Yùlù dàzhāi dìyīrì zǎocháo yí 玉籙大齋第一日早朝儀
Morning-Audience Liturgy of the First Day of the Great Jade-Register Fast
About the work
First member of the eight-part Yùlù dàzhāi sānrì jiǔcháo 玉籙大齋三日九朝 cycle (DZ 505 a–h = KR5b0201–KR5b0208), the canonical three-day, nine-audience programme of the Yùlù 玉籙 (Jade-Register) fast. The internal heading announces the segmentation explicitly: 玉籙大齋第一日早朝儀(午朝晚朝同卷)率五 (“Yùlù dàzhāi, first day, morning-audience liturgy (noon-audience and evening-audience in the same fascicle), Lǜ 5”). The Lǜ-numbering identifies the work as part of a numbered sub-series within the Yùlù canon and groups it with the zīdù 資度 sequence (KR5b0193–KR5b0200) that immediately precedes it in DZ.
Abstract
The text gives the morning rite proper to the first day of the fast: opening hymn (the jīnzhēn yuánxiá 金真縁霞 stanza), fālú 發鑪 (firing of the censer) with twenty-four strokes of the fǎgǔ 法鼓, the standardised qǐngchēng fǎwèi 請稱法位 (declaration of ritual ranks) addressing the entire pantheon from the Yuánshǐ tiānzūn 元始天尊 through the Língbǎo zhìzhēn 靈寳至眞 down to the local tǔdì fāngyù 土地方域 numinous officers, and three successive niǎnxiāng 捻香 (incense-pinches) dedicated respectively to (1) the imperial shèngshòu wújiāng 聖壽無疆, (2) the ancestral zōngtiào shényù shèjì 宗祧神御社稷 (imperial shrines and altars), and (3) the four directions and the cosmos at large. The morning audience closes with the standard huíxiàng 迴向 and xièshī 謝師 dedications.
The fast is a SòngYuán development of the older Língbǎo zhāi model with its central focus on imperial salvation and the deliverance of the imperial dead; the catalog assigns the work to 宋, and per Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1004–1006, John Lagerwey, DZ 505), the Yùlù nine-audience programme stabilises in the SòngYuán transition and is transmitted through the Míng Zhèngtǒng dàozàng (1444). Compare the closely parallel Jīnlù 金籙 nine-audience cycles (KR5b0186–KR5b0188 and KR5b0189–KR5b0191).
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: 1004–1006 (DZ 505, entry by John Lagerwey).
- Lagerwey, John. Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History. New York: Macmillan, 1987 — for the underlying liturgical mechanics.