Dàshèng sìzhāirì 大乘四齋日
The Four Mahāyāna Fasting-Days anonymous (Dunhuang manuscript)
About the work
A single-juan anonymous Dunhuang Buddhist pedagogical text on the four major fasting-days (sì zhāirì 四齋日), the three long fasting-months, and the six and ten lesser fasting-days of the lay-Buddhist devotional calendar — preserved at T85 no. 2849. The text catalogues each fasting-day with its assigned visiting deity / divine inspector who descends to take note of human conduct, and the karmic consequences of fasting on those days.
Prefaces
The text has no auto-preface or byline. It opens directly with the schedule:
Four [fasting-days]: 2nd month, 8th day; 4th month, 8th day; 5th month, 8th day; 7th month, 15th day.
Annual three long fasting-months: 1st month, 5th month, 9th month.
Six fasting-days: 8th, 14th, 15th, 23rd, 28th, 30th.
Ten fasting-days: 1st of the month — Shànè jiāo boy descends to investigate; 14th — Chámìng sìlù descends; 15th — the Five-Path Great-Spirit descends; 18th — King Yama descends; 23rd — the Heavenly Great-General descends; 24th — Indra descends; 28th — the Tàishān fǔjūn descends; 29th — the Four Heavenly Kings descend; 30th […].
Abstract
Authorship and date are unrecoverable. The work is one of the principal Dunhuang witnesses to the lay-Buddhist fasting-day calendar as it was actually observed at the western frontier — combining indigenous Daoist cosmological underworld-deity inspection (Tàishān fǔjūn 太山府君, the underworld magistrate; Chámìng 察命, “investigator-of-fates”) with Buddhist Yama, Indra, Four Heavenly Kings, and Five-Path-Spirit. The syncretism is characteristic of late-Táng / Five-Dynasties Buddhist–Daoist ritual integration in popular practice. notBefore = 600, notAfter = 1000 (the standard Dunhuang bracket).
The work is a primary source for the medieval Chinese fasting-day system and complements the canonical fasting-day prescriptions of the Vimalakīrti and Brahmajāla sutras. Its detailed naming of inspector-deities and assigned dates of descent is one of the most concrete Dunhuang witnesses to the late-Táng / Five-Dynasties inspectorial-cosmology that underwrote popular fasting practice.
Translations and research
- Stephen F. Teiser, The Scripture on the Ten Kings and the Making of Purgatory in Medieval Chinese Buddhism (Hawai’i, 1994) — extensive context for the inspectorial-deity tradition.
- Édouard Chavannes, Le T’ai chan: essai de monographie d’un culte chinois (1910) — context for Tài-shān fǔ-jūn in the underworld inspectorial tradition.
- Anna Seidel, Christine Mollier, and Daoist-Buddhist syncretism studies for the broader cosmological background.
Other points of interest
The text is one of the principal sources for understanding the late-Táng / Five-Dynasties syncretic underworld inspectorial cosmology that combined Daoist Tàishān and Chámìng officials with Buddhist Yama, Indra, and the Four Heavenly Kings. The integration of indigenous Chinese cosmology with imported Buddhist deities was crucial for the popular reception of Buddhist fasting practice in medieval China — and the Sìzhāirì text shows this integration in concrete operational form.
Links
- DILA authority: (no preserved authority entry)
- CBETA: T85n2849
- Companion fasting-day text: KR6s0042 Dìzàng púsà shízhāirì (T2850)
- Doctrinal context: late-Táng / Five-Dynasties Buddhist–Daoist inspectorial-cosmology