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太上玄靈斗姆大聖元君本命延生心經

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Text ID
KR5c0002
Date
1127–1279
Dynasty
南宋

Tàishàng xuánlíng Dǒumǔ dàshèng yuánjūn běnmìng yánshēng xīnjīng 太上玄靈斗姆大聖元君本命延生心經

Heart-Scripture on Prolonging the Life-Decree at One’s Natal Destiny, by the Great Sage Original Goddess, Dǒumǔ of Mysterious Numen, of the Most High

anonymous Southern-Sòng revealed scripture (xīnjīng 心經) in one juàn of three folios, addressed to Dǒumǔ 斗姆 (“Mother of the Dipper”), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 621 / CT 621, 洞神部本文類). The source file has the variant character 鬥 in the title (鬥姆 for 斗姆) — a graphic substitution preserved in some Wànlì-era blocks of the Ming Dàozàng; the Sānjiā edition normalises to 斗姆.

About the work

A short revealed scripture in the voice of Lǎojūn 老君, extolling Dǒumǔ 斗姆 — the Daoist adaptation of the Buddhist Tantric goddess Marīcī 摩利支 — as the “mother of the stars of the Northern Dipper” and the supreme remedial power against all discords of qì 氣: unseasonable rain and drought, pestilence, wolves and locusts, goblins and spectres, illness and strife. The text opens with a brief cosmological frame (the Dipper and the Moon are paired sources of pò 魄 and jīng 精 for living beings), proceeds to enumerate Dǒumǔ’s nine sacred titles (Jiǔlíng tàimiào báiyù guītái yèguāng jīnjīng zǔmǔ yuánjūn 九靈太妙白玉龜臺夜光金精祖母元君; Zhōngtiān fànqì Dǒumǔ yuánjūn 中天梵炁斗母元君; Zǐguāng míngzhé císhàn tàisù yuánhòu jīnzhēn shèngdé tiānzūn 紫光明哲慈惠太素元后金眞聖徳天尊; Dà yuánmǎn yuèguāng wáng 大圓滿月光王; Dōnghuá cíjiù huángjūn 東華慈救皇君; Tiānyī dàshèng 天醫大聖, among others), then narrates her origin-myth — her bathing in the Nine-Fold Efflorescence Pool (Jiǔqū huáchí 九曲華池), her ascent of the White-Jade Turtle-Terrace (Bǎiyù guītái 白玉龜臺), and her generation of the nine Dipper stars (Tiānhuáng 天皇, Zǐwēi 紫微, Tānláng 貪狼, Jùmén 巨門, Lùcún 祿存, Wénqū 文曲, Liánzhēn 廉貞, Wǔqū 武曲, Pòjūn 破軍) — and closes with a short incantation (zhòu 呪) bestowing the seven “true pò” on the Dipper-aligned loci of the adept’s body. Together with KR5c0003 (Tàishàng xuánlíng Běidǒu běnmìng yánshēng zhēnjīng, DZ 622) and KR5c0004 (Tàishàng xuánlíng Běidǒu běnmìng chángshēng miào jīng, DZ 623), it forms the core of the Southern-Sòng Dipper-star (Běidǒu) liturgical cycle.

Prefaces

No preface per se; the scripture is framed as direct revelation, opening “Lǎojūn yuē 老君曰…” without any preface or postface. The concluding incantation (lines 63–67 of the Mandoku base text) may be rendered:

Incantation: “O mysterious Numen, measure out my fruition and preserve me in long life. The Great Mystery of the Triune One guards my true form. The five-viscera god-sovereigns each obtain their ease and peace. Kuí, Zōu, Cuī, Huá, Pí, Xū, Piào — swift as by statute and law, so let it be!”

The final line is a standard apotropaic rúlǜlìng 如律令 (“as the [celestial] ordinance commands”), following the seven-character sequence — each character being the secret name of one of the seven Dipper stars — drawn from the canonical Dipper-talismanic tradition.

