The Writ of the Three Sovereigns: From Local Lore to Institutional Daoism 0824878256, 9780824878252

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The Writ of the Three Sovereigns

NEW DAOIST STUDIES

Dominic Steavu

THE WRIT OF THE

Three Sovereigns From Local Lore to Institutional Daoism

Centre for Studies of Daoist Culture The Chinese University of Hong Kong

The Chinese University Press

University of Hawai‘i Press Honolulu

NEW DAOIST STUDIES The Writ of the Three Sovereigns: From Local Lore to Institutional Daoism    By Dominic Steavu © 2019 The Chinese University of Hong Kong All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission. No part of this book may be stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means including electronic, electrostatic, magnetic tape, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission in writing of the publisher. ISBN: University of Hawai‘i Press ISBN: The Chinese University Press

978-0-8248-7825-2 978-988-237-099-9

Published for North America by: University of Hawai‘i Press 2840 Kolowalu Street Honolulu, HI 96822 USA www.uhpress.hawaii.edu Published for the rest of the world by: The Chinese University Press The Chinese University of Hong Kong Sha Tin, N.T., Hong Kong www.chineseupress.com Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Dominic, Steavu, author. Title: The Writ of the three sovereigns : from local lore to institutional Daoism / Dominic Steavu. Other titles: New Daoist studies. Description: [Hong Kong] : The Centre for Studies of Daoist Culture, The Chinese University of Hong Kong : The Chinese University Press ; Honolulu : University of Hawai‘i Press, [2019] | Series: New Daoist studies Identifiers: LCCN 2019008141 | ISBN 9780824878252 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: San huang wen. | Taoism—China—History—To 1500. | Talismans—China—History—To 1500. | Incantations—China—History—To 1500. Classification: LCC BL1900.S265 D66 2019 | DDC 299.5/1482—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019008141 New Daoist Studies aims to publish exciting new scholarship on the Chinese religion of Daoism. The series was initiated by Professor Lai Chi Tim, Director of the Centre for Studies of Daoist Culture (CSDC), The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK); and Professor Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Regents’ Professor of Chinese, Arizona State University. It is supported by CSDC, which is itself a joint undertaking of CUHK and the Daoist temple Fung Ying Seen Koon. Since 2006 CSDC has developed into the world’s most dynamic institution for learning about Daoism and for Daoist studies research and publishing. New Daoist Studies titles share the imprint of two presses: The Chinese University Press and University of Hawai‘i Press. In the great spirit of Daoism, the series editors present this cooperative venture as a model for future collaborations. 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Printed in Hong Kong

Contents

Series Editors’ Preface Acknowledgments Conventions Introduction Chapter One

vii ix xiii 1 17

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China Chapter Two

49

The Religious Life of Objects: The Talismans of the Writ and Their Surviving Fragments Chapter Three

83

Beyond Talismans: Alchemy, Charts, and Meditation in Relation to the Writ Chapter Four

121

From Local Lore to Universal Dao: The Cavern of Divinity and the Early Daoist Canon Chapter Five

155

The Writ and Its Corpus: The Rise and Fall of the Cavern of Divinity in Institutional Daoism Conclusion

193

vi ︱ Contents

Appendix 1 List of Variant Titles for the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) in Early Medieval Sources

215

Appendix 2 Synopsis of the Principal Six Dynasties Sources Containing Fragments of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) and Its Oral Instructions

219

Appendix 3 Comparative List of Talismans from the “Essential Instructions from the Western Citadel on the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns” (Xicheng yaojue sanhuang tianwen dazi) and the “Essential functions of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang yaoyong pin)

225

Appendix 4 Comparative Inventory of Transmission Gages Associated with the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen)

231

Notes Works Cited Index

237 317 355

Series Editors’ Preface

Daoist studies is a relatively young field of study. The earliest modern publications date only to the 1930s, following the publication of the Daoist canon in Shanghai. Outside of China, studies of Daoism as a religion began in the 1940s in France and Japan and only reached the United States in the closing years of the 1970s. The subject of this book, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns, is an early Daoist work that came to form the central text of and give its name to one of the three dong 洞 , or “comprehensive collections,” into which the first Daoist canon was divided in the fifth century. Despite the proscription of the text that Dominic Steavu discusses in the opening pages of his engaging study, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns survived down to the Ming version of 1445 and still defines the first of the three dong. It is thus an important work for the history of Daoism, but its study has been greatly overlooked. To draw a parallel from research into Christian texts, it is as if one of the three gospels had yet to attract scholarly attention. Steavu’s book is the first monograph devoted to the Writ of the Three Sovereigns’ contents and history. Perhaps because the Writ of the Three Sovereigns was so poorly known, the origins and contents of this section of the canon have been the subject of controversy and speculation since the 1940s. The writing of this book, on this topic, is thus an act of scholarly courage. It is also an undertaking that requires extraordinary erudition. While Daoism is one of the most recent fields subjected to scholarly purview, the resulting “land rush” has been

viii ︱ Series Editors’ Preface

gaining in momentum. Steavu here sets out to fill one of the most glaring lacunae in the burgeoning field of Daoist studies, but there are a number of works in Chinese, Japanese, and French that precede him. He deals with these — none of which has succeeded in bringing order to the scattered fragments of this important textual tradition — fully and judiciously. Among the new findings Steavu presents here, the following are perhaps the most innovative and thought-provoking: 1) He argues that the Writ of the Three Sovereigns testifies to elements of southern practice that were fundamental to the foundation of the three divisions of Daoism. The Writ provided a distinct set of basic practices and understandings to the compilers of the other two divisions of the canon, the Shangqing and Lingbao. These include the use of political metaphor to structure ritual, the deployment of talismans and charts, and meditative practice based on visualization; 2) He puts forth a vision of talismans, charts, and elixirs — the products of alchemical practice heretofore understood as drugs and representatives of a process to be observed — as part of the same constellation of powerful objects. These objects point beyond themselves to the potent cosmological forces and powers that they represent; 3) He demonstrates some of the ways by which a localized tradition, through its manipulation of culturally important spiritual and political symbols, can provide the structural foundation for practices that were developed to replace it. This localized tradition, then, became the primary bearer of the political uses of Daoism. Here Steavu explores to good effect an aspect of Daoism that intensely interested Seidel, who noted of Daoists that “their very creed was based on a revelation homologous with the manifestation of the Mandate of Heaven [and] their priests were empowered by objects homologous with the auspicious portents legitimizing Chinese sovereignty.” This aspect of the Writ, Steavu concludes, was so central to its message that it led to its partial proscription in 648. In these and other ways, this book marks a major step forward in the field of Daoist studies. Steavu has brought order to a fragmentary and scattered body of material that was poorly understood before now. We owe him a debt of gratitude for his work.

Acknowledgments

The focus of this book is an early medieval esoteric document known as the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen 三 皇 文 ). At its core, the scripture was a collection of illegible talismans made up of celestial script, an undecipherable yet immeasurably powerful object. Because of its vast potential for signification and the divine authority it afforded, the Writ became a symbol of local southern lore and, in time, a keystone of institutional Daoism. Despite its iconic status in the history of the religion, it has attracted scant scholarly attention, especially in Western languages. That the text survives only in fragments scattered throughout the Daoist Canon surely did not help in garnering enthusiasm from academics, as any study on the Writ would require inevitable conjectures and speculation. Be that as it may, the scope of this book is to fill a gap in the history of Chinese religions and provide a clearer picture of the Writ, the background from which it emerged, and the place it occupied in the rise of institutional Daoism. In earnest, this project began in Tokyo in the fall of 2006 when, during a conversation over an informal dinner near Meiji Jingu shrine, Fabrizio Pregadio expressed wonderment that the Writ of the Three Sovereigns — an influential source in the history of Daoism — had not yet been the subject of a monograph-length study. I became intrigued by the text but remained apprehensive about working on it since it was so poorly understood. I imagine much of the Writ’s cachet in early medieval China derived from the unknowing in which it was shrouded and from the inevitable obsession

x ︱ Acknowledgments

with deciphering that such materials generate. In the following weeks, that obsession began to take root, dispelling my apprehensions. Over the ensuing months and eventually years, the uniquely absorbing puzzles offered by the Writ regularly occupied my thoughts. The end result of grappling with those puzzles for over a decade is the present monograph. Through the lengthy process of researching and writing this book, I have become keenly aware that reconstructing the history of the Writ’s transition from local lore to institutional religion roughly fifteen centuries after it happened is a task that cannot be accomplished with complete accuracy. Misreadings and errors are undoubtedly present in my account, but if these pages faithfully reflect even a fraction of what actually transpired, this book will have fulfilled its purpose. Perhaps it can even inspire other, more accomplished scholars to tackle the subject and improve on my interpretation. I wish to thank Fabrizio Pregadio for the invaluable direction and advice he offered, for his selfless patience, and for his friendship throughout the years. His scholarship, characterized by an indefatigable commitment to thoroughness, has served as an example, one that I have aspired to emulate, albeit clumsily. I am also grateful to Stephen Bokenkamp for his trust, encouragement, and unfaltering positivity at critical times. His writing acumen, and the seeming effortlessness with which he decrypts materials and reaches insights, are a constant source of inspiration. Bernard Faure and James Benn have been exceptionally supportive. I am fortunate to have them in my corner and I deeply appreciate their kindness. Joachim Kurtz, Fabio Rambelli, and Carl Bielefeldt have generously opened doors at pivotal times in my life. They have offered thoughtful guidance and cheerful companionship. Hubert Durt, Iyanaga Nobumi, Yamada Toshiaki, and Yokote Yutaka thoughtfully shared their knowledge, resources, and time with me during my three-year stint in Tokyo and subsequent visits to Japan. For this I am in their debt. I would also like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Ogi Shojun, as well as Takeda Kazuo and Takeda Kazuko.

Acknowledgments ︱ xi

I warmly thank my Stanford cohort — George Klonos, Ben Brose, Megan Bryson, Yang Zhaohua, and Koo Se-Woong — for their camaraderie at the embryonic stages of this project and for providing me with the impetus to push forward. I extend my thanks and fond sentiments to Joachim Kurtz, Martin Hofmann, Anna Andreeva, and David Meervart, with whom I shared three memorable years in Heidelberg at the Karl Jaspers Centre Cluster of Excellence Asia and Europe and the Essighaus. My time in Germany was a lesson in collaborative work and communal intellectual endeavors. Since arriving at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2012, my colleagues in the Religious Studies Department and the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultural Studies have been extraordinarily encouraging, often going out of their way to lend a hand. In this respect, Fabio Rambelli, Sabine Frühstück, Joe Blankholm, David Walker, Ann-Elise Lewallen, Greg Hillis, Vesna Wallace, and José Cabezón deserve special mention. My comrades at UCSB make up the participative intellectual community that I have always sought in a workplace. As visiting postdocs between 2016 and 2018, Carina Roth and Andrea Castiglioni were a cherished addition to that community. I treasure the stimulating discussions and complicity we shared. I am also thankful to friends and colleagues outside of UCSB, in particular Grégoire Espesset, for his unwaveringly frank views and illuminating perspicacity; Christine Mollier, for being a supportive ally; Pierce Salguero, for his federative voice and good vibes; Ari Levine, for his general awesomeness; Matthias Hayek, for being an always willing and congenial interlocutor; Benjamin Penny, for his Zhuangzian sageliness; and Robert F. Diggs, whose creative vision cemented my interest in Daoism and Buddhism early on. I also express my gratitude to Kristofer Schipper, Timothy Barrett, Franciscus Verellen, Marc Kalinowski, John Lagerwey, Terry Kleeman, Robert Campany, and Michael Lackner, scholars whose work has been an inexhaustible font of inspiration during this project. In this respect, I also wish to thank Catherine Despeux, Gil Raz, Yokote Yutaka, Hsieh Shu-wei, and Yamada Takashi. Despite their premature departure, Michel Strickmann, Isabelle Robinet, and Anna Seidel have left an indelible impression on me through their scholarship, for which I am profoundly grateful.

xii ︱ Acknowledgments

A number of colleagues and friends have commented on drafts or parts of the manuscript. I am thankful to Fabrizio Pregadio, Stephen Bokenkamp, Fabio Rambelli, Ari Levine, and John Lagerwey for their indispensable and unflinchingly honest responses. Grégoire Espesset deserves special mention for having drafted what amounted to almost a hundred pages of reactions, critiques, and reflections. The conversations we shared over e-mail or in person concerning the Writ, Daoism, and sinology have been formative in the genesis of this book. I must also convey my gratitude to the two anonymous readers. Their feedback was instrumental in giving the book its final shape. I am indebted to Stephen Bokenkamp and Lai Chi Tim for seeing this project to fruition. Stephanie Chun and Grace Wen at the University of Hawai‘i Press, and Ye Minlei at Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, ensured with professionalism and expertise that the publication process was a smooth one. Michael Needham from Humanities First and Drew Bryan merit praise for focusing my writing and doing an overall outstanding job with copyediting. I am solely responsible for all remaining infelicities, inaccuracies, and mistakes. In researching and writing this project, I have benefited from the generosity of the Japan Foundation, the Bukkyō Dendō Kyokai, the Freeman Spogli Institute, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation), the Hellman Foundation, and the University of California Regents. This book would not have been possible without their support. I thank my parents, Florin and Ana Maria, and my brother, Matthias, for expertly dealing with the strains of having a family member in academia. I am especially grateful to my grandparents, Tiberiu and Viorica, who introduced me to East Asian history and culture at a young age by taking me to museums and sharing with me their love of reading outside the bounds of familiarity. This book is dedicated to their memory. Most of all, I wish to thank my loving wife and precious children. They are the sole reason for everything.

Conventions

Chinese and Japanese personal names are given in the traditional order, surname first and personal name second. Chinese names and terms are transliterated in pinyin romanization, followed by Chinese traditional logographs (fantizi 繁 體字 ). Japanese names and terms are transliterated in Hepburn romanization followed by logographs (kanji 漢 字) and/or kana 仮 名 syllabograms, as appropriate. Canonical Daoist primary sources are cited from the Zhengtong daozang 正 統 道 藏 (Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era) recension of the Daoist Canon (Daozang 道 藏 ), dated to 1444–1445, under the Zhengtong 正 統 reign era (1435–1449), in 1120 fascicles. Shanghai: Hanfen lou 函 芬 樓 reprint, 1924–1926. The abbreviation DZ (Daozang) precedes the number assigned to sources in accordance with Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, eds., The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). The terms Shangqing 上清 , Lingbao 靈寶 , Sanhuang 三皇 , Taiqing 太清 , and Tianshidao 天 師 道 are left untranslated when they clearly denote liturgical categories and do not refer to communities of practice. Referents to scriptural/liturgical categories that appear in source titles (dongshen 洞 神 , dongxuan 洞 玄 , dongzhen 洞 真 , shangqing 上 清 , lingbao 靈 寶 , taishang 太 上 , taiqing 太 清 , zhengyi 正 一 , etc.) are omitted from the English translation unless they are necessary to the coherence of the title.

xiv ︱ Conventions

Manuscript primary sources are cited from Dunhuang 敦 煌 manuscripts. Manuscript numbers are preceded by abbreviations designating their location: P. Pelliot Collection, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. S. Stein Collection of Dunhuang manuscripts (British Library, London). BD Dunhuang manuscript collection, National Library of China, Beijing. Manuscript titles are provided in the case that they have been identified. An asterisk (*) signals manuscript titles assigned by modern scholars or editors. Canonical Buddhist primary sources are cited from the Taishō shinshū daizōkyō 大 正 新 脩 大 藏 經 (Revised Tripiṭaka of the Taishō Era) recension of the Buddhist Canon, in 100 vols. Edited by Takakusu Junjirō 高 楠 順 次 郎 , Watanabe Kaigyoku 渡 辺 海 旭 , et al., Tokyo: Taishō issaikyō kankōkai, 1924–1932. The abbreviation T. (Taishō) precedes the number assigned to sources in accordance with their sequence in the Taishō shinshū daizōkyō.

Introduction

In the closing months of 648, after scouring the four corners of the Tang Empire for almost six months, a group of imperial envoys located and confiscated copies of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen 三 皇 文 ). The envoys returned to the capital, Chang’an 長 安 , and piled their collective plunder in front of the hall of the Imperial Secretariat of the Board of Rites, where it was unceremoniously set ablaze. The destruction of the text followed an edict that the board’s vice director and de facto chancellor Cui Renshi 崔仁師 (ca. 580–ca. 660) had issued in the fifth lunar month earlier that year. The edict read, “The script and characters of the [Writ] of the Three Sovereigns cannot be transmitted; its words are reckless perversions, hence it is fitting that it be destroyed. It will be replaced by the Scripture of the Way and Virtue (Daode jing 道德經 ). All those among the populace or the Daoist abbeys who possess this text must imperatively forward it to the authorities for immediate destruction.”1

The Writ of the Three Sovereigns Banned If we rely on this account from the Forest of Pearls in the Garden of the Dharma (Fayuan zhulin 法 苑 珠 林 ), these events were set in motion by the boastful Madam Wang 王 氏 , the wife of Liu Shaolüe 劉 紹 略 , a jailer from Jizhou 吉 州 (present-day Jiangxi). After Madam Wang acquired a copy of the Writ, she relentlessly extolled its powers and claimed, “Invariably,

2 ︱ Introduction

when nobles have this scripture, they become monarchs of kingdoms; those among the great statesmen who possess this text will be as parents for the people; those among commoners who possess this text will amass many riches for themselves; and ladies who possess this text will inevitably become empresses.”2 In early 648, Ji Bian 吉 辯 , a legal adjutant, inspected the prison and found the Writ in Madam Wang’s dresser.3 Intrigued, he summoned Liu Shaolüe and his wife to inquire about the text, and they replied that they had obtained it from a Daoist cleric. Having heard about the text’s reputation, and presumably about Madam Wang’s claims, Ji Bian took the document to the regional offices to determine if it was a forgery or a divine revelation. Unable to reach a conclusion, he sent the text to the capital for further review. Two prominent Daoist priests who were sympathetic to the court were interviewed during the investigation, and the state commission in charge of the inquiry concluded that the Writ was an illicit forgery. Once the edict was issued, all known copies of the text were destroyed and it was removed from the Daoist Canon (Daozang 道藏 ). The swift response on the part of Tang authorities suggests that by the early seventh century, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns, or the Scripture of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang jing 三 皇 經 ) as its expanded version was known, had a recognized political resonance. From around the late sixth century, the Writ and the corpus that accrued around it were basic ordination documents for Daoist initiates. According to the Forest of Pearls, the Tang authorities awarded prized parcels of land to Daoists on the basis of the Writ. The edict that ordered the destruction of the text was substantiated with a report from the Office of Land Bestowal. According to the report: As in Buddhism, [by which] according to monastic regulations monks and nuns receive the precepts and obtain an arable lot of thirty mu,4 nowadays all male and female Daoists, in accordance with the Scripture of the Three Sovereigns, receive the [registers of the Heavens] of the Highest and Lower Clarities. [This scripture] takes the place of the precepts of Buddhist monk and nuns, who equally [receive] an arable lot of thirty mu. Since this scripture is a forgery it [must] be abolished. [Because] male and female Daoists will be without a statute of precepts, they should not receive land.

