Guǎngchéng jí 廣成集
Collected Works of [the Master] Guǎng-chéng by 杜光庭 (撰)
About the work
A seventeen-juǎn collection of the ritual prose of 杜光庭 (Dù Guāngtíng, 850–933), late-Táng and Former-Shǔ 前蜀 Daoist polymath, the most prolific and institutionally central Daoist writer of the early tenth century. The collection takes its title from Dù’s honorific Guǎngchéng xiānshēng 廣成先生 (“Master Guǎngchéng”), bestowed by the Former-Shǔ emperor Wáng Yǎn 王衍 in 923. The first juǎn signature reads “Shàngdū Tàiqīnggōng nèi gōngfèng yìngzhì wénzhāng dàdé cìzǐ Dù Guāngtíng zhuàn” 上都太清宫内供奉應制文章大徳賜紫杜光庭撰 (“Composed by Dù Guāngtíng, Master of Great Virtue cìzǐ-robed, in-residence imperial-edict-respondent-of-literary-pieces at the Tàiqīng Palace of the Upper Capital”), preserving his late-Tang court titulature.
Abstract
The work is the major surviving compendium of late-Tang and Five-Dynasties Daoist ritual prose: biǎo 表 (memorials to the throne), zhāng 章 (petitions to the celestial bureaucracy), cí 詞 (announcements), bēi 碑 (stelae), shù 述 (orations), jì 記 (records), and wén 文 (general prose), composed by Dù Guāngtíng on behalf of his patrons — the late-Tang court (Xīzōng 僖宗 and Zhāozōng 昭宗), the Former-Shǔ court (Wáng Jiàn 王建 and Wáng Yǎn 王衍), and a wide range of regional officials and individual patrons — for use at zhāijiào altars and at cult-site dedications. The collection is therefore both a literary monument and the principal documentary source for the institutional history of late-Tang and Former-Shǔ state Daoism.
The opening pieces show the typical range:
- Dài Táo Fú tàibǎo xiū Jìnkǒu huà qǐngé biǎo 代陶福太保修濜口化請額表 (“On behalf of tàibǎo Táo Fú, a memorial requesting an imperial plaque for the restoration of the Jìnkǒu huà”). Jìnkǒu huà 濜口化 was the eighteenth of the twenty-four huà (parishes) of the original Five-Pecks-of-Rice diocesan system, where the Hàn-period immortal Chén Ānshì 陳安世 was said to have ascended in broad daylight. Damaged in late-Tang military disorder, the huà is restored, and Dù — speaking on behalf of the patron tàibǎo Táo Fú — requests imperial issue of a plaque (é 額) under the historic name Jìnkǒu and a re-titling as Shèngshòu 聖夀 (“Sagely Longevity”). The memorial cites the cult’s classical Daoist references (Chén Ānshì, the local Bāonǚ xiān 褒女仙) and frames the restoration as a service to imperial longevity.
- Xiè xīndiàn xiū jīnlù dàochǎng biǎo 謝新殿修金籙道場表 (“Memorial of thanks for the imperial Jīnlù ritual held at the New Hall”), a seven-day-seven-night jīnlù zhāi 金籙齋 (the highest Daoist liturgical observance) held in the imperial palace’s new hall and reported by the chief officiant Hé Chōnghuī 何冲徽 and twenty other Daoists.
Subsequent juǎn cover: state petitions for rainfall, harvest, and military success; thanksgivings for imperial favours; petitions on behalf of named officials and consorts at moments of personal crisis (illness, bereavement, infertility, demonic affliction); petitions for the deceased of the imperial family; petitions on behalf of regional officials of Shǔ; and a substantial body of jì and bēi recording the foundation, restoration, or expansion of specific Daoist establishments. The collection is therefore the most fully documented body of late-Tang and Former-Shǔ Daoist ritual practice surviving today, far surpassing the abbreviated petition-formularies of KR5b0320 in literary elaboration and historical specificity.
The dates of individual pieces, where given, range across Dù’s adult career (ca. 880–933). Many can be precisely dated by their references to identifiable historical events (the Huáng Cháo rebellion, the founding of Former Shǔ in 907, Wáng Yǎn’s 923 investiture ritual that bestowed Dù’s Guǎngchéng title, the 924 Jīnlù zhāi at Chéngdū, etc.), making the Guǎngchéng jí one of the most precisely dated bodies of medieval Chinese Daoist literature. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 854, Franciscus Verellen) treat it as the central documentary anchor of late-Tang Daoist studies.
Translations and research
- Verellen, Franciscus. Du Guangting (850–933): Taoïste de cour à la fin de la Chine médiévale. Paris: Collège de France, Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1989 — the definitive monograph; treats the Guǎng-chéng jí in detail.
- Verellen, Franciscus. “Liturgy and Sovereignty: The Role of Taoist Ritual in the Foundation of the Shu Kingdom (907–925).” Asia Major 3rd ser., 2 (1989): 59–78 — translates and discusses key Shǔ-period pieces from the collection.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Vol. 2: 854 (DZ 616, Franciscus Verellen).
- Dōng Wén-huàn 董文煥, ed. Guǎng-chéng jí jiào-zhù 廣成集校注. Chéng-dū: Bā-Shǔ shū-shè, 2009 — modern critical edition with annotations.
- 羅爭鳴 Luó Zhēngmíng. Dù Guāng-tíng jí Guǎng-chéng jí yán-jiū 杜光庭及廣成集研究. Chéng-dū: Bā-Shǔ shū-shè, 2005.
Other points of interest
The collection is one of the richest sources for the documentary history of late-Tang and Former-Shǔ political life and is regularly mined for non-Daoist historical detail (the personal vicissitudes of named officials and consorts, the chronology of military campaigns, the cultural politics of the Shǔ regional court). The Guǎngchéng jí is also the principal documentary witness to the formalisation of the jīnlù zhāi 金籙齋 as the highest state-Daoist liturgy, a status that Dù’s redactions essentially codified and that would persist through the Sòng and beyond.