Dòngxuán língbǎo shàngshī shuō jiùhù shēnmìng jīng 洞玄靈寶上師說救護身命經
Scripture of Salvation of Life and Person, Spoken by the Senior Master, of the Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
About the work
A twelve-folio Six-Dynasties apocalyptic-apotropaic scripture, textually part of the lost mega-scripture Yuányáng jīng 元陽經 complex of which DZ 334 (KR5b0018) preserves the principal surviving witness. The title-term Shàngshī 上師 (“Senior Master”) in general designates masters of previous generations, but here refers specifically to the Immortal of Purple Yang (Zǐyáng xiānrén 紫陽仙人, 7a) and his own master the Duke-Immortal of Primordial Yang (Yuányáng xiāngōng 元陽仙公, 2a); the term is used synonymously with shīzūn 師尊 (6b; cf. DZ 334 Yuányáng miàojīng 4.1a).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the revelation scene in the Pǔlín 蒲林 land and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated to the Six Dynasties (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 1: 246–247, DZ 356). The Dūnhuáng manuscript Stein 482 (seventh century), bearing the title Yuányáng shàngjuǎn zhàodù jí’nàn jīng “Pǐn dìyī” 元陽上卷昭度濟難經「品第一」, corresponds partially to the present text (Ōfuchi, Tonkō dōkyō: Mokurokuhen, 100). Together with juàn 4 of DZ 334 Yuányáng miàojīng, the present text was originally part of a vast Yuányáng jīng scripture of which multiple fragments survive at Dūnhuáng — e.g. Pelliot 2366 (Ōfuchi, Mokurokuhen, 102) contains sections 16 to 18 of a Tàishàng yuányáng jīng 太上元陽經 variant.
Before rising to heaven on the seventh day of the seventh month of a rényín 壬寅 year (5b), the Shàngshī of the zhēnrén Tiáolín fǎjìng 條林法淨 explains how to use the present scripture, which is identified as the first section of the Yuányáng shàngpǐn 元陽上品 (1b), to “save the persons and deliver the lives” of those who, during the five hundred years following his ascension, will fall victim to the gǔdào 蠱道 (poison-sorcery) prevalent in the coming dark age.
Salvation from this plague of sorcery requires only the recitation of the scripture — or, for the illiterate, its carrying on the person. Demons who refuse to heed its words are judged by the Xuándū guild 玄都邏 (2a–b). The names of seven zhēnrén (probably the Dipper) are then given, whom one may invoke to drive away demons. The master concludes by promising rebirth in the celestial abode of Wénchāng 文昌宮 to all who propagate the cult of the present scripture (6a).
Translations and research
- Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾. Tonkō dōkyō: Mokurokuhen 敦煌道經：目錄編. Tokyo: Fukutake shoten, 1978, 100, 102.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:246–247 (DZ 356).