Tàishàng shuō Zhōngdǒu dàkuí bǎomìng miào jīng 太上說中斗大魁保命妙經
Wonderful Scripture on the Central Dipper, the Great Chief, Preserver of the Life-Decree, Preached by the Most High
anonymous Southern-Sòng revealed scripture in one juàn of four folios, the fourth and culminating directional-Dipper sequel to KR5c0003 / DZ 622, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 627 / CT 627, 洞神部本文類).
About the work
The scripture is framed as Lǎojūn’s return to Chéngdū in the Yǒngshòu period, following the prior revelations of the Northern, Southern, Eastern, and Western Dipper scriptures. Lǎojūn manifests his Golden Body (jīnshēn 金身) in the Clear-Empty void, ascends the Jade-Bureau Throne, and preaches the “Central Dipper” (Zhōngdǒu 中斗), whose three Perfected Lords — Hèlíng dùshì zhēnjūn 赫靈度世眞君, Wòhuà shàngshèng zhēnjūn 斡化上聖眞君, and Chōnghé zhìdé zhēnjūn 冲和至徳眞君 — preside at the cosmic centre and oversee all four quarters. The scripture explains the theology of the wǔ dǒu 五斗 (“five Dippers”) in its fullest form: “The qì of the Central Dipper produces [the qì of] the four [directional] Dippers and is the beginning-and-end of creation-and-transformation. The Green Emperor (Qīngdì 青帝) guards the hún, the White Emperor (Báidì 白帝) attends the pò, the Red Emperor (Chìdì 赤帝) nourishes the qì, the Black Emperor (Hēidì 黑帝) opens the blood, the Yellow Emperor (Huángdì 黃帝) is the central master of the ten-thousand spirits — none goes beyond [him].” The five correlations pair with the five Demon-Kings of the five heavens (wǔ dì dà mó 五帝大魔) whose leader Bāyuán Chǒubǎi 巴元醜伯 is the “progenitor of the ten-thousand spirits and supreme commander of the ghost-armies” now subjugated to the Daoist hierarchy. Ritual prescriptions and the usual four-fold schedule (natal day, Three Principal [sānyuán 三元] days, Eight Assembly [bāhuì 八會] days) follow.
Prefaces
No independent preface; shares the cycle-preface given in KR5c0005.
Abstract
Southern Sòng, per Schipper’s group entry in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:983–984, DZ 624–627). The Zhōngdǒu scripture completes the set and articulates the fivefold cosmological symmetry (wǔ dǒu 五斗) that was the scheme’s ultimate theological objective: each directional Dipper is a local manifestation of a single centralised celestial administration, at whose head sits the Huángdì / Central Dipper. This fivefold Dipper schema — which has no classical or Táng-era precedent in Daoist scripture — is a Southern-Sòng innovation and the signature of the Zhèngyī school’s liturgical creativity of that period. The scripture was subsequently absorbed into the Dàozàng jīyào 道藏輯要 independently of the Ming Dàozàng.
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 (group entry for DZ 624–627).
- Little, Stephen. Taoism and the Arts of China. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2000, 246–247.
Other points of interest
The full fivefold-Dipper scheme formalised in KR5c0003–KR5c0008 (Northern + Southern + Eastern + Western + Central = 5) parallels and in all likelihood responds to the better-known Buddhist Wǔbù 五部 (Five Divisions) of the esoteric Vajradhātu mandala, which reached Chinese Buddhists through the Táng esoteric school of Amoghavajra (Bùkōng 不空) and was a live liturgical-cosmological alternative in the Southern Sòng. The Daoist five-Dipper schema is, in effect, the Zhèngyī school’s native-vocabulary response to the Mandala’s fivefold centre-and-periphery cosmos.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5c0008
- Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:983–984.