Dàmíng xuánjiào lìchéng zhāijiào yífàn 大明玄教立成齋醮儀范
Established Ritual Forms for the Daoist Fast and Offering of the Great Míng compiled by imperial commission under 宋宗真
About the work
A single-juàn imperially commissioned manual standardising the Daoist zhāi 齋 (fast) and jiào 醮 (offering) liturgy for the new Míng dynasty, compiled in late 1374 by a court committee of Daoist priests at the order of the founding emperor Zhū Yuánzhāng 朱元璋. The work is the foundational document of the early-Míng Daoist liturgical reform. It comprises a forceful Imperial Preface (御製玄教齋醮儀文序), dated 洪武七年十一月 = November/December 1374, followed by the standardised liturgical programme for the jiàn dùwángjiào 建度亡醮 (offering for the deliverance of the deceased) in three days, with day-by-day, section-by-section jiémù 節目 (programme) and corresponding ritual texts.
Prefaces
Imperial preface by Zhū Yuánzhāng (1a–2a, dated 洪武七年十一月 = Dec 1374). The emperor articulates a sharp critique of contemporary religious practice: Buddhism and Daoism each have two branches (Chán + Jiào in Buddhism, Zhèngyī + Quánzhēn in Daoism); Chán and Quánzhēn cultivate the self only, while Jiào and Zhèngyī serve filial and social ends and are therefore meritorious to the people. But the current state of liturgy is corrupt: kēyí are overgrown (“廣設科儀於理且不通人情不近”); the day-and-night recitation of scripture wastes the family’s resources and exhausts the clergy (“致使精神疲倦”); and the procedure of qǐwén 啟聞 to the buddhas / Three Pure Ones is irreverent in its three-fold daily repetition. He therefore orders the Ministry of Rites to convene Buddhist and Daoist representatives and “establish the formal models” for kēyí, to be disseminated throughout the empire — miǎnmífèi (sparing the people expense) and preserving the dignity of the clergy.
Editorial preface by Sòng Zōngzhēn et al. (3a–4a). The compilers acknowledge the imperial commission of 洪武七年十一月二十三日 (i.e. 26 Dec 1374), naming the five commissioned compilers: Sòng Zōngzhēn 宋宗真, Zhào Yǔnzhōng 趙允中, Fù Tóngxū 傅同虛, Dèng Zhòngxiū 鄧仲修, and Zhōu Xuánzhēn 周玄真. They state that they have abridged and standardised the liturgical models, removing the fán 繁 (excess) and arriving at jiǎn 簡 (concision), in conformity with the imperial directive.
Abstract
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1226, entry by Vincent Goossaert / Pierre-Henry de Bruyn) describe this as the foundational document of the early-Míng standardisation of Daoist liturgy, and the principal evidence for the Hóngwǔ-era state intervention into religious practice. The work’s standardised three-day dùwáng programme — fā zhífú 發直符, yángfān 揚旛, ān jiāntán jiānzhāi 安監壇監齋, fūzuò yǎnjīng 敷座演經, língqián zhàoqǐng 靈前召請, lì hánlínsuǒ 立寒林所, zhòu shí, fěngjīng huíxiàng, etc. — became the template for popular Daoist funeral liturgy in southeast China through the Míng and Qīng. The work also articulates a particular court-Daoism reading of jiào as essentially a state-and-family ethical practice (the elevation of Zhèngyī over Quánzhēn in the imperial preface is a defining moment in the Míng religious settlement).
The work belongs to a small group of Hóngwǔ-era Daoist liturgical reforms — the others include the Zhōngtiān jīngyì zhāi 中天經一齋 cycle — that defined the official liturgical settlement of the early Míng. The five compilers thereafter held continued court positions; Sòng Zōngzhēn, the lead editor, is otherwise obscure.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. 2: 1226 (DZ 467, entry by Vincent Goossaert).
- Goossaert, Vincent. The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949: A Social History of Urban Clerics. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007. — for the longer-term reception of the Hóngwǔ liturgical reform.
- Mano, Senryū 間野潛龍. Mindai bunkashi kenkyū 明代文化史研究. Kyoto: Dōhōsha, 1979. — for the religious policy of Zhū Yuánzhāng.
Other points of interest
The Imperial Preface is one of the most direct early-Míng statements of imperial religious policy and is often cited (e.g. in Goossaert 2007) as the foundational text of MíngQīng state Daoism.