Introduction ︱ 3

It is requested that [this practice of receiving land] be abolished together with the scripture.5 如佛教。 依內律僧尼受戒。 得蔭田人各三十畝。 今道士女道士。 皆依 三皇經。 受其上清下清。 替僧尼戒處。 亦合蔭田三十畝。 此經既偽廢 除。 道士女道士既無戒法。 即不合受田。 請同經廢。

The Daoist clergy would have been understandably anxious about this development. They had benefited from tax exemptions and acquired considerable holdings over the years, primarily under the rule of a sympathetic emperor, Tang Taizong 唐 太 宗 (r. 626–649), but they were now at risk of losing everything.6 The Forest of Pearls recounts that in a bid to avoid the confiscation of their land, “all Daoists of the capital” petitioned the Office of Land Bestowal to replace the Writ with the Scripture of the Way and Virtue as the basic ordination text for Daoist clerics.7 The Forest of Pearls does not mention specific individuals, but it would not be surprising to find Cheng Xuanying 成 玄 英 and Zhang Huiyuan 張 惠 元 , the only two Daoists who had been consulted during the authorities’ investigation into the Writ, among the names of those who drafted the petition. Both were involved in independent efforts to raise the standing of the Scripture of the Way and Virtue within Daoism and project a more noble image of sophistication.8 This project also played on the sympathies of Emperor Taizong, who, although he had grown fonder of Buddhism late in his reign, was still very partial toward the Scripture of the Way and Virtue, a text that had been purportedly uttered by his putative ancestor, Laozi 老子 .9 About a decade earlier, in 637, after Taizong issued an edict that formally gave precedence to Daoists over Buddhists in all court ceremonies, a group of eleven Buddhist monks submitted a memorial to the throne in which they discredited Daoists by accusing them of growing unfamiliar with Laozi’s teachings and deviating from the tenets of Scripture of the Way and Virtue. The memorial painted Daoists as dissolute rabble-rousers and spiritual heirs to the Yellow Turbans (Huang Jin 黃 巾 ), a popular insurrectional movement that contributed to the fall of the Later Han (25–220).10 Perhaps

4 ︱ Introduction

in response, Taizong actively promoted the Scripture of the Way and Virtue. In 648, he even asked the renowned Buddhist prelate Xuanzang 玄 奘 (602– 664) to translate the scripture into Sanskrit so that it could be circulated in India.11 One of the two Daoist scholars assigned to assist Xuanzang with the translation was Cheng Xuanying, who was renowned as the “hope of the Li [Laozi] school” (Li zong zhi wang 李宗之望 ).12 Cheng Xuanying, a representative of the Chongxuan 重 玄 or “Double Mystery” school of philosophical argumentation, and Zhang Huiyuan, a skilled court debater, found this to be the perfect opportunity to elevate the status of the Daoist tradition. For them, replacing the Writ in the Daoist Canon with the lofty Scripture of the Way and Virtue was integral to refashioning the perception of Daoism from potentially seditious rustic charlatanry to an elegant discursive tradition. The proposed and eventually successful canonical swap affirmed Taizong’s textual preferences, but it also coincided with the emperor’s desire to standardize precepts and codes of discipline for all clergy, Buddhist and Daoist alike, in order to ensure their docility and avoid their unsolicited meddling in government affairs. Taizong notoriously championed the Scripture of the Teaching Left Behind by the Buddha (Fo yijiao jing 佛遺教經 ) because its rules of conduct forbade monks from participating in secular and state affairs. In addition to not participating in commercial or agricultural activities, monks and nuns were prohibited from owning property. The text also precludes them from crafting elixirs or “medicines of immortality” (xianyao 仙 藥 ), casting spells, or participating in various forms of reckoning or divination.13 The latter offense was also proscribed by Tang civil law codes and was punishable by two years in prison.14 Taizong famously promulgated a new legal code that contained a section regulating the clergy. The section, titled “Rules for Daoists and Buddhists” (Daoseng ge 道 僧 格 ), imposed restrictions on behavior that the imperial court regarded as detrimental to social harmony and the regime’s endurance. In traditional Vinayic literature, divination and prophesying were considered minor offenses. In these new “Rules,” however, they were among the most serious infractions and were punishable by defrocking and immediate prosecution in criminal courts. The Tang government’s purging

Introduction ︱ 5

of the Writ and its corpus from the Daoist Canon reveals that it deemed them antithetical to social order, civic mores, and political stability. Those who had the text in their possession, including Madam Wang, considered it potent enough to grant them direct access to the highest strata of power. For court Daoists such as Cheng Xuanying and Zhang Huiyuan, the Writ was representative of a popular tradition that was perhaps too invested in worldly affairs and unconcerned with introspective musings. That the text avoided metaphysical speculations and dealt instead with the “vulgar” pursuit of divination — summoning deities to obtain their favors and inquire about future events — did not help. The use of divination for political purposes was naturally of concern to authorities, but prognostication also worried the higher echelons of institutional Daoism, whose representatives were active at court and always conscientious of accentuating the profundity of their tradition to the emperor and his policy makers. The misgivings that early Tang court Daoists voiced about the Writ were compounded by Buddhist accusations of forgery. This made it an easy target in polemical debates about the authenticity and credibility of Daoist scriptures. Accordingly, it is chiefly Buddhist sources that narrate the Writ’s ban. The account from the Forest of Pearls frames the matter of the proscription around its subversive potential, but it also makes clear that the Writ’s dubious origins were a significant problem. It accuses Bao Jing 鮑 靚 (or 鮑 靖 ; 230 or 260–330), “a gentleman of the Way of olden times” (jiu daoshi 舊 道 士 ), of having fabricated it. The Writ is mentioned again in a section on the endemic issue of Daoist forgeries, which, according to Buddhists, largely consist of plagiarized Buddhist scriptures that were later repackaged under a thin Daoist veil.15 Even before the Forest of Pearls, Buddhist polemicists had habitually condemned the Writ as illegitimate. In his Treatise on the Two Teachings (Erjiao lun 二 教 論 ), Dao’an 道 安 (fl. sixth century) plainly states that Bao Jing fabricated the text he asserted to have received on Mount Song (Songshan 嵩 山 ; in present-day Henan): “In the Yuan Kang reign of the [Western] Jin [between 291 and 299], Bao Jing forged the Scripture of the Three Sovereigns and consequently incurred capital punishment. The matter appears in the

6 ︱ Introduction

History of the Jin [Dynasty].”16 Despite Dao’an’s contention, the episode was not documented in the official history nor in biographies of Bao Jing.17 In his Essays to Ridicule the Dao (Xiaodao lun 笑道論 ), however, Zhen Luan 甄鸞 (fl. 535–581), another Buddhist polemicist, echoed his counterpart’s version of the events; he reports that “Bao Jing forged the Scripture of the Three Sovereigns; the matter was exposed and he was put to death.”18 Regardless of the veracity of such claims, Buddhist indictments of the Writ succeeded in generating a controversy that would tarnish the text’s reputation into the Tang.19 With seemingly little or no substantiation, polemicists could raise the argument of forgery or plagiarism in an attempt to sway imperial opinion. The Writ, a work that had hitherto constituted one of the pillars of institutional Daoism, during a time that Daoists enjoyed favor at the court, was a choice target in Buddhist diatribes.20 In light of its contested origins and its mundane (and often prognosticatory) applications, it is understandable that the Writ elicited anxiety on the part of imperial authorities, ire on the part of the Daoist intelligentsia, and ridicule on the part of Buddhists. The text was regarded as spurious, potentially seditious, and associated with — at least in spirit — earlier grassroots movements that had challenged imperial authority, and the fact that it circulated so widely as a basic ordination document did not ease these apprehensions. Expunging the Writ from the Daoist Canon made perfect sense to a central government that was preoccupied with promoting the docility of its citizenry and patronizing dependent institutional religions. The Scripture of the Way and Virtue was a natural replacement for the Writ. Although still political in scope, it was not reputed to instantly propel its readers to positions of high responsibility or social prestige and was generally more compatible with the pursuits of elite culture (notably skirting the hot-button topics of divination or spirits). Moreover, the Scripture of the Way and Virtue seamlessly fit into Taizong’s program of establishing rhetorical sovereignty through cultural products.21

Introduction ︱ 7

The Writ of the Three Sovereigns Revealed Buddhist polemics and official bans reinforced the notion that the Writ was an important and controversial text in the Tang dynasty. Two centuries prior, in early medieval China, it was central to the development of institutional Daoism, a formalized, politicized, and highly organized reformulation of local Daoist traditions that was purposely articulated to align with imperial designs of unification and to serve as a universal religion. Part of the gambit of institutional Daoism relied on the identification and hierarchical classification of its sources. The Daoist scholar and systematizer Lu Xiujing 陸 修 靜 (406–477) presented the earliest prototype of the Daoist Canon, the Catalogue of Scriptures and Writings of the Three Caverns (Sandong jingshu mulu 三 洞 經 書 目 錄 ), to the Liu Song (420–479) court in 471. It ranked texts on the basis of a tripartite scheme, the Three Caverns (sandong 三 洞 ). The Shangqing 上 清 (Highest Clarity) revelations occupied the highest tier, known as the Cavern of Perfection (dongzhen 洞 真 ). Lingbao 靈 寶 (Numinous Treasure) sources followed in the Cavern of Mystery (dongxuan 洞 玄 ). Finally, the Cavern of Divinity (dongshen 洞 神 ), the last of the three divisions, housed the earliest stratum of materials, which predated both the Shangqing and Lingbao revelations of the middle fourth and early fifth centuries, respectively.22 Texts from the Cavern of Divinity represented local “minor methods” (xiaofa 小 法 ) from the Jiangnan 江 南 area (present-day southern Jiangsu, southern Anhui, northern Jiangxi, and northern Zhejiang). These included the crafting of alchemical elixirs as well as elaborate visualization methods, but the most emblematic aspect of southern ritual lore was the summoning of deities for the purpose of divination or to enlist their protection. A preface to the Catalogue of Scriptures specifies that Cavern of Divinity materials are for “calling upon the gods of Heaven and Earth and making them obey one’s orders. Their efficacy is fathomless; hence they were given the name shen 神 [divine].”23 The centerpiece of the Cavern of Divinity was an array of talismans (fu 符 ) — more accurately described as symbols — that were composed in celestial writing, the language of the gods. This set of talismans, known

8 ︱ Introduction

collectively as the Writ of the Three Sovereigns, had been “the pride of Ge Hong’s 葛 洪 (283–343) library” during the preceding century.24 According to Ge’s description in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: The Inner Chapters (Baopuzi neipian 抱 朴 子 內 篇 ), “Among the most important writings on the Way, none surpass the Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns.”25 The Writ was divided into three scrolls (juan 卷 ),26 one for each of the Sovereigns of Heaven (Tianhuang 天皇 ), Earth (Dihuang 地皇 ), and Humankind (Renhuang 人皇 ), with each subset of talismans seemingly intended for distinct uses: The scripture [itself ] states that when a household has the Writ of the Three Sovereigns, it will dispel malignancies and evil demons, pestilent qi, wicked calamities and unexpected disasters. When someone is suffering from illness and on the cusp of death, if they believe in the Way with all their hearts, give them this writing to clutch and surely they will not die. [. . .] If you wish to build [anything] from a new dwelling to a tomb, make several tens of copies of the “Writ of the Sovereign of Earth” and strew them around the ground. Inspect the site the next day. Construction may immediately begin at the sites that bear a yellow mark, and the household will infallibly be wealthy and prosperous. Additionally, in the case that someone is being interred, copy the “Writ of Sovereign of Humankind” and inscribe your own full name on the inside of a page, and then stealthily put it inside the person’s tomb without letting anyone know. This will cause you to be free from unexpected tribulations and thieves and bandits. If someone conspires against you, they will surely have their harm returned against them. Moreover, if you first perform purifications for one hundred days, then you can summon the celestial spirits and the Director of Destinies as well as the god of the Great Year, the Daily Traveler, the deities of the Five Peaks and the Four Waterways, and gods of local shrines. All will manifest their form as humans, and you can inquire about auspicious and inauspicious matters, safety and danger, as well as the evil influences that cause the misfortunes of the sick.27 其經曰，家有三皇文，辟邪惡鬼，溫疫氣，橫殃飛禍。若有困病垂死， 其信道心至者，以此書與持之，必不死也。[. . .] 若欲立新宅及冢墓， 即寫地皇文數十通，以布著地，明日視之，有黃色所著者，便於其上 起工，家必富昌。又因他人葬時，寫人皇文，並書己姓名著紙裏，竊

Introduction ︱ 9

內人冢中，勿令人知之，令人無飛禍盜賊也。有謀議己者，必反自中 傷。又此文先潔齋百日，乃可以召天神司命，及太歲日游五嶽四瀆 社廟之神，皆見形如人，可問以吉凶安危，及病者之禍祟所由也。

Thus, the Writ was a type of ritual panacea to counter the misfortunes of everyday life in early medieval China. In the broadest terms, the “Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven,” its first scroll, summoned the highest-ranking deities and the gods of celestial bodies; the second scroll, the “Writ of the Sovereign of Earth,” summoned the gods of mountains and waterways, telluric deities, as well as local gods; and lastly, the third scroll, the “Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind,” summoned gods related to life, death, and fate.28 Since the Writ effectively addressed mundane issues, its seventh-century detractors were not entirely unjustified in arguing that the scripture reflected the worldly concerns of the masses. Yet in actuality, and despite the distinctions they may have been intent on upholding, social elites in early and medieval China engaged in the same apotropaic and divinatory pursuits as commoners.29 For all its appeal, during Ge Hong’s lifetime the Writ was esoteric and was difficult to obtain. It circulated exclusively through local Jiangnan lineage networks and was only revealed once per generation only to the most deserving of initiates, who were required to swear an oath by smearing their mouths with blood and surrendering an offering to establish a sacred covenant.30 The Master Who Embraces Simplicity recounts how Bo Zhongli 帛 仲 理 , more commonly known as Bo He 帛 和 , was the first human to receive the text. Since Bo He had a sincere heart and was spiritually fit to obtain the scripture, a local god revealed divine talismanic characters that were carved in rock inside a mountain cave (literally, a “stone chamber”; shishi 石 室 ).31 Bo He immediately established an altar and made an offering of silk, hurriedly drawing up a copy of the Writ before departing the cave.32

The Writ of the Three Sovereigns Unpacked In spite of the Writ’s importance on a number of fronts — from local Jiangnan cultural identity to the formation of institutional Daoism, and

10 ︱ Introduction

Tang debates on imperial politics and religion — modern scholarship has largely overlooked the topic of the Writ. This is no doubt because the original text was lost and only fragments or citations survive in canonical works and manuscripts. A small number of studies have wrestled with the source, its significance, and its associated practices. Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui’s Sanhuang kao (The history of the Three Sovereigns in ancient China), published in 1936, was among the first to do so. The study is framed as a historical analysis of the foundational Chinese rulers and ancestral culture heroes, and although these figures were only nominally related to the early medieval Writ, the authors devoted a number of sections to the question of the “Three Sovereigns in Daoism.”33 More than a decade later, Chen Guofu’s seminal Daozang yuanliu kao (Studies on the origins and development of the Daoist Canon) addressed the text and its tradition, establishing that there were two transmission lines for the Writ, one connected to Bo He and the other to Bao Jing. The study elaborated on the contribution of both textual lines in the formation of the Cavern of Divinity division of what would later become the Daoist Canon.34 More recently, leading scholars such as Liu Zhongyu, Wang Ka, and Ren Jiyu have published findings on the Writ in the form of articles or book chapters.35 A younger generation of researchers, including Hsieh Shu-wei, Wang Chengwen, and Lü Pengzhi, has also turned its attention to various aspects of the Writ, including its textual history or its contribution to the development of the early Daoist Canon.36 Japanese scholars have also produced studies on the text. From the outset, the foundational figures of Daoist studies in Japan realized the Writ’s historical significance. In their eyes the source’s primary value lay in its role in canon formation and the establishment of the all-important Three Caverns. Yoshioka Yoshitoyo touched upon the text and Fukui Kōjun devoted a chapter of his Dōkyō no kisoteki kenkyū (Fundamental studies on Daoism) to the question of how the Writ contributed to the elaboration of a three-tiered Daoist Canon.37 Others, such as Kobayashi Masayoshi and especially Ōfuchi Ninji, integrated their research on the Writ in benchmark Daoist studies publications with expansive scopes.38 Yamada Takashi and Suzuki Yūmi are among the most recent Japanese scholars to contribute new perspectives on the source.39

Introduction ︱ 11

In Western-language scholarship, the Writ has not yet been the focus of a book-length study. It is typically only discussed over a few pages in works on broader topics. The best examples can be found in Isabelle Robinet’s examination of the sources of the Shangqing corpus and John Lagerwey’s detailed overview of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials (Wushang biyao 無 上 祕 要 ).40 In contrast to Japanese works, these treatments focus less on canon formation and textual history than they do on practices and rituals. One of the only Western-language articles on the Writ, Poul Andersen’s analysis of what he terms “visionary divination” — the summoning of deities by means of talismans in order to inquire about future events — is a case in point.41 This book builds on previous key studies, but it both expands and deepens the scope of inquiry. In addition to retracing the Writ’s textual history, it reconstructs its nexus of practices and rituals. It also examines the constellation of sources that defined the contours of its textual tradition, and it addresses the circumstances that led to the Writ’s presence at the forefront of Daoism during the Six Dynasties (420–589) and beyond. It is also the first Western-language monograph to identify and analyze surviving fragments of the text and the first full-length study in any language to consider the Writ through ancillary practices such as alchemy and meditation. From an epitome of southern Chinese local lore at the dawn of the fourth century, the Writ became a pillar of institutional Daoism less than two centuries later, providing a translocal ideological and theological ground upon which the notion of a unified Chinese empire could take root and spread. One of the reasons for the Writ’s impact may have been its egalitarian discourse, as epitomized by Madam Wang’s declaration that anyone with access to the text could ascend to higher stations in life. This is not to say that the text’s champions defended revolutionary or leveling ideals. The Writ, much like the overwhelming majority of scriptures throughout the history of Daoism, was firmly entrenched in a logic of buttressing imperial authority.42 It fulfilled this goal of legitimation so well that it was eventually recognized as a source of sovereignty rather than a mere gage or proof thereof. Thus, while the Writ promoted a theocratic universal model of sovereignty that served the interests of ruling monarchs, it also purveyed the idea to dispossessed local

12 ︱ Introduction

elites — or, theoretically, anyone else — that they too could become sovereigns. The text’s key component in this regard was its talismans (fu). These material tokens of legitimacy and trust originally derived from early Chinese bureaucratic and juridical logics, the same that structured the supernatural world. Talismans afforded individuals the same control over the gods and spirits that the ruler had over his officials. The symbolic capital of talismans extended to mundane statecraft just as it did to otherworldly pursuits. Moreover, by virtue of being tangible objects, talismans immediately projected the authority they embodied in a way that was readily apparent to those who came across them, whether sovereign or subject, adept or noninitiate. Chapter 1, “The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China,” provides a sociohistorical assessment of the Writ in fourth-century southern China, based in large part on Ge Hong’s ethnography, The Master Who Embraces Simplicity. Ge Hong’s account extols the Writ as the quintessential text of early medieval Jiangnan esoterica. He describes its talismans as potent objects that integrate apotropaic and prognosticatory capacities by either dispelling noxious elements or summoning positive ones at their holder’s behest. Ge Hong identifies two lines in the Writ’s transmission, one originating with Bo He and the other with Bao Jing. Both Bo He and Bao Jing brought prestige to the Writ, but Bo He was at first a more polarizing figure due to the historical circumstances of the period. The fall of the Jin 晉 (265–420) capital Luoyang 洛陽 in 311, the collapse of Chang’an in 316, and the arrival of throngs of northern aristocratic emigrés into Jiangnan displaced the local aristocracy. Bo He was considered to be emblematic of the old local cultic system and its “excessive cults” (yinsi 淫 祀 ), which newer northern arrivals and their allies aimed to supplant. Bao Jing personified a translocal and metropolitan re-articulation of southern lore that was more compatible with new directions in which Daoism was developing. This chapter also shows how the Writ’s political metaphors, its imperial imagery, and its reliance on readily identifiable material objects as tokens of legitimacy rendered it a crucial asset in the broader influence via an institutional state cult that certain segments of the Jiangnan aristocracy defended.

