太上說紫微神兵護國消魔經

Tàishàng shuō zǐwēi shénbīng hùguó xiāomó jīng 太上說紫微神兵護國消魔經

Scripture Spoken by the Most High on the Divine Soldiers of the Zǐwēi [Palace] Protecting the State and Destroying Demons

Short Sòng-era Daoist liturgical scripture in one juàn (three folios), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 655 / CT 655, 洞神部本文類) as the second of the two scriptures bundled in the “èr jīng tóng juàn nǚ sān” 二經同卷女三 female-series volume 3 (paired with the preceding [[KR5c0035|DZ 654 Tàishàng dòngshén tiāngōng xiāomó hùguó jīng]]). The text narrates the origin-myth and state-protecting appointment of Zhēnwǔ 眞武 (the “Perfected Warrior” — the great exorcist-deity of the North, i.e. Xuánwǔ 玄武 under Sòng taboo-avoidance), and supplies the doctrinal charter for his cult as the Hùguó xiāomó 護國消魔 guardian-deity of the Sòng empire.

About the work

The scripture is set “at the eighth day of the jiànchén 建辰 month (the third lunar month) of the second year of the Shànghuáng 上皇 reign-era” — a celestial Daoist chronology, not a historical date — when Tàishàng Lǎojūn 太上老君 is in the Zǐwēi 紫微 Upper Palace expounding to the Dàfàn tiāndì 大梵天帝, the Sì jí gāo zhēn 四極髙眞, the Jiǔtiān yuánshēng 九天元生, and the Sāntiān zhēnhuáng 三天眞皇. The Kāihuáng jiǎshēn 開皇甲申 cosmic kalpa has reached its bǎi liù 百六 (106) crisis-number: the qì of heaven and earth is no longer sealed, pestilence is spreading, the Five Grains do not ripen, brigand-warfare erupts, and the people are in terror.

The response to this cosmic crisis is the incarnation of Zhēnwǔ. The tiānzūn 天尊, seeing the people’s suffering, commands the two astral lodges Xū 虛 and Wēi 危 (virgo-adjacent lodges of the northern palace) to condense their essences, taking zhēn 眞 as father, yuán 元 as mother, and shǐ 始 as surname (i.e., the three primordial pneumata zhēnyuánshǐ 眞元始, renamed from the tabooed xuányuánshǐ 玄元始). The three-qì mass descends into the Guǎnglíng 廣靈 Palace and forms a cosmic embryo “like a chaos-lump,” guarded for ten lunar months by Jade Maidens, Gold Lads, a giant coiled dragon, a lion, and the Four Cardinal-Direction Talisman-Officers. On the seventh of the jiànshēn 建申 month (the seventh lunar month), the embryo cleaves open with a thunder-crack: out of the purple caul emerges a human-shaped form five hundred zhàng tall, naming himself “the god Zhēnwǔ,” with hair unbound, in a black-brown robe, sword in hand, in boots, and attended by the celestial militia (shénbīng 神兵), the talisman-clerks, the Lord of Thunder, the Matron of Lightning, and the Four-Cardinal Envoys.

The tiānzūn then dispatches Zhēnwǔ to the Fēngdū 酆都 Mountain (underworld-realm) to subdue the demon-hordes. Zhēnwǔ leads the BěiFēng shāguǐ tiānyóu 北酆殺鬼天猷 Second-in-Command (i.e., the Tiānyóu yuánshuài 天猷元帥), the Shénxiāo 神霄 Great Army, the Jiǔqì 九炁 Gōngcáo, the Sāntiān yùnǚ 三天玉女, the Qīqì shénjūn 七炁神君, the Wǔlíng zhēnzǎi 五靈眞宰, the Huángjiǎ dàshén 黃甲大神 etc., in a thousand-and-ten-thousand-strong host, and does battle with the six-cavern demons of the Dòngyīn 洞隂 Wilderness. When the demon-king retaliates by transmuting the kǎnlí 坎離 vapours into a sombre tortoise and a giant cobra, Zhēnwǔ crushes them with his divine power and pins them beneath his foot — the tortoise-and-snake zuòqí 坐騎 iconography that defines the Zhēnwǔ image. He then sends the Jīnlíng zhíhuǒ dàshén 金鈴擲火大神 (“Great Spirit of the Gold Bell Who Hurls Fire”), who recites the Fúmó zhī zhāng 伏魔之章 (Demon-Suppressing Emblem) and exhales from the mouth a great fire-wheel that scorches the demons’ hair and skin, forcing them into repentance and pledge-of-faith. Zhēnwǔ chains the demon-host and delivers them to the Fēngdū Great Cavern.

