Dòngxuán língbǎo Tiānzūn shuō shíjiè jīng 洞玄靈寶天尊說十戒經
Scripture in which the Heavenly Worthy of the Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure Expounds the Ten Precepts
About the work
A very short Lingbao precept scripture in one juàn (DZ 459, fasc. 203, paired in the same fascicle with KR5b0142) on the ten precepts for lay disciples — bù shā 不殺, bù wàngzuò 不妄作, bù qiè 不竊, bù yín 不婬, bù wàngyǔ 不妄語, bù yǐn jiǔ 不飲酒, bù chì 不嗔, bù dù 不妬, bù wàngjiā 不忘師, bù yuǎndào 不遠道 — together with the fourteen rules of self-conduct (shísì chíshēn zhī pǐn 十四持身之品).
Abstract
This is one of the foundational shíjiè 十戒 scriptures of the medieval Lingbao corpus. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 1: 220, entry by Yamada Toshiaki) date the work to the early 5th century, contemporaneous with the Língbǎo wǔchēng fú 靈寶五稱符 and the other foundational Lingbao precept scriptures. The structural parallelism with Buddhist daśa-śīla lay-precept formulations is unmistakable, and represents one of the earliest Daoist appropriations of the daśa-śīla model. The text is presupposed in Lù Xiūjìng’s Língbǎo jīngmù (c. 437) and is repeatedly cited in subsequent Lingbao precept literature.
The scripture’s brevity and clarity made it a standard primer for lay precept ceremonies in the medieval period; it circulated independently as well as in the present joint-fascicle form. The “fourteen rules of self-conduct” supplement is unique to this scripture and includes ethical injunctions specific to Daoist religious life (proper conduct of zhāi fasts, deference to teachers, secrecy of the registers).
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. 1: 220 (DZ 459, entry by Yamada Toshiaki).
- Bokenkamp, Stephen R. “The Yao Boduo Stele as Evidence for the ‘Dao-Buddhism’ of the Early Lingbao Scriptures.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 9 (1996–97): 55–67.
- Yamada, Toshiaki 山田利明. Rikuchō dōkyō girei no kenkyū 六朝道教儀禮の研究. Tōkyō: Tōhō shoten, 1999.