皇天上清金闕帝君靈書紫文上經

Huángtiān shàngqīng jīnquè dìjūn língshū zǐwén shàngjīng 皇天上清金闕帝君靈書紫文上經

Upper Scripture of the Numinous Writ in Purple Characters from the Lord Emperor of the Gold Portal in the August Heaven of Highest Clarity

anonymous Shàngqīng-revelation scripture in one juàn of thirteen folios, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 639 / CT 639, 洞神部本文類); marked “傷六” in the Sānjiābǎn 1988 reorganization. One of the foundational scriptures of the original Shàngqīng revelation (364–370 CE).

About the work

The Língshū zǐwén opens with an extended revelatory tableau: the Dōnghǎi qīngtóng dàjūn 東海青童大君 (“Great Lord Azure Lad of the Eastern Sea”) — i.e. Wáng Yuǎnyóu 王遠遊 — after a three-year purification in the Numinous Belvedere of the Cinnabar Towers and Yellow Chambers (靈榭丹闕黃房之內), ascends in a chariot of green clouds and triple-numinous flowing radiance to the Gold Portal of Highest Clarity (上清金闕) to request the Língshū zǐwén shàngjīng from the Hòushèng dìjūn 後聖帝君 (the Sage Lord, i.e. Lǐjūn 李君, Lord Lǐ Hóng 李弘 of the eschatological Shàngqīng pantheon). The Sage Lord, after Qīngtóng has prostrated himself a second time and pleaded again, plays the Yúnjūn qín 雲鈞之琴 and chants the “Hymn of the Spiritual Province of the Great Cavern and the Tune of Coagulated Souls” (大洞神州之章凝魂之曲), then calls the Wǔlǎo shàngzhēn xiāndū zuǒgōng 五老上真仙都左公 to open the purple bud-jade satchel and bring out the Língshū zǐwén shàngjīng to be entrusted to Qīngtóng for further transmission to “those whose names are inscribed in the Mystery Palace and who are destined to become Perfected” (玄宮玉名當為真人者). The text frames itself as the personal study-notes of the Sage Lord himself, orally transmitted to him by the Tàiwēi tiāndì 太微天帝 and the Zǐwēi shàngzhēn tiāndì 紫微上真天帝 / Yùqīngjūn 玉清君, “compiled and arranged in a single juàn, incised on purple-jade tablets in green-gold script” (爲一卷刻以紫玉爲簡青金爲文).

The body of the scripture comprises three principal practical sections, each with its own talisman and full liturgical apparatus:

1. Solar essence (採飲飛根吞日氣之法 / 赤丹金精石景水母經, 4a–8b). Facing east at sunrise, the adept clicks teeth nine times, silently invokes the sixteen-character secret name of the sun’s hún and the styles of the Five Emperors in the sun (日魂朱景照韜緑映廻霞赤童玄炎飈像), visualizes the five-coloured solar effulgence flowing into the body and coalescing into a pearl-sized purple “Flying Root Water-Mother” (飛根水母), and “swallows the rosy mists” forty-five times followed by nine throat-swallows of saliva. Includes the Tàiwēi yǐn rìqì kāimíng língfú 太微飲日氣開明靈符.

2. Lunar essence (採飲陰華吞月精之法 / 黃氣陽精藏天隱月經, 8b–11a). Facing west when the moon first rises, ten teeth-clicks, silent invocation of the twenty-four-character secret name of the moon’s pò and the styles of the Five Ladies in the moon (月魄瞹蕭芬豔翳寥婉虛靈蘭鬱華結翹淳金清熒炅容臺標), visualization of the five-coloured lunar essence converging into the yellow “Flying Yellow Lunar Florescence” (飛黃月華), fifty swallows of essence and ten of saliva. Includes the Zǐwēi yǐn yuèjīng tàixuán yīnshēng fú 紫微飲月精太玄陰生符.

3. Mastery of three hún (拘三魂之法) and seven pò (制七魄之法) (11a–13b). Names the three hún — Shuǎnglíng 爽靈, Tāiguāng 胎光, Yōujīng 幽精 — and the seven pò — Shīgǒu 尸狗, Fúshǐ 伏矢, Quèyīn 雀陰, Tūnzéi 吞賊, Fēidú 非毒, Chúhuì 除穢, Chòufèi 臭肺. Prescribes a visualized self-cremation in red qì to bind the hún on the 3rd, 13th, and 23rd of each lunar month, and a “white qì” rite on new moon, full moon and huì days that arrays the apotropaic animals of the four directions (two azure dragons in the eyes, two white tigers in the nostrils, vermillion sparrow on the heart, dark turtle and numinous serpent under the feet) to subdue the pò.