A closing eschatological statement promises that after the yīn-crisis runs its course, yáng-numerology returns, the earthly sovereigns receive heaven’s mandate, the heroic ministers arise, the five kinds of weapons are melted down, the nine grains flourish, and the people rest in their occupations. Zhēnwǔ, for his mérit of extirpating poison and smiting evil (guózhòng fáè 馘毒伐惡), is invested by the Jīnhuá yùtóng 金華玉童 (Gold-Flower Jade Lad) and the Xiùyī shǐzhě 繡衣使者 (Embroidered-Robe Envoy), bearing the Jiǔlóng fú 九龍符 (Nine-Dragon Talisman) imperial mandate, as Běijí zǒngtǒng Xuántiān dàjiàng 北極緫統玄天大将 (“Supreme-Commander of the North Pole, Great General of the Dark Heaven”). Zhēnwǔ then rides a blue dragon to audience with the Sān qīng 三清, takes leave of the zhēndì 眞帝, and the scripture closes with the celestial assembly dispersing to diffuse the scripture “through the four heavens, all blessed with the True Protection.”

Prefaces

No preface. The text opens directly with the celestial-assembly frame in the Zǐwēi Palace.

Abstract

Schipper’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 2:1191–92, DZ 655, under “3.B.10 The Běidì and Xuántiān Shàngdì Cult”) identifies the text as a short Sòng Zhēnwǔ scripture, charter for his identity as Hùguó xiāomó 護國消魔 state-protector, and offers the decisive dating argument:

“The text writes zhēn 眞 for xuán 玄, not only for the name of the god, but in such instances as the names of the three primordial pneumata xuán 玄, yuán 元, and shǐ 始, here named zhēn. (1b.8). It is therefore a Sòng text, notwithstanding the title of the god given on 3a, which dates to the Yuán (1279–1368).”

The Sòng dynasty imposed the taboo on the character xuán 玄 after Emperor Zhēnzōng’s 1012 declaration of Xuánlǎng 玄朗 as the imperial ancestor; the taboo is observed throughout by substitution of zhēn 眞 or yuán 元 for xuán, and fell into abeyance under the Yuán. The present scripture’s consistent zhēnwǔ 眞武 and zhēnyuánshǐ 眞元始 therefore anchor it between 1012 and 1279; the surviving canonical bestowal-title Xuántiān dàjiàng 玄天大将 on 3a — which was formally conferred on Zhēnwǔ only under the Yuán emperors — is a post-editorial interpolation or reflects the text’s being finalised in its received form after the lifting of the taboo, though the scripture’s substance is Sòng.

