Tàishàng dòngxuán língbǎo fǎshēn zhìlùn 太上洞玄靈寶法身製論
Treatise on the Regulation of the Dharma-Body of the Most-High Cavern-Mystery Numinous Treasure
About the work
A disciplinary treatise in one juàn (DZ 462, fasc. 203) prescribing rules of conduct for ordained Daoist priests (lùshēng 籙生 / xuéshì 學士) and assigning the corresponding penalties (禁錮 jìngù — confinement of varying durations; 奪治 duózhì — revocation of practice rights; 削籙 xiāolù — striking the name from the register) for infractions. The text is organised as a series of short paragraphs, each opening with a moral generalization and closing with the penalty schedule. The colophon at 1a names it “陶十” (the tenth in a series of fascicles arranged by the editor Táo — i.e. the late-medieval Dàozàng editor; cf. the “陶一” / “陶二” / “陶五” / “陶八” series tags on the preceding precept works in this fascicle group, KR5b0138–KR5b0145).
Abstract
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 1: 461, entry by Yamada Toshiaki) place this work in the mid-Táng Lingbao precept stratum, after the formative early-medieval Lingbao corpus and before the more developed Sòng kēyí literature. The text explicitly invokes Lù Xiānshēng 陸先生 — i.e. Lù Xiūjìng 陸修靜 (406–477) — as having “fully detailed” (具已詳之) the zhāijiè wēiyí 齋戒威儀, and presents itself as supplement and enforcement-mechanism for that earlier liturgy. The use of fǎshēn 法身 (dharma-kāya) terminology in the title shows the late Six Dynasties / Táng-era assimilation of Buddhist body-doctrine vocabulary into the Daoist ordained-religious idiom.
The catalogue of offenses provides a usefully concrete window onto the lived conditions of medieval Daoist clergy: paragraphs prohibit jiǔxìng 酒性 (drinking-induced licence), èyán qǐyǔ 惡言綺語 (calumny and ornament-speech), huānshā 殺生 disguised as fàngshēng 放生 (a custom of the Wǔyuè 五月 xiàjié in which devotees would capture animals only to release them for merit, with the animals dying in the process — explicitly forbidden by this text), eating the wǔxīn 五辛 and liùchù 六畜 (the pungent vegetables and the six domestic-animal meats), and various forms of ritual carelessness. The penalty schedule is roughly graded: 100-day confinement for first offense, register revocation on the third.
The text is one of a small number of medieval Daoist disciplinary documents preserving a fully bureaucratic regime of clerical regulation analogous to the Buddhist vinaya. It complements KR5b0147 Yàoxiū kēyí jièlǜ chāo of Zhū Jūnxù.
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: 461 (DZ 462, entry by Yamada Toshiaki).
- Kohn, Livia. Cosmos and Community: The Ethical Dimension of Daoism. Cambridge MA: Three Pines Press, 2004.
- Yamada, Toshiaki 山田利明. Rikuchō dōkyō girei no kenkyū 六朝道教儀禮の研究. Tōkyō: Tōhō shoten, 1999.