Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo kāiyǎn mìmì zàng jīng 太上洞玄靈寶開演祕密藏經
Scripture that Opens Out the Treasury of Secrets, of the Most High Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
About the work
A one-juàn doctrinal scripture of the early Táng, corresponding to juàn 9 of the larger Běnjì jīng 本際經 (Tàixuán zhēnyī běnjì miàojīng 太玄真一本際妙經, DZ 1111). The “treasury of secrets” of the title refers to the three-fold secrets of body, speech and heart (shēn 身, kǒu 口, xīn 心) that the Tàishàng dàojūn 太上道君 expounds to Tàiwēi dìjūn 太微帝君 in reply to the latter’s question on the bodies of the Heavenly Worthies of the Ten Directions.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with its dated narrative frame — “On the fifth day of the tenth month of the first year of Shànghuáng, the Tàishàng dàdào jūn, together with innumerable heavenly perfected and marvelous-acting spirit-beings, repaired to the dwelling of Tàiwēi dìjūn…” — and carries no author preface or transmission colophon beyond its internal transmission-narrative at the close.
Abstract
Schmidt (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 522–523, DZ 329) places the work in the early seventh century as part of the Sui–Táng Běnjì jīng complex, citing the text’s own internal statement of its position as juàn 9 of that larger sūtra. In keeping with the philosophical and theological orientation of the remainder of the Běnjì jīng, the present juàn develops a series of body-distinctions — the immaterial body without form (dàoshēn 道身) versus the physical body (shēngshēn 生身), and the original body (běnshēn 本身, a primordial condition free of affliction and identified with dàoxìng 道性, “Dao-nature,” 3a) versus the manifest body (jìshēn 跡身). It then develops the concept of “differentiated teaching” (biéjiào 別教) — teaching adapted to the understanding of the multitude, in two provisional halves or extremes — and the “middle path” or “correct insight” (zhōngdào / zhèngguān 正觀, 9a–10b). The Tàishàng dàojūn has thus “opened the treasury of secrets” of body (through the body-distinctions), speech (through differentiated teaching), and heart (through correct insight; 12b–13b). After tracing the line of oral transmission of the text from Tàidì 太帝 down to himself, he charges Tàiwēi dìjūn to write it down and transmit it.
The prominence of zhōngdào 中道 / zhèngguān 正觀 and of the dàoshēn / shēngshēn distinction shows the depth of Mādhyamika influence on the Sui–Táng Běnjì corpus.
Translations and research
- Wáng Zǒnghǎo 王宗昱. 《道教義樞》研究 (Studies on the Dàojiào yìshū). Shanghai: Shanghai wenhua chubanshe, 2001. Background on the Běnjì jīng complex.
- Wang, Chengwen. “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures.” In Early Chinese Religion, Part Two: The Period of Division (220–589 AD), edited by John Lagerwey and Pengzhi Lü, 775–888. Leiden: Brill, 2010.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:522–523 (DZ 329); DZ 1111 (Běnjì jīng).
- Yamada Toshiaki 山田利明. “Honsai kyō 本際經.” In Dōkyō kenkyū ronshū 道教研究論集. Tokyo: Kokusho kankōkai, 1977.