Yùlù dàzhāi dìyīrì wǔcháo yí 玉籙大齋第一日午朝儀
Noon-Audience Liturgy of the First Day of the Great Jade-Register Fast
About the work
Second of the eight-part Yùlù dàzhāi programme (DZ 505 a–h = KR5b0201–KR5b0208). The fascicle contains the noon audience of the opening day; together with the morning (KR5b0201) and evening (KR5b0203) audiences it completes the three offices of day one of the three-day fast.
Abstract
The noon rite repeats the structural skeleton of the morning audience — fālú, qǐngchēng fǎwèi, three niǎnxiāng with the imperial-longevity / ancestral-shrines / cosmos dedications — but is differentiated by its position in the sānyuán 三元 (three-prime) cosmological scheme. The noon audience, falling at the zhōngyuán 中元 of the day, is keyed to the Tàiyī jiùkǔ 太一救苦 and the central-axis pole, while preserving the standard Yùlù dedication to the Dōngjí Qīngxuán 東極青玄 (Eastern-Polar Mysterious-Pure) deities who receive the deceased. The body of the text comprises the standard noon hymns (Língbǎo zhēnwén 靈寳真文 etc.), the zhuǎnjīng 轉經 recitation of the Dùrén / Jiùkǔ 救苦 scriptures, and the huíxiàng dedication of the cumulative merit.
Per Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1004–1006, John Lagerwey, DZ 505), the strict three-times-three division of Yùlù worship is the diagnostic feature of the SòngYuán Yùlù programme and distinguishes it from the older Língbǎo zhāi; the present fascicle is the zhōngyuán of that nine-fold structure.
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).