Tàishàng dòngxuán bǎoyuán shàngjīng 太上洞玄寶元上經
Upper Scripture of Treasuring the Origin, of the Most High Cavern-Mystery
About the work
A twenty-one-folio doctrinal treatise on the Dàodé jīng, otherwise unattested in the scholarly record. An interlinear note at the head of the text announces variant titles Tàiyī miàojué 太一妙訣 (“Marvelous Secret of the Great One”) and Zìrán jīng 自然經 (“Scripture of Spontaneity”). The Tàishàng bǎoyuán shàngjīng is further identified in the same note as “cultivated by the Yùchén jūn 玉晨君 through the secret instruction of the divine purport of the Five Emperors, kept in the Chamber of the Great Existence, and transmitted to the Unsurpassed Zhēnrén.”
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source proper; the attributional note that heads the text (describing its transmission from the Yùchén jūn) functions as a minimal transmission-colophon but is authorial rather than a preface.
Abstract
Dated only as “uncertain” by Schipper (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 1: 594, DZ 368). The work develops an esoteric interpretation of the liturgical title of Tàishàng lǎojūn: Wújí dàdào zhìzhēn tàishàng lǎojūn gāohuáng tiānzūn yùdì bìxià 無極大道至真太上老君高皇天尊玉帝陛下, analyzing it into ten segments that are glossed as so many “interior names” (nèihào 內號) of the deity. The doctrinal exposition weaves the ten-segment esoteric-title analysis together with a Dàodé jīng-based meditation on Heaven, Earth, and Humanity and the nondual origin (bǎoyuán 寶元) from which they issue.
The scripture is an otherwise-unparalleled specimen of late-Táng or Sòng Daoist esoteric theology and lexicographical commentary on the Lǎojūn title-formula. Schipper observes that it is “unknown elsewhere,” limiting the possibilities for firm dating.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:594 (DZ 368).