太上太清天童護命妙經

Tàishàng Tàiqīng Tiāntóng hùmìng miào jīng 太上太清天童護命妙經

Wonderful Scripture of the Heavenly Lad of the Great Clarity on Guarding Life, of the Most High

Northern-Sòng short spell-scripture (miào jīng 妙經) in one juàn of five folios, carrying a Southern-Sòng (1144) postface by the Máo Shān Daoist Fù Xiāo 傅霄 that retroactively ascribes the text’s reception to Liáng Wùzhēn 梁悟真 on Máo Shān in 1109. Preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 632 / CT 632, 洞神部本文類); third in the bundle “Qī jīng tóng juàn shāng sì” 七經同卷傷四 with KR5c0011, KR5c0012, and KR5c0014–KR5c0017.

About the work

The scripture proper (fols. 1a–2a, lines 10–29 of the Mandoku base text) is a short self-protective incantation of under three hundred characters, in which the practitioner, speaking in the first person, claims for himself the protection of the whole Daoist pantheon — August Heaven bearing him, the earth sustaining him, the sun and moon illuminating him, the stars honouring him, all the immortals raising him up, Sīmìng 司命 (“Master of Destiny”) at his side, Tàiyī 太乙 engaging him, the Jade Thearch summoning him, the Three Officers (sānguān 三官) preserving him, the Five Emperors guarding him, the North Celestial Pole aiding him, the Southern Pole assisting him, the Northern Dipper supporting him, Golden Lads attending him, Jade Maidens accompanying him, the Six Jiǎ 六甲 commanding him, the Six Dīng 六丁 advancing him, the Gate of Heaven opening for him, the Gate of Earth leading to him, mountains and marshes receiving him, rivers and seas carrying him, wind and rain escorting him, thunder and lightning following him. The incantation culminates in the seven secret Dipper-star names (魁𩲃魋䰢魓𩳐魒) and the formula “whatever I seek I attain, whatever I turn to prospers, whatever I do is harmonious, whatever I desire is fulfilled.” Twenty-four fú 符 (talismans) are appended (fols. 2a–2b, drawn as graphic blocks now largely illegible in the Mandoku transcription), to be copied in vermilion on jiǎzǐ 甲子 and gēngshēn 庚申 days, worn on the person to drive off evil, or swallowed to cure disease.

Prefaces

Postface (Fù Xiāo 傅霄 of Máo Shān, dated Shàoxīng 紹興 jiǎzǐ = 1144), telling the legend of Lǎojūn’s double revelation at the Yángjiǎo shān 羊角山 / Lóngjiǎo shān 龍角山 (near Jìnzhōu 晉州, Shānxī) to Jí Shànxíng 吉善行 in 617–618, which confirmed the Táng imperial Lǐ 李 house as descendants of Lǎozǐ; and narrating the 1109 apparition on Máo Shān in which the huǒjià 爨 (kitchen-labourer) Daoist Liáng Wùzhēn, afflicted with leprosy, received this scripture and its twenty-four talismans from an aged white-bearded apparition riding a white horse and thereby attained both healing and literacy:

…In Dàguān 大觀 3 (1109), on the thirteenth day of the fourth month, the kitchen-labourer Liáng Wùzhēn 梁悟真, fetching water at dawn before the Hall from the Pond of Dragon-Feeding (Yǎnglóng chí 養龍池), saw a purple cloud suddenly enveloping the place. In a moment a feather-robed [elder] appeared, with thick brows, a white head, and a long snow-white beard, riding a white horse, descending from the void. Liáng was startled to see that his form was identical to the pure countenance [of Lǎojūn] in the shrine. Hastily prostrating himself to the ground, he heard the Most High say: “I dwell in the realm of Great Clarity above; today I have descended to this numinous altar because I pitied your devoted labour and your aspiration for the Dào, which has until now attained nothing. I now bestow on you the Jiājù Tiāntóng hùmìng miào jīng 加句天童護命妙經 [the version with added phrases]; recite it earnestly and put it to use in the world — the Dào will be yours.” Liáng prostrated to receive the kind instruction and, gazing upward, saw the Sage, once more mounting his horse, neigh and ascend through the void. That same year, the place produced a zhīcǎo 芝草 (magic mushroom) of many stalks on a single root. Liáng thenceforth abandoned [the coarse] grains and his spiritual aspect became suddenly otherworldly. [Though] an ordinary ignoramus who had never learned a character, from that moment he could write and recite scriptures, and understood all things without exception; he revealed calamity and blessing to men, each time verified as though divinely. Three days before Liáng’s apotheosis, he wrote the twenty-four talismans and cast them into the Pond; any man suffering illness who entered the mountain, drew the water, and drank it, obtained immediate healing — more than can be counted. … The Duke [of] Xiāo, on the reading of the Hùnyuán shèngjì 混元聖紀, recorded this account of the apparition and the circumstances of the reception, both to publish the image [i.e., the shrine-image of Lǎojūn] and to manifest the responsive traces to those who come after.

