Yùlù jìyōu pànhú yí 玉籙濟幽判斛儀
Liturgy of the Salvation of the Dark and the Adjudication of the Bushels in the Jade-Register Fast
About the work
Closing salvation rite of the Yùlù dàzhāi nine-audience programme, immediately following the eight scheduled audiences (KR5b0201–KR5b0208 = DZ 505 a–h) in the canonical order. The opening heading is Yùlù jìyōu pànhú yí lǜ 8 玉籙濟幽判斛儀率八, placing the work as item 8 in the Lǜ numbering of the Yùlù sub-series — i.e. as the structural counterpart, within this programme, of the zhuǎnjīng closing rites in the Jīnlù set.
Abstract
The jìyōu 濟幽 (“salvation of the dark [souls]”) names the work’s purpose: the release and feeding of the gūyōu 孤幽 (lonely wandering souls) summoned during the preceding three days of the fast. The pànhú 判斛 (“adjudication of the bushels”) names the technical method: the celebrant judges the merit accumulated for each named soul, declares the karmic balance settled, and apportions ritual food, drink, and clothing — symbolically measured by the hú 斛 (bushel) — to all six paths (liùdào 六道) of rebirth in succession: heavenly beings (tiānxiān 天仙), human beings (rénlún 人倫), terrestrial gods (dìzhī 地祇), the hell-bound (dìyù dào 地獄道), hungry ghosts (èguǐ dào 餓鬼道), and animals (chùshēng dào 畜生道), down to the fish, turtles, and worms.
The opening invocation (f. 1a–b) addresses the Tàiyǐ jiùkǔ tiānzūn 太乙救苦天尊 and the Qīngxuán shàngdì 青玄上帝 — the principal salvific deities of the Yùlù — and the text explicitly cites the Dàozǔ Tàishàng cízūn 道祖太上慈尊 as having “set up the zhāi-code and broadly disseminated the texts of salvation” (廣立齋科普敷濟拔). The rite proceeds through the zhāohún 招魂 (summoning of the souls), the kāiyù 開獄 (opening of the underworld), the apportionment, and the closing huíxiàng dedicating the released souls to ascent into the Dōngjí paradise. The fact that the opening rubric counts this work as a member of the Lǜ series (率八), continuous with DZ 505, confirms its canonical pairing with the Yùlù dàzhāi.
Per Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1006, John Lagerwey, DZ 506), the work is a SòngYuán composition transmitted through the Míng Zhèngtǒng dàozàng and represents the most elaborate single-fascicle treatment of the pànhú mechanism in the Yùlù programme.
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: 1006 (DZ 506, entry by John Lagerwey).
- Orzech, Charles D. “Esoteric Buddhism and the Shishi (Bestowing Food).” In Tansen Sen, ed., Buddhism Across Asia. Singapore: ISEAS, 2014 — for the parallel Buddhist shī-shí practice and its influence on the Daoist pàn-hú.