Wén dì xiào jīng 文帝孝經
The Imperial Lord Wén[-chāng]‘s Filial-Piety Scripture
planchette-attributed to 文昌帝君 (Wénchāng dìjūn); preface by 丘濬 (Qiū Jùn, 1420–1495), Míng Grand Secretary, dated 明宏治五年三月吉旦 = March 1492
A six-chapter Daoist xiào jīng (filial-piety scripture) attributed to Wénchāng dìjūn, parallel to but distinct from the canonical Confucian Xiào jīng of the Wǔ jīng tradition. The chapters elaborate parental upbringing-toil from various perspectives, then expound the filial-pious son’s response. The work explicitly cross-references the canonical Xiào jīng’s eighteen chapters (the Zēngzǐ tradition) and presents itself as parallel-mutually-clarifying.
Prefaces
Preface (Qiū Jùn), dated 明宏治五年三月吉旦 = March 1492. “*The Imperial Lord [Wénchāng] by his utmost-filiality dwells in the upper position of Wénchāng; for seventeen lives he was a shìdàfū official, and in his body manifested 97 transformations: hidden-and-revealed, in nothing did he not display himself by filial-piety. He reverently chants this scripture’s six chapters: parents’ efforts in raising children, comprehensively rendered in the heart; the filial-son’s serving them, carefully expressed in the meaning. Threading the supreme-nature, ordering people-and-things, reaching from one filial-piety to all the myriad affairs — distilled and yet sharper, condensed and yet more detailed, broadly proclaiming education-and-transformation, expounding the wonderful Way, gathering all filial-pieties’ great accomplishment and creating a zǐ zé (son’s example) for a thousand ages. Sòng Xīshān Zhēn xiānshēng said this scripture is spiritually-wondrous, penetratingly-clear, easily-understood, like family-everyday-talk, never failing to move-knowing and awaken-the-deluded — its principle generates Heaven-Earth, generates the myriad things, governs yīnyáng, and clarifies the human standard. — Jùn from his youth followed the Imperial Lord’s instruction, and every day chanted this scripture. One evening, sitting quietly at the Wén jìngzhāi head, in dream the Imperial Lord instructed me, saying: ‘Child, if you can broadly distribute the scripture-text and admonish the world’s men, I will preserve you to a jiǎdì (highest examination-pass), with successive cloud-positions reaching the summit of literary minister.’ Jùn therefore with friends compiled, re-engraved, broadly distributed altogether over five thousand-some volumes. — On the day of the wéishì (compound-examination), I saw the KuíDòu asterism holding the brush, jumping over the volume in front of me; the volume’s top in golden characters reading Wénchāng xiào jīng; in an instant it disappeared, and I felt auspicious-radiance fill the examination-hall, strange incense suffused my limbs, my literary thought greatly opened, brush-flowing as I willed — and so I attained heavenly-selection, and my passing was high-grade. — Verily, the Imperial Lord is divinely-luminous, his垂訓 awe-inspiring; whether one is filial or unfilial, his clear-mirror penetrates everything without leaving anything out… — Míng Hóngzhì 5, 3rd month, auspicious-dawn, Junior-Guardian, Grand Secretary Qiū Jùn, Zhòngshēnshì of Qióngshān, respectfully recounted.”
Abstract
The principal Wén-chāng-cult moral-merit scripture in the filial-piety register, with the celebrated 1492 preface by Qiū Jùn (cf. 丘濬) — Míng Grand Secretary, then occupying the highest tier of orthodox-Confucian officialdom — narrating his own personal-cult devotion to the work and his examination-success in connection with its recitation. The base text is Sòng-era (the Wénchāng cult’s literary cult-corpus consolidates in the late Sòng, after 1180 or so); Qiū’s 1492 preface is the terminus ad quem. The DZJY recension is the standard late-Míng / Qīng circulation of the work.
The text is one of the foundational shàn shū 善書 (moral-merit literature) productions of the late-imperial era; its Wénchāng cult-attribution gave it canonical authority across the shìdàfū class, and Qiū Jùn’s preface — a Grand Secretary publicly attesting to his personal-cult devotion — is among the more documented instances of high-Confucian Daoism.
Translations and research
- Kleeman, A God’s Own Tale (1994).
- Sakai Tadao, Chūgoku zensho no kenkyū, ch. 5.
- Brokaw, The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0084
- Speaker: 文昌帝君 (託名); preface: 丘濬.