Introduction ︱ 13

Chapter 2, “The Religious Life of Objects: The Talismans of the Writ and Their Surviving Fragments,” zeroes in more narrowly on the scripture itself. It opens with a cultural history of the Writ’s emblematic talismans, focusing on their role as gages of trust. The illegibility of the divine script in which they were written reinforces the emphasis on their tangible, material nature, the only aspect of the talisman to display a semantic logic that can be “read.” Since mortals cannot decipher divine script, the objects’ unintelligibility also signals their celestial origins. The markings on the Writ’s talismans are closer to images than to writing; they are the cosmic true forms (zhenxing 真 形 ) of the supernatural beings they depict, a distillate of their identities that grants holders complete control over them. The chapter then turns to a textual history of the Writ. It discusses important fragments of both Bo He’s and Bao Jing’s versions of the text from two key sources: the sixth-century Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors (Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞 神 八 帝 妙 精 經 ) and the “Essential Functions of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang yaoyong pin 三 皇 要 用 品 ) chapter of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials. The third chapter, “Beyond Talismans: Alchemy, Charts, and Meditation in Relation to the Writ,” continues the focus on material culture with which the previous chapter opened. It centers on objects that are less commonly tied to the Writ but were just as central to its nexus of practices. It begins with an investigation of alchemical elixirs, highlighting their functional equivalence with talismans and uncovering substantial links between the transmission line of Taiqing 太 清 (Great Clarity) alchemical sources and that of the Writ. The chapter then turns to the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Wuyue zhenxing tu 五 嶽 真 形 圖 ), a set of documents that are often described as complementary to the Writ in transmission narratives. These documents provide a springboard into a broader discussion of charts (tu 圖 ) and their functional overlap with talismans and elixirs via the interface of true form (zhenxing), as well as their use in visualization practices. The chapter subsequently discusses the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” (Jiuhuang tu 九 皇 圖 ), a lesser-known esoteric partner document to the Writ that was integral to its meditation techniques. In addition to their function as

14 ︱ Introduction

prophetic illustrated rosters of past and future monarchs, the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” were also used in contemplation methods that identify the sovereigns as manifestation of the Triple Unity (Sanyi 三 一 ), hypostases of the Great Unity, Taiyi 太 一 . The chapter concludes with a reflection on the close kinship between the Writ and early visualization practices centered on the Great Unity. Shifting away from material culture and practices toward institutional history, chapter 4 looks at the Writ’s transition from a standard bearer of local Jiangnan esoterica to a stanchion of emerging unified Daoism. “From Local Lore to Universal Dao: The Cavern of Divinity and the Early Daoist Canon” chronologically picks up where chapter 1 left off and traces the permutations that the scripture underwent as it passed through the hands of systematizers such as Lu Xiujing and Tao Hongjing 陶 弘 景 (456–536). The chapter charts the Writ’s growth from a three-scroll (juan 卷 ) document into an eleven-scroll collection, the Cavern of Divinity corpus (dongshen jing 洞 神 經 ). In the process, it sheds light on its relation to Shangqing and Lingbao texts and its role in the elaboration of the Three Caverns (sandong 三 洞 ) model on the basis of which the nascent Daoist Canon was organized in late Six Dynasties China. Chapter 5, “The Writ and Its Corpus: The Rise and Fall of the Cavern of Divinity in Institutional Daoism,” continues to plot the Writ’s transition from a paragon of local lore to a mainstay of state Daoism, focusing on the themes of transmission as ordination and ordination as investiture. After its expansion to eleven scrolls around the sixth century, the Cavern of Divinity corpus quickly grew to its mature fourteen-scroll form. The first three scrolls were devoted to the Three Sovereigns, and the subsequent eight fell under the aegis of the Eight Emperors (badi 八 帝 ), manifestations of the Eight Archivists (bashi 八 史 ), gods of the Eight Trigrams (bagua 八 卦 ). The last three scrolls of the fourteen-scroll corpus were liturgical documents that dealt with the purification and transmission rites for the Cavern of Divinity. The chapter surveys the content of these scrolls and identifies surviving fragments in the Daoist Canon. Around the turn of the seventh century, the Cavern of Divinity was transmitted for basic initiation into institutional Daoism. Consequently, its liturgical content, including multiple sets of precepts and

Introduction ︱ 15

ritual interdictions, grew more prominent. As ordination gages for the lowest and most accessible grade of initiation among the Three Caverns, the texts of the Cavern of Divinity lost some of their esoteric cachet, but despite being more widely available than ever, the Writ and its related materials retained their politicized message of sovereignty with egalitarian inflections. The last part of the chapter examines the circumstances that led to the government’s decision to proscribe and burn the Writ in 648. The conclusion investigates how the Writ and the Cavern of Divinity recovered from the ban and even flourished in subsequent centuries. A handful of representative scriptures, most notably from the Song dynasty (960–1279) Daoist revival, are examined. The conclusion also considers a unique document that attests to the presence of the Writ or its lore outside of China. The Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (Sankō Gotei emaki 三 皇 五 帝 絵 巻 ), found in Japan and tentatively dated to the Muromachi period (1336–1573), is composed of thirteen figures, most of which correspond to the mythical Chinese rulers who received the Writ in the early stages of its transmission. Antecedents to the Writ are also surveyed, namely the threads that connect it to Weft Texts (weishu 緯 書 ), fangshi 方 士 (masters of methods) heritage, and the state cults of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE). Indeed, the Writ had a vibrant prehistory before it was mentioned in Ge Hong’s fourth-century The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, and it had a rich afterlife after the Tang proscription of 648. This book follows a chronological arc, tracing the destiny of the Writ from the beginning of the fourth century to the middle of the seventh. It assesses the scripture’s status as a paragon of local Jiangnan culture, and it establishes talismans, elixirs, and charts as defining elements of its tradition. It highlights how these elements were decisive in the Writ’s ascension and why they were crucial to the program of a unified Daoist creed. By considering the history of the scripture, the figures who were instrumental in its dissemination, and the meanings ascribed to it and especially its talismans, the present study collapses the conventional opposition between matter and meaning and shows that in this case, ritual objects or material things, not just notional ideas, were instrumental in shaping the intertwined destinies of the Writ and institutional Daoism.

Chapter One

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China

Only scant information survives about the content, purpose, and early textual history of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns. Although it circulated in the third century, perhaps even earlier, the earliest surviving description of the text is in Ge Hong’s fourth-century anthology of Jiangnan lore, The Master Who Embraces Simplicity. Relying on this and other sources, the first half of this chapter examines the Writ in the context of southern lore. It identifies Bo He and Bao Jing as key figures who were associated with its transmission, and it distinguishes between two versions of the source that developed in association with those figures. The second half of the chapter reconstructs the circumstances that led to one version being favored over the other. This signaled the beginning of the Writ’s transition from a local to an institutional text, a shift that occurred when the keepers of Jiangnan traditions became aware of the potential benefits of institutionalization and eventual imperial sponsorship. The text, along with the new Shangqing (Highest Clarity) and Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) revelations of the fourth and early fifth centuries, would play an increasingly important role in the elaboration of an organized and unified Daoist tradition from the fifth century onward.

The Writ as Local Southern Esoterica The “Gazing Afar” (Xia lan 遐 覽 ) chapter of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity describes the Writ as an extensive collection of talismans (fu)

18 ︱ Chapter One

that were used for two chief purposes. The first was apotropaic: talismans protected against bandits, demons, illness, death, and general misfortune. The second was prognosticatory: talismans enabled users to determine propitious sites for various undertakings, such as the construction of dwellings or establishing burial locations. The talismans of the Writ in particular were commonly used for summoning local spirits or deities associated with fate in order to directly inquire about auspiciousness, health, prosperity, and other concerns. While Ge Hong underscores various other facets, the Writ was most prized for giving its holders this ability to conjure gods. In his alchemical chapter on “The Golden Elixir” (Jindan 金丹 ), Ge Hong refers to the “Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereign’s methods for summoning heavenly spirits and earthly deities.”1 Elsewhere, recounting the text’s celestial transmission line, he stresses that the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi 黃 帝, “received the Esoteric Writ, which enabled him to summon the myriad spirits.”2 In another chapter, Ge Hong dismisses conventional divination methods as “toilsome and unreliable” (pilao er nanshi 疲勞而難恃 ), recommending instead: If one [wishes] to see the world without emerging from behind the screen [of the door to one’s home], then there is spirit-possession. Or, by means of the Celestial Writ of the Three Sovereigns, one [can] summon the Director of Destinies, the Director of Dangers, the Lords of the Five Peaks, the Headmen of the Roads, or the numina of the six ding. All make themselves visible to people and reply to inquiries on various matters. Then, auspiciousness will be as clear as if it were held in the palm of one’s hand; whether far or near, abstruse and profound, all can be known in advance.3 若乃不出帷幕而見天下，乃為入神矣。或以三皇天文，召司命司危 五嶽之君，阡陌亭長，六丁之靈，皆使人見之，而對問以諸事，則 吉凶昭然，若存諸掌，無遠近幽深，咸可先知也。

Ge Hong subsequently lists an assortment of alternative divination techniques. The two that immediately follow the passage resemble the Writ insofar as they summon groups of gods who are related to fate, although the ritual fundamentals remain different. The first is a sixty-day method

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 19

for summoning the Jade Maidens of the Six Yin (Liuyin Yunü 六 陰 玉 女 ). The second is a technique for offering sacrifices to the Eight Archivists (bashi) — the essences of the Eight Trigrams (bagua) — in order to make them descend.4 A few other conjuring methods are subsequently discussed in passing,5 but Ge Hong’s placement of the Writ at the top of his inventory suggests that it was the pre-eminent text for summoning deities. This is confirmed in another section of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, where the Writ appears as the preferred vade mecum for facing uncertainties when venturing into inhospitable territories:6 When superior adepts enter a mountain they carry the Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns and the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks. Wherever they may be, they summon the god of the mountain, and in accordance with the demon registers, they [also] summon the local god of the altar, the mountain ministers, and the commandant of the homesteads to question them. Therefore, the wraiths of trees and stones, and the emanations of mountains and rivers will not dare approach and test them.7 上士入山，持三皇內文及五嶽真形圖，所在召山神，及按鬼錄，召 州社及山卿宅尉問之，則木石之怪，山川之精，不敢來試人。

Here, too, the principal purpose of the Writ is to summon deities. In this instance, Ge Hong emphasizes that the deities convened are tied to the local topography, especially mountains. By conjugating the functions of summoning on one hand and apotropaia on the other, adepts could also question deities about matters of auspiciousness, particularly with regard to when and where to enter mountains or other unsettled areas in order to avoid danger. Typical perils against which the Writ could offer protection included attacks by voracious tigers, rabid wolves, venomous snakes, murderous waterdwelling creatures, and marauding bandits. Travelers were also keen to avoid the torments of local malicious spirits. The “wraiths of trees and stones” and the “emanations of mountains and rivers” are cited in this respect, along with the “hundred malevolences” (baixie 百邪 ) a few lines later.8 The Writ, however, does not merely combine the apotropaic with the divinatory. The deities who placate unruly spirits for adepts are the divine

20 ︱ Chapter One

embodiment of order and governance; their essential character is bureaucratic and their functions are related to statecraft. Many of them hold official titles: director (si 司 ), lord (jun 君 ), high minister (qing 卿 ), commandant (wei 9 尉 ), and headman (tingzhang 亭長 ), to name but a few. Such titles evoke the capacity to control the obstreperous denizens of the untamed wilds, a useful attribute in the early medieval South, where religious pursuits invariably entailed trekking through isolated peaks and forests in search of rare herbs, numinous zhi 芝 plants, hidden scriptures, or encounters with divine beings. Secluded and uninhabited areas were ideal for a variety of ritual practices, ranging from laboratory alchemy and contemplation exercises to purification rites and initiatory pilgrimages. Accordingly, the South was famed for its occult systems of defense against the dangers of the wild. Since the days of the Warring States (475–221 BCE) at least, it boasted an unrivaled tradition of “travel magic,” which features prominently in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity.10 The essential implement of travel magic was the talisman, an eminently bureaucratic object inspired by the administrative practices of the early Chinese state, particularly those of the unified empires of the Qin (221–206 BCE) and Han (206 BCE–220 CE). Much has been written on talismans in recent years, so only a few general observations will be made here as they pertain to the Writ.11 Talismans were originally employed as tokens or badges of authority, signaling a binding juridical obligation to obey their holder. In some cases, the two halves of a split talisman held by two separate officials were matched in order to verify the authenticity of an order.12 The invocative and apotropaic powers of talismans in early medieval southern traditions drew on this administrative background. The implements were composed of a support medium (wood, silk, paper) upon which a deity’s or spirit’s true name (zhenming 真 名 ) was reproduced. The true name was carved, written, or stamped in divine celestial script (tianwen 天 文 ) intelligible only to supranatural entities. It is a reflection of true shape (zhenxing)––a being’s unmediated form that is ontologically closest to the Dao. The mere possession of the deity’s or spirit’s true name in material form was sufficient to guarantee

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 21

obedience to its holder. The talisman is thus a double token, simultaneously a badge of authority over the deity or spirit and a legal contract that compels supranatural entities — whose existence is inscribed in a bureaucratic hierarchy — to comply with the wishes of its bearer. Summoning deities or spirits and dispelling baleful influences are two sides of the same talismanic coin. The talisman simply changes polarity depending on the targeted entity: it is expulsive against a hostile demon or malicious specter, but it is invocative when aimed at an obliging deity. One passage from The Master Who Embraces Simplicity describes “Lord Lao’s Talismans for Entering Mountains” (Laojun rushan fu 老君入山符 ) as effective for dispelling tigers, wolves, or venomous snakes, and as a demonifugic repellent of mountain essences, ghosts, and demons.13 The passage then describes the same ritual implements as “mountain-opening talismans” (kaishan fu 開山符 ) that persuade deities to reveal the precious ancient writings in gold and jade that they have hidden on famous mountains.14 As we have seen, Ge Hong relates that the Writ is also employed both in warding off threats and in communicating with deities. While the Writ’s prescription of talismans for the former purpose is not particularly remarkable against the backdrop of southern apotropaia, its methods for summoning are by contrast unique. Unlike many earlier and contemporary conjuring techniques, in which access to divine beings is dependent on lengthy, complex, and often costly ritual stipulations or requires the mediation of trained religious professionals, the talismans of the Writ plainly bring deities down to adepts so that they may be directly questioned. From the handful of passages in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity examined above, the picture that emerges of the Writ is one of a simple yet powerful weapon in the arsenal of methods for pacifying the southern wilds. Modeled on juridical and administrative templates, the spiritual authority of the Writ’s talismans derives from the injunctive and organizing ethos of imperial bureaucracy. Yet despite this feature, during the fourth century, the text was inextricably tied to the local lore of Jiangnan.

22 ︱ Chapter One

The Early Transmission of the Writ The Writ was only one thread in the rich tapestry of southern traditions, but for many it was considered the principal thread.15 As a paragon of local Jiangnan cultural and religious identity, the Writ was tied to emblematic southern figures. One of these figures, Bo He (alt. Bo Zhongli), is cited as the first human recipient in the Writ’s transmission line. The following passage from The Master Who Embraces Simplicity describes how the text was first revealed: I heard [my master] Zheng Yin say that among the important works on the Way, none surpass the Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns and True Form Charts of the Five Peaks. The ancients, immortal officers, and accomplished men respect and keep secret these teachings. If one does not have the title of “immortal,” they cannot be conferred. They are transmitted once every forty years, [after] the recipient smears their mouth with blood to swear an oath and establishes a bond through offerings. Famous mountains and the Five Peaks all have these writings, but they are concealed inside stone chambers and hidden in secret places. In response to those who have obtained the Way entering mountains with pure and sincere thoughts, the mountain god correspondingly opens the mountain and lets people see the writings. Such was the case of Bo Zhongli, who obtained [the Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns and True Form Charts of the Five Peaks] within the mountain. He appropriately set up an altar, made an offering of sixteen feet of silk,16 drew one copy and departed. Anyone possessing these writings should invariably store them in a purified place. Every time they are used, it is necessary to first announce [one’s intentions], as if reverently serving one’s father or one’s ruler.17 余聞鄭君言，道書之重者，莫過於三皇內文五嶽真形圖也。古人仙 官至人，尊秘此道，非有仙名者，不可授也。受之四十年一傳，傳 之歃血而盟，委質為約。諸名山五嶽，皆有此書，但藏之於石室幽 隱之地，應得道者，入山精誠思之，則山神自開山，令人見之。如 帛仲理者，於山中得之，自立壇委絹常，畫一本而去也。有此書， 常置清潔之處。每有所為，必先白之，如奉君父。

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 23

In addition to supplying an account of the initial transmission of the Writ, these lines contain a number of noteworthy details, including the coupling of the Writ with another emblematic document of southern lore, the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Wuyue zhenxing tu 五 嶽 真 形 圖 ). The assertion that the materials were handed down to Bo He “within the mountain” (yu shanzhong 於 山 中 ), after the text mentions a more generic “stone chamber” transmission, is also significant. The phrase ostensibly refers to a grotto or other anfractuosity where the conferral of sacred documents took place — a common trope in transmission narratives — but in this precise wording, it specifically refers to Bo He’s reception; the expression would later be used to differentiate from Bao Jing’s transmission, which occurred in a “stone chamber” or cave (shishi 石 室 ). Furthermore, the text stipulates that the relationship between the adept and Writ is to be modeled on the relationship between subject and ruler. This requirement is atypical in ritual documents or scriptures, but it serves here to reinforce the imbrication between the Writ and theocratic power, as well as the consolidation of that power in a universal, centralized rule. Elsewhere in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Bo He is portrayed as a sage who appears among people and then abruptly vanishes. At the end of the third century he was sighted in Luoyang 洛 陽 , where he dispensed advice. People thought him to be well over a thousand years of age. Before he disappeared again, someone noted that his pupils were square, a telltale mark of immortals.18 The sixth-century Annotated Classic of Waterways (Shuijing zhu 水 經 注 ) remarks that Bo He’s gravesite could be found just outside Luoyang and that his stele was still standing two centuries after being erected in 302.19 This provides an approximate date of death that is consistent with the timeline of the above passage. The Annotated Classic of Waterways gives Bo’s personal name as Hu 護 and Ba-Shu 巴 蜀 (present-day Sichuan) as his provenance. Conversely, his hagiography in the Biographies of Divine Immortals (Shenxian zhuan 神 仙 傳 ) situates his origins in Liaodong 遼 東 (present-day Liaoning) and only lists his cognomen.20 The Biographies of Divine Immortals provides additional details: later in life, Bo He moved to the Earth Lung Mountain (Difei shan 地 肺 山 ) region (present-day Jiangsu), the same

24 ︱ Chapter One

area where Ge Hong’s family hailed from, to study under Dong Feng 董 奉 .21 After imparting a number of methods, Dong Feng dismissed Bo He and encouraged him to seek further teachings far and wide.22 According to the same source, Bo He then traveled to Western Citadel Mountain (Xicheng shan 西 城 山 ), where he served Lord Wang of the Western Citadel (Xicheng Wangjun 西 城 王 君 ).23 One day, Lord Wang instructed him to remain in a cave and contemplate the north wall. After three years of determined gazing, characters suddenly appeared to Bo:24 [C]arved by someone in ancient times, the engravings were the methods of the divine elixirs of the Central Scripture of Great Clarity, as well as the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns,25 and the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks, all displayed on a stone wall. [Bo] He recited all ten thousand words, but there were places where he did not understand the meaning. Lord Wang then transmitted the [oral] instructions to him, saying: “[This] will make you an earthbound immortal on Linlu Mountain.”26 古人之所刻，刻太清中經神丹方及三皇天文大字五嶽真形圖，皆著 石壁。和諷誦其萬言，義有所不解，王君乃授之訣曰作地仙在林慮 山。

These lines narrate the same events that were recorded in the passage from The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, but in more detail. They notably add a third text to the transmission, the Central Scripture of Great Clarity (Taiqing zhongjing 太 清 中 經 ) — another representative scripture from the South — corroborating an earlier section from The Master Who Embraces Simplicity in which the Writ is closely associated with Taiqing 太 清 (Great Clarity) alchemical writings.27 More importantly, the passage also introduces Lord Wang of the Western Citadel as the divine figure who reveals the sacred characters of the Writ to Bo He and administers the all-important oral instructions. Even more significant than the blood sacrifice, the swearing of an oath, or the presentation of offerings, the conferral of oral instructions to complement revelations was the crux of the transmission ceremony. Without

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 25

these instructions, revealed materials remained unintelligible arcana. It was not uncommon for adepts to acquire scriptures long before unlocking their meaning through oral instructions. Bo He contemplates the “invisible” characters on the wall for three full years before receiving the instructions from Lord Wang. Only then does he become a divine immortal.28 By definition, oral instructions were not intended to be written, but in practice many of them were.29 At least some of Lord Wang’s instructions to Bo He were transcribed, surviving in one of the Daoist Canon’s key texts for reconstructing the Writ. The Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors (Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞 神 八 帝 妙 精 經 ), hereafter Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, contains a section titled “Essential Instructions from the Western Citadel on the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns” (Xicheng yaojue sanhuang tianwen dazi 西 城 要 訣 三 皇 天 文 大 字 ), hereafter “Instructions from the Western Citadel,” that features ninety-two talismans for summoning various deities.30 The section is presented as Bo He’s transcription of the talismans that make up the Writ, along with the oral instructions spoken by Lord Wang. A few first-person narrative sections pertaining to the transmission of the Writ and Bo He’s interaction with Lord Wang are also provided. The following annotation introduces the “Instructions from the Western Citadel”: Implemented and established by the Immortal of the Western Citadel, and concealed inside the Mysterious Hill.31 Recorded by Duke Bo [He]. Received on the third day of the first month on the first year of the Tianhan reign (100 BCE).32 西城仙人施用立成，隱之玄丘之陰。帛公記錄。天漢元年正月三日 受。

A few lines below, Bo He relates in his own voice: In the second year of the Taichu era of the Western Han (103 BCE), under covenant, Lord Wang bestowed upon me the instructions for the Great Way. He had me burn incense and perform purifications. After three days and three nights, I was informed.33

26 ︱ Chapter One

前漢太初二年，王君盟授余大道之訣，使燒香清齋，三日三夜乃見 告。

Bo He wrote down the oral instructions in 100 BCE, roughly three years after he received them and the talismans, in 103 BCE. If the chronology from the Biographies of Divine Immortals is reliable, he would have entered the cave to ponder the wall three years prior, in 106 BCE, making him more than four hundred years old at the time of his “death,” early in the fourth century. The details of the lengthy transmission account in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” are remarkably consistent with those from other sources.34 The narrator, Bo He, meticulously documents how the materials were handed down. After receiving a few longevity methods representative of southern lore, including alchemical recipes and a “method for detaining the cloudsouls” (ju hun fa 拘 魂 法 ), Bo He prostrates himself before Lord Wang and utters: When I was young and untalented, still bound by worldly matters, I traveled halfway around the world without returning home. Far and wide, I sought the paths of life, clumsily harboring the teachings of the Way for what is now ten years. Later, I came to know the methods of sagely wonders and the verifications of immortality, about which I now have some humble understanding. [. . .] I have already received [from you] the recipes for the mysterious essentials on healing the body, and I will reverently carry them out and keep them with me at all times. Yet my intention is to further pursue my search [for the Way], even though my mind cannot attain this. In the past, I heard that in the arts of subjugating gods and demons and in the methods of summoning the hundred numina, if one sits quietly, malevolent spirits will immediately gather. If one provides for them, the thousand local deities will come together. If a matter has not yet been investigated, the unknown will be unexpectedly clarified. If there is misfortune, all calamity will be repelled at once. I have fully heard about these methods, but I have yet to see their writings. [. . .] [Thus,] I implore you to grant me insight and illumination in order to open my mind.35 少以不才，羈累世業，三隅未返，遠尋生途，妄存道旨，于今十

