Zhūshī shèngdàn chōngjǔ zhuóxiàn yí 諸師聖誕沖舉酌獻儀
Libation-Offering Liturgy for the Sacred Birthdays and Ascensions of the Various Masters
About the work
A compendium in one juàn (DZ 482, fasc. 232) of zhuóxiàn 酌獻 (libation-offering) liturgies for the annual sacred-birthday (shèngdàn 聖誕) and ascension-into-immortality (chōngjǔ 沖舉) festivals of the principal deities and Daoist masters. The text supplies, day by day, the full xíngdào sequence for each celebration. Festivals included are: the Jade Emperor (Yùdì shèngdàn 玉帝聖誕, 1st month 9th day), Zhāng Dàolíng (祖天師誕辰 Zǔ Tiānshī dànchén, 1st month 15th day), the Dòumǔ Yuánjūn 斗母元君, the Sānyuán dàdì 三元大帝 (the three primordial emperors of the sānyuán festivals: 15 i, 15 vii, 15 x), the Sānmào jūn 三茅君, Lǚ Dòngbīn, Wáng Chóngyáng and the founding patriarchs of Quánzhēn, Sā Shǒujiān 薩守堅, and so on.
Abstract
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1156, entry by Vincent Goossaert) date the work to the late Yuán or early Míng on the strength of (i) the inclusion of Quánzhēn patriarchs alongside Zhèngyī lineage, which presupposes the Yuán-era doctrinal convergence; (ii) the use of the imperial title Yùhuáng dàtiānzūn xuánqióng gāoshàng dì 玉皇大天尊玄穹高上帝 in the form fixed by the YuánMíng tradition; and (iii) the textual proximity to the KR5b0151 Lìchéng zhāijiào yífàn template of 1374.
The work is one of the principal sources for the Daoist liturgical calendar of the late-imperial period: its day-by-day arrangement of the shèngdàn festivals offers a complete liturgical year for the practicing guàn 觀 (Daoist temple), with the corresponding zhuóxiàn hymns, xuānyì 宣意 declamations, three-fold offering of incense, and xuānshū 宣疏 (proclamation of the petition). The diction is solemn and fǔfù 賦賦-rhythmic, reflecting the developed late-imperial Daoist ritual prose style.
The text is the canonical analogue, for the Daoist liturgical year, of the Buddhist Bǎizhàng qīngguī festival regulations. It provides important evidence for the developed Quánzhēn / Zhèngyī synthesis of the late-Yuán / early-Míng period.
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: 1156 (DZ 482, entry by Vincent Goossaert).
- Goossaert, Vincent. The Taoists of Peking, 1800–1949. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2007.
- Mori, Yuria 森由利亞. Zenshinkyō no kenkyū 全真教の研究. Tōkyō: Tōhō shoten, 2008.