Tài shàng dòng xuán líng bǎo zǐ wēi jīn gé gāo shàng yù huáng běn xíng jí jīng chǎn wēi 太上洞玄靈寶紫微金格高上玉皇本行集經闡微
Elucidating the Subtle Meaning of the Most-High Cavern-Mystery Numinous-Treasure Purple-Tenuity Golden-Tablet Lofty-Highest Jade-Emperor Original-Comportment Collected Scripture
elucidatory commentary attributed to 呂洞賓 (Lǚ Dòngbīn, fújī) and the Eight-Cavern planchette circle, transmitted under the title 朕殿前天猷大元帥佑聖眞君 (“Pre-throne Tiānyóu Grand Marshal, Yòushèng Perfected Lord”)
The exegetical complement to KR5i0015 Yù huáng běn xíng jí jīng — the chǎnwēi 闡微 (“elucidating the subtle”) line-by-line commentary on the Jade Emperor scripture, produced within the same early-19th-century DZJY fújī milieu and printed in three sub-juàn (上 / 中 / 下).
Prefaces
The text opens with a planchette-conveyed imperial decree (勅命) of the Jade Emperor in person, dated yǐchǒu twelfth month, twentieth day, xū hour (likely 嘉慶乙丑 = 9 February 1806, immediately preceding Jiǎng Yǔpǔ’s 1809 compilation of the DZJY). The decree authorises the present commentary’s transcription and engraving, threatens the Thunder Department’s punishment for those who scoff at it, promises rapid examination success and disaster-aversion to those who help with the engraving, and concludes with the seal qīn zāi 欽哉.
Abstract
A late-Qīng fújī-revealed line-by-line commentary on the canonical Sòng-era Yù huáng běn xíng jí jīng (cf. KR5i0015). The dating bracket notBefore 1800 / notAfter 1809 reflects the explicit yǐchǒu date in the framing decree (almost certainly 嘉慶 10 = 1806) and the terminus ad quem of the DZJY’s compilation. The text is internal to the same Lǚzǔ Quánzhēn / Lóngmén planchette milieu in Chéngdū / Húběi that produced most of the DZJY’s exegetical apparatus on Yù-huáng-cult scriptures, and likely belongs to the late phase of Jiǎng Yǔpǔ’s editorial circle (cf. Mori Yuria’s analysis cited at KR5i0003).
The full Daoist title incorporates the standard Língbǎo / Zǐwēi / Jīngé registry epithets that mark the scripture as belonging to the “Cavern-Mystery” canonical class, signalling the high-Daoist register in which the Jade-Emperor cult had by this date been firmly enrolled.
Translations and research
- See secondary literature listed under KR5i0015 (Boltz, Schipper-Verellen, etc.).
- No substantial secondary literature located on this commentary specifically.
Other points of interest
The opening yùzhǐ (the Jade Emperor’s spirit-written decree) is itself a striking late-Qīng documentary witness to fújī practice: the deity not only authorises the work’s printing but specifies a planchette-court hierarchy (“Pre-throne Tiānyóu Grand Marshal, Yòushèng Perfected Lord”) through which the exegesis was transmitted. Such decrees, conveyed via the planchette and attached as front-matter to printed scriptures, are characteristic of the Qián-Jiā-Dào-period Lóngmén planchette assemblies.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0016
- Spirit-writing transmission attributed to 呂洞賓 and the Eight-Cavern circle.