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 27

年。然後知聖妙之法，不死之驗，已微灼矣 [. . .] 。既受玄旨治身 之方，當奉以施行，與身同處，而意猶鑽仰，心雖未盡在。昔嘗聞 役使鬼神之數 [ 術 ]，召致百靈之法，安坐則群邪立凑，施發則千祇 合和，未審則逆察冥漠，有害乃咄嗟卻禍。實聞其法，未覩其文。 [. . .] 願蒙啟悟以開其心。

Bo He begins by narrating his initial encounters with generic “teachings on the Way,” which appear to refer to general principles and instructions. He then lists the “methods of sagely wonders” and the “verifications of immortality.” If we read this account against the sequence of events described in the Biographies of Divine Immortals hagiography, these methods could be those that Bo He acquired from Dong Feng. The technique for the circulation of breath (xingqi 行 氣 ) that he learned on Earth Lung Mountain would thus correspond to the “method of sagely wonders” whereas the ingestion of atractylis (fushu 服 朮 ) and dietary regimens — which Dong Feng also taught Bo He — would be “verifications of immortality.”36 In The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, these techniques fall under the rubric of minor arts (xiaoshu 小 術 ) or the lower tiers of the arts of Nourishing Life (yangsheng 養 生 ). They may be effective in extending lifespan but do not defend against demonic or spirit aggressions.37 In the preliminary stages of the initiation, Lord Wang confers four sets of materials, adding to Bo He’s ritual repertoire. They consist of a method for ingesting the “herb of Great Yin” (taiyin zhi cao 太 陰 之 草 ), named gouwen 鈎 吻 (lit. “hook-kiss”; gelsemium elegans, or “heartbreak grass”), and two alchemical “minor elixir recipes” (xiao dan fa 小 丹 法 ). The first is for communicating with gods and the second for making one’s body radiant and escaping death. The last method is for detaining the cloudsouls. It consists of a visualization practice that enables adepts to keep evil influences at bay and control the hundred demons. All these — which Bo He appears to lump together as “mysterious essentials on healing the body” in the passage above — qualify as intermediary methods of the southern tradition; they emulate certain elements from the superior undertakings of alchemy, meditation, and summoning but do not achieve the same levels of technical and operative sophistication. In The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Ge Hong

28 ︱ Chapter One

places such minor elixirs and simpler visualization techniques, including those for summoning cloudsouls, in this intermediary category, which encompasses most of the practices pertaining to Nourishing Life.38 After successively acquiring practices that are representative of two lower echelons of Jiangnan lore, Bo He beseeches Lord Wang to bestow the highest class of teachings upon him. In The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, these are represented by the Writ, the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks, Taiqing alchemical materials, and visualization practices related to Maintaining Unity (shouyi 守一 ). But Lord Wang does not easily share such precious materials: “You still cannot be instructed on the Great Way. After three [more] years, I will tell you.” Thereupon, he rose from his seat and took his leave.39 I [Bo He] held his towel and comb [i.e., acted as his servant] for three years but had still not reached the point of being instructed. [Then, one day] the master told me: “You are now ripe for achievement. You may once more undertake purification for three days, burn incense, and perform ablutions. Then, I shall inform you of the essential Way of the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns and the method of the Divine Elixir of the Golden Liquor from the Central Scripture of Great Clarity. If you divulge these to the wrong person, your lineage will be destroyed, and the manes of your deceased father and mother will receive punishment in the Mysterious Hill.”40 子未可教大道，後三年將語子也。乃退席卻反。執巾櫛三年竟，未 及啟白，師曰：汝可成也。可更齋三日，燒香沐浴，告汝要道，三 皇天文大字、太清中經金液神丹之法。汝泄非其人，滅族，父母之 鬼，受刑於玄丘也。

Poul Andersen argues that Bo He’s vita in the Biographies of Divine Immortals provides the basis for the transmission account of the “Instructions from the Western Citadel.”41 Given the complex textual history of the hagiographic compilation, however, it is just as likely that the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” served as one of the sources for the transmission account recorded in the Biographies of Divine Immortals.42 Yet the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, which houses the “Instructions from the Western Citadel,” has a muddled textual history as well. The text is made

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 29

up of multiple sections, many of which have accrued layers of annotations that can no longer be distinguished from the original text. Several of the talismans Ge Hong mentions by name in his descriptions of the Writ, however, appear in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel,” lending weight to the claim that the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors preserves parts of the Writ.43 The narrative portions and instructions that frame the talismans, including the one translated above, are quite possibly a version of the “oral instructions” that accompanied the Writ as early as the second half of the third century, when Ge Hong obtained the text from his master Zheng Yin 鄭隱 (ca. 215–ca. 302 CE).44 Ge Hong even cites the text directly; since talismans cannot be quoted, this detail strongly suggests the oral instructions were already integrated into the Writ in the version of the text that he received, just as they are in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel.”45 Although the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors was compiled in the late fifth or sixth century, material outside the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” is traceable to the turn of the fourth century. Some scholars are confident that Ge Hong penned the “Secret Words of Embracing Simplicity” (Baopu miyan 抱 朴 密 言 ), a brief explanatory section that immediately follows the “Instructions from the Western Citadel.”46 There are other clues here and there that point to a relatively early date of composition for certain portions of the text. For example, in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel,” Lord Wang is not yet identified with the immortal Wang Yuan 王 遠 (fl. 146–195; style: Fangping 方 平 ). By the fifth century, both figures were definitively conflated.47 Moreover, the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” makes no attempt to obscure connections between the Writ and Bo He, which suggests that the source is grounded in fourth-century materials. Bo He was closely linked to the Bo jia dao 帛 家 道 , the Way of the Bo Clan, a local religious current that was purportedly named after him. Not much is known about its practices and teachings nor its relationship to the Writ, but the Way of the Bo Clan appears to have enjoyed considerable popularity in the South during the fourth and early fifth centuries.48 It is also known for promoting blood oaths and spirit mediums and otherwise exemplifying the much maligned Dionysian “excessive cults” (yinsi)

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that the authorities, the libationers (jijiu 祭 酒 ) of the Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshidao 天 師 道 ), and, later on, representatives of integrated institutional Daoism all campaigned against, albeit for different reasons.49 While the specifics are nebulous, it is known that some members of both the Xu 許 and Ge 葛 clans, who were responsible for the Shangqing (364–370) and the Lingbao (ca. 400) revelations, were initiates.50 Indeed, many of the South’s reputable families were involved with the Way of the Bo Clan in one way or another, but later Daoist codifiers were adamant about distancing themselves from the cult. Although Bo He is mentioned in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, the term “Way of the Bo Clan” does not appear.51 The term “Way of the Bo Clan” first appears as an expedient and pejorative umbrella term for Jiangnan’s indigenous traditions in Sir Zhou’s Records of His Communication with the Unseen (Zhoushi mintong ji 周 氏 冥 通 記 ). In this text, dated to 517, the famed Daoist master, scholar, and systematizer Tao Hongjing relates the visions and revelations that his disciple Zhou Ziliang 周 子 良 (497–516) experienced. He writes, “The Zhou family originally served profane gods; the simple and common call this the ‘Way of the Bo Clan.’” 52 The rest of the passage explains how the family formerly produced great spirit-mediums (dashi wu 大 師 巫 ). This is cited as the reason for the Zhou’s historical ties to the Way of the Bo Clan, but Tao Hongjing is quick to point out that the clan eventually severed all ties to the cult.53 The more vituperative Declarations of the Perfected (Zhengao 真 誥 ) associates the Way of the Bo Clan with the wasteful and distasteful blood sacrifices of commoners, with incurring debt, and with contravening social hierarchies.54 By the late fifth and sixth centuries Bo He and the Way of the Bo Clan were so closely identified with the vilified “excessive cults” that no compiler or author would openly flaunt a source’s ties with them. Bo He’s prominent place in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” therefore speaks to a relatively early date of composition. Because of the nature of the association between Bo He and “excessive cults,” concerted efforts were made to conceal or erase all ties to the figure. In the case of the Writ, because of Bo He’s key role in the transmission line, this

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 31

was no simple task. Ge Hong’s acquisition of the text from Lord Wang and Bo He via his master Zheng Yin was the established orthodox succession in fourth-century Jiangnan.55 By the sixth century, however, the Writ was more closely tied with Bao Jing. The late seventh-century Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way (Daojiao yishu 道 教 義 樞 ), which is based on earlier materials, preserves an account of the alternate transmission:56 During the Jin, Bao Jing studied the Way on [Mount] Songgao.57 In the Yongkang year [300] of Emperor Hui’s reign [290–307], he ritually purified himself and meditated on the Way in Lord Liu’s cave.58 Suddenly, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns appeared, carved into characters. In conformance with the scriptures, he made a request to [Ge] Xuan by means of four hundred feet of silk and received [the oral instructions]. Later, he transmitted the text to Ge Xuan’s descendant [Ge Hong].59 晉時鮑靚學道於嵩高，以惠帝永康年中，於劉君石室清齋思道， 忽有三皇文刊成字，仍依經，以四百尺絹告玄而受，後亦授葛玄 子孫。

This version of the events is highly evocative of Bo He’s revelation. It retains all the key elements; only the protagonists are different. Ge Xuan 葛 玄 (trad. 164–244 CE), the paternal granduncle of Ge Hong, replaces Lord Wang as the transmitter. Ge Xuan was an important figure in the Lingbao revelations and, to a lesser extent, in the Shangqing revelations as well. Likewise, Bao Jing takes the place of Bo He, a problematic figure for later systematizers of Daoism due to his association with the Way of the Bo Clan.60 Bao Jing’s “cave” (shishi; lit. “stone chamber”) transmission, as it came to be known, represents a line that was fully independent of the first. Born into a family of Han civil servants and eventually rising to the post of governor of Nanhai 南 海 (present-day Guangzhou), Bao Jing was learned in both the classics and the local esoteric traditions inspired by fangshi (masters of methods).61 His master, the famed immortal and alchemist Yin Changsheng 陰 長 生 , was another important figure in Shangqing sources. Yin Changsheng notably taught Bao Jing how to perform corpse liberation by means of a blade (dao shijie 刀 尸 解 ), a technique for which he

32 ︱ Chapter One

became renowned.62 Bao Jing was close to the Xu family, the legatees of the Shangqing revelations, and he also acted as master to Xu Mai 許 邁 (300–348 CE), a chief recipient of the revelations. For later systematizers who were keen to showcase the broader potential of Daoism and distance themselves from what they considered the cruder aspects of local traditions, Bao Jing was an appealing stand-in for the controversial Bo He. The gradual disappearance of the vexing blood sacrifice in transmission accounts of the Writ in favor of substitutes such as blood-red cinnabar, gold, and especially silk — the telltale material of ritual reform — illustrates these concerns.63 Whereas The Master Who Embraces Simplicity relates that the scripture was transmitted by “smearing one’s mouth with blood and surrendering an offering to establish a covenant,” Bo He was already using silk as an offering in the later “Instructions from the Western Citadel,” as was Bao Jing of course.64 In any event, sometime around the turn of the fifth century, the Bao Jing transmission account recorded in the Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way eclipsed the earlier Bo He account to become the standard transmission narrative for the Writ. A closer look at the social and historical circumstances surrounding the emergence of a second transmission line are necessary in order to grasp the significance of this development.

The Writ in the Historical Context of Fourth-Century Jiangnan The Way of the Celestial Masters was the first expression of an organized, institutionalized, and formal Daoist religion. It was formed in the southwestern Chinese kingdom of Shu 蜀 (present-day Sichuan) after the 142 CE revelation to Zhang Daoling 張 道 陵 (34–156). In 215, after Cao Cao’s 曹 操 (155–220) successful military incursion in the southwest, Zhang Daoling’s descendants retired to Ye 鄴 (present-day Hebei) under the leadership of his grandson, Zhang Lu 張 魯 (?–215 or 216).65 The relocation of the Zhang clan and its followers to the North had a profound impact on the religious history of China: family by family, the northern elite converted to the Way of the Celestial Masters, a trend that would continue until the sinicized Xiongnu 匈 奴 forces of the Han Zhao 漢 趙 defeated the imperial

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 33

troops and occupied Luoyang 洛 陽 in 311. Pushed out by the invaders, most of the North’s ruling class, including the Jin 晉 imperial family, fled south of the Yangzi to establish a new capital in Jiankang 健 康 (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu) after a failed attempt in Chang’an 長安 . By emigrating, the northerners brought with them to the South their cultural habits, traditions, and, most critically, their religious preferences.66 Upon their arrival in Jiangnan, libationers of the Way of the Celestial Masters and their followers encountered a vibrant network of long-established local cults. The southern traditions revolved around conjuring, alchemy, meditation, and talisman-based apotropaia and divination, all of which were undergirded by Nourishing Life practices. Most of the families that safeguarded the traditions of the South, including members of the Ge clan, had served in government as officials or ritual specialists since the second century CE, either in the administrations of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) or the kingdom of Wu (220–280).67 From one generation to the next, they handed down the esoteric knowledge that had guaranteed their employment as fangshi or in other capacities at successive courts: cosmological speculation, divination, hemerology, medicine, and the interpretation of portents figured prominently among this body of knowledge. A second layer, composed primarily of ritual elements that had been absorbed from the regional ecstatic and exorcistic cults of the Zhou-period states of Wu 吳 and Yue 越 (ca. 1046 BCE–256 BCE) would later be added to the southern lore.68 This amalgam constituted the cultural scaffolding of southern esoterica, and the initiated families of the South were determined to preserve and continue its beliefs and practices. Immediately after relocating to Jiangnan, the transplanted Jin ruling class took the reins of power, but they opted to mollify the regional elites. Domains were enfeoffed to influential southern clans, and capable local officials rose rapidly in the ranks of government. Once the Jin grew more at ease with their adoptive home, however, their deep-seated condescension toward southerners began to directly impact promotions and advancements. With the founding of the Eastern Jin dynasty in Jiankang in 317, prejudices that had been entrenched since the conquest of the southern Wu by the northern

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Jin thirty-seven years earlier resurfaced. The vanquished southerners who had moved to the capital in northern China after 280 were ridiculed for their intellectual awkwardness and their clumsy attempts to imitate metropolitan culture; in the eyes of the Luoyang scholar-officials, the austral temperament was irreconcilable with the intricacies of “Pure Conversation” (qingtan 清 談 ) or the refinement of “Sublime Learning” (xuanxue 玄 學 ).69 Moreover, those who settled in the capital region — up to 500,000, or half of the area’s population — suffered from the type of institutionalized oppression and pauperization that was typical for foreign residents. Non-Chinese, particularly from southern and western borderlands, were exploited as draft soldiers, conscript laborers, and slaves.70 A generation later, northern transplants in the South perpetuated the same models of cultural chauvinism. As a mainstay of Jiangnan identity, the “nameless religion” of the South attracted particular ire from the northern Celestial Masters.71 They embarked on a repressive campaign against “excessive cults” on the pretense that the profligate blood sacrifices featured in so many esoteric transmission rites — including those tied to the Writ — were not only corrosive to social order (through excessive expenditures and the usurpation of recognized religious authority) but also heterodox, immoral, and symptomatic of congress with demons.72 The zeal with which members of the Way of the Celestial Masters carried out their punitive campaign is vividly reflected in a section of the Concealed Instructions for Ascent to Perfection (Dengzhen yinjue 登 真 隱 訣 ) that supplies instructions on how to destroy the shrines and temples of indigenous Jiangnan cults.73 Celestial Masters libationers received support from government officials, who were disproportionately of northern extraction. They also secured support from Buddhists, who sought to make new inroads into the South.74 As the campaigns against the “excessive cults” illustrate, the immigration of religious, political, and social elites from the North contributed to the erosion of traditional southern culture. Although northerners were fewer in number, they had greater influence. Consequently, a segment of the Jiangnan elite found it advantageous to pledge their allegiance to their new overlords.75 In his autobiographical The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: The Outer Chapters (Baopuzi waipian 抱 朴

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 35 子 外 篇 ), Ge Hong is vocal about the transparently opportunistic incentives

that motivated some local families in their decisions. He also underscores the pernicious effects that a shift in loyalties could have on the cultural heritage of his region.76 There were other families, of course, who decided to resist assimilation and shun official life in the Jin bureaucracy to safeguard their traditions for a few more generations. The uneasy coexistence between northerners and southerners brought about the syntheses of the mid-to-late fourth-century Shangqing and early fifth-century Lingbao revelations. As Michel Strickmann explains, the Shangqing scriptures revealed to members of the Xu 許 family via the spirit medium Yang Xi 楊 羲 (330–386) between 364 and 370 “provide the most comprehensive testimony to the integration of old southern beliefs and practices within the social and liturgical framework provided by the [northern] Celestial Masters.”77 In contrast to the local scope of the Writ, the Shangqing corpus was deliberately crafted for universal appeal, enlisting Buddhism as an additional aid in the effort.78 The Way of the Celestial Masters also helped make room for northern ritual specialists within the crowded arena of Jiangnan religion. In the South, Celestial Masters libationers were the only government-sanctioned clerics at the time. Effectively, this meant that any practice that fell outside their purview was de facto illicit. Because no designated priestly class was associated with the Shangqing corpus, libationers were free to exercise their functions within its liturgical framework.79 Northern religious specialists were thus placated and the Xus and other families involved with the Shangqing revelations benefited from the official recognition of the Jin dynasty. Although they occurred roughly a century after the initial flow of northern emigrés to the South, the subsequent Lingbao revelations were even more eclectic than their Shangqing predecessors, drawing heavily from both Buddhism and the Way of the Celestial Masters.80 Yet even though they aimed to articulate an integrated, unified, and universal state Daoism, the systematizers of both Shangqing and Lingbao corpora still incorporated many elements from the indigenous traditions of Jiangnan as well.81

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The Writ through the Lens of the Shangqing (Highest Clarity) Revelations The Shangqing revelations initiated the transition of southern lore to organized Daoist religion. The Lingbao revelations, following shortly thereafter, continued and accelerated the process of formalizing and integrating disparate local materials into a unitary whole. Both were instrumental in shaping perceptions of southern traditions including that of the Writ, but the Shangqing appraisal of Jiangnan lore was more concerned with issues of transmission and family networks discussed in this chapter.82 The two revelations, although distinct, were in large part products of a southern reaction to the stimulus of mass northern immigration. Those tasked with editing, structuring, and organizing the revealed materials, along with arranging them into a coherent cultural retort, could not simply resort to reaffirming the supremacy of Jiangnan traditions. A more complex riposte that integrated some important concessions was necessary to ensure survival. Thus, elements that the new political and religious suzerains deemed incommensurable with their vision — for example blood oaths, rites of sexual congress, sacrificial offerings, and providing payment in exchange for religious services — were purged.83 In the dialectical reformulation of Jiangnan traditions that the systematizers of Shangqing and Lingbao undertook, elements from pre-existing local currents were blended together with components from religious traditions that were new to the area. The Xu clan and other families that were invested in the Shangqing revelations thereby minimized the potential for marginalizing northern adepts, especially the more influential ones. This inclusive approach also headed off potential complaints from the followers of competing cults, as they could not argue that they had been completely sidelined. At the same time, the Shangqing revelations offered some redemption for disenfranchised southern elites who would continue to be barred from the higher official ranks and functions until the establishment of the Chen dynasty (557–587). The cultural impact of the Shangqing scriptures afforded them far greater influence than they could have garnered through official

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 37

careers.84 The Ge clan, another illustrious aristocratic family, applied the same conciliatory strategy with the Lingbao corpus: in their revelations, they gave an important place to pre-existing local elements, but also to Buddhism and the Way of the Celestial Masters. As a result of the success of the Lingbao scriptures, the Ge family and southern lore increased in prominence. One of the ways in which systematizers incorporated and reformulated pre-existing elements from southern traditions was by relegating them to the lower echelons in hierarchies atop which sat the teachings and practices of the new revelations. For instance, since the primary feature of the Shangqing revelations was its promise of access to higher celestial regions and to more exalted divine intercessors than previous movements, its scriptures accordingly unveiled the existence of a spiritually superior class of beings, the Perfected (zhenren 真人 ), who dethroned the older class of immortals (xian 仙 ) celebrated in many of the South’s traditions. In the same way, the hitherto undiscovered Highest Clarity (Shangqing) Heaven supplanted the Great Clarity (Taiqing) Heaven, source of the Taiqing alchemical scriptures and previously the highest layer of the firmament. This was an effective way of harnessing the status or symbolic capital of pre-existing traditions while avoiding the cost of a direct challenge to their legitimacy.85 As part of this strategy, certain elements specifically associated with the Writ were subsumed into the new revelations. Lord Wang of the Western Citadel was notably brought into the Shangqing pantheon because of his standing as an important agent of transmission and key figure of local lore. Ties to Bo He, however, had to be occluded. Thus, although Lord Wang retained his name, his identity was conflated with that of Wang Yuan 王遠 (fl. 146–195), another immortal with a distinct history.86 Under his new identity, Lord Wang (Yuan) was the master of Mao Ying 茅盈 or “Lord Mao” (Mao jun 茅 君 ), one of the founding figures of the Shangqing scriptural legacy.87 The inclusion of Lord Wang made the Shangqing pantheon more welcoming for adepts of southern esoterica who were already familiar with the figure from his previous incarnation. The connection between Lord Wang and his namesake, the Western Citadel, was preserved, but the site in question was no longer to be in Shu, where Bo He also hailed from. Instead, the Western

