Luótiān dàjiào wǎncháo kē 羅天大醮晚朝科
Evening-Audience Procedural Code for the Great Offering Spanning the Heavens
About the work
The evening audience of the four-text Luótiān dàjiào 羅天大醮 cycle (KR5b0161–KR5b0164). The opening hymn Wǔxīng gāoyào 五星高耀 (“Five Planets shining on high, auspicious vapour gathering in emptiness, Yuánshǐ assembling his spirits as Heaven and Earth meet in cycle”) is an evening hymn invoking the planetary deities at the moment of transition from yáng to yīn. The structure parallels KR5b0161 and KR5b0162.
Abstract
The evening audience is the third and concluding cháo of the Luótiān cycle, presenting the wǎnzhāng 晚章 memorials to the Aquatic Bureau (shuǐguān 水官), in the third-fold rotation of the three bureaus across morning / midday / evening. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1023–1024) note that the evening cháo completes the day’s cycle of petition before the climactic shèjiào 設醮 offering of KR5b0164. The hymn closes with the prayer for general benevolence — qúnshēng xiánsuì, huìbiàn shénzhōu 群生咸遂, 惠遍神州 (“may all living beings be fulfilled, the blessing pervade the Sacred Continent”).
The text is procedural; no doctrinal exposition is given. Its diction is more compact than that of the parallel Jīnlù and Huánglù cycles, suggesting an early-Sòng standardisation.
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: 1023–1024 (DZ 479, entry by John Lagerwey).
- Lagerwey, John. Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History. New York: Macmillan, 1987.