The closing matter (13b–14a) describes the rite of the Xuánguān 玄關 (the “Mysterious Pass” in the navel — the Mìngmén 命門), the corresponding Tàiwēi tiāndìjūn tiānhuáng xiàng fú 太微天帝君天皇象符, and the visualization of the Táokāng Héyán 桃康合延, “Great Lord of the Palace of Life,” the body deity who unifies original qì and reconstitutes the embryonic body. The text explicitly treats this practice as an internalized substitute for sexual cultivation and warns that the latter, sought by the deluded as a path to immortality, is “more perilous than fire and water” (險巇甚於水火).

Prefaces

No preface. The opening revelatory tableau (the audience of Qīngtóng dàjūn at the Jīnquè) functions in lieu of a preface and recounts the scripture’s transmission history.

Abstract

Isabelle Robinet’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 1:151–152, DZ 639) is decisive on dating: “This is one of the texts that most surely belongs to the original Shàngqīng revelation (364–370). Some of Táo Hóngjǐng’s glosses to 1016 Zhēn’gào and to 421 Dēngzhēn yǐnjué confirm this. Quotations in WSBY [Wúshàng bìyào] and SDZN [Sāndòng zhūnáng] also correspond to the present text.” Frontmatter notBefore/notAfter accordingly bracket the canonical Shàngqīng revelation window 364–370, against the catalog meta’s broader “東晉” (317–420). Robinet further identifies the Língshū zǐwén as part of a four-text complex with DZ 255 Tàiwēi língshū zǐwén lánggān huádān shénzhēn shàngjīng, DZ 179 Tàiwēi língshū zǐwén xiānjì zhēnjì shàngjīng, and DZ 442 Shàngqīng hòushèng dàojūn lièjì, all of which “probably formed originally one single work, for they appear to complement each other, and in the quotations made from these texts they are often confused with one another.” The catalog meta lists no author, consistent with the work’s status as direct revelation transmitted (within the diegesis) by the Tàiwēi and Zǐwēi heavenly emperors to the Hòushèng Lǐjūn and thence to Qīngtóng dàjūn for delivery to humans through Yáng Xī 楊羲’s mediumship.

Robinet identifies the Língshū zǐwén as the “basic reference” for the Shàngqīng invocations of the sun and the moon, whose absorption-rites are reproduced — frequently with explicit citation — across the later Shàngqīng corpus and, beyond it, in numerous liàndù 鍊度 and other liturgical compendia (cf. her remarks on the role of these spells in works as varied as DZ 219 Línghào wúliàng dùrén shàngjīng dàfǎ and the Huángtíng nèijǐng jīng 黃庭內景經 commentarial tradition). The names given here for the three hún and seven pò became the Shàngqīng standard and recur in the Yúnjí qīqiān 雲笈七籤 juàn 54 and elsewhere. The xuánguān / Táokāng material is one of the earliest Shàngqīng formulations of an interiorized embryology that explicitly displaces the huánjīng bǔnǎo 還精補腦 of the Heavenly-Master-tradition sexual practices.

A parallel Dūnhuáng recension is preserved in Stein 4314 and 6193 and Pelliot 2751 (catalogued in Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾, Tonkō dōkyō: Mokurokuhen 敦煌道經・目錄編, 183–184).

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:151–152 (DZ 639, Isabelle Robinet).
• Robinet, Isabelle. La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme. 2 vols. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984. The Língshū zǐwén is treated as a foundational document of the original revelation.
• Bokenkamp, Stephen R. Early Daoist Scriptures. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997 — situates the Língshū zǐwén in the Shàngqīng revelations and the eschatological Lǐ Hóng / Hòushèng-jūn complex.
• Strickmann, Michel. “The Mao Shan Revelations: Taoism and the Aristocracy.” T’oung Pao 63 (1977): 1–64.
• Strickmann, Michel. Le Taoïsme du Mao chan: Chronique d’une révélation. Paris: Collège de France / Institut des hautes études chinoises, 1981.
• Ōfuchi Ninji 大淵忍爾. Tonkō dōkyō: Mokurokuhen 敦煌道經・目錄編. Tokyo: Fukutake shoten, 1978–1979 — pp. 183–184 on the Dūnhuáng witnesses.

Other points of interest

The text is one of the earliest Daoist statements of an explicit critique of “yùnǚ huí qì” 御女回氣 sexual cultivation: 13a–b argues that the inner xuánguān practice with the Táokāng visualization replaces and supersedes physical huánjīng bǔnǎo, which “kills more swiftly than axe and adze” (殺伐速於斧釿). This positions the scripture as a key document in the Shàngqīng movement’s reorientation of Daoist self-cultivation away from the sexual-alchemical practices of the Tiānshī tradition toward visualization and inner refinement.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0020
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 1:151–152 — DZ 639 entry (I. Robinet).