太上說南斗六司延壽度人妙經

Tàishàng shuō Nándǒu liùsī yánshòu dùrén miào jīng 太上說南斗六司延壽度人妙經

Wonderful Scripture on Life-Extension and Salvation by the Six Bureaus of the Southern Dipper, Preached by the Most High

anonymous Southern-Sòng revealed scripture (miào jīng 妙經) in one juàn of nine folios, first of the four directional-Dipper sequels to the Běidǒu zhēnjīng (KR5c0003 / DZ 622), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng 正統道藏 (DZ 624 / CT 624, 洞神部本文類). The Sānjiā edition bundles this scripture with the three remaining directional Dǒu scriptures (KR5c0006–KR5c0008) and with the apotropaic-incantation scripture KR5c0009 under the same cover-leaf (“Wǔ jīng tóng juàn shāng èr 五經同卷傷二” — five scriptures bound in one fascicle, bundle 2).

About the work

The scripture is structured as a third-stage revelation by Tàishàng Lǎojūn to Zhāng Dàolíng: following the two prior revelations of the Zhèngyī méngwēi 正一盟威 covenant and the Běidǒu jīng proper, Lǎojūn descends once more at Chéngdū on the shàngyuán 上元 festival (the fifteenth of the first month) of Yǒngshòu 1 (155 CE) to bestow the doctrine of the Southern Dipper. The Southern Dipper (Nándǒu 南斗) is the six-star configuration in Sagittarius (φ, λ, μ, σ, τ, ζ Sgr — Chinese name 斗宿 Dǒuxiù, the eighth lunar lodge) that the text pairs with the seven-star Northern Dipper (Běidǒu, Ursa Major) as the yáng-solar counterpart to the yīn-lunar Northern Dipper: the Northern Dipper governs pò 魄 (the yin soul) from the Kǎn 坎 palace and presides over the underworld registers; the Southern Dipper governs hún 魂 (the yang soul) from the Lí 离 palace and presides over solar-fire and the extension of life. The Southern Dipper is here represented by six Perfected Lords — Tiānfǔ sīmìng shàngjiàng zhènguó zhēnjūn 天府司命上將鎭國眞君, Tiānxiàng sīlù shàngxiàng zhènyuè zhēnjūn 天相司祿上相鎭嶽眞君, Tiānliáng yánbǎo mìng zhēnjūn 天梁延保命眞君, Tiāntóng yìsuàn bǎoshēng zhēnjūn 天同益筭保生眞君, Tiānshū dù’è Wénchāng liànhún zhēnjūn 天樞度厄文昌鍊魂眞君, and Tiānjī shàngshēng jiānbù dàlǐ zhēnjūn 天機上生監簿大理眞君. Each Lord governs a named “bureau” (sī 司) regulating longevity, office, salary, progeny, and the rectification of the soul.

Prefaces

Preface (Xù 序), attributed to the two immediate disciples of Zhāng Dàolíng — the Perfected of the Left Mystery Wáng Cháng 王長 and the Perfected of the Right Mystery Zhào Shēng 趙昇 — setting the cycle of revelations in narrative order.

The Most High Lord Lǎo (Tàishàng Lǎojūn), from the Grand Clarity realm (Tàiqīng jìng 太清境), twice descended into Shǔ 蜀 — to Línqióng 臨邛, and onward to Dàyì 大邑, reaching Hèmíng shān 鶴鳴山. There he first bestowed upon the recluse-scholar Zhāng Dàolíng the Secret Registers of the Zhèngyī Covenant (Zhèngyī méngwēi mìlù 正一盟威祕籙) in twenty-four grades, together with the true formulae for the morning audiences to sun and moon, the high ascents of Yùyí 鬱儀 and Jiélín 結璘, and the writs of the Threefold-and-Eightfold Confession for wiping the black register and saving one’s mystic ancestors. Dàolíng had earlier obtained the Huáng Dì jiǔdǐng dān shū 黃帝九鼎丹書 at Zhōngyuè 中嶽; now, retiring to Hèmíng shān, he compounded the elixir according to its method. After three years the elixir was perfected, but he would not swallow it, saying to his disciple Wáng Cháng: “I have yet no great merit; I ought first to serve the state and the home, to remove harm and further benefit — to toil before I feast…” Thereupon Tàishàng Lǎojūn came down again in his Dharma-chariot and bestowed the true writs upon him. After a thousand days of practice he could contemplate the five viscera inwardly and gather the ten-thousand spirits outwardly. The Most High further dispatched the Qīnghé Jade Maiden (Qīnghé Yùnǚ 清和玉女) to teach him the breath-practices of the Qīnghé qì, the three paces and nine footprints, the crossing-of-Qián and treading-the-Dipper, the summoning of the Nine Origins to align with the Seven Governors, and the instant subjugation of goblins by the compass-pointing of the asterism. He then swallowed the Great Return elixir and routed the small demons; he contested with the liù tiān 六天 demon-kings for the twenty-four dioceses and, having converted them into the “Courts of Blessing,” set their commanders as yīn-officers under Daoist supervision. Thus the boundary of day and night was marked, the ways of human and ghost parted. At Rénshòu xiàn 仁壽縣 in Língzhōu 陵州, he subdued the twelve wandering Jade Maidens and caused the earth to yield salt-springs — whence the place took the name Linggùn 陵郡. When Dàolíng’s Dào was fulfilled, on his third invitation the Most High again descended and bestowed a thousand scrolls of scriptures — all the essentials of practice, to be transmitted to the worthy that living bodies might be saved and perpetual existence assured. He and Dàolíng then travelled together to Chéngdū. The Most High rode a dragon-chariot and Dàolíng a white crane; they descended on five-coloured clouds to the place where the Tàihào Jade Maiden (Tàihào Yùnǚ 太昊玉女) had refined the Great Elixir. The earth surged up a Jade-Bureau Throne (yùjú zuò 玉局座) more than a zhàng in height. The Most High ascended the throne, Dàolíng prostrated at its foot, and Lǎojūn then preached for him the scripture of the Seven Original Lords of the Northern Dipper — the method for striking out death and enrolling life. This was on the seventh day of the first month of Yǒngshòu 1, in the Hàn Huándì emperor’s reign (155 CE, yǐwèi 乙未 year). On the fifteenth of that month, the festival of the First Principal (Shàngyuán 上元), Lǎojūn once more preached for Dàolíng — this, the Wondrous Scripture of the Six Bureaus of the Southern Dipper on Life-Extension and Salvation.

