Shí jiè gōng guò gé 十戒功過格
Ten-Precepts Merit-and-Demerit Ledger
planchette-revealed by 呂洞賓; edited and titled by 柳守元
A gōng guò gé (merit-and-demerit ledger) anchored on the Ten Precepts of the Quánzhēn / Lóngmén tradition (the standard shí jiè of the Buddhist upāsaka re-purposed for Daoist initiates), with merit-and-demerit calculations for each precept’s keeping-or-violating, and a triple-classification by sān yè 三業 (three karmic actions: body / speech / mind) for further granularity. The work is one of the two principal Lǚ-zǔ-cult merit-and-demerit ledgers in DZJY (with KR5i0096 Jǐng shì gōng guò gé).
Prefaces
Title-poem (Liǔ Shǒuyuán). “*The study of the Way is the matter of body-mind-nature-mandate. But if the dirt of body-and-mind is not removed, the light of nature-and-mandate is hard to manifest. This is why merit-and-demerit must urgently be discussed. Our Imperial Master Fú-yòu垂訓 of merit-and-demerit on the world — there are several editions transmitted in the world, not just these two volumes. In recent hundred-some years, the Seven-Awakened opened-and-broadened the wonderful Way, and on top further took transmitting precepts as the urgent task. For jiè (precepts) is the foundation of merit and the guard against demerit. Our Awakening-Source’s opening was at the latest, but its rank in the array is now at the head; I bear-the-charge of altar-presider, only earnestly with merit-and-demerit encouraging the various sons. Deeply I know that merit is the staircase-and-raft of the Way, and demerit is the corn-thief-and-blight of the elixir. — This book, in fixing merit-and-demerit by the Ten Precepts, is wonderful; further wonderful, in fixing merit-and-demerit by the Three Karmas — its purport is precise and severe, its meaning dense and inclusive; its weighing-and-grading is rock-firm and on-the-mark; men have nowhere to escape their feelings, events have nowhere to hide their shadows; one yú (giving) and one duó (deprivation) — the Chūnqiū method! Students daily putting one volume on the right-of-the-seat and with real heart auditing-it — that is no less than ten-eyes’ watching and ten-hands’ pointing. — How much it adds to body-mind-nature-mandate! How could it be shallow? — Hóngjiào dìzǐ Liǔ Shǒuyuán xūnmù tí cí.”
Abstract
A Lǚ-zǔ-cult merit-and-demerit ledger anchored on the Daoist Ten Precepts, edited by Liǔ Shǒuyuán (cf. 柳守元) within the DZJY-source Liǔ-circle, c. 1700–1750. The text is generically continuous with the broader gōng guò gé tradition that arose in the late Sòng and flourished in the late-Míng / Qīng (cf. Brokaw, Ledgers of Merit and Demerit); its distinctive feature is the cross-classification by jiè and yè, providing a more granular ledger than the conventional simple-list format. Its companion is the parallel KR5i0096.
Translations and research
- Brokaw, Cynthia. The Ledgers of Merit and Demerit: Social Change and Moral Order in Late Imperial China. Princeton 1991.
- Sakai Tadao, Chūgoku zensho no kenkyū.
Links
- Kanseki Repository KR5i0095
- Editor: 柳守元; speaker: 呂洞賓 (託名).