Tàishàng dàdào sānyuán pǐnjiè xièzuì shàngfǎ 太上大道三元品誡謝罪上法
Superior Method of the Most High Great Dào for Seeking Pardon for Sins against the Classified Precepts of the Three Primordials
About the work
A sixteen-folio Six-Dynasties ritual text for the confession and expiation of sins against the classified precepts of the Three Primordials (Sānyuán pǐnjiè 三元品誡). The service is closely related to DZ 456 Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo sānyuán pǐnjiè gōngdé qīngzhòng jīng 三元品誡功德輕重經, an early Língbǎo scripture that mentions a Sānyuán xièzuì fǎ 三元謝罪法 at 37b — in all likelihood the present text.
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the Tiānzūn’s prescription and carries no author preface or transmission colophon.
Abstract
Dated to the Six Dynasties by Schipper (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 1: 252–253, DZ 417). The text is incomplete in some places; a fuller version survives in Wúshàng bìyào 無上祕要 52 under the title Sānyuán zhāi 三元齋 (see Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 159–161).
The ritual of Retreat is performed within the Pure Chamber on the days of the Three Primordials — the fifteenth day of the first, seventh, and tenth months (正月十五 / 七月十五 / 十月十五) — at the three times of dawn (píngdàn 平旦), midday (zhèngzhōng 正中), and midnight (yèbàn 夜半). At each stage of the performance the participants “knock their heads upon the ground and strike their faces” (kòutóu zìbó 叩頭自搏) more than 1,800 times in the course of a single service — one of the most physically austere of all medieval Daoist penitential rites. The ritual combines visualisation of sun, moon, and stellar qì interpenetrating the body during ablution with confession of offences against each of the three tiers of precepts and the corresponding retributions. Initiation rites associated with this text were likely intended for members of the ruling classes.
Translations and research
- Lagerwey, John. Wu-shang pi-yao: Somme taoïste du VIe siècle. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1981, 159–161.
- Yamada Toshiaki 山田利明. Rikuchō dōkyō girei no kenkyū 六朝道教儀禮の研究. Tokyo: Tōhō shoten, 1999.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:252–253 (DZ 417).