Abstract

Schipper’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:983–984, DZ 624–627, under 3.B.1 Zhèngyī) dates the four directional-Dipper scriptures DZ 624–627 — Nándǒu (KR5c0005), Dōngdǒu (KR5c0006), Xīdǒu (KR5c0007), Zhōngdǒu (KR5c0008) — to the Southern Sòng (1127–1279) on the basis of the preface here (which is shared across the set), which he reads as a Zhèngyī-school production that amplifies the cult of the First Heavenly Master with a pseudo-historiographic richness typical of the thirteenth century. The preface’s elaboration of Zhāng Dàolíng’s biography — his three revelations, his subjection of the liù tiān demon-kings and conversion of the twenty-four dioceses, his transformation of the salt-springs of Língzhōu — draws on elements already crystallised in the Sāntiān nèijiě jīng 三天内解經 (DZ 1205), the hagiographies of Dù Guāngtíng 杜光庭 (850–933), and the Southern-Sòng Hàn Tiānshī shìjiā 漢天師世家 (DZ 1463). Frontmatter notBefore/notAfter are set to 1127/1279 accordingly.

The scripture proper (after the preface) has Lǎojūn expound the cosmic pairing of North and South Dippers: “the Northern Dipper resides in the Kǎn palace, whose name is conjoined with the lunar radiance; when it descends its spirit upon man it is called the pò; it governs the offices of yīn and presides over the sources of water. The Southern Dipper resides in the Lí palace, whose name is conjoined with the solar radiance; when it descends its spirit upon man it is called the hún; it governs the offices of yáng and presides over the thearch of fire.” For the adept who combines devotion to both, Lǎojūn prescribes the twin-altar rite (liǎng jí èr dǒu tóng jiāo yī tán 兩極二斗同醮一壇): erect one altar modelled on each Dipper configuration, furnish it with incense, lamps, pure reed-mats, and offerings of sugared cakes, oil-cakes, lotus-steamed and milk-steamed confections, steamed jujube-soup, and fine tea (explicitly not wine or dried meat — an abstemious, Quánzhēn-compatible prescription), and thereby secure from the six Southern-Dipper Lords both life-extension in the present life and ascension as an immortal beside the sun and moon.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:983–984 (DZ 624–627, Kristofer Schipper).
• Xiāo Dēngfú 蕭登福. “Tàishàng shuō Nándǒu liùsī yánshòu dùrén miào jīng” 太上說南斗六司延壽度人妙經. In Dàojiào xīngdǒu fúyìn yǔ Fójiào mìzōng 道教星斗符印與佛教密宗. Taipei: Xīnwénfēng, 1993.
• Little, Stephen. Taoism and the Arts of China. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2000, 246–247. Discussion of the Southern-Dipper iconography in Daoist painting.

Other points of interest

The specification of vegetarian offerings with explicit prohibition of wine and meat reflects the ethical convergence of thirteenth-century Zhèngyī and Quánzhēn liturgy — by the Southern Sòng the old “bloody offerings” of pre-Celestial-Master popular cult had been fully displaced within the educated Daoist priesthood even in southern China. The preface’s detail of Zhāng Dàolíng’s conversion of the salt-springs of Língzhōu preserves a local-cult tradition of Rénshòu xiàn (present-day Rénshòu xiàn, Sichuan) that is not otherwise attested in the major hagiographies.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0005
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:983–984 — DZ 624–627 group entry.