太上妙始經

Tàishàng miàoshǐ jīng 太上妙始經

Scripture of the Marvellous Beginning, of the Most High

Anonymous Six-Dynasties cosmogonic-soteriological-historiographical scripture in one juàn (seven folios), preserved in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng (DZ 658 / CT 658, 洞神部本文類) as the first of two scriptures bundled in the “èr jīng tóng juàn nǚ wǔ” 二經同卷女五 female-series volume 5 (paired with [[KR5c0040|DZ 659 Tàishàng hàoyuán jīng]]). Though short, the scripture is a systematic digest of fourth- to fifth-century Daoist cosmography and sacred history: cosmogony from the undifferentiated Dào / yuánqì 元氣, the cyclical destruction and re-genesis of Heaven and Earth at intervals of 3.6 × 10¹¹ years by fire and water, the topography of Kūnlún and the nine heavens and nine earths, the huàhú 化胡 narrative of Lǎozǐ’s conversion of the barbarians and incarnation as the Buddha, and Lǎozǐ’s transmission of the Zhèngyī méngwēi zhī dào 正一盟威之道 (Covenantal Authority of the Orthodox Unity) to Zhāng Zhènnán 張鎭南 (that is, Zhāng Lǔ 張魯).

About the work

The scripture is structured as a single long revelation by Tàishàng lǎojūn 太上老君 (Most High Lord Lao) in three linked movements:

• Cosmogony and the kalpa-cycle (1a–2a): the Dào issues forth from the formless, the nameless, and the silent, taking as its ancestry xūwú 虛無 (emptiness) and zìrán 自然 (the spontaneous), and as its root the qīngwēi xuányuán 清微玄元 qì. Before heaven and earth it is silent and undivided; when conjoined it is yuánqì 元氣 (primordial pneuma), when dispersed it is heaven-and-earth. The lifespan of a cosmic cycle is sān qiān liù bǎi yì wàn suì 三千六百億萬歲 (3.6 × 10¹¹ years); at the end of a cycle the yáng-essence burns upward as fire to the six heavens and the yīn-essence drowns downward as water to the nine earths; after this conflation they return to unity, and after a further 3.6 × 10¹¹ years the cycle reopens. The clear qì becomes heaven (dark and pure), the turbid becomes earth (ochre and dense); the sun, moon, twenty-eight mansions, four seasons, five phases, six jiǎ and twelve branches come into being; men and beasts and plants emerge; the five peaks, four waterways, and thirty-six mountains raise clouds and cast rain; the three sovereigns, the five emperors, and the hundred clans procreate in succession. Only the zhēnrén dàoshì 真人道士 (perfected men, Daoist practitioners) of immeasurable merit can survive the end of a cycle, transforming a thousand and ten thousand times and dwelling atop the nine-heavens in the xuányuán 玄元.

• Sacred geography and post-mortem eschatology (2a–5a): within the six-unities (liùhé 六合) the cosmos is egg-shaped, car-wheel-rimmed, and wreathed in yuánqì. The four directional continents — Jūn-tiān 鈞天 (eastern, 81 lands, 81,000 lǐ square), Yán-tiān 炎天 (southern, 64 lands, 64,000 lǐ square), Sù-tiān 素天 (western, 49 lands, 49,000 lǐ square), and Xuán-tiān 玄天 (northern, 25 lands, 25,000 lǐ square) — surround central Kūnlún. Beyond these lies the Tiěyuán shān 鐵園山 (Iron-Enclosure mountain — a transparent rendering of the Buddhist Cakravāḍa), beyond which is the eightfold realm of darkness (bā míng jiè 八冥界) under the jurisdiction of the Tàishān fǔjūn 泰山府君, in whose hells are cauldrons of boiling water (huò tāng 鑊湯), wheeling spikes (zhuǎnlún 轉輪), bronze pillars (tóng zhù 銅柱), iron awls (tiě zhuī 鐵錐), knives and swords. Upon death men are remanded to this court and registered according to merit; those of insufficient merit are distributed among the hells, those of great merit ascend to the heavenly palaces, and those who are meritorious but not saved are reborn as nobles in the next cycle. The sun and moon rise from Tāng-gǔ 湯谷 (the hot-spring valley), where grows the fú-sāng 扶桑 tree, and set in Ménsì 濛汜; these waters communicate with the subterranean waters that bear the earth. On the first, fifteenth, and last days of each month (shuò, wàng, huì 朔、望、晦) the heavenly emperor dispatches the liù bù dū lù shǐzhě 六部都錄使者 (Six-Department Arch-Registry Envoys) to audit the good and evil of the world — “how can one fail to be careful? how can one fail to be careful?”

