Tàiyī jiùkǔ hùshēn miàojīng 太一救苦護身妙經
Marvelous Life-Protecting Scripture of the Great One Who Saves from Distress
About the work
A short six-folio Táng scripture devoted to the deity Jiùkǔ tiānzūn 救苦天尊 (“Heavenly Worthy Who Saves from Distress”) in his identity as Tàiyī 太一. Transmitted in the Dàozàng in a composite juàn with DZ 349 and DZ 350 (KR5b0033 and KR5b0034). The scripture is one of the principal sources for the great late-medieval and popular Daoist cult of Jiùkǔ tiānzūn, and remains in active liturgical use.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the assembly-scene in the Qīngwēi tiān 清微天 and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated to the Táng by Lagerwey (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 547, DZ 351). The scriptural frame: during an assembly in the Qīngwēi Heaven, the Most High Lord Lǎo 太上老君 asks the Yuánshǐ tiānzūn 元始天尊 to enable those suffering in the Three Worlds to share in the joy created by his light. The Tiānzūn responds that this is the role of the Jiùkǔ tiānzūn 救苦天尊, who is capable of transforming himself into a Daoist, a marshal, or even a Chán Buddhist master, as need dictates, in order to save all beings; supplicants need only to invoke him. The Tiānzūn summons the savior, who appears as a young child.
After the Jiùkǔ tiānzūn has demonstrated his capacity to transform himself and rescue lives, the Yuánshǐ tiānzūn declares to Lord Lǎo: “You are my qì; I am your root. What I know, you know. This is the essence of the Nine Yáng, very powerful. You must keep it secret and never reveal it” (3b). Lord Lǎo thereupon concentrates in order to produce a formula encapsulating the power of the Nine Yáng (the qì of the East, whence the One Who Saves from Distress derives). The Tiānzūn rehearses a litany of circumstances in which recitation of this formula, together with the present scripture, will save the supplicant from distress. Because the Jiùkǔ tiānzūn descends to the human realm on the third and ninth days of each month, adepts must worship him on those days in their Pure Chamber (jìngshì 靜室).
The scripture thus identifies the Jiùkǔ tiānzūn as a transformation-body of Tàiyī, articulates his cult calendar, and provides the essential litany for his invocation — a template that was to be developed liturgically in the Sòng-era Shíwáng 十王 and jiǔyōu 九幽 mortuary rites.
Translations and research
- Mollier, Christine. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008, esp. ch. 5 on Jiùkǔ tiānzūn / Guānyīn parallels.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:547 (DZ 351).
Other points of interest
The Jiùkǔ tiānzūn of this scripture is the direct Daoist counterpart of the Buddhist bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara / Guānyīn 觀音: both share the capacity of protean transformation for the salvation of suffering beings, and both operate on a comparable invocation-logic. Mollier (2008) treats the two cults as a paradigmatic case of medieval Buddho-Daoist interaction.