎ běnxiàng jīng) and in Dūnhuáng manuscripts (Stein 2122, Pelliot 3091).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The scripture opens directly with a scene-setting narrative — “The Language Treasure Heavenly Worthy once, upon Mount Dòngfú, asked the Daoist Yánmíng…” — and carries no author preface, postface, or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Traditionally classed among the post-Gě Cháofǔ additions to the Língbǎo corpus, the Běnxiàng yùndù jiéqī jīng is generally dated to the sixth century on the basis of its terminology and its dependence on a larger Běnxiàng textual complex. Schipper (Taoist Canon 1: 248) lists it as DZ 319 and notes its close relation to DZ 1131 Tàishàng miàofǎ běnxiàng jīng and to Dūnhuáng Stein 2122 and Pelliot 3091: the three share a peculiar vocabulary (e.g. sānyuán jiǔè 三元九厄, “nine difficulties of the Three Primordial epochs”; the Buddhist loan 聲聞 shēngwén / śrāvaka; shíxiān 十仙 modelled on the Buddhist daśabhūmi) and a distinctive description of the paradisiacal Mount Dòngfú with its “spontaneously generated characters.” One of two citations from chapter 20 of a Běnxiàng jīng preserved in DZ 1132 Shàngqīng dào lèishì xiàng 3.3a is found in the present text (2b); a citation of the Běnxiàng jīng in Falin’s 法琳 Biànzhèng lùn 辯正論 8.543c partially matches 14b. On this slim evidence Schmidt surmises (ibid.) that DZ 319 may preserve, or be wrought from, the otherwise-lost chapter 20 of a larger Běnxiàng jīng originally in at least twenty-three pǐn 品. The Xiàodào lùn 笑道論 9.147a–150a quotes a Jiéqī jīng 劫期經 whose passages correspond closely to the cosmological explanations centred on Mount Kūnlún 崑崙 at 10b–12a of the present scripture, furnishing a sixth-century terminus ante quem.
The scripture’s thematic core is the inevitability of cyclical calamities (ràng 禳) — famine, pestilence, war, moral decline — which the sage, knowing the hidden laws, can evade by provident measures and by reliance on the revealed scriptures; this motivates the revelation of the Shénzhòu jīng 神咒經 in ten juàn (for which cf. DZ 335 Tàishàng dòngyuān shénzhòu jīng 1), the invocation of the zhēnrén Yàowáng 藥王 and Yàoshèng 藥聖, and of the deities of Tuányáng shànghū 團陽上胡 (cf. DZ 336 Dòngxuán língbǎo shàngshī shuōjiǔhù shénmíng jīng), as well as the Língbǎo wúliàng dùrén pǐn 靈寶無量度人品, Dàdòng zhēnjīng 大洞真經, Wúliàng shénjīng 無量神經, Sānmèi zhēnjīng 三昧真經, and Dàodé jiéjié 道德節解 (4b–6a).
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located beyond the entries in Schipper & Verellen and the studies of the larger Běnxiàng complex:
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:248 (DZ 319), with the cognate entries on DZ 1131 Tàishàng miàofǎ běnxiàng jīng.
- Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾. Tonkō dōkyō: Mokurokuhen 敦煌道經：目錄編. Tokyo: Fukutake shoten, 1978 — for Stein 2122 and Pelliot 3091 manuscripts of the Běnxiàng jīng.