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Citadel was moved to Mount Wangwu 王 屋 山 (present-day Henan), a location closer to the Shangqing power base.88 Such a migration had the added benefit of satisfying the internal logic of Shangqing textual historiography: while Lord Wang ruled Mount Wangwu from atop its summit, his disciple Wang Bao 王褒 presided over the peak’s negative space, the cave-world below known as the Clear and Vacuous Spelunk Heaven of Lesser Existence (Xiaoyou qingxu dongtian 小 有 清 虛 洞 天 ). According to the Shangqing tradition, it is here that the Writ first manifested.89 In sources that postdated the fourth-century Shangqing revelations, the term xiayou 小 有 , “lesser existence,” is often used to denote the Lord Wang of the Western Citadel and Bo He version of the Writ, the so-called “mountain transmission” (see appendix 1). In fact, its title is also commonly abridged to Scripture of Lesser Existence (Xiaoyou jing 小 有 經 ) in reference to the spelunk heaven (dongtian 洞 天 ) where it originally coalesced. This version is contrasted with Bao Jing’s “cave transmission” of the Writ, which late Six Dynasties and early Tang sources sometimes designate as the Scripture of Great Existence (Dayou jing 大 有 經 ) or the Writ of the Three Sovereigns [from the Heaven] of Great Existence (Dayou sanhuang wen 大 有 三 皇 文 ). The term “Great Existence” (dayou 大 有 ) refers to the Empty Brilliance Spelunk Heaven of Great Existence (Kongming dayou dongtian 空明大有洞天 ), where this version of the text was first generated.90 Shangqing systematizers endorsed Bao Jing’s version of the Writ because of Bo He’s association with “excessive cults.” This may have been implicitly reflected in the shorthand titles attributed to both recensions, with that of the Scripture of Great Existence implying a greater standing than that of the Scripture of Lesser Existence. Yet, unlike celestial heavens, there was no explicit ranking of spelunk heavens.91 While Bo He did not find a place in the Shangqing pantheon, Bao Jing certainly did. Nevertheless, his contribution seems to have amounted to little more than supplying the movement with credible transmission lines to Zuo Ci 左慈 , Ge Xuan, and Yin Changsheng, whose practices Shangqing exegetes deemed salient though not essential.92 Bao Jing’s modest rank in the spiritual hierarchy was emphasized in order to showcase new improvements over the

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 39

obsolete cultivation techniques he represented without alienating the broad base of adepts that practiced them. Despite his role as Xu Mai’s teacher, he was not considered especially noteworthy. As the Declarations of the Perfected recounts, “The teachings were obtained by Bao Jing [from Yin Changsheng]; he was frivolous and shallow from the beginning as well as muddled and sluggish by disposition, and for this reason he did not achieve much.”93 For Shangqing systematizers, Bao Jing facilitated the incorporation of the Writ without implicating the Way of the Bo Clan, Bo He, or any of the practices associated with “excessive cults.” Before the Shangqing revelations, Bao Jing’s version of the Writ seems to have gone largely unnoticed. That is not to say that it did not exist, but it appears as if it was not originally a consequential source, especially in comparison to Bo He’s Writ. The Master Who Embraces Simplicity fails to connect Bao Jing to the Writ, a fact that speaks volumes about the primacy of the Bo He line at the turn of the fourth century.94 Some scholars contend that this omission can be attributed to Ge Hong’s meeting Bao Jing after completion of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity,95 but the chronology of events does not support this claim. Ge Hong became a disciple of Bao Jing shortly after meeting him in or around 312, when both withdrew to Mount Luofu (Luofu shan 羅 浮 山 ; present-day Guangdong) to study esoteric traditions.96 This is where Ge Hong would have presumably received the Scripture of Great Existence version of the Writ or at least learned of Bao Jing’s revelatory episode in 302 on Mount Song. Ge Hong completed a full draft of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity by 317 and he penned the final version of the text in 330, the year of Bao Jing’s death. In the eighteen years that elapsed between their meeting and the finalization of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Ge Hong would surely have had the opportunity to add a line or two to his text about the Scripture of Great Existence had he deemed it necessary. Later sources from the sixth or seventh centuries assert that Ge Hong received two versions of the text, one from Bao Jing and the other from the Bo He line via Zheng Yin. Ge Hong obtained the latter before Zheng Yin died in 302, which means that he had it in his possession at least a decade

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before he met Bao Jing. Perhaps because it had been handed down in his family and he was more sure of its provenance, Ge Hong elected to champion Bo He’s text over the exogamous version obtained through his marriage to Bao Jing’s daughter.97 There are no direct references to the Scripture of Great Existence in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, but according to later accounts and the chronology outlined in the previous paragraph, Ge Hong was likely familiar with the source. The bibliographic catalogue in chapter 19 of his opus, “Gazing Afar” (Jia lan), opens with the Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang neiwen) in three scrolls, Heaven, Earth, and Humankind.98 It is immediately followed by a “yuanwen” 元 文 , also in three scrolls, former, middle, and latter.99 This could denote an “original text,” “original writ,” or “original version” such as in a source text (yuanwen 原 文 ; benwen 本 文 ), or it could also be an abbreviated title for the Original Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang yuanwen 三 皇 元 文 ). In both cases, it appears to be another version of the Writ that is billed as an early urtext of to Bo He’s recension; this could very well be Bao Jing’s variant, which Ge Hong might have labeled as an earlier and presumably more prestigious version in the bibliographic catalogue to atone for the fact that he ignored his father-inlaw’s transmission in the main text.100 The designations Scripture of Lesser Existence and Scripture of Great Existence first appeared in the context of Shangqing scriptures, but they remained relatively uncommon outside of it. In general, there was no reason to specify which version of the Writ was under discussion, but in cases when a distinction had to be drawn, the titles Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns in Celestial Script (Sanhuang neiwen tianwen 三皇內文天文 ) or Great Characters in Celestial Script [of the Three Sovereigns] (Tianwen dazi 天文大字 ) were used for Bo He’s text.101 In instances where the generic title (Esoteric) Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang [nei]wen) was used, authors distinguished Bao Jing’s version simply by adding an explanatory remark about a “cave transmission.” In other cases, they were less ambiguous: in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, which was compiled in the sixth century but based on earlier materials, Bao Jing’s version is identified as the Esoteric Scripture of Duke Bao (Baogong neijing 鮑 公 內 經 ). It is presented as a different (you yi

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 41 102

有 異 ) version from Bo He’s Writ.

Another source confirms that “the Writ that Lord Bao obtained in the cave does not agree with the version that was presently known in the world.”103 This line is reproduced in the eleventh-century anthology, the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds (Yunji qiqian 雲 笈 七 籤 ), in a passage that contrasts Bao Jing’s cave transmission with Bo He's, which was “transmitted within the mountain” (shan zhong suo zhuan 山 中 所 傳 ).104 Both versions circulated from the fourth century to the middle of the seventh century, when the Bao Jing version was banned, and both versions exhibited variations that were significant enough, either in their instructions or the list of talismans itself, to be considered discrete texts.105 In any event, the surviving fragments of the Writ combine elements from both versions to the extent that they are inextricable. It is unfortunately impossible to determine what the content of each version was and how exactly they differed. Because of the sociopolitical and historical circumstances outlined above, those responsible for editing and organizing the Shangqing and Lingbao revelations elected to promote Bao Jing’s Writ. Bo He’s version was not completely forgotten, but it was relegated to a lesser position. Consequently, what began as a reshuffling of elements from southern traditions on the part of Shangqing systematizers resulted in Bao Jing’s Writ becoming the orthodox version.106 Nevertheless, in spite of its recuperation, it remained a minor text in the greater picture of revealed Shangqing and Lingbao sources.

The Writ at the Dawn of Institutional Daoism Although at first sight this double-edged process of assimilation, whereby previous materials were integrated but demoted, may not appear to have been advantageous for the Writ, it nonetheless ensured that the text survived the process of institutionalization and that it was transmitted to subsequent generations outside the confines of its original context. Had they not been relegated to lower grades in the newly elaborated scriptural hierarchies, many iconic southern texts or methods would have been forgotten. If Daoism strictu sensu is an organized, translocal religious institution with a high degree

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of compatibility with the centralized state, then the Writ and its practices could be considered antithetical to it, especially in light of ties to so-called “excessive cults.” In fact, the Writ might be better understood as a product of the local “nameless religion” of the South rather than a product of Daoism. Originally, the Writ was not the center of anything that could be deemed a coherent “school.” Nonetheless, it considerably overlapped with other traditions in Jiangnan such as Taiqing alchemy or Maintaining Unity (shouyi) meditations, forming a nebula of interrelated practices and materials with illdefined contours. In contrast, earlier Tianshidao sources and the texts that were produced during the dual Shangqing and Lingbao revelations displayed an acute awareness of their own materials in relation to other religious actors and to social or political forces at the time. From the fifth century, they also espoused a vision of their respective traditions as embedded in a highly structured and integrated meta-tradition of Daoism that could serve as a unifying creed for a reunifying China. Despite being a paragon of local lore, the Writ exhibited features that could be practical in articulating an integrated version of state Daoism and essential in obtaining imperial patronage. The first and most apparent of these was its use of political metaphors. The text’s title, Writ of the Three Sovereigns, unambiguously refers to the Three Sovereigns of remote antiquity, demigod monarchs who ruled over China during a mythical golden age. Fu Xi 伏 羲 is typically identified as the Sovereign of Heaven, Shennong 神 農 as the Sovereign of Earth, and the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi, as the Sovereign of Humankind, although variations exist depending on the source.107 The talismans of the Writ were the registers (lu 籙 ) of divine names for harnessing or expelling supernatural forces that Heaven had purportedly bestowed upon the Three Sovereigns to help them achieve their reigns of great peace. Some sources equate the Writ with an ancient lost document known as the Three Mounds (Sanfen 三 墳 ). A passage from the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds discussing the origins of the Writ offers these following details: Formerly, at the time of the Sovereign of Heaven’s rule, the Scripture of Heaven in one scroll was conferred on him [by Heaven]. The Sovereign

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 43

of Heaven used it to rule all under Heaven for 28,000 years, [until] the Sovereign of Earth replaced him. Again, Heaven above conferred on him a scripture [the Scripture of Earth] in one scroll. The Sovereign of Earth used it to rule all under Heaven for 28,000 years, [until] the Sovereign of Humankind replaced him. Again, Heaven above conferred on him a scripture [the Scripture of Humankind] in one scroll. The Sovereign of Humankind used it to rule all under Heaven for 28,000 years. The scriptures that the Three Sovereigns transmitted were joined into three scrolls and at that time they were called the Three Mounds. [Now], they are also called the Scripture of the Three Sovereigns.108 昔天皇治時，以天經一卷授之。天皇用而治天下二萬八千歲，地皇 代之。上天又以經一卷授之。地皇用而治天下二萬八千歲，人皇代 之。上天又以經一卷授之。人皇用而治天下亦二萬八千歲。三皇 所授經合三卷，爾時號為三墳是也，亦名三皇經。

The passage is unequivocal: Heaven revealed the three parts of the Three Mounds — one for Heaven, Earth, and Humankind — to the corresponding ruler; the writings were then joined together in a three-scroll scripture that would later be known as the Writ of the Three Sovereigns. In the passages that narrate the text’s beginnings, the Writ is tied to theocratic power, and for all subsequent generations down to fourth-century Jiangnan, the source was couched in a metaphor that equated imperial legitimacy with authority over the spirit world and vice versa. A second feature that would have convinced systematizers of the Writ’s value in their project of an integrated state Daoism was the universalizing dimension of its message. Judging from the lines translated above, its pacifying effect radiated to the ends of the empire and beyond. With the help of the divine text, the authority of the sovereign originated from the central point of his person and extended to the entire world or, “all under Heaven.” Another passage citing an unattested Writ of the Spell for Commanding and Summoning (Mingzhao zhouwen 命召咒文 ) relates: When the Three Sovereigns ruled the world, each received one scroll in order to govern all under Heaven. When there was urgency, they summoned the gods from Heaven above or the demons from the Earth

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below, commanding them into service. These [three scrolls] were called the Three Mounds.109 命召咒文云三皇治世，各受一卷以理天下。有急，皆召天地鬼神勸 [ 勑 ] 使之。號曰三墳。

The subtext of unification would have resonated strongly in the period of disunity that was the Six Dynasties, especially for the rulers of the Eastern Jin (265–420) and the Liu Song (420–479), whose ambitions lay in reunifying China and establishing an empire that would rival that of the Han. The mastery over local deities that the Writ promised was not unlike that offered by the ritual system that the administrations of the First Emperor of the Qin (Qin Shi Huangdi 秦 始 皇 帝 ; r. 220–210 BCE) and, later, Emperor Wu of the Han (Han Wudi 漢 武 帝 ; r. 141–87 BCE) established. Under those two regimes, the emperor periodically toured the four corners of his empire to offer sacrifices to local deities, bypassing powerful regional clan networks to claim direct control over their territories. Their interactions with gods during these sacrificial tours were believed to spiritually strengthen rulers. Such tours handsomely contributed to the early Chinese discourse on the divinization of rulers; eventually, they were regarded as full-fledged gods, hypostases of Taiyi 太 一 , the Great Unity, whose name alone inspired visions of centripetal union.110 The claims of divine sovereignty that the First Emperor and Emperor Wu famously professed were not the rants of megalomaniacs but the products of a carefully constructed strategy designed to weaken local aristocratic lines. During periods of disunity, the authority of the local gentry was grounded in regional systems of sovereignty sustained by family alliances. But in times of strong unified empires such as the Qin and Han, the cosmic alliance between a single human and Great Unity propped up the centralized universal state.111 Later on, figures associated with the Writ and other early medieval sources further developed the notion of self-divinization so that any individual adept — not just the ruler — could identify with Great Unity or any supreme deity.112 In some respect, this was Ge Hong’s bid in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity. As Lai Chi-Tim has demonstrated, the work is largely stripped of

The Writ in Early Medieval Southern China ︱ 45

imperialist overtones; it emphasizes the value of individual self-cultivation outside of worldly status or wealth. In Ge Hong’s view, anyone could access immortality, provided they were diligent in their efforts and reached a high enough level of spiritual attainment.113 The Writ, despite subscribing to an idiom of imperial unity, also adopted this perspective through its narrative of spontaneous revelation. It could manifest at any time or place to any deserving person, regardless of social status or wealth. This universalizing and meritocratic dimension to Jiangnan lore challenged previous models of access to the divine whereby interaction with the suprahuman realm was the exclusive purview of rulers or regional hereditary aristocracies who passed the reins of power through local clan networks alone. Yet at the same time, since the stewards of Jiangnan lore were the local gentry, defending such a position would seem contrary to Ge Hong’s interests. In actuality, it was not. The Master Who Embraces Simplicity was written to legitimate Jiangnan lore as a complement to or improvement on Confucian meritocracy, which had continued — albeit in a different manner — the First Emperor and Emperor Wu’s task of eroding the authority of regional clans. Ge Hong set out to convince members of the southern elite, his social peers, that discourse on immortals and immortality (xian) was just as legitimate as the sociopolitical Confucian ideal of the sage (sheng 聖 ) in the construction of a cultural or class identity.114 Moreover, there was also the distinct advantage of having the Jiangnan gentry in complete control of the production and dissemination of all knowledge pertaining to Jiangnan lore. Through this monopoly, they ensured a large degree of self-determination and autonomy from cultural or class outsiders and their ideologies, whether Celestial Masters Daoism, Buddhism, or metropolitan Confucianism. In the end, the meritocratic rhetoric of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity might have been little more than an argument to take power away from rulers or higher-ranking northern nobles and put it back into the hands of the local hereditary aristocracy. Despite his glorifying the “poor and lowly” (pinjian 貧 賤 ) status of many who had attained immortality, Ge Hong was probably not overly preoccupied with the fate of anyone who was not a literatus.115 He could safely advertise the socially leveling character of Jiangnan lore without risking injury to himself and his fellow southern aristocrats.

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The Master Who Embraces Simplicity ultimately did not succeed in supplanting the ideological underpinnings of power in Jiangnan, but a new generation of nobles were determined to succeed where their predecessor had failed. Ge Hong’s spiritual heirs hailed from the same network of gentry clans as him, and they likewise understood the advantage of advocating for the religious and cultural traditions of the South. More specifically, these fifthand sixth-century architects of institutional integrated Daoism recognized the potential windfalls associated with drawing attention to the compatibility between Jiangnan lore, the discourse of divine kingship, and empire building. By promoting a highly structured and fully institutionalized version of local religion as an indispensable tool for imperial consolidation, systematizers of Daoism and the elite southern clans they represented attempted to secure their influence in a soon-to-be reunified China. Rulers could symbolically inscribe themselves in the line of demigod emperors who pacified the realm by obtaining the Writ, which, from about the sixth century, could only occur via formal ordination into Daoism. For rulers, the Writ’s transmission line was a genealogy of divinely sanctioned exemplars of governance in which they could be counted merely by acquiring the text. Most importantly, with the Writ in hand, monarchs and prospective imperial unifiers would theoretically have no need to demonstrate their competence through policy or deeds. In principle, merely possessing the collection of talismans — the physical object — was enough to confirm imperial legitimacy and establish an unquestionable authority to rule. This constituted a third feature that made the Writ valuable in the formation of an institutional form of state Daoism. Moreover, deploying the symbolic potential of the talismans that filled the Writ’s folios did not require an intimate knowledge of Daoist doctrine. They were universally verifiable signs of authority over the natural and supranatural worlds, conferred only upon the most deserving of recipients. Thus they functioned as immediate badges or tokens of legitimacy, instantly discernible and materially confirmed, like the imperial regalia and administrative tesserae from which they originally derived.116

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The Writ draws on the correspondence between ordering and controlling unruly spirits and ordering and controlling the imperium. The difference between the two lay solely in the scope of its talismans’ application. For individuals, specific spirits were summoned and malevolent spirits scattered in order to ensure the success of day-to-day undertakings or spiritual pursuits. For rulers, gods were enlisted and baleful influences were dispelled in order to ensure the harmonious functioning of the state. Yet rulers were not precluded from employing the Writ for personal endeavors, just as individuals were not prevented from using it for more ambitious designs. As recounted in the introduction, Madam Wang fatefully uttered that anyone who possesses the text can be “ruler,” a “parent to the people,” or an “empress.”117 Therein lay the paradox of the Writ: on the one hand, it catered remarkably well to the aims of an aspiring ruler; on the other hand, anyone who possessed it could also be “ruler” or “empress.” Such claims could be understood as a metaphor of course, whereby one would govern spirits in the mundane context of quotidian issues: entering remote mountains, recovering from an illness, selecting a plot of land for a burial site, and so on. Judging from the severity of the Tang government’s response to Madam Wang’s declarations, however, they could and were also taken literally. To make matters worse, with the institutionalization of Jiangnan lore and the Writ’s inclusion in integrated Daoism, what was previously a closely guarded treasure of southern hereditary aristocracies became much more visible and available. Due to the ambiguity between figurative and literal discourses, between the Writ’s political and spiritual applications, virtually anyone who obtained the scripture upon initiation could also claim legitimacy to the throne under the right circumstances. These three aspects of the Writ — its use of political metaphors, its idiom of unification, and its materiality — were some of the principal reasons for the text’s success during the early medieval period, but they were also the cause of its eventual demise. The talismans of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns combine apotropaic and summoning functions. This two-pronged application, the first expulsive,

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or “abducent,” and the second inductive, or “adducent,” were typical of Jiangnan’s ritual traditions. The talismans also accorded with the bureaucratic paradigm of early and medieval religions. From lowly individual adepts to monarchs, the Writ afforded the authority to discipline the most unruly elements of the spiritual populace while at the same time enabling adepts to gather high-ranking gods in private audiences. The transmission lines along which the Writ was handed down were a crucial component of its mythology. In the late third or early fourth century, two distinct transmissions of the Writ emerged, one associated with Bo He and the other with Bao Jing. Bo He’s version was initially favored, but the figure’s ties to the controversial Way of the Bo Clan led later Shangqing and Lingbao systematizers — who were intent on dissociating themselves from undesirable elements of local religion and adamant about articulating a unified Daoist tradition with potential for universal appeal — to favor Bao Jing’s version of the Writ. With these same goals in mind, certain features of the Writ, such as its imperial metaphors, its imagery of political unification, and its materiality, were emphasized during the early stages of its transition from an iconic source of local tradition to a cornerstone of integrated Daoism. This transition is examined in detail in chapters 4 and 5. But first, the next chapter will take a closer look at the third feature outlined above, the materiality of the Writ, by focusing on its talismans and their role as gages of trust and tangible tokens of legitimacy.

