Huánglù jiǔyōu jiào wúài yèzhāi cìdì yí 黃籙九幽醮無礙夜齋次第儀
Sequential Liturgy of the Unobstructed-Night Fast and Nine-Dark-Hells Offering of the Yellow-Register Fast
About the work
Final entry (場四) of the six-part Huánglù mortuary series (DZ 509–514). The work is a single-fascicle cìdì yí 次第儀 (“sequential liturgy”) laying out, step by step, the order of an all-night vigil-rite for the Huánglù jiǔyōu 九幽 (nine dark hells) — the principal Daoist mortuary night-rite of the SòngYuán period.
Abstract
The opening rubric specifies the schedule with unusual precision: at the shēn hour 申時 of the day on which the altar is to be built, one approaches the Xuánzhōng dàfǎshī 玄中大法師 with the qǐ xuánzhāng 啓玄章 talisman, which is then burnt; at the yǒu hour 酉時, before the Sāntiān dàfǎshī 三天大法師, the celebrant presents incense and a guāndié 關牒 (sealed announcement) — three copies for officials, one for commoners — which is then handed to the zhāizhǔ (fast-sponsor), who in turn passes it to a Daoist for ritual transport. The text proceeds through the xuānguāndié (announcement of the sealed letter), the fǎshī zàiqǐbái 再啓白 (second declaration by the celebrant), and a sequence of jiǔyōu invocations addressed to the chénghuáng tǔdì lǐshè zhèngshén 城隍土地里社正神 (city-god, soil-god, local gods of the village shrines). The merit accumulated by the rite is dedicated jointly to the sānjiè sìzhí 三界四直 (officials of the three realms and four directions), to the bursting open of the jiǔyōu and the wǔdào 五道, and to the named deceased.
Per Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1012, John Lagerwey, DZ 514), the work shows distinctive SòngYuán liturgical vocabulary (especially the kāiyù 開度 and cǐdì 次第 schema) and represents the night-rite supplement to the major Huánglù daytime programmes preserved in KR5b0210 and KR5b0211.
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 514, entry by John Lagerwey).