Tàishàng língbǎo tiāndì yùndù zìrán miàojīng 太上靈寶天地運度自然妙經
Marvelous Scripture on the Spontaneous Laws of Motion of Heaven and Earth, of the Most High Numinous Treasure
About the work
A short anonymous Língbǎo scripture in one juàn. After a cosmological preamble on the dimensions and centre of the world — Mount Kūnlún as the axis, the Northern Dipper hovering above it, and the 81 regions and 810 territories sustained by its qì — the text turns to eschatology: ten prophetic stanzas announcing the end of the Jīnmǎ era and the coming of the flood and of Lǐ Hóng 李弘 (code-named 弓口十八子 Gōngkǒu shíbāzǐ), and rules for the scripture’s transmission.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text is anonymous and carries no preface, postface or transmission colophon beyond the internal injunction at its close.
Abstract
The scripture is listed in the Língbǎo jīngmù 靈寶經目 under the title Tiāndì yùndù 天地運度 with the mention 未出 (“not yet revealed”), indicating that at the moment of Lù Xiūjìng’s 陸修靜 canon-list (437) the text existed only as a promised title. Ōfuchi Ninji demonstrated that it was nonetheless in circulation by ca. 570 (“On Ku Ling-pao Ching,” 36, 55–56), and the citations in Yúnjí qīqiān 雲笈七籤 and the Sāndòng zhūnáng 三洞珠囊 correspond to the present text. The usual dating is therefore fifth to sixth century.
Its doctrinal kernel is apocalyptic: the cosmos, though vast and regular, is subject to cyclic catastrophes; adepts who wish to obtain the Dào must understand the laws governing these events and must persevere in recitation. The ten prophetic zhāng announce the imminent collapse of the Jīnmǎ 金馬 era (widely understood as a cipher for the Sīmǎ 司馬 house of the Jìn 晉 dynasty, 265–420; cf. DZ 1273 Zhèngyī tiānshī gào Zhào Shēng kǒujué 正一天師告趙昇口訣), a great deluge, and — at the hour of the Water-Dragon (shuǐlóng shí 水龍時) — the epiphany of the messianic Lǐ Hóng. Only constant recitation of the verses and penetrating meditation upon their meaning can secure passage through the catastrophe. The scripture concludes with regulations for transmission, marking it as a text from the mature “revealed-scripture” phase of the Língbǎo corpus.
Translations and research
- Kikuchi Noritaka 菊地章太. “Taijō reihō tenchi undo shizen myōkyō 《太上靈寶天地運度自然妙經》.” Article cited in Schipper & Verellen (see below).
- Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾. “On Ku Ling-pao Ching.” Acta Asiatica 27 (1974): 33–56, at 36, 55–56.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:241–242 (DZ 322).
Other points of interest
The scripture is a major witness to the figure of Lǐ Hóng as Daoist messiah (cf. Seidel, “The Image of the Perfect Ruler in Early Taoist Messianism”). Its use of the Gōngkǒu shíbāzǐ 弓口十八子 cipher — a graphic decomposition of 李 (弓+口+十+八+子) standing for the surname Lǐ — is emblematic of the genre.