Chapter Two

The Religious Life of Objects The Talismans of the Writ and Their Surviving Fragments

The Writ of the Three Sovereigns was known first and foremost for its talismans (fu). The primary sources that mention the text usually do so in relation to its talismans and their power to summon gods or protect against misfortune. The Writ was officially banned and destroyed in 648, and although some sections survived in anthologies, what remains of the original work is patchy and interwoven with later additions. Secondary sources have mostly avoided the topic of the Writ: most surveys mention it only in passing, whereas the other foundational texts and corpora of Daoism are afforded detailed discussions. Although the original text is no longer extant, surviving fragments from the Ming dynasty Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era (1436– 1449) (Zhengtong daozang 正 統 道 藏 ), still allow us to partially reconstruct the text and clarify its role in the development of Daoism. As a prelude to this reconstruction, the opening half of the present chapter reflects on talismans and what they represented for adepts during the Six Dynasties (220–589). To fully comprehend the ritual objects, we must consider them as both divine writing and artifacts of material culture. The tangibility of talismans, along with their strong connection to notions of true name (zhenming 真 名 ) and true form (zhenxing 真 形 ), were central facets of the Writ’s importance in early medieval China. The second half of the chapter identifies key remnants of the Writ. The first of these is the sixth-century Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors (Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞 神 八 帝 妙 精 經 ), hereafter Wondrous

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Essence of the Eight Emperors, which is organized around a series of ninety-two talismans and their instructions. Collectively, these are known as the “Essential Instructions from the Western Citadel on the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns” (Xicheng yaojue sanhuang tianwen dazi 西 城 要 訣 三 皇 天 文 大 字 ), referred to hereafter as the “Instructions from the Western Citadel.” The second text that preserves substantial parts of the Writ is a chapter from the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials (Wushang biyao) titled “Essential Functions of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang yaoyong pin 三皇要 用 品 ), hereafter “Essential Functions.” The “Essential Functions,” also from the sixth century, is less substantial, centering on sixty-one talismans, but it is just as important as the Wondrous Essentials for determining the Writ’ s place in the development of integrated Daoism. In analyzing these sources, particular attention will be paid to talismans and their provenance. As a corollary, this chapter will also attempt to untangle the threads of Bo He’s and Bao Jing’s versions of the Writ that appear in the surviving fragments.

Material Culture, Talismans, and Trust In recent years, scholars have increasingly reflected on the role of talismans in Chinese religions.1 While their studies have significantly advanced our understanding of the implements in classical China, few have addressed how they convey meaning as material objects. The Writ’s talismans granted authority through their tangibility and immediate verifiability, thereby securing their usefulness among the ruling elite. They functioned as physical insignias of legitimacy in the same capacity as the imperial regalia of bygone reigns from which they developed: registers (lu 籙 ), mandate gages (fuming 符 命 ), response gages (fuying 符 應 ), and the family of juridical or administrative tools including tallies (fu 符 ), compacts (qi 契 ), bonds (yue 2 約 ), and tesserae (jie 節 ). In light of this rich semantic genealogy, rendering fu as “talisman,” as has become the convention in Sinology, is perhaps not the most accurate translation. “Talisman” is an expedient stand-in, but the term does not adequately relay the full range of possible meanings for the character. Additionally, and more problematically, it also denotes objects

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that were used as talismans but would not be referred to as fu in Chinese. In other words, some fu were not talismans, and some talismans were not fu.3 For example, the fu often elicits notions pertaining to administrative or legal authority, and in this context an accurate English translation would be “tally,” “tessera,” “bond,” “authentication,” or even “passport,” depending on the exact circumstances. The term “talisman” does communicate this aspect of the fu’s spectrum of meanings.4 In many cases, fu can also evoke concepts of sovereignty or political legitimacy, and within this framework, the implements would best be translated into English as “tokens,” “sacraments,” or “credentials.”5 Other common meanings that fu can have include, for instance, those related to funerary practices, whereby they would be called “artifacts,” or those concerning ritual therapies/medicine, in the context of which they would be “charms,” “amulets,” or “medicaments.”6 To preserve the broad semantic range of fu, we should ideally translate it by means of a word that is more encompassing, flexible, and even vague. Although the translation may lose in specificity, it would gain in adaptability, and in this way it could fit a wider assortment of contexts while still preserving its applicability to more narrow technical scopes. Kristofer Schipper, John Lagerwey, and most recently Grégoire Espesset have proposed “symbol” as a suitable translation,7 pointing to the Greek root word σύμβολον (sumbolon; pl. sumbola) as a close approximation. The translation “symbol,” or, better yet, the original Greek “sumbolon” (to join; to connect) — which emphasizes the material dimension of its signified8 — highlight the fu’s diverse semantic potential. But conventions, like bad habits, are hard to break: since the primary sources under consideration in this study refer to fu in a restricted semantic range, for the sake of clarity I opt to fall back on the standard translation of “talisman.” Furthermore, due to the sheer number of times I refer to fu in these pages, implementing a conspicuous translation such as “sumbolon” might end up as a distraction for the reader, diverting attention away from the argument. We must keep in mind, however, that every time adepts employed the talismans of the Writ, they implicitly evoked their material history — as tallies, contracts, bonds, tesserae, registers, mandate gages, response gages, or imperial sacraments —

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while simultaneously elaborating a new “religious life” for the objects.9 By the fifth century, the Writ was incorporated into the nascent Daoist Canon and into the emerging architecture of integrated state Daoism, along with its talismans and their semantic baggage. Through their application in different yet interrelated contexts, talismans acquired and then compounded layer upon self-referential layer of symbolic value: the objects became palimpsests of sorts, embodying in one instance all their collected semantic fields. Now that we have determined the best expedient translation for our purposes, we may turn to the question of the legibility of talismans. Individual talismans are made up of abstract constituent characters written in divine talismanic script (fuwen 符 文 ), and in the case of the Writ, a subcategory thereof known as celestial script (tianwen 天 文 ) (see figure 2.1). There have been attempts to uncover a grammatical logic to the markings that appear on talismans, and while a general meaning can be derived from some common elements of talismanic script, predictable and stable signifieds for recurring signs have not been conclusively identified.10 A number of studies have proposed decoding keys that equate graphic features of talismanic script with Chinese-language equivalents, but such glossaries are not consistent between sources or periods.11 Scholars have pointed to the legibility of basic components that appear to correspond to characters in conventional Chinese scripts, but even in such seemingly simple cases, the similarities can be misleading. Thus, familiar graphs such as shan 山 , which suggest a semantic field revolving around “mountain,” can refer to something very different: for example, in a talisman that Grégoire Espesset has analyzed, the graph denotes a trinity of gods or an office of the Daoist pantheon.12 The deceptive familiarity of the talisman’s graphic components and the apparent consistency with which they are structured often give the impression of legibility, but the talisman and what can be termed as its “nonwriting” are not intended to be comprehensible to the eyes of the average mortal.13 Talismanic or celestial script originated in the Heavens and does not abide by the same laws as conventional language.14 It does not convey meaning that is anchored in words; it is purely pictographic.15 Meaning is conveyed iconographically because the inscriptions on a talisman directly depict the

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Fig. 2.1 Sample talismans from the Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, 10ab.

true name (zhenming) of the deity with which they are associated, that is to say its fundamental and most innate spiritual essence, referred to as true form (zhenxing).16 As we will see below, the script on a talisman is not a representation of the deity, but the very deity itself, how it truly appears to other supernatural beings capable of deciphering celestial script. But since mortals do not have the spiritual faculties to fully discern let alone understand the celestial writing that adorns talismans, they only perceive them as curvilinear patterns that bear a vague resemblance to their own conventional characters, sometimes tantalizingly similar enough to give a false impression of legibility. These are optical illusions. To gods and spirits, the same talismanic inscriptions appear entirely differently. Humans inherently cannot fathom celestial script, and as a result, divine writing remains strictly indexical for them, pointing to unfathomable signifieds, specifically, a deity’s true name/true form. To be clear, writing and its supernatural cosmic origins are at the heart of what constitutes a Daoist talisman, but given that talismanic script is indecipherable to most if not all of its worldly users, the meaning it conveys lies not in what is inscribed on the talisman but rather in the script being inscribed on something. Mortals

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derive an alternate symbolic meaning of talismanic script from its physical manifestation. Typically, talismanic script is materialized by carving, painting, or inscribing it onto a material support so that it can be immediately verified. But even when traced in soil, water, or other ephemeral supports, including thin air, its materialization remains crucial in signaling access to the divine, along with the authority or legitimacy that derives from that advertised access. Once it is physically manifested and fixed onto a support — even if only temporarily — talismanic script becomes a physical object — the talisman — and it is the tangibility and immediate verifiability of that object that conveys its primary meaning.17 In his study on Sino-Japanese Buddhist material culture, Fabio Rambelli corroborates that talismans are not intended to be read or understood. Their language, he argues, is “archaic, abstruse, and meaningless without commentaries.” The purpose of the talisman rests in its function as a ritual object, marking “spiritual achievement, legitimacy, and orthodoxy.”18 It is self-referential, symbolically establishing access to the divine while pointing to itself, the physical object, as the simultaneous source and embodiment of that privileged access. In accordance with the talisman’s recursive logic, Daoist sources that contain a substantial number of the implements are considered talismans themselves, acquiring apotropaic, conjuring, medical, or other characteristics as a whole. The Writ, for instance, could be employed as a protective amulet and simply wearing it at one’s waist secured immunity from misfortune.19 Naturally, the circumstances of a talisman’s use dictate the specific function it has and the individual meaning it carries, its semantic encoding varying according to the specifics of circumstance. Yet, a common semantic thread unites all the manifold ways in which the implements are employed. Xu Shen’s 許 慎 (ca. 55–ca. 149; fl. 100–121) entry for fu in his Explanation of Graphs and Analysis of Characters (Shuowen jiezi 說文解字 ) clarifies: Fu is credential. Han [dynasty] regulations [stipulate] that it is to be made from a piece of bamboo six inches long, parted, and then joined together [when establishing authentication].20 符，信也。漢制以竹長六寸，分而相合。

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To limit our understanding of talismans to notions of writing, legibility, or “talismanic grammar” is to overlook a critical dimension of their ontology. The gloss, which concentrates on the administrative meaning of fu, does not raise the issue of writing. It focuses instead on the physical aspects of the implement. Outside of a Daoist or religious context, materiality is even more so the vehicle for the talisman’s primary meaning and this meaning is clearly identified as the establishment of credentials. Xu Shen expresses the notion of credentials through the graph xin 信 . Elsewhere in his work, he glosses xin as “authenticity,” “sincerity,” or “trust” (cheng 誠 ).21 In administrative or juridical talismans, the object alone is sufficient to establish that trust. In the case of the Daoist talisman, divine writing is added as a crucial component, but the writing is still subordinate to the temporal law of materiality when it comes to deploying the implement’s potential. Through its idiom of tangibility, the Daoist talisman — a unique combination of materialized talismanic script and its physical support — instantly communicates the unquestionable trustworthiness of its holder’s claim. It operates as directly verifiable proof of competency, without however having to indicate the specific nature of the competency itself. As palpable objects, talismans compensate for the unintelligibility of their inscriptions with the more direct language of juridical and governing metaphors in order to fulfill their primary semantic function of communicating trust. It is this paradox or constant tension between fluidity of meaning and the positivism of static objecthood that made the talismans of the Writ such voluble implements.

Writing, Talismans, and Cosmos Looking at talismans as material concretions of trust has been overlooked as an avenue of scholarly inquiry into their mechanics; most studies exclusively focus on issues of legibility or the “magical” dimension of their inscriptions. This fixation on writing is not unjustified, as any coded medium of communication that gives the impression of having some internal structure or logic begs to be deciphered. When it comes to early medieval

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Chinese religious traditions, any analysis of the talisman inevitably leads to the topic of the divine origins of its graphic script, and in the case of Jiangnan traditions in particular, the topic is also central to uncovering how talismans establish credentials and trust through their materiality. Ge Hong considered the matter in the fourth century and bemoaned the fact that just a few generations earlier, it was common for accomplished initiates to read talismanic script, but by his time, “the characters on talismans cannot be read and mistakes [in writing] cannot be discovered, thus no one knows they are inconsistent.”22 In other words, that the officiants and adepts who were using the talismans were completely illiterate in talismanic script was not an issue. This did not affect the objects’ efficacy; rather, the problem was that with illegible script, potential mistakes could sneak into the talismans and render them ineffective. As long as they were properly traced, the constituent graphs of talismanic writing remained efficacious. Their illegibility actually increased the perceived efficacy of talismans. Indecipherability was closely associated with celestial origins, and this remains the case in sinophone settings today. The contemporary artist Xu Bing notably explored this relation between incomprehensible script and the divine in his Book from the Sky (Tianshu 天 書 ), an installation of suspended scrolls of paper covered in four thousand distinct meaningless glyphs that were designed to closely resemble traditional Chinese characters. It is precisely the glyphs’ illegibility, despite their being naggingly evocative, that identifies them as revelations from Heaven, or the “sky.” Accordingly, art historians such as Wu Hung have proposed translating the work’s title as Nonsense Writing; Haun Saussy comments, “An essential part of the ‘Tianshu’ project was the feeling of mental cramp provoked by the deluge of unfamiliar, almost legible signs, or the sense of an authorial voice from an unanticipated beyond.”23 This is not unlike the notion of the “coefficient of weirdness” that Bronislaw Malinowski developed to distinguish magical speech or writing from conventional forms of communication. The strangeness and uniqueness — the “nonsense” element of speech or writing in ritual settings — is precisely what communicates its spiritual potency and actualizes its efficacy.24 It is more than likely that Ge Hong was aware of this correspon-

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dence between illegibility and perceived spiritual potency and that he stressed that talismans were indecipherable in his time in order to augment the prestige of those found in the pages of his own work, The Master Who Embraces Simplicity. In the case of the Writ, the issue of illegibility was highlighted in even the most concise of overviews. Citing a Lord Bao [Jing] of Nanhai’s Prefatory Catalogue (Bao nanhai xumu 鮑 南 海 序 目 ), the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds (Yunji qiqian) relates that the Writ is “composed in characters that resemble talismanic script, or seal script, or ancient writings,” all manners of written communication that were considered esoteric and unreadable according to the norms of standard literacy.25 In the eighth century, Zhang Huaiguan 張懷瓘 (fl. 724–760) also expresses that the writing used in the Writ is “unintelligible” and “resembles tallies or seal script.”26 Another account from the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds ties the genesis of the Writ to the unmediated and spontaneous expression of the Dao, which served as the inspiration for the first form of writing in China: The sixth [scroll] from the Cavern of Divinity explains: “The immortal says that the Writ of Sovereigns predates even the Three Sovereigns. It is the initial Great Emblem of the tracks of birds.”27 The third [scroll] says:28 “The [characters] of imperial writing of the Writ of Sovereigns all emerged spontaneously amidst vacuity, nonbeing, and emptiness, conjoining their breaths into graphs. It is also said that originally, the Writ of Sovereigns was undifferentiated. When came the time of the Three Sovereigns, each of them received one part and it was divided into the Three Primes and the Way of the Three Powers.”29 洞神第六又云：仙人曰皇文乃是三皇已前，鳥跡之始大章者也。第 三又云：皇文帝書，皆出自然，虛無空中，結氣成字。又云：本源 無異矣。至于三皇，各受一部，分為三元，三才之道也。

In this passage, the genesis of the Writ is projected onto Daoist cosmogony: its development parallels the successive stages of cosmic unfolding. In its undifferentiated state, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns is

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known simply as the Writ of Sovereigns (Huangwen 皇 文 ). With the division of Unity (yi 一 ) into the Three Primes (sanyuan 三 元 ), which, like the Three Powers (sancai 三 才 ), denote Heaven, Earth, and Humankind, the Writ of Sovereigns was also separated into individual scrolls for the Sovereigns of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind.30 The graphs or characters (zi 字 ) in which the scrolls ultimately manifest are the same kind of primeval symbols, pure exudations of the Dao, that spontaneously appeared to Cang Jie 倉 頡 (ca. 2650 BCE) as bird tracks on a sandy riverbank. As legend goes, Cang Jie created China’s first formal writing system from these markings.31 But before he processed and organized the signs, they were illegible to common mortals. Likewise, the talismans of the Writ are direct exudations of the cosmos, providing a glimpse into the profundity of the abstruse workings of gods and demons. Like the imprints of birds by the waterside or the cracks on a heated tortoise shell, they are unmediated expressions of cosmic patterns. The equivalence that the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds draws between the Writ and avian proto-writing also points to a shared mode of signification that privileges the meaning conveyed by the material aspect of writing over meanings that are conveyed through graphs. In this regard, the text’s reference to Cang Jie is not inadvertent. The Book of the Master of Huainan (Huainanzi 淮 南 子 ) recounts that “In antiquity, Cang Jie produced writing. Heaven then showered down grains and demons wailed into the night.”32 In his commentary, Gao You 高 誘 of the Later Han (25–220 CE) adds that “demons feared that, having been made into writing, they would also be examined, and for this reason they wailed into the night.33 Supernatural beings could no longer hide from humans once their identity and form were revealed through writing. Knowing the written names of gods or demons gave mortals control over them.34 It is perhaps timely to open a parenthesis and clarify that until the end of the Six Dynasties, the nuance between gods or spirits (shen 神 ) and demons (gui 鬼 ) did not denote binary moral valence.35 Rather, it pointed to different degrees of proximity to the mundane world, with demons being generally less removed and, it follows, more approachable.36 As an illustration of this concept of the supernatural, the names of the more distant gods and

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spirits were more akin to titles or official functions in a cosmic bureaucracy, whereas those of demons were more personal, referring to chthonian, localized, and individual agents. Translating gui as “manes” instead of “demons,” as some scholars elect to do, more aptly conveys this personal aspect since the term denotes the divinized souls of deceased ancestors. This nuance remains operative in the Writ, but its importance is considerably minimized. In some cases, god/spirit (shen) and demon (gui) are used more or less interchangeably for local supernatural entities. But more importantly, the scripture’s talismans are so powerful that they supersede the most daunting forms of ritual red tape required to interact with high-ranking deities; its celestial script is potent enough to render the titles of lofty celestial officials just as well as the personal names of everyday spirits or demons. From the standpoint of Daoist ontology, conventional writing and talismanic script are not completely unrelated. Both are expressions of primordial breath (yuanqi 元 氣 ). The principal difference lies in that one is “esoteric” while the other is “exoteric.” Esoteric script remains closer to its cosmic origins, and as a consequence it is legible only to those who are themselves closest to the Dao: divine beings, immortals, and practitioners who have reached the highest levels of spiritual achievement. Exoteric writing, on the other hand, is still cosmic in origin, as the account of Cang Jie’s discovery underscores, but it is processed and manipulated in order to make it understandable for the common mortal. The two forms of writing are both tangible manifestations of the essential characteristic or substance (ti 體 ) of that to which they refer. The quiddity of their signified, known as true form in Chinese sources, is normally invisible in the phenomenal world, but writing gives it visibility and a material shape.37 Through its constituent cosmic graphs, the writing that adorns a talisman concretizes the true form of a god or demon. It is simultaneously the supernatural entity’s true form and true name. The notion of xingming 形 名 , literally “form-name,” that is sometimes discussed in classical sources expresses how “form” — in this case, the material or corporeal (shiti 實 體 ) — and “name” — that is to say the notional (gainian 概 念 ) — converge in the experience of reality to constitute one’s identity.38

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In China, as elsewhere, names are intimately connected to identity, and the characters that are used to write names are believed to represent one’s nature more accurately than a portrait or photograph.39 Parallels between signatures in Western cultures and talismans in early and medieval China are striking. Signatures were guarantors of truth in representing name and identity. Consequently, they functioned as an immanent gage of presence of the person or authority (individual, institutional, royal, imperial, etc.) to whom the signature belonged. In La Signature, Béatrice Fraenkel traces the birth and development of signatures in Europe to the emergence of a culture of identity that rested on the patronym and, more importantly, on royal and imperial authority. She explains, “The notion of signature as a bodily imprint is inspired from [. . .] two traditions: the use of imprints as signs of validation (as autography, the signature falls in this category); and the medieval tradition of signature, whose deciphering grants one knowledge of the world. In the same way, signatures elicit interpretation as if their authors could be read and their hidden aspects revealed.”40 The talismans of the Writ are concurrently the signatures and depictions of gods or demons. Just as acquiring the orthography of a conventional word (the signifier) affords access to its true meaning (the signified), acquiring the true name of a supernatural being in the most unmediated form available — talismanic script — affords access to its true form and complete authority over it. When their names are deciphered from cosmic markings and made available to humans, demons are discovered and they effectively lose their freedom. The “Essential Functions” chapter from the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials elucidates the relationships that govern talismans, true form, true name, and writing in a passage that relates the Yellow Emperor’s oral instructions for the Writ. The divine monarch ascribes the efficacy of the Writ’s third scroll, the Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind (Renhuang wen 人皇文 ), to the sacred characters that make up the true names of its deities: The Yellow Emperor said: “As for the Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind, it [permits] all to know the records of life and death. It discerns the names of the hundred demons. It records the surnames and names of the ten thousand gods.” [Concerning the] Great Characters in Celestial Script of the