• Incarnational history: the huàhú and the transmission to Zhāng Lǔ (5a–7a): Lǎozǐ declares that since the opening of the universe he has delivered several hundred million scrolls, some sealed in Orchid-Terrace jade-boxes and stone-chambers, uncountable. In the decline of the reign of King Yōu of Zhōu (Zhōu Yōu wáng shí 周幽王時 — in the text’s timing) he came to the Hángǔ Pass 函谷關 and taught the Dào-arts to the Passkeeper Yǐn Xǐ 尹喜, who attained realisation; he then led Yǐn Xǐ westward to the Hú 胡 lands, first into the Jìbīn 罽賓 (Kaśmīra) district, onto Àn-jué Mountain 闇崛山, where he was subjected to burning by the local sovereign but remained unharmed and displayed the empty-space-body, the halo of solar light, the adamantine form, the seventy-two marks and the eighty-one sub-marks. The foreign king took refuge, and Lǎozǐ composed for him a sì wàn yán jīng 四萬言經 named the Bōrě bōluómì 般若波羅蜜 (Prajñāpāramitā) — thus placed alongside the five-thousand-character, thirty-chapter Dàodé jīng 道德經. Entering the city of Shěwèi 舍衞國 (Śrāvastī) on the 4th day of the 4th month, he transformed himself into the crown prince and, at age fifteen, left the court to pursue the way; having attained realisation he was called Shìjiā fó 釋迦佛 (Śākyamuni Buddha), “fó being the Hú word for what in Hàn is called xiān 仙”. Yǐn Xǐ took the new name Ānán 阿難 (Ānanda) and gathered 1,250 shāmén 沙門 (śramaṇa) disciples called púsà 菩薩 (bodhisattvas — “púsà being the Hú category equivalent to our present-day dào mín 道民”). Having completed the conversion of the Hú he performed ritual liberation on the 5th day of the 5th month, returning to níwán 泥丸. The Dào is without fixed name and without fixed form — sometimes called Shìjiā wén fó 釋迦文佛, sometimes Wéimójié 維摩詰 (Vimalakīrti), sometimes Zhuǎnlún wáng 轉輪王 (Cakravartin). Men, failing to understand, cast fútú 浮屠 (stupas) and carve clay and wood images. He then returned to the Hàn realm and assumed the title Tàishàng Dàdào wúwéi 太上大道無爲; to combat the corruption of men’s sacrificial slaughter he expounded the Zhèngyī méngwēi zhī dào 正一盟威之道, the ordering of the 36,000 gods of the eight poles and four seas, the rank-and-file of the perfected immortals and the liù dīng bā shǐ 六丁八史, the subduing of the demon swarms, the ordination of dàoshì 道士 male and female, the sāndòng jīng jiè kē lǜ 三洞經戒科律 (Three Caverns’ scriptures, precepts, codes and rules) — and issued the méngwēi zhèngfǎ 盟威正法 (Authoritative-Covenantal Orthodox Method) to save the common folk. Finally, Lǎozǐ bestows his transmission: shòu Zhāng Zhènnán zhèngyī zhī fǎ 授張鎭南正一之法 (he bestows upon Zhāng Zhènnán — i.e. Zhāng Lǔ — the Method of the Orthodox Unity) for generational hereditary transmission.

Prefaces

No preface. The text opens directly with Tàishàng lǎojūn yuē 太上老君曰 — a revelatory first person, immediate and unframed.

Abstract

Schipper’s notice in Schipper & Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon (2004, 1:124, DZ 658) classifies the text in section 1.A “Antecedents — the Han Taoist tradition and the Daodejing” and reads:

“This is a short but interesting text, which, on the basis of its contents and style, must date to the Six Dynasties period, perhaps as early as the fourth century. The version of the Conversion of the Barbarians story, which resembles that of 1205 Sāntiān nèijiě jīng, antedates the sixth century, while the reference to the Three Caverns (sāndòng 三洞) implies a date after 350. The book gives an account of the creation of the universe, the birth of the gods, the mythical geography of the earth, the reproduction of human beings and finally the manifestation of Lǎozǐ in this world, his conversion of the barbarians and the transmission of the Zhèngyī méngwēi zhī dào to Zhāng Zhènnán 張鎭南, that is Zhāng Lǔ 張魯. This scripture is not mentioned elsewhere.”

The terminus post quem of 350 CE is anchored by the text’s use of the sāndòng 三洞 (Three Caverns) classification, which is the product of mid-fourth-century Daoist canonical consolidation (Lù Xiūjìng’s 陸修靜 Sāndòng jīngshū mùlù 三洞經書目錄 of 471 is the first formalisation, but the classification itself is already in use earlier in the fourth century). The terminus ante quem of 500 CE is anchored by the form of the huàhú 化胡 narrative, which is markedly more rudimentary than that of the Sāntiān nèijiě jīng (DZ 1205, LiúSòng 420–479), and by the text’s lexical register, which is pre-Tiānshī-Dào reform in the sense of Kòu Qiānzhī’s 寇謙之 reforms of 415 or earlier. The frontmatter accordingly uses 350–500 with dynasty “六朝”.

The catalog meta’s suggestion of “5th cent?” is broadly compatible but a little narrower than the evidence strictly requires; the tightest defensible bracket is 350–500, with the early- to mid-fifth-century being the most probable floruit. Van der Loon’s Taoist Books in the Libraries of the Sung Period does not list the scripture; the text is first securely attested in the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng.

