Shàngqīng liùjiǎ qídǎo mìfǎ 上清六甲祈禱祕法
Shàngqīng Secret Method for Invoking the Six Jiǎ [Spirits]
About the work
An anonymous single-juǎn Daoist manual of the Liùjiǎ 六甲 invocation, presented in the Shàngqīng 上清 ritual idiom. The work belongs to the same Tang-Sòng tradition as KR5b0286 (Língbǎo liùdīng mìfǎ) but treats the liùjiǎ male-stem celestial spirits rather than their female liùdīng counterparts.
Abstract
The text opens with a foundation mythology: “Xī shí Dōnghuá dàdì shàngcháo Yuánshǐ Shàngdì, Tàishàng dàojūn, Lǎojūn, Yùdì, Zǐwēi dàdì, jiē jùhuì yú Bǐngyín sù Wèi tiāngōng…” 昔時東華大帝上朝元始上帝、太上道君、老君、玉帝、紫微大帝皆聚㑹于丙寅宿胃天宫 (“In ancient times, the Great Emperor of the Eastern Florescence ascended to the celestial court of the Primordial Most-High Emperor, the Most-High Way-Lord, Lǎojūn, the Jade Emperor and the Great Emperor of Zǐwēi, who were all gathered together at the bǐngyín-day at the Stomach Mansion celestial palace”). The Eastern-Florescence Emperor then arose and said: “Your servant has three juǎn of the liùjiǎ tiānshū 六甲天書, and wishes to circulate them in the Yánfútí 閻浮提 world for the salvation of beings, foreseeing as I do that in the world-to-come there will be swords-and-soldiers and great chaos…“. The Yuánshǐ tiānzūn 元始天尊 examined the request, transmitted the books to the Xuányuán lǎojūn 玄元老君 for general circulation; subsequently, Lǎojūn transmitted them to Yǐn Xǐ xiānshēng 尹喜先生, and through him to the mundane world.
The text then notes that “from ancient times to the present, copies have lost many of the names of the Liùdīng and Liùjiǎ and the twelve tiānyóu 天遊 spirits”, and proceeds to restore them, with their invocational sequences. The work is a SòngYuán recension of the canonical Daoist celestial-bureaucratic liùjiǎ protocol.
Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 772, John Lagerwey) treat it as the parallel piece to KR5b0286; the two together constitute the Daozang’s principal record of the Liùjiǎ Liùdīng tradition.
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: 772 (DZ 584, John Lagerwey).
- Kalinowski, Marc. Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne. Paris: EFEO, 1991.