Shàngqīng tiānxīn zhèngfǎ 上清天心正法
Shàngqīng Orthodox Method of the Heavenly Mind by 鄧有功 (編)
About the work
A seven-juǎn anthology of the Tiānxīn zhèngfǎ 天心正法 — the “Orthodox Method of the Heavenly Mind” — one of the principal Northern-Sòng exorcistic-therapeutic ritual traditions, claiming descent from the Fúqiū Wáng Guō chōng 浮丘王郭沖 triad of perfected and from the discovery of a buried jade-graph manuscript at Sānqīng xūwú yáotán 三清虛無瑶壇 on the 15th of the eighth month, Chúnhuà 5 (= 994 CE). The compilation is the principal Northern-Sòng manual of the tradition and was assembled by the Daoist priest 鄧有功 before his death (c. 1116).
Abstract
The preface narrates the foundation legend: the Fúqiū Wáng Guō Chōng triad — Fúqiū gōng 浮丘公, Wángjūn 王君, Guō chōng 郭沖 — are revealed as the responsive transformations of the Three Pure Ones, manifesting first on Mt. Huágài 華蓋 then in southern Jiāngnán; they devised the Tàiqīng fúmó jīng 太清伏魔經 for the salvation of the people. On the night of the full moon of the eighth month, Chúnhuà 5 (994), a “fleshly-body bodhisattva” (ròushēn dàshì 肉身大士) — identified later as the lay-master Ráo Dòngtiān 饒洞天 of Hóngzhōu — observed five-coloured numinous light rising over the Sānqīng terrace; on the following day he dug down three chǐ at the spot and uncovered a gold box, containing a gold-plate jade-graph manuscript titled Tiānxīn mìshì 天心祕式. This manuscript constituted the zhèngfǎ 正法 — the “Orthodox Method” — and is the doctrinal root of the Tiānxīn tradition.
The seven juǎn cover the doctrinal foundations, the talismans (chiefly the Tiāngāng 天罡, Hēishā 黑煞, and Sānguāng 三光 talismans), the chief exorcistic seals (the Běijí qūxié yuàn yìn 北極驅邪院印 = Dūtiān tǒngshè sānjiè guǐshén zhī yìn 都天統攝三界鬼神之印, and the Dūtiān dàfǎzhǔ yìn 都天大法主印), and the procedures for treating illnesses caused by demonic agency. The Tiānxīn tradition’s enduring influence on the SòngYuán therapeutic-exorcistic landscape — most notably documented in Edward L. Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China — is in large part founded on the recension Dèng Yǒugōng here transmits.
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 1098–1099, John Lagerwey) date the work to “not earlier than the late Northern Sòng”, and identify Dèng Yǒugōng’s recension as the principal Sòng witness to the canonical Tiānxīn corpus.
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: 1098–1099 (DZ 566, John Lagerwey).
- Davis, Edward L. Society and the Supernatural in Song China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2001 — extensive treatment of the Tiān-xīn tradition in Sòng exorcistic-therapeutic practice.
- Boltz, Judith M. A Survey of Taoist Literature: Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, 1987, pp. 36–37.