Jiǔ huáng xīn jīng zhù jiě 九皇新經註解
Annotated Exposition of the New Scripture of the Nine August Ones
planchette-revealed new scripture on the Nine Augusts (九皇 — the personified nine Northern-Dipper stars), revealed by 呂洞賓 (Lǚ Dòngbīn / 純陽), with prefaces by the three “Great Perfected” — the canonical Daoist trinity of 張道陵 (Zhāng dàolíng / 張大眞人), 葛玄 (or 葛洪, as 葛大眞人), and 許遜 (Xǔ Xùn / 許大眞人) — all spoken from the planchette pantheon
A two-juàn fújī-revealed new scripture (新經) on the Nine Augusts of the Northern Dipper, with running commentary attributed to Lǚ Dòngbīn. The triple prefatorial frame — the three “Great Perfected” of the canonical Daoist trinity each contributing a self-narrating preface — is generically distinctive: each preface describes the planchette session at which the scripture was revealed in slightly different terms, signalling that the prefaces were drafted as part of the same revelatory event under three speaking-personae.
Prefaces
Preface (Zhāngtiānshī). Reflects on the decline of Daoism since the Hàn: “I think back to tàichū’s ancient time when the Tàishàng personally delivered men, but no man got delivered, until he entered the Hán Pass and transformed WèsternHúYǐnXǐ caught his purple breath… afterwards the Tàishàng had no more method and only inscribed numinous texts… But the world’s foolish men do not examine their meaning and take them for mere recitation pieces… by which time perfected immortals have no men, divine immortals are sparse-of-seed, earth-immortals have lost their transmission, men-immortals are not real, and ghost-immortals miscellaneously emerge. Then thanks to the Pure-Yang [Lǚzǔ]‘s opening of the teaching, who has taken his already-self-expounded Jiǔ huáng xīn jīng of one juàn and on the jǐsì day re-elucidated its mysterious essence, finely annotating its subtlety, with the verbal formulas of the Five Immortals laid out on the table and the Dipper-orienting longevity formulas spoken to the very last word — so that the cultivators of later ages have a place to go home to, and the secret transmission of the immortal lineage can yet not be cut off. I am of the founders of the teaching, and I am compassionate to fulfil Pure-Yang’s vow of delivering all common men; without realising it, I have prefaced.”
Preface (Gě dà zhēn rén). Quotes the Zhōng yōng opening (The Way cannot be left for an instant) and integrates the standard five-tier hierarchy of immortals: tiān xiān → shén xiān → dì xiān → rén xiān → guǐ xiān (heavenly-divine-earth-human-ghost), each grounded in a different operative principle (qiāngǒng jiāo gòu / yīn yáng diāndǎo / qīngjìng cháng yìng / fúshàn / gōngxíng). Concludes: “Now this Jiǔ huáng xīn jīng commentary appears, and the cultivator of tiānxiān will not find it hard to swallow gold and advance fire…”
Preface (Xǔ dà zhēn rén). Narrates the cosmological history: Dòu mǔ from the Western India (Xīzhúguó) cultivated the Yuánshǐ great Way and bore nine sons, who bore the cosmos’s zàohuà and yīnyáng; this principle was untransmitted “until the first year of Yǒngshòu” (永壽元年 = 155 CE) when the Tàishàng descended to grant the Heavenly Master the Běidǒu mì jué; further unfolded by Hàn Míngdì at Mt. Kūnlún, where Dòumǔ in transformed form preached the Běiyuán tǒngzhāng — “one star issuing one principle, one primal-One performing one Way.”
Abstract
A Qīng planchette scripture on the Nine-August / Dòumǔ cult, generically continuous with KR5i0023 and KR5i0024 (which centre on the Dòu mǔ’s parent-figure) and giving the nine emanated children their own scripture. The triple-Perfected preface — the three classical Daoist trinity figures speaking simultaneously through the planchette — is a standard fújī convention; it reads here as a framing fiction by which the scripture’s authority is referred to the highest Daoist tradition. The specific reference in the Xǔzhēnrén preface to Yǒngshòu yuán nián (= 155 CE — the year of Zhāng Dàolíng’s revelation in the Heavenly Master tradition) is the standard high-Daoist “first revelation” reference and not historical evidence.
Composition is c. 1700–1809; the text is integral to Jiǎng Yǔpǔ’s 1809 jí yào.
Translations and research
- For Dòu-mǔ and Nine-August cults: see citations under KR5i0023.
- No substantial secondary literature located on this specific text.