Huángdì Tàiyī bāmén rùshì mìjué 黃帝太一八門入式祕訣
Yellow-Emperor’s Secret Formula for Entering by the Eight Gates of the Great One
About the work
A single-juǎn parallel recension of the Tàiyī bāmén 太一八門 divinatory-exorcistic tradition, partner-volume to KR5b0291 (DZ 586) and KR5b0293 (DZ 588). The orthography here uses Tàiyī 太一 (Great One) rather than Tàiyǐ 太乙, but the system is identical.
Abstract
The text opens with the Rù tiānmén zhòu 入天門呪 (“Incantation for Entering the Heaven Gate”): “Tiānmén kāi tài, liùjiǎ fúchí, jīnsuǒ yùyuè, sù zài mò wéi, sǎodàng xiéhuì, èguǐ qūzhī, jíjí rú lǜlìng” 天門開泰，六甲扶持，金鎻玉鑰，速在莫違，掃蕩邪穢，惡鬼祛之，急急如律令 (“Heaven-Gate opens to the trigram tài, the Six jiǎ aid and uphold; gold-locks and jade-keys: be swift, do not violate; sweep away the foul, expel the evil ghosts — swiftly, swiftly, as the statute commands”). The work then prescribes the Chū dìhù zhòu 出地戸呪 (“Incantation for Leaving the Earth Door”): “Sì dào kāi tài, wú lìng túnsè, yùnǚ dù wǒ, wù lìng mǒujiǎ jīn…” 四道開泰，無令屯塞，玉女度我，勿令某甲今 (“The four roads open to the trigram tài; let there be no obstruction; the Jade Maids ferry me; do not let so-and-so today…”).
The work proceeds with the parallel rituals for each of the eight gates and each direction. The whole forms the mìjué (secret formula) supplement to the more systematic Rùshì jué of KR5b0291. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 773, John Lagerwey) treat the three Bāmén texts as a unified 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: 773 (DZ 587, John Lagerwey).
- Kalinowski, Marc. Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne. Paris: EFEO, 1991.