太上洞神三元妙本福壽真經

Tàishàng dòngshén sānyuán miàoběn fúshòu zhēnjīng 太上洞神三元妙本福壽真經

True Scripture of Blessing and Longevity from the Wondrous Root of the Three Primordials, from the Dòngshén Canon, by the Most High

Daoist liturgical scripture on the Sānyuán 三元 / Sānguān 三官 (Three Primordials / Three Officials — Heaven, Earth, Water) cosmology, in one juàn of nine folios, edited and divided into six zhāng 章 by the Yuán Quánzhēn master Miáo Shànshí 苗善時 in 1324, preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 651 / CT 651, 洞神部本文類); first of the three scriptures bundled together in the “sān jīng tóng juàn èr” 三經同卷二 volume (with KR5c0033 Jiěshì zhòuzǔ jīng and KR5c0034 Wǔdǒu jīnzhāng shòushēng jīng).

About the work

The scripture is cast as a classical revelation-frame: “At that time, the Dàshèng zǔ Xuányuán Dàodé tiānzūn Tàishàng Lǎojūn 大聖祖玄元道德天尊太上老君 was in the immortal-region of Tàiqīng 太清, in the Zǐwēi 紫微 celestial palace. At that time the heavenly sovereigns of all the heavens, the great celestial immortals, and the true lords of the Sānyuán, with boundless ranks of immortals and sages, gathered in audience before the Primordial; and the tiāndīng lìshì 天丁力士 and the jīntóng yùnǚ 金童玉女 stood in attendance. Then Tōngxuán Zhìdé Dàzhēnrén 通玄至德大眞人 stepped forth from the ranks and addressed [the Primordial].” The question that follows sets up the text’s doctrinal programme: if the Sānyuán 三元 govern the generation, transformation, and passing of all things, and the Sānguān 三官 execute the corresponding judicial-administrative function, then by what origin and by what virtue do they hold this pivotal ministerial office? The Tàishàng responds in silence, then entrusts the reply to the Wúshàng Wénshǐ Miàodào Tiānzūn Jīnguān dìjūn 無上文始妙道天尊金關帝君 (“the Jade Pass Emperor-Sovereign, Heavenly Worthy of Boundless Wénshǐ Wondrous Way” — i.e. Guānyǐn 關尹, the mythic recipient of Lǎozǐ’s transmission at the Hánguǎn pass). The Jīnguān dìjūn answers with a condensed cosmogony of Wújí → Tàijí → Sānyuán → Liǎngyí → Sāncái → all beings, which supplies the formal structure for the six doctrinal chapters that follow:

• Kāimíng sānjǐng zhāng dì yī 開明三景章第一 (opening) — cosmogony and the origin of the Sānyuán;
• Tiānguān jiànyùn zhāng 天官誠運章 — the Heavenly Office (Tiānguān 天官): sovereign of the heavens, governor of mountain-and-marchmount lords, city-gods, and village spirits, with jurisdiction over celestial shēnqí 神祇 and over the kǎojiào chùzhì shǎngfá 考校黜陟賞罰 (“examination, dismissal and promotion, reward and punishment”) of improper spirits;
• Dìguān hòuběn zhāng 地官厚本章 — the Earthly Office (Dìguān 地官): the hòutǔ 后土 principle, kūn 坤 generative ground, controller of yīnyáng alternation, winter-hibernation and spring-sprouting, and the unnatural earth-spirits and local wǎngliǎng 魍魎;
• Shuǐguān guīyuán zhāng 水官歸源章 — the Water Office (Shuǐguān 水官): the great watery source, shàngshàn ruò shuǐ 上善若水, mistress of ocean-trove and river-channels, of the kūnlóng 鯤龍 (great fish-dragons) and the jiāoshèn 蛟蜃 (sea-serpents and mollusc-spirits), of jiānglóng 江海 and yuányuán 源泉 (wells);
• Sānyuán tǐmiào zhāng 三元體妙章 — the human embodiment of the Sānyuán through yuánjīng 元精, yuánqì 元炁, and yuánshén 元神; followed by the Sānyuán zhòu 三元呪 — a sixty-four-line incantation in five-syllable metre;
• Sānguān císhì zhāng 三官慈誓章 — the Three Officials’ compassionate vow to answer all who recite the scripture with fasting and sincerity, turning aside “water, fire, soldiery, bandits, illness, childbirth, ship-wreck, suffering and calamity,” redeeming “past-and-present sins and obstructions,” and bestowing health and longevity.

The Sānyuán zhòu 三元呪 is notable in itself: sixty-four lines of five-syllable verse, metrically tight and intellectually dense, rehearsing the scripture’s entire cosmology and practical doctrine in compressed mnemonic form, moving from cosmogony through the human predicament (the “eight cognitions” bāshí 八識, a direct Buddhist loan; the “nine obstructions” jiǔè 九厄) to the concluding benedictive formulae.

