Dòngxuán língbǎo hétú yǎngxiè sānshíliù tiān zhāiyí 洞玄靈寶河圖仰謝三十六天齋儀
Liturgy of the Dòngxuán Língbǎo Yellow-River-Chart Fast for Looking-Up-and-Thanking the Thirty-Six Heavens
About the work
Four-fascicle Língbǎo zhāi directed toward formal thanksgiving (yǎngxiè 仰謝) to the Daoist sānshíliù tiān 三十六天 (thirty-six heavens). The work is numbered as huà 5 in a separate sequence (場五) of Dòngxuán liturgies; its companion Hétú yǎngxiè sānshíliù tǔhuáng zhāiyí KR5b0219 (DZ 516, chǎng 6 etc.) supplies the parallel thanksgiving to the sānshíliù tǔhuáng 三十六土皇 (thirty-six earth-emperors). The opening rubric of juǎn 1 begins: 洞玄靈寳河圖仰謝三十六天齋儀卷一場五 (“DXLB Hétú Yǎngxiè Sānshíliù Tiān Zhāi Yí, juǎn 1, Chǎng 5”).
Abstract
The Hétú 河圖 in the title refers to the River-Chart, the foundational cosmological diagram of Daoist celestial geography; the title indicates that the rite is grounded in the Hétú cosmography and addressed to all thirty-two heavens of that schema (the count of thirty-six includes the four supreme Sānqīng heavens plus the Dàluó tiān 大羅天 at the top). The rite is built around a square altar of 3.6 zhàng per side, with eight lamps inscribed (in black on white tablets) with the names of the thirty-two heavens and (in vermilion) the names and posts of their respective deities. A central green pennant of 1.6 zhàng in length, inscribed with the Sānhuáng tiānwén 三皇天文 (Three-Emperor celestial scripts), is raised on a pole of 2.4 zhàng. The body of juǎn 1 gives the lǐxiè 禮謝 thanksgiving formulae addressed to the heavens in groups: èr 二 (with incense-pinch) addressing the thirty-two heavens northward; subsequent sections shifting to east, south, west.
Per Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 1: 555–556, John Lagerwey, DZ 515), this work and its companion DZ 516 (KR5b0219) preserve an unusually archaic stratum of Língbǎo liturgical practice — the directly Hétú-based cosmology with thirty-two-heaven count, separated from the post-Táng thirty-six-heaven schemata — and are very likely Táng or earlier in composition, though the received recension is the Míng Zhèngtǒng dàozàng (1444).
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. 1: 555–556 (DZ 515, entry by John Lagerwey).
- Maeda Shigeki 前田繁樹. Shoki dōkyō kyōten no keisei 初期道教経典の形成. Tokyo: Kyūko shoin, 2004 — for the Hé-tú cosmographic tradition in early Daoist liturgy.