Lǐchàn wén 禮懺文
Worship-and-Confession Text anonymous (Dunhuang manuscript, second of three)
About the work
A single-juan anonymous Dunhuang Buddhist liturgical penitential text, preserved at T85 no. 2855 — the second of three parallel Dunhuang lǐchàn wén manuscripts in the gǔyì bù. The text emphasizes proper ritual disposition as a precondition for valid penitential observance, with detailed instructions on physical comportment and mental focus during the ceremony.
Prefaces
The text has no auto-preface or byline. It opens immediately with comportment-instructions (paraphrased, with reconstructed lacunae): “Peeking down to the ground, both hands embracing the dim-and-dark □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ Reverence — do not with scattered-disordered casual heart, with one heart focused □ □ □ □ □ □ □ — that may be a slight place. If not stilling, with sincere weighty earnestness □ □ □ □ □ □ □ — the descent and arrival also is not gathered-and-conferred. The petition-and-summons also is □ □ □ □ □ □ □ □ — the extinguishing-and-discarding obtains slight-and-haughty sin. One must be diligent □ □ □ □ □ □ — thinking of cold water as a sick-person’s good medicine, treating-and-curing and obtaining recovery □ □ □ Disciple, so-and-so, et al.…”
Abstract
Authorship and date are unrecoverable. The text supplements KR6s0046 and KR6s0048 in the Dunhuang penitential-ritual genre — particularly with its emphasis on proper physical and mental disposition during the ceremony. The detailed comportment-instructions (“peeking down to the ground, both hands embracing”, and the warnings against scattered-disordered casual heart) make the text a primary witness to the practical pedagogy of penitential observance — what we would today call the “ritual etiquette” of chànhuǐ. notBefore = 600, notAfter = 1000.
The metaphor of the practitioner’s sincere earnestness as “cold water that is the sick person’s good medicine” — illness being delusion, and the cold water of sincere ritual practice the medicine that cures it — is one of the more striking pedagogical images of the Dunhuang penitential corpus.
Translations and research
See KR6s0033 and KR6s0046 for general references.
Other points of interest
The text’s emphasis on physical comportment and mental disposition as preconditions for valid penitential observance is closer to the Tiāntái zhǐguān meditative tradition than to the simpler liturgical-formulaic penitential rituals of KR6s0046 and KR6s0048 — suggesting that the three Dunhuang lǐchàn wén preserved in T85 may represent slightly different lineages or ceremonial registers within the broader penitential genre.