Zhāijiè lù 齋戒籙
Register of Fasts and Precepts
About the work
An anonymous Daoist compendium in one juàn classifying the zhāi 齋 (fast) practices and jiè 戒 (precepts) of the Daoist tradition. The text moves systematically through (i) the doctrinal foundation of zhāi (drawing on Zhuāngzī 莊子 “Rénjiānshì” 人間世 [‘mind-fast’ xīnzhāi]); (ii) the Lingbao liùzhāishízhí 六齋十直 fast calendar; (iii) the wǔjiè shíshàn 五戒十善 list; (iv) the yuèshízhāi 月十齋 (ten monthly fast-days); (v) the liùzhǒng zhāi 六種齋 (six types of fast, drawn from the Dàomén dàlùn 道門大論); (vi) the èrzhǒng zhāi 二種齋 (drawn from the Běnxiàng jīng 本相經); (vii) the shíèr zhāi 十二齋; and other sub-typologies of fast.
The catalog meta gives 9th–10th century as the date. The work is clearly compilatory, drawing on the Yàoxiū kēyí jièlǜ chāo of Zhū Jūnxù (KR5b0147) and similar Táng-era handbooks.
Abstract
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 1: 462, entry by Yamada Toshiaki) place the work in the late Táng or Wǔdài period, on the basis of its citation of the Dàomén dàlùn (a mid-Táng synthesis) and of its absence from the earlier Wúshàng bìyào corpus. It is shorter and less ambitious than the Yàoxiū kēyí jièlǜ chāo, and serves more as a teaching manual than as an encyclopaedia. The opening Zhuāngzǐ citation, in which Confucius distinguishes the “sacrificial fast” (祭祀之齋) from the “mind-fast” (心齋), is characteristically late-Táng — interpreting the early-Táng Sāndòng synthesis through a Zhuangist lens — and aligns the compilation with the Daode / Chongxuan 重玄 trend rather than with the more bureaucratic Lingbao stratum.
The work is significant as a witness to the consolidation of the zhāi genre at the end of the Táng. Its typology of the liùzhāi (六齋: jīnlù, huánglù, míngzhēn, sānyuán, bājié, zìrán) became canonical and is presupposed by all subsequent Daoist liturgical synthesis, including the great SòngYuán compendia KR5b0149 and KR5b0150.
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: 462 (DZ 464, entry by Yamada Toshiaki).
- Kohn, Livia. Daoist Identity: History, Lineage, and Ritual. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2002.
- Yamada Toshiaki 山田利明. Rikuchō dōkyō girei no kenkyū 六朝道教儀禮の研究. Tōkyō: Tōhō shoten, 1999.