Tàishàng dòngxuán sāndòng kāitiān fēngléi yǔbù zhìmó shénzhòu jīng 太上洞玄三洞開天風雷禹步制魔神咒經
Scripture of Divine Incantations and the Paces of Yǔ for Opening Heaven, Marshalling Wind and Thunder, and Dominating Demons: A Liturgical Three-Caverns Text of the Cavern-Mystery Division of the Most High
About the work
A four-folio early Daoist thunder-magic scripture on the Thunder Gods (léishén 雷神) and their role in exorcism. Transmitted in the Dàozàng in a composite juàn with DZ 386 (KR5b0070). A major early witness to the pre-wǔléi 五雷 stratum of Daoist thunder-rites.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with Yùhuáng’s address to Shuǐfǔ fúsāng dàdì and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated tentatively to the Táng (618–907) by Schipper (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 572, DZ 385). The text is spoken by Yùhuáng 玉皇 (Hàotiān yùhuáng shàngdì 昊天玉皇上帝) to Shuǐfǔ fúsāng dàdì 水府扶桑大帝 in the presence of all the bodhisattva (zhūtiān púsà 諸天菩薩), with Yùhuáng rehearsing his own legend at 1b–2a. Despite the title’s mention of the Paces of Yǔ (Yǔbù 禹步), the received text does not actually describe them; it offers instead a spell to conjure the Thunder Gods and yakṣa (yèchā 夜叉, 2b). The combination of Yùhuáng–Hàotiān theology, the Thunder-Gods pantheon, and the bodhisattva audience together indicate a Táng date.
The text is re-used and recast in the Southern Sòng Tàiyī tiānzhāng jīléi pīlì jīng 太乙天章紀雷霹靂經, preserved in DZ 1220 Dàofǎ huìyuán 140.10a–14b under the title Hàotiān yùhuáng shàngdì bìshòu yǔbù zhìléi shénzhòu jīng 昊天玉皇上帝祕授禹步制雷神咒經, to match the Five-Thunder Magic (wǔléi fǎ 五雷法) of the mature Tàiyī tiānzhāng yánglèi pīlì dàfǎ. The present DZ 385 is therefore one of the key earlier witnesses to the vocabulary of later Daoist thunder-rites.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:572 (DZ 385); cognate DZ 1220 Dàofǎ huìyuán at 3:1105 ff.
- Reiter, Florian C. Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007.