Tàishàng língbǎo bǔxiè zàowáng jīng 太上靈寶補謝竈王經
Scripture for Making Amends and Asking Pardon of the Stove King, of the Most High Numinous Treasure
About the work
A three-folio Daoist scripture on the propitiation of the Stove God — here not as the familiar Stove Lord (Zàojūn 灶君) but as the more archaic “Stove Queen” or Old Mother (Zàowáng 灶王 in the title; Lǎomǔ 老母 in the text). Transmitted in the Dàozàng in a composite juàn with DZ 362, DZ 363, DZ 365, and DZ 366.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the Dào yán on the Old Mother of Kūnlún and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated later than DZ 69 Tàishàng dòngxuán ānzào jīng 太上洞玄安灶經 by Robert Chard (“Master of the Family,” 223–232; Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 3: 959, DZ 364). The myth of the cosmic Old Mother is considerably more developed here than in the Ānzào jīng, suggesting a late Táng or Sòng date.
The narrative: a zhēnrén asks the Tiānzūn who the Old Mother living alone on Kūnlún was. The Tiānzūn replies that she was the Mother of the Flames (Chuīmǔ 炊母): in Heaven she bore the title Celestial Empress (Tiānhòu 天后), on Earth Director of Destiny (Sīmìng 司命). She is the emissary of the Seven Primordials of the Northern Dipper and plays in herself the roles of the five directional lords of the stove. She controls a family’s destiny by reporting to Heaven on its members’ conduct at midnight on the day of the new moon. People should therefore scrupulously observe the stove-taboos; should they transgress, they must “make amends and ask pardon” (bǔxiè 補謝) of the stove-goddess and her household. The Tiānzūn himself undertakes to ask the Old Mother to forgive them. The zhēnrén composes a hymn summarising the text, and the Tiānzūn concludes by recommending that the faithful invite a Daoist priest to make offering to the stove-goddess whenever they encounter difficulties.
The scripture is a precious witness to the survival of an older, feminine stove-deity stratum beneath the Sòng-era masculine Zàojūn cult — one of Chard’s central arguments.
Translations and research
- Chard, Robert L. “Master of the Family: The History and Development of the Chinese Cult to the Stove.” PhD dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1990 — translation and discussion at 223–232.
- Chard, Robert L. “Rituals and Scriptures of the Stove Cult.” In Ritual and Scripture in Chinese Popular Religion, edited by David Johnson, 3–54. Berkeley: Chinese Popular Culture Project, 1995.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 3:959 (DZ 364).