Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo sānyuán wúliàng shòu jīng 太上洞玄靈寶三元無量壽經
Scripture of Incommensurable Longevity of the Three Primordials, of the Most High Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
About the work
A Táng-era one-juàn scripture in which the Tàishàng dàojūn 太上道君, addressing a “great assembly” of perfected in the Palace of the Three Primordials (Sānyuán gōng 三元宮), teaches the zhēnrén Yíkě 儀可 twenty-seven “incommensurable” (wúliàng 無量) methods reducible to the cultivation of contemplative wisdom (guānhuì 觀慧). “Incommensurable longevity” is the blessing promised to those who recite, copy, and circulate the text.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The scripture opens directly with the revelation scene in the Palace of the Three Primordials; there is no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
The text is dated to the Táng (618–907) by Lagerwey (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 535–536, DZ 323). Its doctrinal architecture: all dharmas 諸法 arise from the Dào, which can be realised only through the gradual cultivation of guānhuì 觀慧, itself specified in twenty-seven distinct methods — a numerological parallel to the twenty-seven paragraphs of DZ 336 Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo yèbào yīnyuán jīng. The first method teaches “distancing oneself from the body” (yuǎnshēn 遠身); the last teaches “to bear the unbearable.” Each method is elaborated through ten “modalities” (wisdom, compassion, patience, good works, self-cultivation, amelioration of karma, diligence, regulation of the body, elimination of desire, and the “universalisation of the heart” pǔxīn 普心). The scripture closes (13b–14a) with the promise of “incommensurable longevity” as the reward of its recitation, copying, and distribution.
The heavy debt to Buddhist contemplative vocabulary — wúliàng, guānhuì, and the stylised Lion-throne / seven-treasure revelation frame — places the scripture squarely in the Táng phase of Lingbao sūtra production, alongside DZ 336, DZ 337 Shíhào gōngdé yīnyuán miàojīng 十號功德因緣妙經, and the other yīnyuán 因緣 sūtras of the 洞玄部本文類 group.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:535–536 (DZ 323).