Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo jièyè běnxíng shàngpǐn miàojīng 太上洞玄靈寶誡業本行上品妙經
Upper-Grade Marvelous Scripture on the Rules of Conduct, of the Most High Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
(The catalog meta reads 誠業 chéngyè; the source file’s first-line title reads 誡業 jièyè (“rules of karma/conduct”), which is also the reading followed by Schmidt in Taoist Canon 1: 243 and by the parallel Wúshàng bìyào citations. The form 誡業 is therefore followed here, the catalog meta reading noted as a slip.)
About the work
A substantial Six-Dynasties Língbǎo scripture in twenty-eight folios, one of the large ritual-doctrinal sūtras of the mature Língbǎo corpus. Its full subtitle (1a) — Yuányī jīnzhēn fǎlún jièyè běnxíng yīnyuán shàngpǐn 元一金真法輪誡業本行因緣上品 — advertises its close relationship to the older Língbǎo quànjiè 勸誡 literature.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly into the Dào yán 道言 narrative of the revelation in the Dòngmíng 洞明 / Dānlíng tiān 丹陵天, and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated by Schmidt (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 1: 242–243, DZ 345) to the Six Dynasties (420–589). The scripture’s core subject is the conduct of a Retreat (zhāi 齋) patterned on the Three Primordials (sānyuán 三元) and on the Mud-and-Charcoal (tútàn zhāi 塗炭齋, 26a; cf. Wúshàng bìyào 50, 52), incorporating the jièyè běnxíng — Rules of Conduct of the Root Practice — into its liturgical structure. Its idiom and subject matter link it closely to DZ 348 Tàishàng xuányī zhēnrén shuō quànjiè fǎlún miàojīng.
The narrative: the text was revealed by Yuán [Xuán]yī tiānzūn 元[玄]一天尊 to the Lord of the Dào (Tàishàng dàojūn), who on receipt received the title Wúshàng gāoshàng dòngmíng dàfǎwáng 無上高上洞明大法王. The Dào “speaks” to expound the circumstances of the revelation (1a–2b); the listeners, pointed out by the Tiānzūn to the ten directions of space (jǔshǒu zhǐdiǎn shífāng xūkōng zhī zhōng 舉首指點十方虛空之中, 2a), arrive and circumambulate him three times while burning incense, scattering flowers, and chanting the bùxū 步虛 hymn. After seating themselves, they ask the Tiānzūn to expound the rules of conduct; he does so at length. At the end of the work the Dào speaks again to summarize all the salutary effects of the text since its revelation in the cosmic period Dòngmíng (28a–b).
The scripture is one of the principal early witnesses to the bùxū 步虛 hymn-tradition and to the symbolic-choreographic structure of the classical Língbǎo Retreat.
Translations and research
- Yamada Toshiaki 山田利明. Rikuchō dōkyō girei no kenkyū 六朝道教儀禮の研究. Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 1999.
- Malek, Roman. Das Chai-chieh lu [Zhāijiè lù]. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1985 — on the cognate Retreat-and-precept literature.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:242–243 (DZ 345).