Gāoshàng Yuègōng Tàiyīn yuánjūn xiàodào xiānwáng língbǎo jìngmíng huángsù shū 高上月宮太陰元君孝道仙王靈寶淨明黃素書
Língbǎo Jìng-míng Yellow-Silk Book of the Most-High Lunar-Palace Prime Lord of the Great Yīn, Filial-Way Immortal King with commentary by 傅飛卿 (注)
About the work
A ten-juǎn central scripture of the Jìngmíng 淨明 (Pure-Brilliance) tradition, set forth as the celestial revelation of the Tàiyīn yuánjūn 太陰元君 — the Prime Lord of the lunar palace — to the Xiàodào xiānwáng 孝道仙王 (Filial-Way Immortal King) on the cosmogonic stage. The work is preserved with the commentary (jiě 解) of 傅飛卿, one of the leading Jìngmíng exegetes of the late SòngYuán Xīshān 西山 lineage.
Abstract
The opening section, Xùlì 序例, sets the scene at the Tàijí wúshàng shǐqīng zhī tiān 太極無上始青之天 (“the Inception-Green Heaven of the Supreme Ultimate”), 5,000 lǐ removed from the palaces of the sun and the moon, where the divine machinery (shénjī 神機) of the Way is partitioned and made manifest. The Most-High then convenes the heavens of the sun and the moon and discloses to the Filial-Way Immortal King the Línbǎo dàfǎ 靈寶大法, the Huángsù fǎ 黃素法, the Jìngmíng fǎ 淨明法 and the Dùrén fǎ 度人法 — these four “Methods” together constituting the canonical scope of the Jìngmíng tradition.
The commentary by 傅飛卿 glosses each cosmogonic phrase with internal-cultivation parallels: the yīnyáng chōngqì 陰陽冲炁 that generates the myriad things is read as the liàndù 鍊度 internal qì in the body of the officiant; the qījīng 七精 / liùqì 六氣 disorders are read as the moral failings that the Jìngmíng code corrects. The work is the principal scriptural authority for the Jìngmíng tradition’s doctrinal synthesis: Língbǎo mortuary technology + Shàngqīng inner-anatomy + Confucian-style xiào 孝 (filiality) ethics. The 10-juǎn organisation indexes the chief doctrinal heads.
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1093, John Lagerwey) treat the Huángsù shū as the principal Jìngmíng scripture; the form transmitted in the Daozang is a late-Sòng-Yuán redaction. The companion catechesis KR5b0260 (Huángsù shū shìyì mìjué) was compiled by 周方文 as the disciple-side counterpart.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Vol. 2: 1093 (DZ 555, John Lagerwey).
- Akizuki, Kan’ei. Chūgoku kinsei dōkyō no keisei: Jōmyō-dō no kisoteki kenkyū. Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1978 — chapters 4–5 on the Huáng-sù shū.
- Boltz, Judith M. A Survey of Taoist Literature: Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987 — the Jìng-míng section.