The Zhēnwǔ state-protection cult expanded under the Northern Sòng, with imperial patronage of Xuánwǔ sanctuaries at Wǔdāngshān 武當山 from the later 10th c., and intensified across the Southern Sòng as the Jīn and then Mongol pressures made an exorcist-general guardian-deity of the northern celestial pole institutionally apt for dynastic needs. The frontmatter sets notBefore 1012 (imposition of the Sòng xuán-taboo) and notAfter 1279 (end of the Southern Sòng), following Schipper’s argument. The catalog meta’s dynasty “宋” is confirmed; no author is given and none can be inferred.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 2:1191–92 (DZ 655, K. Schipper). Primary reference for dating.
• Grootaers, Willem A. “The Hagiography of the Chinese God Chen-wu 眞武 (The Transmission of Rural Traditions in Chahar).” Folklore Studies 11.2 (1952): 139–81. The classic Western-language hagiographic study of the Zhēnwǔ myth-cycle, including the eschatological-incarnation type that DZ 655 represents.
• Seaman, Gary. Journey to the North: An Ethnohistorical Analysis and Annotated Translation of the Chinese Folk Novel Pei-yu chi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987. For the later Míng-era Zhēnwǔ narrative tradition that grew out of the Sòng scripture-corpus of which DZ 655 is an early exemplar.
• Chao, Shin-yi. Daoist Rituals, State Religion, and Popular Practices: Zhenwu Worship from Song to Ming (960–1644). London: Routledge, 2011. The standard monograph on the Zhēnwǔ cult through the Sòng-Míng; DZ 655 is treated in ch. 2 (Northern Sòng origins of the state-protection frame) and ch. 3 (scriptural elaboration).
• Lagerwey, John. “The Pilgrimage to Wu-tang Shan.” In Pilgrims and Sacred Sites in China, ed. Susan Naquin and Chün-fang Yü, 293–332. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992. Contextualises the Wǔdāng-shān sanctuary-network for which the DZ 655 narrative supplies scriptural authority.
• De Bruyn, Pierre-Henry. Le Wudang shan. Histoire des récits fondateurs. Bibliothèque de l’Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises 46. Paris: Collège de France, IHEC, 2010. Comparative study of the Wǔdāng-shān foundation narratives, including DZ 655’s gestational-birth narrative.

Other points of interest

The scripture preserves one of the most condensed and doctrinally pointed Zhēnwǔ nativity-narratives in the Dàozàng: the three-qì celestial embryo gestated ten months in the Guǎnglíng Palace, the jiànshēn month cleavage with the emergence of the five-hundred-zhàng warrior-deity, the black-robed sword-bearing iconography, and the tortoise-and-snake subjugation (rendered here as the kǎnlí → cāng guī jù huī 蒼龜巨虺 transformation of the demon-king, pinned 攝於足下 “beneath the foot”). This compact origin-myth underlies the far more elaborate Zhēnwǔ hagiography of DZ 961 Xuántiān shàngdì qǐshèng lù 玄天上帝啓聖録 (Yuán) and DZ 755 Xuántiān shàngdì qǐshèng língyì lù 玄天上帝啓聖靈異録.

The scripture’s enemy-typology — the Fēngdū liùdòng 酆都六洞 demon-hordes that “by day lie hidden and by night emerge,” transforming into the wǔ zhǒng wēn bìng 五種瘟病 (five kinds of pestilence) with victims dying of guǐqì 鬼氣 (ghost-vapour) — locates the text firmly in the Sòng wēnyì 瘟疫 (epidemic) crisis-response idiom of the Tiānxīn zhèngfǎ 天心正法 and Shénxiāo 神霄 exorcist-ritual movements, of which it is roughly contemporary.

The Sānshí dàfàn tiāndì, sì jí gāo zhēn, jiǔtiān yuánshēng, sāntiān zhēnhuáng audience-structure and the Shénxiāo 神霄 Great Army’s participation in the Fēngdū campaign identify the text’s ritual-milieu with the Shénxiāo movement of the Huīzōng period (early 12th c.) and its Southern-Sòng successors; the Zhēnwǔ apparatus is here synthesised into the broader Shénxiāo demonological framework, suggesting an actual composition-window of c. 1100–1250.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0036
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 2:1191–92 — DZ 655 entry (K. Schipper).
• Chao, Shin-yi, Daoist Rituals, State Religion, and Popular Practices: Zhenwu Worship from Song to Ming (Routledge, 2011).