Yù shū bǎo jīng 玉樞寶經
Jade-Pivot Treasure Scripture
base scripture: anonymous Sòng Léifǎ scripture (= DZ 16 Jiǔ tiān yìng yuán léi shēng pǔ huà tiān zūn yù shū bǎo jīng); here printed with a planchette commentary attributed to 呂洞賓 (Lǚ Dòngbīn / 孚佑上帝 / 純陽呂祖)
The principal Sòng-era Léifǎ (Thunder-Magic) scripture, in which the Léizǔ Pǔhuà tiānzūn 雷祖普化天尊 — the Thunder Patriarch and Heavenly Worthy of Universal Transformation — discourses to the assembled Daoist heavens at the Yùxū jiǔ guāng palace. The DZJY recension preserves the canonical scripture intact (DZ 16, in 1 juàn, 9 sections / pǐn) and overlays a fresh planchette commentary (zàn jiě 讚解) attributed to Lǚ Dòngbīn under his cult-titles Fúyòu shàngdì 孚佑上帝 / Chúnyáng Lǚzǔ 純陽呂祖. The commentary frames each canonical line first with a 7-character zàn (devotional verse), then with a prose gloss; the format is continuous with the parallel Lǚ-zǔ-attributed apparatus on KR5i0010, KR5i0015, and elsewhere.
Prefaces
The opening zàn by Lǚzǔ on the title and the deity-name supplies the position of the commentator: “This scripture is the Thunder-Patriarch Great Emperor’s golden-mouth proclamation, expounding Yùqīng’s wondrous Way and showing the empty-and-subtle’s true mechanism. The Patriarch is originally Yuánshǐ’s split-truth, and is responsively-transformed into Yùqīng — therefore his words are intimate-and-direct, sparing-and-essential, just as the present scripture’s name ‘Yùshū’ already manifests the holy realm and the holy-perfected’s deepest secret, the master-pivot of the myriad heavens and myriad methods… Of old, attending at Yùjīng [the Jade Capital], I heard much of the Way’s wonder; recently I have repeatedly received the Jade-Decree to deliver and transform the worldlings, that they may understand the perfected lineage and broaden the Way’s exemplar. For the student of the Way to fail to understand the Yù shū’s deep subtlety and the spiritual wonder of its nine pǐn — that would be to sit at a permanent distance from the Three-Pure / Three-Cavern’s true purport, as Heaven and Earth from each other.”
Abstract
The base Yù shū bǎo jīng is a foundational Sòng Léifǎ scripture and ranks among the most frequently recited of all Daoist scriptures in late-imperial liturgy. It transmitted, with the parallel Léi tíng zhěng zōng texts, the Sòng-era Tiānxīn / Léifǎ fusion to subsequent generations. The Zhèngtǒng Dàozàng preserves it as DZ 16 (with several Sòng commentaries: DZ 99, 100, 101); for the textual history see Schipper-Verellen II, on DZ 16, and Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature.
The DZJY recension wraps the canonical text in fresh mid-Qīng exegesis from the Lǚzǔ planchette circle. The dating bracket notBefore 1100 (canonical Sòng base) / notAfter 1750 (mid-Qīng commentary’s likely composition window in the Lǚzǔ planchette milieu) is conservative.
Translations and research
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen. The Taoist Canon I, on DZ 16 Jiǔ tiān yìng yuán léi shēng pǔ huà tiān zūn yù shū bǎo jīng.
- Boltz, Judith. A Survey of Taoist Literature. Berkeley: IEAS, 1987.
- Reiter, Florian C. Basic Conditions of Taoist Thunder Magic. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2007.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0035
- Spirit-writing commentator: 呂洞賓.