Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo bāwēi zhàolóng miàojīng 太上洞玄靈寶八威召龍妙經
Marvelous Scripture on the Eight Daunters and the Summoning of Dragon Kings, of the Most High Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
About the work
A two-juàn sixth-century Língbǎo ritual scripture on the summoning of dragon-deities (lóngwáng 龍王) and the control of water-catastrophes through the “Eight Daunters” (bāwēi 八威) — the eight protective talismans worn at the belt during the Língbǎo Retreat.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the ritual instructions and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
A Bāwēi zhàolóng jīng in one juàn is listed in the Língbǎo jīngmù 靈寶經目 as “not yet revealed” (未出), so the present two-juàn text is one of those Língbǎo scriptures that Ōfuchi (“On Ku Ling-pao Ching,” 37, 55) shows to have existed by 570. The earliest citations of it occur in the Sāndòng zhūnáng 三洞珠囊 and in DZ 1132 Shàngqīng dào lèishì xiàng 上清道類事相.
The scripture offers the means of surviving the minor and major kalpas unharmed, of averting floods and droughts by influencing the water deities, and of rendering the venom-spewing Eight Daunters harmless. The prescribed practice: on the eight seasonal days (bājié rì 八節日) one should climb a mountain and summon the nāgarāja (lóngwáng zhàngrén 龍王丈人) of the seas (1.2a–4a); four times each year (sìshí 四時) one should cast tablets of prayer into the waters (tóu shuǐjiǎn 投水簡, 1.4b–6b) — a precursor of the later full tóujiǎn 投簡 tablet-casting rite. During the Língbǎo Retreat, the Eight Daunters tablets (bāwēi cèwén 八威策文) must be worn on the belt in order to summon the dragon-kings and zhēnrén and to disperse demons. The transmission-rite closes juàn 1. Juàn 2 is largely an exaltation of the Dragon Lord (lóngjūn 龍君) and a propagation of Mahāyānistic theoretical concepts — the Four Ways of Conduct (sìxíng 四行), the Three Worlds (sānjiè 三界), etc., at 2.9b ff.
The term bāwēi cè is already attested in DZ 388 Tàishàng língbǎo wǔfú xù 3.12b and in DZ 22 Yuánshǐ wǔlǎo chìshū yùpiān zhēnwén tiānshū jīng 2.1a–2b, anchoring the present scripture firmly within the Língbǎo ritual-textual family.
Translations and research
- Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾. “On Ku Ling-pao Ching.” Acta Asiatica 27 (1974): 33–56, at 37, 55.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:247 (DZ 361).