Xiān tiān dòu dì chì yǎn wú shàng xuán gōng líng miào zhēn jīng 先天斗帝敕演無上玄功靈妙真經
The True Scripture of the Highest Mysterious Work and Numinous Wonder, by Imperial Decree Performed of the Pre-Cosmic Dipper Emperor
planchette commentary (疏解) by 呂洞賓 (Lǚ Dòngbīn, as 孚佑上帝 純陽呂祖)
A nine-section (九品) Qīng fújī-revealed nèidān scripture issued under the seal of the Pre-Cosmic Dipper Emperor (先天斗帝 — i.e., the Dòu mǔ 斗姆 / Mārīcī cult), expounded section-by-section by Lǚ Dòngbīn at a planchette session held on the Dòu mǔ’s birthday (the prefatory poem mentions 本壇恭逢斗帝聖誕). The text claims to render explicit, in plain language, the xiāntiān (pre-cosmic) inner-elixir method, “washing away” the metaphorical-and-secret diction of earlier scriptures. The Dòu mǔ — Mārīcī, the Tantric goddess of light, here Daoised as 圓明道姥天尊 (Yuán míng dào mǔ tiānzūn) — is invoked at the head with the standard xiāng zàn and bǎo gào: 西天竺國大智光中眞空妙相法王師無上玄元天母主… 圓明道姥天尊.
Prefaces
A zàn jì by 無極子 (Wújízǐ — a planchette persona) opening at the planchette altar, dated only by the festal occasion (Dòu mǔ’s birthday). The substantive commentary that follows is in nine pǐn (品 = class), each composed of (i) a section of canonical text in 4-character verse, (ii) Lǚzǔ’s shūjiě gloss, often punctuated with planchette-style wú zhī jié yǐ (“my gloss closes”). No external date.
Abstract
A late-Qīng Dòu-mǔ-cult planchette scripture in which the (originally Buddhist Tantric) Mārīcī / Dou mǔ / Yuánmíng dào mǔ identification is taken for granted as the doctrinal frame, and the textual genre is used to deliver a high-Daoist nèidān doctrine. The scripture belongs to the same Lóngmén planchette milieu that produced KR5i0024 (the parallel anti-killing scripture under the same Dòumǔ seal), KR5i0026 (the Jiǔ huáng xīn jīng commentary), and KR5i0017–KR5i0020 (the Yù huáng xīn yìn recensions). The dating bracket notBefore 1700 / notAfter 1809 is conservative; the marriage of Buddhist deity-name and nèidān doctrine is characteristic of mid-Qīng Lóngmén print culture.
The Dòu mǔ identification with Mārīcī (Mó-lì-zhī tiān 摩利支天) was canonical in the Sòng Yún jí qī qiān; here that identification is taken further by absorbing the goddess into the high pantheon under the title 圓明道姥天尊. The scripture’s ritual-iconographic register thus overlaps with the Daoist Běi-dòu literature and the Buddhist Mārīcī-dhāraṇī complex.
Translations and research
- For the Dòu-mǔ / Mārīcī cult and its Daoist absorption: Hou Ching-lang, Monnaies d’offrande et la notion de trésorerie dans la religion chinoise (1975); Stevens, Marishi-ten (1988); for the Daoist fú-jī milieu, see citations under KR5i0021.
- No substantial secondary literature located on this specific text.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0023
- Spirit-writing commentator: 呂洞賓.