Dòngxuán língbǎo wǔyuè gǔběn zhēnxíng tú 洞玄靈寶五嶽古本真形圖
Old Version of the Chart of the True Form of the Five Peaks, of the Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure with preface attributed to 東方朔
About the work
A twenty-seven-folio Míng-period collection of the ancient protective talismans (zhēnxíng tú 真形圖) of the Five Peaks (wǔyuè 五嶽), traditionally traced to the Hàn and mentioned by Gě Hóng 葛洪; the legends and rituals connected to the ancient versions are fully assembled in DZ 1281 Wǔyuè zhēnxíng xùlùn 五嶽真形序論.
Prefaces
The text opens with a preface attributed — in the tradition of the Hàn Wǔdì nèizhuàn 漢武帝內傳 (DZ 292) and DZ 598 Shízhōu jì 十洲記 — to the Hàn-era courtier Dōngfāng Shuò 東方朔 (ca. 145–93 BCE). The attribution is legendary.
Abstract
Dated to the Míng by Schipper (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 3: 1222, DZ 441). As the “Old Version,” the text presents itself as a register (lù 籙) of the lords of the Five Peaks and the four accessory holy mountains (Qīngchéng shān 青城山, Lú shān 廬山, Huò shān 霍山, and Qiān shān 潛山) along with their subaltern officials. After the pseudo-Dōngfāng-Shuò preface, the text presents the rulers of the holy mountains, their servants, and their outward appearance — clothing, attributes, retinue. The documents for the ritual of transmission of the register (4b–5b) imitate older models.
The talismans themselves are of two types:
- Archaic seal-script (gǔ zhuànshū 古篆書) talismans, corresponding to the classical Wǔyuè zhēnxíng tradition.
- “Geological map” type — studied by Inoue (“Gogaku shinkei zu ni tsuite”) in comparison with modern geographical maps, and shown by Schipper (“Gogaku shinkei zu no shinkō”) to correspond to outlines of so-called dēngtú 燈圖 (“lamp maps”) used in modern liàndù 鍊度 requiem services: the outlines are copied on a flat surface, lamps are placed at fixed points, and the officiants walk along these diagrams to “inspect” the holy mountains and retrieve the souls imprisoned within them.
The present Míng compilation uses these liturgical diagrams for essentially antiquarian purposes — a sign of the late-imperial interest in reconstructing the early-medieval Wǔyuè zhēnxíng tradition and re-authorising it through archaic attribution.
Translations and research
- Inoue Ichii 井上以智為. “Gogaku shinkei zu ni tsuite 五嶽真形圖について.” Tōhō gakuhō 東方學報 Kyoto 1 (1931): 73–109.
- Schipper, Kristofer. “Gogaku shinkei zu no shinkō 五嶽真形圖の信仰.” In Dōkyō to shūkyō bunka 道教と宗教文化, edited by Akizuki Kan’ei, 114–162. Tokyo: Hirakawa, 1987.
- Munakata, Kiyohiko. Sacred Mountains in Chinese Art. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 3:1222 (DZ 441).