Tàishàng cíbēi dàochǎng mièzuì shuǐchàn 太上慈悲道場滅罪水懺
Water Confession of the Great-High Compassionate Bodhimanda for the Extinction of Faults
About the work
Single-fascicle “water-confession” (shuǐchàn 水懴), with all three parts (上中下) bundled into one physical fascicle (the source rubric reads 卷上(中下同卷), with the position-marker Mù 11 木十一). The catalog dates the work to 唐. The title and structure are a Daoist adaptation of the famous Buddhist Cíbēi shuǐchàn 慈悲水懺 (attributed to Wùdá guóshī 悟達國師, the Tang Buddhist patriarch), the prototype “water” confession in which the recitation purifies as washing water cleanses defilement.
Abstract
The opening narrative places the revelation at the Dàluó tiān shàng Yùjīng Jīnquè Zǐwēi tiāntái 大羅天上玉京金闕紫微天臺 (the Heavenly-Tower of the Purple-Bureau at the Jade Capital and Golden Gate of the Da-luo Heaven), where Yuánshǐ tiānzūn “in the great assembly of immortals expounded the marvellous dharma, saving and delivering heavenly beings and humans, causing all to awaken to the Way without passing through the various sufferings; exercising great divine power and emitting great rays of light, illuminating all the lands; the entire field of offence-and-fortune was placed before his eyes.” The Tiānzūn then “compassionately and broadly expounded; further opening the essential Way, he made it so that the past, the future, were universally watered with benefit. Again he addressed the Perfected attending him on his left and right: in receiving birth, humans equally draw on…”
The body of the work is the water-confession proper, with the shuǐ metaphor sustained throughout: offences are described in liquid imagery, the confession washes them away, the salvific water cleanses the souls. The Daoist character of the text is, however, secure: the cosmological frame is the Yùjīng paradise of the Da-luo Heaven, the deities are Daoist, and the karmic schema is articulated in Daoist terms.
Per Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 1: 506–507, John Lagerwey, DZ 545), the work is a Tang-period Daoist adaptation of the Buddhist shuǐchàn genre, transmitted through the Míng Zhèngtǒng dàozàng.
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: 506–507 (DZ 545, entry by John Lagerwey).
- Mollier, Christine. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008 — discusses the Buddhist-Daoist exchange in confession liturgies.
- Kuo Liying. Confession et contrition dans le bouddhisme chinois du Vᵉ au Xᵉ siècle. Paris: EFEO, 1994 — for the Buddhist shuǐ-chàn genre and its Tang context.