太上飛步五星經

Tàishàng fēibù wǔxīng jīng 太上飛步五星經

Scripture of the Most High on the Flying-Pace through the Five Planets

anonymous Táng-era Shàngqīng-derived ritual manual in one juàn of ten folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 637 / CT 637, 洞神部本文類); first of two scriptures bound together under the rubric “Èr jīng tóng juàn shāng wǔ” 二經同卷傷五 (its companion is DZ 638 Tàishàng fēibù nándǒu tàiwēi yùjīng 太上飛步南斗太微玉經 = KR5c0019).

About the work

The text describes the bù wǔxīng 步五星 (“pacing the five planets”) meditative-ritual practice: before mounting and after descending the cosmic asterism (gāng 罡), the adept first interiorizes the essences (jīng 精) of the five planets in the corresponding five viscera, clicks the teeth five times, swallows saliva five times, and recites a short incantation invoking the five planets’ apotropaic powers (Mercury quèzāi 却災, Jupiter zhìchāng 致昌, Mars 𤊨消禍, Venus bìbīng 辟兵, Saturn jiāguó lìhēng 家國利亨). The adept then names the five planet kings and their consorts — for the East, Suìxīng zhēnhuángjūn Chénglán 澄瀾 with consort Bǎoróng 寶容 (style Fēiyún 飛雲); for the South, Yínghuò 熒𤊨 zhēnhuángjūn Wéitíng 維渟 with Huápíng 華瓶 (Xuánluō 玄羅); for the West, Tàibái zhēnhuángjūn Liáolíng 寥凌 with Biāoyīng 飈英 (Líng’ēn 靈恩); for the North, Chénxīng zhēnhuángjūn Qǐxuǎn 啓咺 with Xuánhuá 玄華 (Lóng’é 龍娥); and for the Centre, Zhènxīng zhēnhuángjūn ZàngLù 藏陸 with Kōngyáo 空瑶 (Fēixián 飛賢) — followed by a list of the nine stars of the Northern Dipper with their colour-coded silk capes (pèi 帔) and feather skirts (qún 裙). Five sub-routines (yù fēidēng mùxīng zhī fǎ 欲飛登木星之法 etc.) then prescribe how to “fly up” to each planet in turn, each with its own breath count, hand-mudrā position, tooth-clicking, and recited chant. The text closes with two appended sections: the Míngtáng nèijīng kāixīn bìwàng fú 明堂內經開心辟忘符 and the Tàixū zhēnrén kǒujué 太虛真人口訣 prescribing the four seasonal sublimation days (vernal yǐmǎo 乙卯, summer bǐngwǔ 丙午, autumn gēngshēn 庚申, winter rénzǐ 壬子) for the rite of “dissolving the three corpse-worms and refining the seven pò” (xiāo sānshī liàn qīpò 消三尸鍊七魄), together with a calendar of the twelve “wǔdá” 五達 auspicious days for solar absorption.

Prefaces

No preface.

Abstract

Isabelle Robinet’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 1:626, DZ 637, “Taishang feibu wuxing jing ‘Scripture of Pacing the Void and the Five Planets’”) describes the work as “a small manual with excerpts from various Shàngqīng texts on the practices of pacing the Dipper stars and visualizing the planets by means of meditation,” and locates it in the Táng (618–907). Robinet identifies its constituent sources: ff. 1a–4b derive from DZ 876 Tàishàng wǔxīng qīyuán kōngcháng jué 太上五星七元空常訣; the remainder corresponds to DZ 426 Shàngqīng tàishàng bāsù zhēnjīng 上清太上八素真經 (10a–18b, 21b, and 26b to end), with a passage at 8a–b drawn from DZ 1016 Zhēn’gào 真誥 3.17a–18b. The text is therefore best read as a Táng-period redactional anthology of the Shàngqīng bùgāng 步罡 (“pacing the asterism”) tradition, compiled to give the adept a single liturgical manual integrating the planet meditations, the Dipper-pacing routine, and the seasonal sublimation rites originally scattered across the constituent scriptures. Frontmatter notBefore/notAfter accordingly bracket the Táng. The catalog meta lists no author, consistent with the anonymous-redactional character of the work.

The shared rubric “Èr jīng tóng juàn shāng wǔ” 二經同卷傷五 reflects the Sānjiābǎn 1988 reorganization, in which the Tàishàng fēibù wǔxīng jīng and the closely related Tàishàng fēibù nándǒu tàiwēi yùjīng (DZ 638; KR5c0019) — described by Hans-Hermann Schmidt as a likely “sequel” to DZ 637 (Schipper & Verellen 2004, 1:626–627) — are bound together as a single fascicle.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:626 (DZ 637, Isabelle Robinet).
• Robinet, Isabelle. La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984 — on the Shàngqīng meditational background to the bùgāng and planet-visualization practices.
• Andersen, Poul. “The Practice of Bugang.” Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie 5 (1989–1990): 15–53 — on Daoist asterism-pacing rites.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0018
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 1:626 — DZ 637 entry (I. Robinet).