Tàishàng dòngyuān sānmèi dìxīn guāngmíng zhèngyìn tàijí zǐwēi fúmó zhìguǐ zhěngjiù èdào jífú jíxiáng shénzhòu 太上洞淵三昧帝心光明正印太極紫微伏魔制鬼拯救惡道集福吉祥神咒
Spell of Auspicious and Exorcistic Power, of the Luminous Heart-Seal of Samādhi, of the Tàijí Zǐwēi, for Subduing Demons, Controlling Ghosts, Rescuing from the Evil Paths, and Gathering Good Fortune, of the Dòngyuān Tradition of the Most High
About the work
A five-folio Daoist shénzhòu scripture — bearer of the longest title in the entire Dàozàng. Transmitted in the Dàozàng in a composite juàn with DZ 385 (KR5b0069).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the opening fragmentary phrases of the spell and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated tentatively to the Táng by Schipper (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 2: 513, DZ 386). The text introduces an unusual spell composed of long and syntactically impenetrable phrases (standard length twenty-five characters each), all ending in the refrain jíxiáng yīn tán chìjūn 吉祥音彈敕君 — approximately “auspicious sounds! resounding clappers!” An isolated sub-heading at 2a suggests that the received text may be a fragment of a lost larger work; it does not conform to any other known text of the Dòngyuān 洞淵 tradition.
The scripture — despite its title’s nod to the Dòngyuān shénzhòu jīng (DZ 335, KR5b0019) — appears to stand apart from that tradition’s textual family, and is perhaps best understood as a specimen of the late-Táng or early-Sòng esoteric dhāraṇī-style Daoist spell-literature in which formal intelligibility is sacrificed for the iconic and acoustic properties of the recited text.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:513 (DZ 386).