Qīyù xiūzhēn zhèngpǐn tú 七域修真證品圖
Diagram Demonstrating the Hierarchy of Degrees of the Practice of the True [Dào] and of the Seven Regions [of the Immortals]
About the work
An eight-folio Táng Shàngqīng diagrammatic chart of the spiritual-hierarchical pǐn 品 grades of Daoist practitioners, correlated with the Qīyù 七域 (“Seven Regions”) of the celestial immortals. Transmitted in the Dàozàng in a composite juàn (èr tú tóng juàn 二圖同卷) with DZ 434 Xuánlǎn Rénniǎo shān jīngtú (KR5b0118).
Prefaces
No prefaces in the source. The text opens directly with the hierarchical schema.
Abstract
Dated to the Táng by Robinet (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 1: 617, DZ 433). The text (3a–5b) incorporates a list of Shàngqīng methods taken from DZ 1016 Zhēn’gào 5.3a–b, to which it couples a hierarchy of the spiritual degrees of practitioners of the Shàngqīng school. The description of the degrees follows the pattern established in DZ 426 Shàngqīng tàishàng bāsù zhēnjīng 4a–5b and 8a–b (KR5b0110) and in DZ 428 Tàishàng fēixíng jiǔchén yùjīng 2b–3a (KR5b0112). The Seven Regions are:
- the Yùqīng 玉清 Heaven;
- the Shàngqīng 上清 Heaven;
- the Tàijí 太極 Heaven;
- the Tàiqīng 太清 Heaven;
- the Nine Palaces of the celestial immortals;
- the Nine Palaces of the terrestrial immortals;
- the cavern-heavens (dòngtiān 洞天).
Categories 6 and 7 are additions to the four- and seven-way schemata of DZ 426 and DZ 428, characteristic of late-Táng Shàngqīng systematisation.
Translations and research
- Robinet, Isabelle. La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:617 (DZ 433).