Tàishàng xuāncí zhùhuà zhāng 太上宣慈助化章
Petitions of the Most-High for Proclaiming Compassion and Assisting Transformation by 杜光庭 (編)
About the work
A five-juǎn collection of zhāng 章 — Daoist petitions to the celestial bureaucracy — compiled by 杜光庭 (Dù Guāngtíng, 850–933). The first juǎn signature reads Guǎngchéng xiānshēng Dù Guāngtíng jí 廣成先生杜光庭集 (“Compiled by Master Guǎngchéng Dù Guāngtíng”), using Dù’s Former-Shǔ honorific Guǎngchéng xiānshēng 廣成先生 conferred by Wáng Yǎn in 923. The work is therefore late within Dù’s career, very probably composed at Chéngdū between 923 and his death in 933. As a topical specialisation of his broader KR5b0321 Guǎngchéng jí, it offers a focused compendium of petition-formulae for individual welfare — the petitions actually celebrated at the parish level by Tiānshīdào fǎshī serving private patrons.
Abstract
Each juǎn presents a series of petitions, prefaced by a rubric stating the occasion of use, the directional orientation required of the officiant (day-east or night-north, etc.), and the xìn 信 (offering inventory). The first petition, Jiùjí jiějì zhāng 救急解計章 (“Emergency-Rescue Calculation-Loosing Petition”), is for use “when a person encounters a year-calamity, month-disaster, exhausted life-allotment, broken star-tally, or year-of-conflict obstructed life-flow” (凡人有年災月厄筭盡相臨本命禄絶行年妨害), and lists its offering-inventory: a pair of silver rings, 120 suànchóu divination-rods, 1 zhàng 2 chǐ of green silk thread, 1,200 cash, 1 dàn 2 dǒu of mìng rice, 2 zhàng 4 chǐ of mìng silk.
The petition itself adopts the standardised Tiānshīdào liturgical form:
- Opening: fālú 發爐 (the censer-igniting visualisation).
- *Chángguì chūguān 長跪出官 (the long-kneeling summons-of-officials).
- The text proper: “Tàixuándū zhèngyī píngqì jì Tiānshī Yángpíng děng èrshísì zhì, chén X jīshǒu dùnshǒu zài lǐ” 泰玄都正一平炁係天師陽平等二十四治臣某稽首頓首再禮 (“From the Tàixuándū zhèngyī in even-qì-state, of the Heavenly-Master Yángpíng and the other twenty-four parishes, your servant X kowtows in the prostration of homage”). The petition continues with the patron’s name, residence, household-size, and a recitation of the human condition: “Círòu rén sùzhì tāishēng, bǎiguān zǐsūn, qiānzǎi xìnghuì dé fèng Tàishàng dàdào” 詞肉人素質胎生百官子孫千載幸會得奉太上大道 (“This meat-bodied person, plain in nature, born of the womb, in a chance-meeting of a thousand years gained the service of the Most-High Great Dao through hundreds of officials and generations of descendants”). The petition itemises the patron’s afflictions (financial loss, demonic visitation, tomb disturbances of the patron’s ancestors, the Tàishānfǔjūn’s erroneous summons of the patron’s name, etc.) and requests specific bureaucratic action by named celestial offices.
Subsequent petitions address:
- Jièzǔ qiúfú zhāng 解祖求福章 (loosening ancestral curses, requesting good fortune).
- Jiěpò chízhāng 解破馳章 (resolving family/household disputes).
- Jiěyāoguài zhāng 解妖怪章 (dispelling anomalies).
- Jièyīnsòng zhāng 解陰訟章 (loosening underworld lawsuits — the dead suing the living).
- Qǐngmìng zhāng 請命章 (requesting extended life-allotment).
- Qǐngzǐ zhāng 請子章 (requesting offspring).
- Wéiwángrén qǐng zhāng 為亡人請章 (for the deceased).
- And several dozen others.
The collection systematises the petition-tradition of KR5b0320 Chìsōngzǐ zhānglì into late-Tang / Former-Shǔ literary form, supplying both the rubric inventory and the full literary text. Together with KR5b0321, it is one of the two most important late-Tang sources for Daoist ritual prose. Schipper & Verellen (Taoist Canon 2: 871, Franciscus Verellen) treat it as Dù Guāngtíng’s “second great anthology” and a key witness to the fǎshī-tradition petition repertoire of the early tenth century.
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.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. Vol. 2: 871 (DZ 617, Franciscus Verellen).
- Nickerson, Peter. “The Great Petition for Sepulchral Plaints.” In Early Daoist Scriptures, ed. Stephen R. Bokenkamp, 230–74. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997 — for the zhāng tradition into which this collection fits.
- Lai Chi-Tim 黎志添. Tiān-shī-dào sān-tiān nèi-jiě jīng yán-jiū 天師道三天內解經研究. Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 2010.
Other points of interest
The work is one of the rare Daozang collections to preserve the xìn (offering) inventories alongside the petition texts, allowing reconstruction of the full liturgical economy of a late-Tang fǎshī’s parish practice. It is also one of the most concrete witnesses to the cult of the Tàishānfǔjūn 太山府君 (the Mt. Tài bureaucratic administrator of the dead) and to the Daoist apparatus of jiězhù 解注 (“loosening the toxin”, i.e. the apotropaic remedy for the dead’s lingering claims on the living) in the medieval period.