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Three Sovereigns, the Yellow Emperor obtained [its] divine charts and graphs in celestial script. By means of these he knew the graphs of the numina of the Nine Heavens, the famous mountains, and the rivers. If one can rely on its writing to order and summon various gods, then one can also use it to extend one’s life, to make the Director of Destinies descend and strike one’s name from the Register of Death, or even to erase names for other people. Subsequently, if one cultivates the Dao and seeks its arts, one will surely obtain divine immortality.41 人皇文者，皆知死生之錄，識百鬼之名，記萬神姓名。三皇天文大 字。黃帝得神圖天文字，以知九天名山川靈之字。若能按文致諸神 者，可以長生，可令召司命削死籍，必為人除之，然後修道求術， 必得神仙矣。

Although the Yellow Emperor begins with a description of the Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind alone, he quickly broadens his discussion to include all three scrolls, listed here under the title Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns. We learn that the talismans contained therein are the graphs that make up the true names of deities, and that they can be used to summon and control them. Commenting on the analogous talismans of the later Shangqing corpus, Isabelle Robinet explains, “[B]y unveiling the ‘names,’ the ‘sounds,’ and the forms of divine figures and places, and in this way the means of salvation, they [the talismans] are the visible token of the protection offered by the gods.”42 The passage’s use of the term “divine charts” or “divine diagrams” (shentu) to designate the talismans of the Writ emphasizes their visual dimension. The divine script that adorns them functions as an iconographic cue rather than a text to be read. In this light, the true name and true form are collapsed into one sign, the talisman, which is a physical manifestation of a supernatural being’s fundamental essence.43 In Daoist epistemology, such representations are known as images (xiang 象). They function as provisional mediators between the unity of the formless Dao and the phenomenal world. Images render entities visible and embodied, but they remain grounded in the cosmic roots and invisible essence of those entities. For this reason, images are understood as highly similar or equal to true form. As Li

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Daochun 李道純 (fl. late thirteenth century) explains, images essentially serve to “give form to the Formless by the word, and thus manifest the authentic and absolute Dao.”44 Robinet clarifies, “They are visible but lie beyond and before the world of forms.”45 Although typically translated as “image,” the term xiang can also convey the idea of a “figure” or more accurately, a “symbol” or “sign.” Thus, as images, the talismans of the Writ constitute the manifested cosmic substance of the beings they represent. The true form of those beings is divine writing. From this it follows that talismanic script is a more accurate reflection of a deity’s true appearance or substance than the anthropomorphic shape that it is assigned in pictorial representations or textual descriptions. Therefore, if one were to imagine a world that is exclusively made of divine script, in the Daoist view of things this would be closer to the true state of the universe than the collection of phenomena conventionally understood as reality. In drawing an equivalence between the hyperfactual on one hand and visuality coupled with materiality on the other, talismans and true-form charts are not unlike scientific image-objects including diagrams, atlases, or technical illustrations. Because they purported to remove the subjective fallibility of the human perspective from representation, these “protective charms against ambiguity,” as Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison call them, were moralized as prime exemplars of “neutral” and “value-free” scientific objectivity from the nineteenth century onward.46 For talismans and true-form charts too, unmediated verisimilitude together with physical verifiability were the twin epistemological fulcrums to establishing trust; could such gages have been precocious inklings of an early Chinese understanding of objectivity? At the very least, the “empirically” verified credibility that the Writ afforded was telegraphic enough that the scripture later found its niche in ordination rituals, a standardizing process, which from certain angles, has much in common with the making of scientific fact.

The Great Characters in Celestial Script In early and medieval Daoism and in sources tied to Writ of the Three

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Sovereigns, talismanic script was the medium that provided the closest thing to an exact image (xiang) of the Dao and its cosmogonic permutations. These permutations included the gods and spirits that were counted among the ten thousand creatures (wanwu 萬 物 ). The characters with which these images were painted spontaneously took form in Daoist heavens. They were derived from the Three Primes (sanyuan 三 元 ), the antecosmic breath that immediately prefigured the partition between Heaven, Earth, and Humankind. A line from the Sanhuang 三 皇 (Three Sovereigns) corpus preserved in the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds relates, “[The breath of ] the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions spontaneously formed writing. Each graph manifested individually; spanning ten square feet, they lay suspended in emptiness.”47 The Eight Conjunctions refer to the eight points of space.48 The script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions (sanyuan bahui zhi shu 三元八會之書 ) is, cosmogonically speaking, the most primordial form of writing. It is uncorrupted, having spontaneously manifested immediately after the separation of Yin and Yang. Since only deities of the highest celestial realms can read or communicate by means of its graphs, this form of writing is the only medium that can accurately depict these deities’ true names and true forms.49 The “Secret Words of [the Master who] Embraces Simplicity” (Baopu miyan), hereafter “Secret Words,” is a section from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors that contains the oral instructions received by Ge Hong upon obtaining the Writ. In the lines below, it elaborates on the relationship between the text’s talismans and the script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions: The Writ of the Three Sovereigns and its Great Characters were all compiled and edited by the Immortal Lord Wang. They were copied out sequentially in one scroll each so that its contents could be relied upon and used. Formerly, I heard [Lord] Bao [Jing] of Nanhai say: “the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns contains forty thousand words.” [I, Ge] Hong, have seen them, and suspect there are fewer. [Lord] Bao explained: “This is the writing of the Three Primes, Eight Conjunctions and all of space.”50

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三皇文及大字，皆仙人王君所集撰，抄撮次第為一卷，可按而用 之。往聞鮑南海說：天文三皇大字，有四萬言。洪所見者疑少。 鮑云：是三天 [ 元 ] 八會群方文也。

The term “Great Characters” (dazi 大字 ) technically refers to the script of the Three Primes and the Eight Conjunctions, but it was also more commonly used as a shorthand designation for the Writ’s talismans, and by extension, the Writ itself. It notably figures in the extended title for the Lord Wang– Bo He version of the scripture, the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang tianwen dazi), as recorded in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” section of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors. This title is sometimes abbreviated as the Great Characters in Celestial Script (Tianwen dazi), or simply the Great Characters (Dazi). In each case, the title refers to the version of the Writ that was handed down via the Lord Wang–Bo He transmission line, although in this particular passage Bao Jing is portrayed as having been familiar with the text as well.51 According to the “Secret Words,” the divine script of the Great Characters is so condensed that the author expresses doubt as to how the relatively short text could have contained forty thousand graphs. A second passage from the section explains: [I, Ge] Hong, once heard that Master Li himself, the patriarch of scriptures on the Dao, said: “Upon reaching Yingzhou, I paid a visit to Lord Dong Zhong.52 Lord Zhong had the [Scripture of ] the Nine Heavens of Great Existence in four scrolls, and the Scripture of Lesser Existence in four scrolls. Their graphs were two inches square; they were spaced out and subtly elegant. The scrolls were as big as a bamboo stalk of five inches [in diameter]. According to the table of contents, they [each] contained forty thousand words.” Master [Li] doubted that so little writing could have so many graphs. Lord Zhong explained: “This script is not the script of the [mundane] world. It is the Great Emblem of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions. One graph of this script contains thirty-three graphs [of mundane script]. From left to right and top to bottom, they are used and organized according to their form. This indicates that the several graphs from the [Heaven of ] Great Existence that were transmitted [to humans]

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are the true and oldest arcane classics. In this way, how would the four scrolls of the Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns and those of the Great Characters in Celestial Script not contain forty thousand words?” Also, Master Bao’s Explanations in Sections53 states: “The Great Characters of the Three Sovereigns were transcribed from the writing of Great and Lesser Existence, and then merely named separately.54 Explained in this way, it should be more than clear.55 洪嘗聞。李先生道經之宗。李先生自說。往在瀛州，詣董仲君。 仲君有九天大有 [ 經 ] 四卷，小有經四卷。字方二寸，落落疏秀， 卷 大 如 五 寸 竹。按 目 錄 云 有 百 [ 四 ] 萬 言。先 生 疑 其 文 少 字 多。 仲 君 言：此 文 非 世 上 文 也，乃 三 天 [ 元 ] 八 會 之 大 章 也。一 字 有 三十三字，東西上下，隨形所用分集之。指擿大有上數字見授，真 上宿之奧典也。以此方三皇內文，天文大字，何緣四卷無四萬言 也。又鮑先生節解說：三皇大字，抄出大小有文，而別名之耳。如 是而論，益了了也。

Here, Ge Hong relates the words of a certain Master Li (Li Xiansheng 李 56 先 生 ). In explaining the intricacies of the Great Characters’ Script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions, Master Li makes clear that at the time his remarks were recorded, both the Scripture of Great Existence (Dayou jing 大 有 經 ), which represented the Bao Jing transmission, and the Scripture of Lesser Existence (Xiaoyou jing 小 有 經 ), which represented the Bo He transmission, circulated concurrently.57 To briefly address the question of the dating of the “Secret Words,” and indirectly that of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, if Ge Hong was indeed the author of this section, as some scholars have suggested, the terminus ante quem would have to be 343, the year of Ge Hong’s death.58 The author of the passage, however, refers to the two versions of the Writ as Scripture of Great Existence and Scripture of Lesser Existence (or variations thereof ), titles that only became common around the mid-to-late fourth century to the early fifth century. Moreover, the fourscroll format — three scrolls devoted to the Writ and a fourth assigned to instructions or supplemental talismans associated with transmission rites — is first documented as the version of the Writ that the fifth-century systematizer Lu Xiujing transmitted and perhaps received. There is no record of a four-

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scroll Writ before Lu Xiujing’s time. Therefore, the “Secret Words” were most likely penned during the first half of the fifth century at the earliest, by a person other than Ge Hong. Returning to the question of the Great Characters, the second excerpt from the “Secret Words” supplies one more noteworthy piece of information. Each character in the divine script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions contains thirty-three conventional Chinese characters, making both versions of the Writ much denser than they appear. A citation from what seems to be a transcription of the instructions that Bao Jing dispensed upon transmitting the Writ specifies that, while distinct, the divine writing from the Heaven of Great Existence and from the Heaven of Lesser Existence are both forms of the script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions. The differences between the talismans of Bo He’s Scripture of Lesser Existence and those in Bao Jing’s Scripture of Greater Existence would thus amount to particularities pertaining to subcategories of script. Given the tone of the passage, these would have been considered inconsequential. Most of the significant discrepancies between the two versions probably occurred in the wording of the oral instructions — especially the specifics of the ritual requirements — and in the appended materials that made up the fourth scroll.

The Talismans of the Three Sovereigns in the “Essential Functions” The “Essential Functions of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang yaoyong pin), chapter 25 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, is a crucial source for reconstituting the Writ of early medieval China, as it contains portions of both the Bo He and Bao Jing versions. The following list shows the title, number of constituent talismans, and proposed textual affiliations of each section: Untitled. 16 talismans. [Bo He version] First Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven. 14 talismans. [Bao Jing version] Second Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Earth. 14 talismans. [Bao Jing version]

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Third Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind. 5 talismans. [Bao Jing version] Esoteric Sounds of the Three Sovereigns. 4.5 talismans. [appended materials] Esoteric Writing and Secret Script of the Three Sovereigns. 0.5 talismans. [appended materials] Writ on the Transmission of the Three Sovereigns. 2 talismans [appended materials] Talismans of the Latter Chapter of the Great Characters. 9 talismans [Bo He version] After a succinct overview of each of the three chapters of the Writ, the opening section of the “Essential Functions” directly cites a Celestial Script (Tianwen 天 文 ), which in this context can only be Bo He’s Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns: The Celestial Script says: “All those who wish to cause the spirits of the Nine Heavens, the Nine Earths, the Five Peaks, the Four Waterways, the Three Rivers, the Four Seas, Great Unity, the Lord of the North, and the sun and moon, the Five Emperors, fathers, mothers, consorts, and maidens, the administrative and security officers, and the imperial officials to come should use this method to summon them. All [these spirits] can be employed in times of illness, raging epidemics, or for the purpose of urgent official matters.”59 天文曰：諸欲致九天，九地，五嶽、四瀆，三河、四海，太一，北 君、日月諸神、五帝、父母夫人、諸女、錄吏刺姦、諸禁官，皆當 如此法召之。若有疾病時，毒疫流行，有官急之事，皆可為之。

This preface is followed by a list of titles of sixteen talismans, many of which correspond to the deities enumerated in the introductory note.60 Since there is no indication that the citation from the Celestial Script has ended, we may assume that the sixteen talismans constitute a partial inventory of the talismans from Bo He’s Great Characters in Celestial Script,61 which, until the mid-to-late fourth century, was the oldest and most authoritative of the two transmissions. The images of the talismans have not survived in the received version of the text; only their titles and fragmentary instructions

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remain. The instructions typically provide only the name of the deity and the number of its constituent characters.62 The entries for the first and tenth talismans, however, are considerably longer, revealing what a complete set of instructions might have looked like. They describe the circumstances in which the deities should be summoned: First [talisman]: these thirty characters are [written] in the seal script of the Nine Heavens [a subcategory of the script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions]. They should not be carelessly slandered and ridiculed. They can summon the investigators of the Nine Heavens and the administrative and security officers. If someone is ill, then you can also summon [these deities]. [. . .] Tenth [talisman]: these nine characters summon the Three Dukes along with their fathers, mothers, consorts, and maidens in order to make them assume burdens. Whenever there is urgency, [you may also] summon the spirits of Heaven and Earth along with those of their fathers, mothers, consorts, and maidens in order to make them assume burdens, so that you may live to the end of your days without a care in the world.63 第一，三十字是九天印文，不可妄觸訶也。可召九天校事，刺姦 吏。若病者，乃可召之耳。 [. . .] 第十，九字召三公父母夫人女。凡有急，召天地諸神父母夫人女以 為致任，則終身無患。

A few sections below this one, the end of chapter 25 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials includes instructions for a seemingly related series of nine talismans that correspond to the names of the Nine Heavens (jiutian 九 天 ).64 The heading of that section, “Talismans from the Latter Chapter of the Great Characters” (Dazi xiapian fu 大字下篇符 ), is evocative of the Great Characters in Celestial Script. The names of the same gods of the Nine Heavens appear in identical sequence in an inventory of talismans at the outset of the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” section of the Wondrous Essence of

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the Eight Emperors. The instructions from that text also match up with those from the “Talismans from the Latter Chapter of the Great Characters,” albeit with minor discrepancies. Most tellingly, the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” confirms that the specific set of nine talismans and its annotations are taken from the Writ representing the Lord Wang–Bo He transmission line.65 Thus we may surmise that the “Talismans from the Latter Chapter of the Great Characters” was, as its name indicates, the second half of the extract from the Great Characters in Celestial Script that opened the “Essential Functions” chapter of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials. Presumably, these would have followed the first sixteen talismans from the opening section.66 After the initial section of sixteen talismans from the Great Characters in Celestial Script, the “Essential Functions” presents a second set of fourteen talismans under the title “First Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven” (Tianhuang wen di yi fa 天 皇 文 第 一 法 ).67 Again, the names of the deities in talismanic script have not survived; the text includes only the names in conventional script, the number of constituent characters, and some oral instructions. The instructions, more detailed than in the previous section, include directives about the materials that are to be used in producing the talismans (silk; zeng 繒 or paper; zhi 紙 ), as well as indications relative to the cardinal direction that adepts should face and the number of breaths they should take in preparation for an audience with the summoned spirit. Some of the entries concern deities that appear in the first set of sixteen talismans, an overlap that suggests this second group of fourteen talismans is from a similar but distinct transmission of the Writ, in all likelihood Bao Jing’s version. The reader is then introduced to a third set of talismans under the title “Second Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Earth” (Dihuang wen di er fa 地 皇 文 第 二 法 ).68 Instructions accompany each of the fourteen talisman headings. The same applies to a fourth set, the “Third Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind” (Renhuang wen di san fa 人 皇 文 第 三 法 ), made up of only five talismans.69 Together, these three sections ostensibly represent Bao Jing’s Writ in the shape it espoused during the second half of the sixth century, when the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials was compiled. A number of sources establish that the Writ was made up of three scrolls

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composed of fourteen “chapters” (pian 篇 ) each.70 If each chapter refers to one talisman and its ritual instructions, then each of the three scrolls should have fourteen talismans. This is the case for both the “Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven” and the “Writ of the Sovereign of Earth.” Nine appear to be missing from the “Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind.” An annotation at the end of this section, however, states that “the remaining graphs are recorded in the Celestial Script,” referring the readers back to the opening section of the chapter.71 Unfortunately, it is impossible to determine exactly which of the sixteen talismans in the section identified as the Great Characters in Celestial Script correspond to the missing nine from Bao Jing’s Writ, or if they are even listed. Nonetheless, the annotation reflects some overlap between the talismans of the Bo He and Bao Jing versions. Moreover, it also indicates that the instructions for some talismans at least were similar enough that the editors of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials saw little use in duplicating them.72 This was certainly the case with the talisman of the Lord of the North (Beijun 北 君 ), also known as Emperor of the North (Beidi 北 帝 ), for whom oral instructions from both versions have survived. The segment on the “First Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven,” associated with Bao Jing’s version, includes the following directives: Fifth [talisman]; these eighteen characters summon the Lord of the North. If you personally fear the dangers of water, or if you have a water-illness, then proceed as in the Great Unity method [above].73 The Lord of the North will invariably arrive, and the meaning of his orders [to disease demons or other threats] will match the words [of your supplication]. You will surely be free of calamity. If you merely write these characters of the Lord of the North and affix them inside your clothes, when traveling on a vessel for ten thousand li, neither wind nor waves will ever rise up, nor will the ship ever sink. This can be promptly verified.74 第五，一十八字召北君。身恐有水厄，若水病者，如太一法，北君 必來，勑語意如言，必无患也。若但書此北君字著衣中，行舟萬 里，風波不起，船不沉，便可試驗。

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A talisman for summoning the Lord of the North as well as his mother, father, and consorts appears in the part of the “Essential Functions” that derives from Bo He’s Great Characters in Celestial Script, but because that section of the text is fragmentary and truncated, the instructions provide no more than the number of purification days required to summon the spirits. Fortunately, there exists a pair of snippets from Bo He’s Writ in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity that we can compare to Bao Jing’s instructions on the Lord of the North. Ge Hong begins by recounting how Bo He received the Writ and then proceeds to explain some of its uses: “Taking this book [the Writ of the Three Sovereigns] into the mountains, it will rout tigers and wolves. [. . .] [With it], one can ford rivers and seas, disperse alligators and dragons, and halt the wind and waves.”75 He then cites a particular talisman in support of his claims, praising its nautically themed virtues in similar terms as the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials’ “First Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven”: There are also eighteen characters, and by affixing them inside your clothes, you may travel far, fording streams, rivers, and seas, ending your worries of wind and ceasing those of waves.76 又有十八字以著衣中，遠涉江海，終無風波之慮也。

In a second passage, which includes the earliest use of the title Great Characters in Celestial Script, Ge Hong elaborates: There is also the Great Characters in Celestial Script, which contains the writing [for the name of ] the Emperor of the North. If one writes it on silk and wears it at the waist, it will also repel wind and waves, alligators, dragons, and water creatures.77 又天文大字，有北帝書，寫帛而帶之，亦辟風波蛟龍水蟲也。

Ge Hong does not use the title Great Characters in Celestial Script elsewhere in his work, but there is little doubt that in this passage, as in the one above, he is describing Bo He’s Writ. It is also clear that both excerpts on the Lord of the North generally match the content of the instructions from Bao Jing’s text in the “Essential Functions.” This confirms that some of the

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instructions in each version were similar and that they changed little over the three centuries that separated The Master Who Embraces Simplicity and the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials.78 Nevertheless, we should remain cautious in drawing conclusions since the instructions to the Writ’s talismans are incomplete in all the sources in which they survive. Relatively speaking, the Bao Jing version of the Writ as it appears in the pages of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials is well preserved. By the time of the anthology’s compilation, it had reached the status of touchstone version of the Writ, and, accordingly, it was featured as the centerpiece of the chapter on the “Essential Functions of the Three Sovereigns.” Nonetheless, excerpts from the Great Characters in Celestial Script open and close the chapter, and the reader is invited on more than one occasion to consult it for talismans that appear in the Bao Jing version.79 The lines examined above from the “First Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven” suggest that Bo He’s source included a more exacting set of ritual requirements than the instructions from Bao Jing’s revelation. The latter, it seems, offered remedial methods for those who transgressed the Great Characters in Celestial Script or had their requests denied. The “First Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven” text plainly states: If you transgressed the Celestial Script and your requests were not followed, then you should undertake this method. Summon the Prime Minister, request that which you want, and it will be invariably obtained.80 若犯天文，若求願不從，亦當作此法，召丞相，求所願，必得矣。

Much in the same vein, the “Second Method: Writ of the Sovereign of Earth” provides a single catch-all talisman for summoning the spirits of snakes, vipers, insects, and rodents to protect against them, while an annotation clarifies that all their names are listed separately in the Celestial Script.81 Bao Jing’s version thus appears to have been a simpler, more practical version of the Great Characters in Celestial Script, aimed perhaps at audiences with different expectations concerning ritual requirements. In addition to excerpts from Bao Jing’s and Bo He’s versions of the Writ, the “Essential Functions” chapter from the Unsurpassed Secret Essen-

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tials includes seven additional talismans with instructions divided among three sections (see the list above). Historically, the Writ was associated with a number of documents that were part of the same nexus of local practices in Jiangnan. They were handed down together with the Writ as appended materials, secondary talismans that attested to the fact that the primary ones had been received. The talismans numbered anywhere from a handful to more than a dozen and they were not fixed, although some titles surface with more regularity than others in surviving inventories. Functioning as transmission gages, these ancillary talismans were distinct from the Writ’s three core scrolls. Between the middle of the fourth century and the middle of the fifth century, as the text was increasingly subjected to the rigors of institutionalization, they were collected in a fourth scroll that functioned as an appendix to the Writ.82 The first of the three additional sections from the “Essential Functions” that contains materials tied to the transmission gages of the fourth scroll is the “Esoteric Sounds of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang neiyin 三 皇 內 音 ).83 This section contains instructions for five talismans. The last set of instructions, which cover the “Esoteric Talisman for Issuing the Troops of the Nine Heavens” (Jiutian fabing neifu 九 天 發 兵 內 符 ), is divided between this section and the following one. Most of the five talismans from this section appear in inventories that document the materials handed down with the Writ during its transmission (see appendix 4 for the principal inventories of appended materials).84 The second section, the “Secret Writ on the Esoteric Writing of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang neishu miwen 三 皇 內 書 祕 文 ), is relatively short and is made up of only the second half of the instructions for the “Esoteric Talisman for Issuing the Troops of the Nine Heavens.”85 The last section of ancillary transmission gages is titled “Writ on the Transmission of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang zhuanwen 三 皇 傳 文 ).86 It contains two talismans, one of which is the “Hidden Talisman of the Five Peaks” ( 五 嶽 陰 符 ). The instructions explain that this talisman is required for the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Wuyue zhenxing tu) to send forth their five sentinel gods.87 This last detail reveals part of the logic behind the ancillary talismans. Some, if not all, of the appended materials functioned as a kind of fail-safe

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mechanism to ensure that a legitimate transmission of the Writ had occurred. Crafty adepts who had managed to illicitly obtain the Charts and the Writ would discover that their efforts had been for naught since the main talismans required secondary talismans to activate them. The preoccupation with keeping powerful texts or objects out of undeserving hands dates back well before the sixth century. It is apparent in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, where Ge Hong insists on handing down the Writ only once in a generation. Given that many of the ancillary talismans from the “Essential Functions” are found in his bibliographic catalogue, it is possible that they already played the role of transmission safeguards in the early fourth century.88 In any event, once they were formally collected into a fourth scroll, the appended materials acted as tokens, testifying to a transmission of the Writ through proper and recognized channels.

