Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo shíshī dùrén miàojīng 太上洞玄靈寶十師度人妙經
Marvelous Scripture of the Ten Masters who Deliver the People, of the Most High Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
About the work
A Táng one-juàn hybrid political-liturgical sūtra. The title shíshī 十師 (“ten masters”) refers to ten rules of behaviour promulgated by the Língbǎo tiānzūn 靈寶天尊 after he has witnessed the tragic consequences of human sin, on the model of a pǔdù 普度 (“universal deliverance”) rite.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with its mythological narrative frame and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated to the Táng by Lagerwey (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 3: 987–988, DZ 341). The scriptural setting is an elaborate parable: in a land 600,000 lǐ west of Mount Kūnlún, the kingdom of Jiūyélí 鳩耶梨 under King Shèngshǒuluó 盛首羅, rules nineteen vassal kingdoms. The queen — the vehicle of the Way in this parable — converts the king to the Great Dào, and a zhēnrén named Gàishì 蓋世 receives the title Guóshī 國師 (“Preceptor of the Realm”). Gàishì expounds the nature of good government to the vassal lords, blending Confucian ethics with Legalist administrative principles. On their return to their lands, the vassals send tribute sufficient to fund a seven-day zhāi 齋 at which scriptures of the Greater Vehicle (dàshèng 大乘) are to be expounded.
At this juncture the Tiānzūn himself appears, having taken on the form of the Guóshī; the king, queen and vassals are disoriented but the Língbǎo tiānzūn quickly establishes his identity by a sequence of miracles modelled on the opening of DZ 1 Língbǎo wúliàng dùrén shàngpǐn miàojīng 靈寶無量度人上品妙經. Having gathered the spirits of Heaven and Hell, he recites the Greater Vehicle scriptures and produces a “pure pool” in which his audience bathes. He then defines the Great Dào — “neither life nor death, neither empty nor full” — and for seven days expounds the fǎyào 法要 (“essence of the Law”), here termed “the first ritual of the Grand Distribution” (dìyī dàshī fǎshì 第一大施法事), another name for the pǔdù 普度 ritual.
The scripture thus serves a dual function: as an ideological charter for church-state relations — with the Guóshī / zhēnrén at the apex of the counsel of the vassal princes — and as a legitimising narrative for a specific form of pǔdù ritual as the supreme expression of the worship of the Great Dào.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 3:987–988 (DZ 341).