Huánglù zhāi shízhōu sāndǎo bádù yí 黃籙齋十洲三島拔度儀
Liturgy of the Ten Continents and Three Islands Salvation in the Yellow-Register Fast
About the work
Companion piece to KR5b0215 within Chǎng 3 of the six-part Huánglù mortuary series (DZ 509–514). The pairing is structurally significant: where KR5b0215 dispatches the deceased through the ten celestial paradises of the upper realm, the present rite dispatches them through the ten continents and three islands of the marvellous geography of the immortals — the canonical Daoist paradisical chōrography of the Shízhōu jì 十洲記 and the Sāndǎo of the eastern sea.
Abstract
The rite opens with a bùxū 歩虚, a sān tiānzūn 三天尊 hymn, and a zhùxiāng qǐbái 啓白 invoking the Sānqīng shàngshèng 三清上聖, the Tàiyī jiùkǔ tiānzūn, the Shífāng jiùkǔ tiānzūn, the Jiǔyōu bázuì tiānzūn 九幽拔罪天尊, the Zhūlíng dùmìng tiānzūn 朱陵度命天尊, the Huánglù zhísī 黃籙職司 (officials of the Yellow-Register bureau), and all Shízhōu sāndǎo 十洲三島 numinous beings. The body of the text gives a lyrical evocation of the ten continents — perpetual spring, day with no night, peach and frost-ice peach trees fruiting in winter, golden honey and jade-elixir, jade-girls bearing summons and golden-child bearing edicts — paralleling the Buddhist pure-land descriptions in tonal richness. The named deceased is dispatched to each paradisical region in turn, “guided by the yellow dragon, borne by the cinnabar phoenix,” ascending the Yáochí 瑶池 and joining the Jīnquè 金闕 banquets.
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: 1012 (DZ 513, entry by John Lagerwey).
- Smith, Thomas E. “Ritual and the Shaping of Narrative: The Legend of the Han Emperor Wu.” PhD diss., University of Michigan, 1992 — for the genealogy of the shízhōu and sāndǎo marvellous geographies.