— Shàoxīng jiǎzǐ (1144), Fù Xiāo 傅霄 (Míngzhēn tōngwēi Dàshī 明眞通微大師), Metropolitan Dao-Magistrate of Máo Shān.

Abstract

Paul Andersen, in his joint notice for DZ 632 and DZ 633 in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:1215–1216, under 3.B.4 Shàngqīng), unravels the scripture’s double attribution. The core text (the present DZ 632) is attested independently in the mid-eleventh century: Cháo Gōngwǔ’s 晁公武 Jùnzhāi dúshū zhì 郡齋讀書志 lists a Tiāntóng hùmìng miào jīng 天童護命妙經, and the Hándān tǔshū zhì 邯鄲圖書志 has a similar entry (VDL 84), which places a version of the text in circulation by the middle of the Northern Sòng. Yúnjí qīqiān 雲笈七籤 122.16a–b reproduces a preface to the Tiāntóng hùmìng miào jīng attributed to the Sòng Zhēnzōng 真宗 emperor (r. 997–1022), appended to Dù Guāngtíng’s 杜光庭 Dàojiào língyàn jì 道教靈驗記; the preface is followed by a miracle-anecdote dated 892 (not found in other copies of the Língyàn jì, and likely a later insertion). The Liáng Wùzhēn legend, first reported in Hùnyuán shèngjì 混元聖紀 9.45b–46a (compiled by Xiè Shǒuhào 謝守灝, presented to the throne 1191), dates the revelation to 1112 (not 1109), links the revelation to Lǎojūn’s cure of Liáng’s leprosy, and identifies the revealed text explicitly as “the current Tiāntóng hùmìng miào jīng.”

Andersen concludes that the text revealed to Liáng on Máo Shān — called in Fù Xiāo’s postface Jiājù Tiāntóng hùmìng miào jīng (“Scripture… with added phrases”), and preserved in Máo Shān zhì 茅山志 9.9a as a stele-text — corresponds not to the present scripture (DZ 632) but to its pseudo-Sanskrit-enriched variant DZ 633 (KR5c0014). On this reading the present DZ 632 is the older, Northern-Sòng version (attested mid-eleventh century); DZ 633 is the Liáng Wùzhēn recension of 1109/1112. The postface preserved here in DZ 632 is therefore a narrative grafting of the 1109 revelation-legend onto the older scripture, as Andersen notes: Fù Xiāo’s postface explicitly dates its composition to 1144 but cites the 1191 Hùnyuán shèngjì — “an obvious contradiction” — so either the postface is spurious or its date is a scribal error for a later year. Frontmatter notBefore/notAfter are bracketed 960/1109 to reflect the mid-eleventh-century circulation of the base scripture down to the 1109 Máo Shān apparition.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:1215–1216 (DZ 632 / DZ 633, Paul Andersen).
• Verellen, Franciscus. “‘Evidential Miracles in Support of Taoism’: The Inversion of a Buddhist Apologetic Tradition in Late Tang China.” T’oung Pao 78 (1992): 217–263 — on Dù Guāngtíng’s Dàojiào língyàn jì and its late-Táng / early-Sòng recensions.

Other points of interest

The 1144 postface is a valuable source on the medieval history of Máo Shān itself: it records the foundation of the Qìngtáng Guàn 慶唐觀 (to commemorate the twin Yángjiǎo shān apparitions of 617–618), the later identification of the site with the Táng–Sòng Ruìxiàng Diàn 瑞像殿 (the “Hall of the Auspicious Image”) housing the Táng imperial Lǎojūn-statue, and the prior Shàngqīng lineage of the grotto-heaven (the “first of earth-lung grotto-blessed sites” dìyī dìfèi fúdì 第一地肺福地), tracing the site back through Xǔ Mài 許邁, Xǔ Mì 許謐, and Xǔ Huì 許翽 to the Eastern-Jìn Shàngqīng revelations, and through Táo Hóngjǐng 陶弘景 (452–536, “Táo Yǐnjū” 陶隱居) to his successor Lǐ Xuánjìng 李玄靜 / Lǐ Hánguāng 李含光 (683–769), the teacher of Táng Xuánzōng. The postface is accordingly a key witness to the medieval Máo Shān Daoist memory of its own lineage.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0013
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:1215–1216 — DZ 632/633 entry (P. Andersen).