Prefaces

A signed colophon by the editor closes the text: “Tàidìng jiǎzǐ yángzhì rì, Jīnlán zǐyī Xuányī gāoshì, chén Miáo Shànshí, dùnshǒu jìngxù” 泰定甲子陽至日金幱紫衣玄一髙士臣苗善時頓首敬序 — “On the winter-solstice day of the jiǎzǐ year of the Tàidìng reign [1324], the Gold-embroidered Purple-robed High Gentleman of the Xuányī [ordination], your servant Miáo Shànshí, bowing head to ground, respectfully presents this preface.” In the preface Miáo states: “I received the ancient text from transmission, corrected it, and divided it into zhāng to make the wondrous principle easier to follow and the dàoxīn 道心 more luminously clear… The layman Wáng, hào Zhòngān 仲庵 [王居士], once seeing [the text], recited it joyfully and, moved to commit to the enterprise, printed and transmitted it widely among humans and heaven — a not-small supplement [to the Way]!”

Abstract

Kristofer Schipper’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:651, DZ 651) identifies the editor as “the famous Taoist scholar and Quánzhēn master Miáo Shànshí, zì Tàisù, hào Shí’ān.” Schipper’s text-historical judgment is important: “The claim that this was an ‘old scripture’ carries some weight, because the text shows clearly that, before its division into paragraphs, this was a liturgical scripture in the classical form. Spoken by the Dàshèng zǔ xuányuán dàodé tiānzūn — a title that makes us think of the Táng canonisation of Laozi — this scripture was placed in the Dòngshén section of the canon, probably by the Míng editors.”

Two dating layers are present. The received text is Miáo Shànshí’s 1324 redaction; it was printed by the layman Wáng Zhòngān in that year and placed into the Dòngshénbù of the DZ in the Míng compilation of the 1440s. The underlying base text is older and plausibly Táng, on the strength of the title Dàshèng zǔ Xuányuán Dàodé tiānzūn Tàishàng Lǎojūn 大聖祖玄元道德天尊太上老君 — the full posthumous title of Lǎozǐ conferred by the Táng Xuánzōng 玄宗 emperor in 743, which after the fall of the Táng was not generally in use as a Daoist liturgical address. The cosmological frame and the Sānyuán Sānguān 三元三官 doctrine itself are rooted in much earlier Celestial Masters and Lingbao materials (see the related DZ 1216 Tàishàng sānyuán cìfú shèzuì jiě’è xiāozāi yánshēng bǎomìng miàojīng 太上三元賜福赦罪解厄消災延生保命妙經, of roughly the same family).

The frontmatter accordingly records notBefore 1324 and notAfter 1324 as the date of the received redaction — not of the underlying tradition — per the catalog meta’s explicit date: '1324'. The dynasty: 元 field reflects the Yuán date of Miáo’s redaction; the base text’s probable Táng layer is discussed here rather than in the frontmatter, since the received form is the editorial unit of catalogation.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:651 (DZ 651, K. Schipper) and 2:1179–80 (introduction to 3.B.9 Quánzhēn’s late-Yuán syncretic stream, V. Goossaert).
• Boltz, Judith M. A Survey of Taoist Literature, Tenth to Seventeenth Centuries. Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, 1987, 73–75 (on the Sān-yuán / Sān-guān scriptural corpus), 189–91 (on Miáo Shànshí’s works).
• Despeux, Catherine. Zhenren and Guanyin: Female Imagery and the Transformation of the Taoist Canon. Paris: Collège de France, 1994 — for the Yuán Quánzhēn scriptural editorial culture.
• Katz, Paul R. Images of the Immortal: The Cult of Lü Dongbin at the Palace of Eternal Joy. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1999 — for Miáo Shànshí’s parallel hagiographic redaction DZ 305 Chúnyáng dìjūn shénhuà miàotōng jì.
• Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. London: Routledge, 2008 — entries “Sanyuan,” “Sanguan,” and “Miao Shanshi” for doctrinal and biographical context.

Other points of interest

Miáo Shànshí’s 1324 editorial intervention is among the earliest datable Yuán-era zhāng-division scholarly redactions applied to an older Daoist liturgical scripture — a practice that would intensify under the Míng editorial programme of the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (1440s–1445) and that parallels the analogous Confucian project of redividing classics by Zhū Xī 朱熹 and his Yuán successors. The combination of editorial hand, signed colophon, patron-printer attribution, and the internal claim of “received an ancient text and corrected and divided” it makes DZ 651 an exceptionally clear window into the Yuán Daoist scriptorium’s relationship with its inherited textual patrimony. Miáo’s three 1324 works — DZ 305 (Lǚ Dòngbīn hagiography), DZ 651 (present text), and DZ 1065 Xuánjiào dà gōng’àn (Yìjīng-aligned gōng’àn collection) — were produced in the same productive year at the Zhōnghé jīngshè 中和精舍 in Jīnlíng 金陵 (Nánjīng), following the death of his master Lǐ Dàochún 李道純.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0032
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:651 — DZ 651 entry (K. Schipper).
• 苗善時 — person note.