Hóng’ēn Língjì zhēnjūn shìshí 洪恩靈濟真君事實
The Veritable Record of the Vast-Beneficence Numinously-Salvific Perfected Lords
About the work
The ninth and final text of the Yǒnglè-era liturgical cycle of the Hóng’ēn Língjì zhēnjūn cult (KR5b0152–KR5b0160). Unlike the preceding eight, which are kēyí 科儀 procedural manuals, the shìshí 事實 is a hagiographic and documentary record of the cult and the Two Lords. It opens with the imperially composed Língjìgōng bēi 靈濟宮碑 (“Inscription on the Lingji Palace,” dated 永樂十五年五月初一日 = 1 May 1417), followed by Èr zhēn chéngxiān 二真成仙 (“How the Two Perfected Became Immortals” — the cult hagiography), the jiāfēng 加封 imperial enfeoffment edict, and a sequence of further commemorative documents.
Prefaces
The Imperial Inscription (1a–3a, dated 1 v 1417) is the foundational document of the imperial Língjì cult. The Yǒnglè emperor, citing Shī 詩 “Yīcí” 抑 (神之格思, 不可度思), recounts how the Two Lords (here named Jiāngwáng and Ráowáng 江王、饒王) — “scions of Southern Táng who lived as renowned ministers” — intervened spiritually when he had fallen ill and conventional medicine had failed: “they secretly conveyed their spirit-essence, escorted my person, departed not a moment, and at each invocation immediately responded; they bestowed numinous talismans and heavenly-physician miraculous drugs, made what was perilous safe again, what had fallen upright again, with the merit of resurrection.” In gratitude, the emperor enfeoffed them by official decree (zhùcè jiāfēng 祝册加封) with their full titulature: the elder as 清微洞玄沖虛妙感慈惠護國庇民洪恩真君, the younger as 高明弘静沖湛妙應仁惠輔國祐民洪恩真君, both retaining their older titles in full. He further commissioned the renewal of the Mǐn shrine and the establishment of an imperial-capital branch shrine (xíngcí 行祠 at the capital, the Língjìgōng 靈濟宮 in Nánjīng).
Abstract
The shìshí is the principal documentary source for the Yǒnglè-era cult of the Two Lords and the de facto charter of the imperial Língjìgōng. The Èr zhēn chéngxiān hagiography (3b–6b) gives the cult’s narrative: Xú Zhīzhèng 徐知證 and Xú Zhī’è 徐知諤, traced to a remote ancestor Yǎnwáng 偃王, were the second and third sons of the Wú minister Xú Wēn 徐溫 (here understood through Xú Zhīgào 徐知誥 = Lǐ Biàn 李昪 of Nán Táng). They served as generals under Wú and Nán Táng, were enfeoffed as Jiāngwáng and Ráowáng, governed Jīnlíng 金陵, then commanded the campaign south into Mǐn (Fujian). At Áofēng 鼇峯 in Mǐn, their humane conduct (vegetarianism, refusal to harm civilians, prayer for peace at the watershed at Xiájiāng 峡江) won the populace’s loyalty; the Mǐn people built shrines at Áofēng in their honour. After their deaths they became Dòuzhōng dūshuǐshǐzhě 斗中都水使者 (Bureau of Waters Imperial Commissioners in the Northern Dipper), and through the Sòng and Yuán they performed miracles of weather, harvest, fire- and locust-control, healing, and military protection. The text lists their reported interventions for the Sòng generals Hán Shìzhōng 韓世忠 (at Dàyízhèn 大儀鎮) and Wú Jiè 吳玠 (at Héshàngyuán 和尚原), and for the Mǐn Guìzhōu shǒu Liú Yí 劉彜 against southern frontier incursions. In a particular Huánglùzhāi an apparition heralded their first imperial enfeoffment by the celestial emperor. The 1417 imperial cure and reinforcement of their titles is then re-narrated in full, repeating the jiāfēng edict.
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1220–1221, entry by Vincent Goossaert) treat this text as the principal source for the Yǒnglè cult of the Two Lords, in conjunction with the surrounding xíngdào yí corpus, the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn records, and the later Míng shǐ 明史 Lǐzhì 禮志. The cult is one of the most prominent state cults of the Yǒnglè reign and a defining moment in the early-Míng integration of Daoism into imperial sovereignty.
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: 1220–1221 (DZ 476, entry by Vincent Goossaert).
- Wang, Richard G. The Ming Prince and Daoism: Institutional Patronage of an Elite. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
- de Bruyn, Pierre-Henry. “Daoism in the Ming.” In Daoism Handbook, ed. Livia Kohn, 594–622. Leiden: Brill, 2000.
Other points of interest
The Yǒnglè emperor’s account of being cured by the Two Lords is one of several reported imperial illness-and-cure stories from the early 15th century; the Língjìgōng case is unusual in producing a full liturgical cycle of nine printed texts, the Yǒnglè Daoist cult’s largest single textual project.