Língbǎo jìngmíng dàfǎ wàndào yùzhāng mìjué 靈寶淨明大法萬道玉章祕訣
Secret Formulae of the Jade Stanzas of the Myriad Ways, Great Method of the Língbǎo Jìng-míng
About the work
A one-juǎn doctrinal-cosmological compendium of the Jìngmíng 淨明 tradition’s Great Method, structured around the Yùzhāng 玉章 (Jade Stanzas) — the canonical Daoist celestial scripture inscribed in eight-cornered jade graphs (bājiǎo chuímáng 八角垂芒) — and the Wàndào 萬道 (myriad Ways) of which the Jìngmíng tradition claims to be the synthetic crown.
Abstract
The text opens with a cosmogonic narrative descending through the canonical Daoist kalpas: “Fú shénxuán wèi zhào, huàkōng dúlún, miǎoǎi sānqì zhī xiān, hùnlún èryí zhī shǐ…” 夫神玄未肇，化空獨輪，渺靄三炁之先，混淪二儀之始 (“When the divine-mysterious had not yet begun, the transforming Void was a solitary wheel; vast and dim, before the Three Qì; chaotic and dispersed, at the beginning of the Two Modes…”). It then narrates the descent of the Yùzhāng through the Yùchén 玉晨 court, the shǔzhū 黍珠 (millet-pearl) revelation, the Tiānzhēn huángrén 天眞皇人 ‘s transcription of the Jade Graphs, and the partition of the celestial canon into thirty-six divisions of secret scripture.
The author identifies himself as a former officer of the Tàiyáng xuángōng 太陽玄宫, custodian of the Zǐgé 紫閣 archives, who had attended on the Wúshàng sānzhēn 無上三真 in the xuánfàn zhī tú 玄範之圖 (the chart of mystical norms). The text proceeds through eight instructional theses (bāmíng xùnjiě 八明訓解), each on the cosmogonic genesis of the Jade Graphs: how the Yuánshǐ zǔqì 元始祖炁 (Primordial Ancestral Qì) gives rise to the Jade Letters; how, before yuánshǐ zǔqì had form, qì can be descended into substance and refined back into qì; how the practitioner can ingest the qì to ascend.
The work treats the Jìngmíng tradition’s Wàndào yùzhāng as the cosmological root of all Daoist dàfǎ 大法; it functions as the doctrinal preface to the practical liturgical compendium KR5b0266 (Tàishàng língbǎo jìngmíng mìfǎ piān). Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1096, John Lagerwey) place it in the late Southern-Sòng to Yuán Jìngmíng milieu.
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: 1096 (DZ 560, John Lagerwey).
- Akizuki, Kan’ei. Chūgoku kinsei dōkyō no keisei: Jōmyō-dō no kisoteki kenkyū. Tokyo: Sōbunsha, 1978.