The work is anonymous; the revelation is attributed to Tàishàng lǎojūn 太上老君 directly, without a Daoist compiler or preface-writer.

The doctrinal profile is of considerable interest for the history of early Six-Dynasties Daoism:

• The kalpa-cycle cosmology (3.6 × 10¹¹ years, fire-and-water catastrophe, re-genesis) is an important early expression of the assimilation of Buddhist kalpa chronology into the Daoist cosmogonic frame, with the Daoist twist that the surviving remnant is the zhēnrén dàoshì 真人道士 — the perfected practitioners — rather than the Buddhist saṃghāta of scheduled re-creation.
• The iron-enclosure mountain (Tiě-yuán shān 鐵園山) is a transparent calque of the Buddhist Cakravāḍa (Tiě-wéi shān 鐵圍山), here grafted onto the Kūnlún-centred Daoist cosmography.
• The eight-dim-realm (bā míng jiè 八冥界) under the jurisdiction of the Tàishān fǔjūn 泰山府君 is the classical Hàn-period underworld topography, here expanded with Buddhist-derived hell-punishments (cauldrons, bronze pillars, wheels) — a key phase in the development of Chinese infernal imagination.
• The four-elemental physiology (fēng shuǐ huǒ tǔ 風水火土) is frankly Buddhist in derivation (the sì dà 四大), adapted to the Daoist discourse of the somatic 36,000 gods and 18,000 gōng fǔ 宮府.
• The monthly heavenly audit on the shuò 朔, wàng 望, and huì 晦 days — the three hinges of the lunar month — links the scripture to the Tiānshīdào 天師道 surveillance-and-registry idiom that would later flourish in the Tàishàng gǎnyìng piān 太上感應篇 tradition.
• The huàhú narrative with Lǎozǐ as Buddha is both foundational (one of the earliest systematic statements of the sān jiào yī jiā 三教一家 doctrine in its Daoist-primacy form) and historically revealing: here the Buddha’s 1,250 púsà are explicitly equated with the Daoist dào mín 道民, and Ānanda is the new name of Yǐn Xǐ, with Lǎozǐ as the transcendent identity behind Śākyamuni and Vimalakīrti alike.
• The transmission to Zhāng Lǔ as Zhāng Zhènnán places the scripture within the Five-Bushels lineage charter, connecting it to the Tiānshīdào sectarian history through the Three-Kingdoms grandson of Zhāng Dàolíng who ceded Hànzhōng 漢中 to Cáo Cāo in 215.

Translations and research

• Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:124 (DZ 658, K. Schipper). Primary reference.
• Kohn, Livia. Laughing at the Tao: Debates Among Buddhists and Taoists in Medieval China. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995. For the huàhú controversy.
• Zürcher, Erik. The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism in Early Medieval China. 3rd ed. Leiden: Brill, 2007. The classic synthesis on early Buddhist-Daoist interaction.
• Seidel, Anna. La divinisation de Lao tseu dans le Taoïsme des Han. Paris: École française d’Extrême-Orient, 1969. For the deification of Lǎozǐ and the huàhú background.
• Robinet, Isabelle. Taoism: Growth of a Religion. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. For the Six-Dynasties Tiānshī-dào and the sāndòng consolidation.
• Bokenkamp, Stephen R. Early Daoist Scriptures. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Translation of the contemporary Sāntiān nèijiě jīng, which Schipper treats as the mature sibling of the present text’s huàhú story.
• Yamada Toshiaki 山田利明. Rikuchō dōkyō girei no kenkyū 六朝道教儀礼の研究. Tōkyō: Tōhō Shoten, 1999. For the Six-Dynasties Tiānshī-dào liturgical context.

Other points of interest

The scripture’s explicit Daoist-Buddhist-Zhèngyī triangulation is of rare interest: the Buddha is not only Lǎozǐ (as in the classical huàhú) but also Vimalakīrti and the Cakravartin; the Prajñāpāramitā is Lǎozǐ’s 40,000-word companion to the Dàodé jīng; the púsà are the ancestral form of the dào mín; and the historical consummation of Lǎozǐ’s revelations is the transmission of the Zhèngyī méngwēi zhī dào to Zhāng Lǔ in the Hàn. The scripture thus stages a full Daoist supersession of both Buddhism and the separate Zhèngyī tradition within a single revelatory frame.

The scripture’s absence from Sòng and later bibliographies (Schipper: “not mentioned elsewhere”) indicates that it circulated below the radar of the principal Sòng Daoist catalogues (Chóngwén zǒngmù, Zhēnghé wànshòu dàozàng 政和萬壽道藏 of 1119, etc.) and was preserved into the Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng as a dormant fragment of the early Tiānshīdào canon. This makes the text an important witness to pre-reform lineage theology — doctrinally comparable to but bibliographically hidden from the mainstream of transmitted Daoist canon.

Links

• Kanseki Repository KR5c0039
• Schipper & Verellen, The Taoist Canon (2004), 1:124 — DZ 658 entry (K. Schipper).
• Wikipedia: Huahu jing — the huàhú tradition.
• Wikipedia: Sandong — the Three-Caverns canonical structure (terminus post quem anchor).