Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo sāntú wǔkǔ bádù shēngsǐ miàojīng 太上洞玄靈寶三塗五苦拔度生死妙經
Marvelous Scripture of Salvation from Life and Death in the Three Inferior Ways and the Five Sufferings, of the Most High Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
About the work
A seven-folio Táng mortuary scripture on rescue from the sāntú 三塗 (Three Inferior Ways) and the wǔkǔ 五苦 (Five Sufferings), framed as the continuation of a revelation on the Wēimiào xuányī zhēnjīng 微妙玄一真經. Transmitted in the Dàozàng in a composite juàn (sān jīng tóng juàn 三經同卷) with DZ 372 and DZ 373 (KR5b0056 and KR5b0057).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the revelation at the “World of Everlasting Happiness” (Chánglè shìjiè 長樂世界) and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated to the Táng by Lagerwey (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 547–548, DZ 371). After expounding the Wēimiào xuányī zhēnjīng to a celestial assembly, the Língbǎo tiānzūn emits a light of nine colors that illuminates the Ten Directions and the Nine Hells. Distressed by what he sees in the hells, the zhēnrén Fǎjiě 法解 (“Explanation of the Law”) asks the Tiānzūn for an explanation and a remedy. The diagnosis: at the end of an era (shìmò 世末) humans become depraved; their depravity consigns them to the Three Inferior Ways, followed by the Five Sufferings in the various hells, and then by the Eight Difficulties (bānán 八難 — eight obstacles to a devout life) on rebirth. The remedy (4b–5b): the purification of the Three Karmic Sources (sānyè 三業) — mouth, heart, and body — and of the Five Poisons (wǔdú 五毒) of the senses, followed by the practice of the Eight [Forms of Good] Conduct (bāxíng 八行). Even the Heavenly Worthies of the Three Eras (Sānshì tiānzūn 三世天尊) attained the state of non-action by this means.
The zhēnrén Fǎjiě then asks what is to be done for those already in the hells, since the entire ritual of “pulling up and ferrying across” (qiān bá zhī gé 遷拔之格) is recorded in the other scriptures. The remainder of the text rehearses the requisite rites of redemption, thereby furnishing one of the clearest Táng expositions of the relationship between ethical cultivation, scriptural recitation, and mortuary rescue-ritual.
The scripture is widely quarried by later texts — its folios 6a–b and 7a–b are the source of DZ 353 Shàngqīng jīnguì yùjìng xiūzhēn zhǐxuán miàojīng 4b–5a and 10a–b (KR5b0037).
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:547–548 (DZ 371).