Shàngqīng dòngxuán míngdēng shàngjīng 上清洞玄明燈上經
Upper Scripture on Lighting Lamps, of the Shàngqīng Cavern-Mystery
About the work
A seven-folio Daoist lamp-lighting liturgical scripture. The composite title Shàngqīng dòngxuán indicates its affiliation with the Shàngqīng língbǎo dàfǎ 上清靈寶大法 ritual tradition — the great unified liturgy of the Sòng-era Daoist synthesis.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with its highly ornate doctrinal exposition and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Schipper (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 946, DZ 367) notes that the scripture does not follow the usual revealed-scripture model and provides no internal clues for dating; the liturgical style and the Shàngqīng dòngxuán affiliation nonetheless locate it within the Táng–Sòng lamp-lighting ritual complex.
In highly ornate classical language, the text expounds the importance of the lamp-lighting ritual (míngdēng 明燈), the singing of hymns while the lamps burn, and the celebration of Retreats for the atonement of sins (1b). The soteriological logic is cumulative: the more lamps are lit, the better; those who practice the ritual for three years will rise into Heaven in broad daylight. One of the lights bears the title Prince of Lamps (dēngwáng 燈王), in whose honour four stanzas of a classical hymn are chanted; nineteen additional stanzas follow. The work closes with a formula for the Feeding of Hungry Ghosts (shīshí zhòngshēng zhòu 施食眾生咒), linking the scripture explicitly to the mortuary pǔdù 普度 liturgy.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:946 (DZ 367).