Tàishàng língbǎo xiàyuán shuǐguān xiāoqiān mièzuì chàn 太上靈寶下元水官消愆滅罪懺
Confession-Liturgy of the Lower Prime Watery Bureau for the Effacement of Offences and Extinction of Faults in the Great-High Língbǎo
About the work
Third and final member of the Sānguān chàn triad (cf. KR5b0236, KR5b0237); the three texts share a single physical fascicle. The work addresses the Xiàyuán shuǐguān 下元水官, the Daoist Bureau of the Watery realm.
Abstract
The opening narrative places the revelation in the Jīn-líng dòng-yīn zhī guǎn 金靈洞隂之舘 (Pavilion of the Golden Numen and Cavernous Yin), where Yuán-shǐ tiān-zūn expounds the teaching. A zhēn-rén named Míng Luó Yuè 明羅越 — a deity unattested elsewhere, possibly a Daoist Sinicisation of a Buddhist yakṣa or deva name — comes forward and addresses the Tiān-zūn, asking for instruction on the “great and small nine-and-six calamities” (dà-xiǎo jiǔ-liù zhī zāi 大小九六之災) that have not yet been resolved. The Tiān-zūn replies that “the four seasons revolve, the yin-yang and lǜlǚ circulate — all this is entrusted to the Tiān-dì-shuǐ sān-guān 天地水三官. As for the four seas, three rivers, mountain streams, springs, ponds, lakes, banks, embankments, isles, sluices, streams, fountains, the aquatic creatures — fish, dragons, river-turtles, alligators, sea-turtles, soft-shell turtles, all the moisture-dwelling species — and the annual harvests, the people’s joys and sorrows, all are committed to the Xiàyuán shuǐguān for review and judgment.”
The body of the work is the confession addressed to the Watery Bureau, performed on xiàyuán 下元 (15th day of the 10th month), the bureau’s day in the calendar.
Per Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1024–1025, John Lagerwey, DZ 535), the watery-bureau jurisdiction over aquatic life and harvests is a distinctively Daoist development of the older Sānguān schema.
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: 1024–1025 (DZ 535, entry by John Lagerwey).