Abstract

Kristofer Schipper, in his notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (2004, 2:952, DZ 621, under 3.B.1 Zhèngyī), dates the scripture tentatively to the Southern Sòng (1127–1279), which the catalog meta (dynasty: 南宋) confirms. The dating rests on three observations. First, the Daoist cult of Dǒumǔ is unmistakably derivative from the Tantric-Buddhist cult of Marīcī (摩利支), which reached Chinese Buddhists via texts like Amoghavajra’s (Bùkōng 不空, 705–774) eighth-century translations but whose Daoist absorption took place only after the late Northern Sòng — specifically, from the Southern Sòng onward, under the broad umbrella of the Shénxiāo 神霄 and Qīngwēi 清微 thunder-rite traditions. Second, the scripture’s invocation of Tiānhuáng 天皇 and Zǐwēi 紫微 as “honored Emperor-stars dwelling at the mouth of the Dipper” alongside the seven named Dipper stars, and the treatment of the two “emperor-stars” as Zuǒfǔ 左輔 and Yòubì 右弼, reproduces the nine-star doctrinal schema (jiǔ huáng 九皇) that is first systematised in the Southern-Sòng Dipper liturgies. Third, the scripture is closely bound, in both vocabulary (the epithet xuánlíng 玄靈) and in its placement in the Ming Dàozàng, to DZ 622 and DZ 623 — of which the former was already criticised as a recent fabrication, in circulation but “vulgar and ridiculous,” by the bibliographer Cháo Gōngwǔ 晁公武 in Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志 16.765–766 (completed 1151). The Xīnjīng (DZ 621) therefore belongs to the same Southern-Sòng liturgical wave. Frontmatter notBefore/notAfter are set to 1127/1279.

Of the various Dǒumǔ scriptures in the Dàozàng, DZ 621 is the one that articulates most explicitly the sidereal-maternal theology: Dǒumǔ is the mother of all nine jiǔhuáng 九皇 stars, the source of the Dipper’s pò 魄, and the consort of Dǒufǔ 斗父 (cf. DZ 45 Dǒufǔ jīng). She is also assimilated, in the concluding incantation, to the “nine sages” (jiǔ shèng 九聖) whose “true pò” descend to the practitioner’s seven bodily orifices and three dāntián 丹田 during the liturgical recitation.

Translations and research

  • Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:952 (DZ 621, Kristofer Schipper).
  • Mollier, Christine. Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008 — ch. 4 on the Daoist appropriation of Marīcī / Dǒumǔ and her iconography.
  • Sørensen, Henrik H. “Marīcī and the Doumu Cult.” In The Illuminating Mirror: Tibetan Studies in Honour of Per K. Sørensen on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, edited by Olaf Czaja and Guntram Hazod, 475–497. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2015.
  • Franke, Herbert. “Consecration of the ‘White Stupa’ in 1279.” Asia Major, 3rd ser., 7 (1994): 155–183 — on the political prominence of Marīcī / Dǒumǔ at the Yuán court.

Other points of interest

The character variant 鬥 for 斗 in the source file’s title (preserved also in several late-Míng witnesses) reflects a Yuán–Míng graphic substitution that has occasionally misled cataloguers into reading the title as referring to “combat” (dòu 鬥) rather than to the Dipper (dǒu 斗). The Sānjiā edition silently restores 斗姆. The nine stars enumerated in the text — Tiānhuáng, Zǐwēi, Tānláng, Jùmén, Lùcún, Wénqū, Liánzhēn, Wǔqū, Pòjūn — are one of the earliest systematic lists of the “Nine Emperors” (jiǔhuáng) in Daoist scriptural literature, and this list is the direct source of the nine-star roster used in present-day Minnan, Taiwanese, and Straits-Chinese Jiǔhuángyé 九皇爺 (Nine Emperor Gods) festivals.

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