Yàoxiū kēyí jièlǜ chāo 要修科儀戒律鈔
Excerpts on the Essential Practice of Ritual Codes, Precepts, and Statutes by 朱君緒 (撰)
About the work
A sixteen-juàn encyclopaedic anthology of Daoist liturgical and disciplinary prescription, compiled by the early-Táng Sāndòng dàoshì Zhū Jūnxù 朱君緒 (style Fǎmǎn 法滿). The work is organised by topic — registers, ordination, zhāi fast, jiào sacrifice, transmission, precepts, monastic discipline, illness ritual, funeral, anniversary observance, and so on — and consists almost entirely of verbatim excerpts (chāo 鈔) from the Daoist canon of Zhū’s day, prefixed by the title of the source work. Hundreds of Six Dynasties Daoist liturgical and disciplinary scriptures are cited, many of which survive only through this work. It is, with the Wúshàng bìyào 無上祕要 and the Sāndòng zhūnáng 三洞珠囊, one of the three great encyclopaedic witnesses to pre-Táng Daoist liturgy.
The catalog meta places the work in the early eighth century (8世紀初期), consistent with Zhū’s floruit (d. c. 720).
Abstract
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 1: 442–443, entry by Charles Benn) place the Yàoxiū kēyí jièlǜ chāo among the foundational works of the late-Six Dynasties / early-Táng Daoist liturgical synthesis. The juàn-by-juàn arrangement is:
- Bùzhì chāo 部秩鈔 — the Sāndòng canon, its enumeration and transmission; 2–3. Shòushī chāo 受師鈔 — receiving the master, ordination rites;
- Zhāi chāo 齋鈔 — zhāi fast typology; 5–6. Jiàoyí chāo 醮儀鈔 — jiào offering ritual;
- Wēiyí chāo 威儀鈔 — ritual deportment;
- Jièpǐn chāo 戒品鈔 — precept grades;
- Fúlù chāo 符籙鈔 — registers; 10–11. Sòngjīng chāo 誦經鈔 — recitation; 12–13. Bìngsāng chāo 病喪鈔 — illness and mourning ritual; 14–15. Sīrén chāo 死人鈔 / Jiàoyú chāo 醮餘鈔 — post-mortem and exequial rites;
- Jiājì zá chāo 雜鈔 — miscellaneous.
The work cites over a hundred Daoist scriptures by title, including many otherwise lost: the Tàizhēn kē 太眞科 (preserving the Hàn ān 漢安 transmission narrative of Zhāng Dàolíng 張道陵 and Zhèngyī méngwēi jīng 正一盟威經), the Yùwēi kē 玉緯科, the Yīnyī jīng 隱義經, and many of the Lingbao precept scriptures (cross-referenced to KR5b0138–KR5b0144). It is therefore an indispensable resource for the textual reconstruction of pre-Táng Daoist ritual. The work is independently transmitted in the Dàozàng jíyào 道藏輯要 under JY280.
The work is structured as a jièlǜ manual but covers the whole field of kēyí (ritual procedure) as well, reflecting the early-Táng integration of yí and jiè into a single corpus of fǎshī training. Its plain chāo method — verbatim citation of the source — gives it unparalleled value for textual criticism of the lost Six Dynasties materials.
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: 442–443 (DZ 463, entry by Charles Benn).
- Benn, Charles D. The Cavern-Mystery Transmission: A Taoist Ordination Rite of A.D. 711. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1991. — uses the Yàoxiū kēyí jièlǜ chāo extensively as a source.
- Yamada, Toshiaki 山田利明. Rikuchō dōkyō girei no kenkyū 六朝道教儀禮の研究. Tōkyō: Tōhō shoten, 1999.
- Ren Jiyu 任繼愈, ed. Zhōnghuá Dàozàng 中華道藏. Beijing: Huaxia chubanshe, 2004. (typeset critical edition of the relevant portion).
Other points of interest
The work’s verbatim-quotation method makes it the principal source for textual reconstruction of many lost early-medieval Daoist liturgical scriptures, comparable in function to the Buddhist Fǎyuàn zhūlín of Dàoshì 道世.