The Talismans of the Three Sovereigns in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” Another source from the Daoist Canon preserves important fragments of Bo He and Bao Jing’s Writ. The central section of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, the “Instructions from the Western Citadel,” contains ninety-two talismans and their instructions, along with a substantial narrative component. The talismans are the source’s centerpiece and they are listed sequentially, as a roster, with no breaks or subheadings. This format recalls that of the register (lu 籙 ), an initiatory document in which deities and spirits are identified by name, thereby granting the document owner command over them. Indeed, the Writ was essentially a register in which the true name/true form of supernatural beings was revealed in celestial characters. The Western Citadel mentioned in the title of the section under consideration is the domain of Lord Wang, the figure who transmitted the Writ to Bo He and bestowed upon him the instructions on how to use its talismans. The full title of the section, “Essential Instructions from the Western Citadel on the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns,” makes clear which version is under consideration. Accordingly, fifteen of the sixteen talis-

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mans from the Celestial Script section in the “Essential Functions” chapter of the Unsurpassed Essentials are accounted for in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” (see appendix 3 for a list of corresponding or related talismans).89 Moreover, the items from the “Talismans from the Latter Chapter of the Great Characters” section that also originated from Bo He’s version of the Writ are reproduced in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” in the same sequence and with the same instructions. For example, the instructions for summoning the River Earl (Hebo 河 伯 ), from the “Talismans from the Latter Chapter of the Great Characters,” read, “The name of the High Sovereign (Gaohuang 高 皇 ; one of the gods of the Nine Heavens) can summon the River Earl. When it is placed in water, the River Earl descends. One may ask him about matters pertaining to water (shuishi 水 事 ).”90 The corresponding talisman in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” states, “The name of the High Sovereign can summon the River Earl, just as in the method for summoning mountain deities. When it is placed in water, the River Earl descends. One may ask him about floods and drought (shuihan 水 91 旱 ).” The details of the instructions for all nine talismans in this set — from the name of the gods to the ritual specifications — are almost exact duplicates of those in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials’ “Talismans from the Latter Chapter of the Great Characters”92 In addition to preserving talismans from the Great Characters in Celestial Script, the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” also contains substantial moral and ritual directives, recipes for elixirs, and an account of Lord Wang and Bo He’s first meeting.93 These supplementary materials were probably handed down as part of the instructions and served the purpose of contextualizing the talismans. This text constitutes the most complete extant specimen of the Writ, yet it is still quite fragmentary and disorganized. Muddling the picture, many of the talismans from the sections that correspond to Bao Jing’s Writ in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials twenty-fifth chapter appear in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” (see appendix 3), which indicates that elements from both versions of the Writ are included under the same heading.94 The following provides a synoptic overview of the basic structure of the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” (subsection titles and topical headings do not appear in the original):

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Lord Wang’s opening instructions on the Writ and its transmission • benefits offered by the Writ • account of Bo He’s reception • moral prerequisites for obtaining the Writ including thirteen precepts Lord Wang’s instructions on the Writ’s broader context • benefits of studying the Dao • three minor elixir methods (one herbal, two alchemical) • visualization method for detaining cloudsouls Bo He’s instructions on the Writ and its transmission • detailed narrative of Bo He’s encounter with Lord Wang Lord Wang’s closing instructions on the Writ and its transmission • detailed exhortations on ethical and ritual requirements of transmission Talismans of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns • Inventory of ninety-two talismans from Bo He and Bao Jing versions, with illustrations and partial instructions • final annotation concerning the instructions for talismans one through nine • Ritual exhortations for summoning deities • general prescriptions on the process of conjuring gods • instructions on how to behave in their presence • final ritual precautions on writing talismans In spite of both Bo He and Bao Jing’s version being lumped together, it is safe to assume that the talismans were originally partitioned into two lists. Certain elements in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” irrefutably point to that scenario. For example, an annotation after the sixtyfourth talisman reads, “For [all talismans] on the right [i.e., above], use silk nine inches across, cinnabar writing, and [employ them] inside a [ritual] chamber. Following the method, the recto side should be colored.”95 Another annotation that follows the second group of talismans, from sixty-five to

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ninety-two, specifies that these should “all be in cinnabar writing on silk one foot and two inches across and the same in length. Do not breathe nor speak when writing them.”96 The existence of distinct ritual instructions for two large sets of talismans points to different origins for the respective sets. In what proportions the Bo He and Bao Jing versions were combined in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” cannot be known, but given the title of the section and its narrative content, one can surmise that talismans from Bo He’s transmission were in the majority.97 Moreover, despite its dual origins, the text is patently partial to the Lord Wang–Bo He line. An annotation that appears immediately after the last of ninety-two talismans reinforces the distinction between the two revelations of the Writ, recommending that readers favor one over the other: Above, from the name of the High Above down to the name of the Celestial Emperor, these [nine talismans] add up to the Nine Agents. Below are notes for carrying out summonings. These are different from the stipulations from the Esoteric Scripture of Duke Bao. If one is to rely on the Practices of Lord Wang, one should follow what is recorded in the Nine Agents.98 上從高上名至天帝名，合九行，下注所施召，與鮑公內經節度有 異。若按王君施行，當從九行所注。

Although brief, this annotation is rich in information. In addition to privileging Lord Wang’s instructions, it also confirms that the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” opens with nine talismans from the Great Characters in Celestial Script. This text is referred to as the Practices of Lord Wang (Wangjun shixing 王 君 施 行 ),99 whereas the Bao Jing version is called the Esoteric Scripture of Duke Bao (Baogong neijing 鮑 公 內 經 ). Elsewhere in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, the latter is known as Lord Bao of Nanhai’s Prefatory Catalogue (Bao nanhai xumu) or Master Bao’s Explanations in Sections (Bao xiansheng jiejie 鮑 先 生 節 解 ). The variety of names used for these sources indicates the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors’ layered textual history: the compilation must have drawn from disparate sources of the Writ dating from different periods. The diversity of titles also suggests

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that most of these sources predate Lu Xiujing’s submission of his catalogue to the throne in 471 CE, when titles for the Writ were standardized.100 Nevertheless, even if Bo He’s Writ was favored, talismans and instructions from Bao Jing’s version were ubiquitous in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel.” These might have been incorporated on account of Bo He’s Writ being unavailable to compilers in its entirety. The following examples of talismans associated with the High Above (Gaoshang 高 上 ), one of the gods of the Nine Heavens, distinctly evoke this possibility. His talisman appears in the “Essential Functions” chapter of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials in a section identified as deriving from Bao Jing’s version of the Writ. The adjoining instructions read: The third [name] is [composed of ] nineteen characters that summon the High Above. If there is someone in your household who has a great illness, if they have gone against celestial gods and are not capable of discerning for themselves their illness but it seems as if they know they have heavy qi in their four limbs, then you should summon the High Above and request help. Face North, do as in the previous method, and [the outcome will be] auspicious.101 第三，一十九字召高上。若家有大病，若犯天神，不能自知病者， 如知四肢重炁之者，當召高上請救，北向如上法吉。

In the same chapter, a section that is associated with Bo He’s Great Characters in Celestial Script contains a substantially different set of instructions for the same deity: The name of the High Above summons the High Above of Great Harmony. In the flash of an eye, he suddenly manifests and descends.102 高上名召高上太和。食頃立形見至。

The High Above also appears in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors. The deity’s name is listed among the talismans for the Nine Heavens that cap the inventory:

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[As for] the name of the High Above, undertake a quiet retreat of five days, [reproduce it] in cinnabar writing on silk five inches [across], and affix it inside a pure chamber.103 It summons the High Above of Great Harmony. In the flash of an eye, he suddenly manifests and descends.104 高 上 名，靜 齋 五 日，丹 書 帛 五 寸，蓋 著 靖 室 中。召 高 士 [ 上 ] 太 和。食頃立形至。

As established above, the names of the Nine Heavens are from the Great Characters in Celestial Script and the instructions closely resemble those from the corresponding talisman in the “Essential Functions,” but some information is missing. Specifications regarding the purification rite, writing instructions, and locus of use are noticeably absent from the latter. Variants between different recensions of the same talisman from the same version could exist; in most instances, however, discrepancies are attributable to lacunose or truncated copies. By contrast, the differences in oral instructions between Bo He and Bao Jing’s versions could be more significant: the discrepancies between the Bo He and Bao Jing instructions for the High Above are stark. Yet divergence was not a hard-and-fast rule. In the Lord/ Emperor of the North highlighted above, both versions of the Writ had relatively similar instructions. Whether they were isolated cases or regular occurrences, minor or important disparities would have been reason enough to include two, or even multiple, sets of instructions for the Writ within a single compilation as in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel.” In Six Dynasties sources tied to the Writ of the Three Sovereigns, talismans established the legitimacy of their owner and the credibility of their claims. Yet the celestial graphs that adorned the ritual objects carried no meaning; they were written in a divine language originally unintended for the eyes of mortals. Only those who blurred the line between human and divine could aspire to decrypt them upon obtaining the Writ. For everyone else, the primary meaning of the talismans was authentication and consequently trust. This was conveyed not through words or writing, but through the talisman’s physicality. As objects, the Writ and its talismans constituted

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ultimate proof of that which it promised to fulfill — granting a privileged line of communication with the divine — without actually having to fulfill it. The materiality of the talisman was paramount to substantiating its efficacy, just as illegibility was key in corroborating its divine origins. The talisman was read as the mysterious true name (zhenming) or “esoteric sound” (neiyin 內 音 ) of the god or demon it depicted and, simultaneously, as a concrete embodiment of that supernatural being’s true form (zhenxing). Possessing a god or demon’s true name/true form afforded complete control over it. A talisman was not only proof of spiritual merit or achievement, nor merely a badge of identification as a worthy interlocutor of the divine; it was a tangible gage of its holder’s ability to command the entity it represented. Collapsing the boundaries between signifier, signified, and sign — between true name/true form, supernatural being, and object — meant that conveying the impression of authority over the supernatural was equivalent to actually wielding it. Talismans and other sacred tokens such as charts (tu 圖 ) found much of their use and cultural capital within this equation since they conveyed that impression directly and with the utmost immediacy. As a tool of superintendence, steeped in a language of bureaucracy, coercion, and immediately verifiable theocratic legitimacy, the talisman lent itself nicely to the political discourse of imperial unification. Just as the talisman was a physically manifested double of celestial characters composed of ethereal breath, so too was the Chinese state a double of the spiritual bureaucracy (not the other way around). And since the spiritual bureaucracy relied on the administrative power of writing to ensure order, so could the Chinese state, particularly if the writing was of divine origin, the ur-source of any authority or political legitimacy in classical China.105 Resting on this understanding of writing as a medium of ultimate potency, the Writ posited itself as a supernatural scriptural foundation for imperial legitimacy. The Writ rendered the true name or true form of gods and demons in the divine writing of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions. Once materialized onto a physical support, the celestial graphs were in and of themselves an embodiment or, more precisely, an image (xiang) of those beings. The critical importance of supernatural script to the Writ is apparent upon

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nothing more than a glance at its surviving fragments from the “Essential Functions” of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials and the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors. Both sources are essentially inventories of divinely inscribed true names that contain significant portions of the original Bo He and Bao Jing versions of the Writ. They also contain appended materials that were usually handed down with the scripture as transmission gages. These unofficial appendices consisted of an assortment of variable ancillary talismans (or sometimes charts) that were not included in the Writ’s principal three scrolls. They were, however, deemed central enough to be collated with the Writ and eventually incorporated into a fourth scroll. Because the preserved fragments are incomplete, it is impossible to conclusively determine exactly what the Writ looked like in Six Dynasties China, but surviving fragments provide evidence that the two versions were made up of a few dozen talismans and that they shared many of the divine names in their inventory. Bao Jing’s Writ contained more succinct instructions and it appears to have been a streamlined version of Bo He’s. This may be read as a conscious decision on the part of fifth- and sixth-century systematizers to produce — or at least champion — a comparatively delocalized and more accessible scripture in conjunction with their emerging program of integrated state Daoism. Through its remnants in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials and the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, a clearer picture of the Writ in Six Dynasties China emerges. These sources confirm that an exhaustive inventory of supernatural beings’ true names was at the core of the scripture. Yet talismans were by no means the only facet of the Writ and its expanding corpus. The next chapter will look at alchemical elixirs and meditation charts, two types of ritual implements that subscribed to the same semantic logic as talismans and embodied equally important but often overlooked facets of the Writ.

Chapter Three

Beyond Talismans Alchemy, Charts, and Meditation in Relation to the Writ

True names (zhenming) and true forms (zhenxing), both concretions of the ethereal essence of divine beings, are central notions in understanding how the talismans of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns functioned. The twists and turns with which the talismans were written spelled out the true names of their corresponding gods and traced the contours of their true forms. In other words, the celestial script that adorned the ritual implements constituted the original unmediated image (xiang) of the gods or demons they summoned. Once the writing was physically manifested on a material medium, its potency was transferred onto that object. In this way, the talisman was an emblem of authority over the being its markings denoted; by extension it also functioned as a gage of spiritual achievement, for only the most accomplished adepts could receive such powerful tools and wield them. In both instances, through various media such as paper, silk, or wood, the talisman made tangible that which was imperceivable to humans: it gave a material shape to the essence of gods and demons, and a tangible form to legitimacy. This chapter examines some of the alternatives to talismans that were just as central to the Writ and Jiangnan lore in general despite being routinely overlooked by scholars. It opens with a consideration of some of the lesser-known uses of alchemical elixirs (dan 丹 ). These “great medicines” (dayao 大 藥 ), as they were known, were not simply prized for prolonging lifespan. Ritually interchangeable with talismans, they also made for fine apotropaic and conjuring implements. As a testament to their functional overlap with

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talismans, the scriptures and elixirs of the Taiqing (Great Clarity) tradition of Waidan 外丹 , laboratory or external alchemy, were often paired with the Writ in transmission. This is most apparent in the imbrication of the Writ’s transmission lineages with those of Taiqing alchemy. As with Taiqing materials, many of the earliest passages detailing the transmission of the Writ mention the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Wuyue zhenxing tu), hereafter the True Form Charts, as a complementary artifact. In early medieval China, charts (tu 圖 ) were iconographic complements to the “text” (wen 文 ) of the talisman, both elements joining together as two halves of a tally. Although complementary, diagrams and talismans were also equivalent images (xiang) of the supramundane, united through their grammar of true form. Citing the Yellow Emperor, the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials (Wushang biyao) notably refers to the talismans from the Writ as “divine diagrams” or “divine images” (shentu 神 圖 ).1 Accordingly, the True Form Charts could act as stand-alone documents of transmission, or, alternatively, they could be included in the Writ as individual talismans that summoned the gods of the Five Peaks.2 Diagrams such as the True Form Charts compelled deities to manifest, but they also functioned as visualization aids in the summoning process. The “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” (Jiuhuang tu 九 皇 圖 ) were transmission gages and companion artifacts to the Writ, but they are also central to a distinct method of conjuring through meditation. Building on the connections between charts and visualization, the final part of the chapter considers the broader question of the Writ’s relation to contemplation practices in Six Dynasties China, along with the pivotal role of the Great Unity, or Taiyi, in that rapport.

Alchemical Elixirs as Talismans In early medieval Jiangnan, the ritual conventions that governed apotropaia dictated that beneficial adducive functions such as summoning deities were combined with expulsive functions.3 Talismans, including those in the Writ, reflect this understanding of religious praxis, as do alchemical elixirs.

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Although they were primarily known for affording longevity and even immortality, elixirs were also used to conjure gods and to protect against misfortune. The seventh-century commentary to the Scripture of the Divine Elixirs of the Nine Tripods of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi jiuding shendan jing 黄 帝 九 鼎 神 丹 經 ), a quintessential text of the Taiqing (Great Clarity) tradition, informs readers that once its main elixir is prepared, it may conjure the Gods of Soil and Grain (sheji 社 稷 ), the Count of Wind (fengbo 風 伯 ), and the supreme deity the Great Unity.4 These same gods can be summoned with celestial graphs from the Writ.5 Just as with talismans, when individuals used elixirs to conjure deities or expel demons, they held them in their hands or kept them on their person.6 Wearing a “great medicine” (dayao) also signaled an elevated spiritual station: fastening the elixir at the hip through the sash, like a tally or official chop, conveyed supernatural authority and legitimacy even though the symbolism of governance was not as readily apparent with elixirs as it was with talismans. Formalizing the intrinsic ties between alchemy and talismans, the Taiqing corpus was later canonized as a supplement or “auxiliary” (fu 輔 ) to the section of the Daoist Canon that housed the Writ.7 The interchangeability of alchemical substances and talismans, however, was cemented long before canonical ties were established. In The Master Who Embraces Simplicity (Baopuzi), Ge Hong enumerates the manifold ways to ingest realgar (xionghuang 雄 黄 ), a key ingredient in alchemical recipes.8 At the end of his survey, he concludes, “In each case, eating it makes people live long; the hundred illnesses will be dispelled and the three corpses will be evacuated; scars will disappear; white hair will turn black, and fallen teeth will grow anew.”9 He extols realgar’s most prized faculty last, adding that “after a thousand days [of ingesting it], the Jade Maidens will come and tend to you; they can be put in your service, and relied upon to summon the mobile kitchens (xingchu 10 行 廚 ).” Thus, the full gamut of benefits realgar affords runs from rejuvenation and longevity to banishing harmful spirits and summoning benevolent deities. The merits of the alchemical ingredient realgar are also recorded in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors (Badi miaojing jing), a text that houses

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surviving fragments of the Writ and associated materials. The substance is listed as one of the ingredients in a Minor Elixir Recipe (xiao danfa 小 丹 法 ) that Lord Wang of the Western Citadel (Xicheng Wangjun) reveals to Bo He: Now I will tell you about the minor elixir recipe that uses realgar and cypress seeds. It is a method for seizing cloudsouls and detaining whitesouls. Use a bamboo slip [to mix the ingredients] as follows. Prepare one thousand cypress seeds and proceed to finely strain out the dregs. Mix the [processed] cypress seeds with ten pounds of pine oil. Take one pound of realgar. Its color should be like red plums. Join it with the medicine and then repeatedly pound it as per the recipe. Steam the medicine for one day, and what is extracted should be like candied syrup. Sit upright facing the North, and ingest five pills [made from this syrup] at sunrise. After one hundred days, you will be able to make contact with gods.11 於是告小丹法，用雄黃，栢子、拘魂制魄之方，用籤之如左：治栢子 千下，細簁去滓，松脂十斤，以和栢子。 雄黃一斤，色如赤李者，合 藥中，復擣如法。 蒸藥一日，引之如飴。 正坐北向，平旦頓服五丸， 百日之後，與神交。

In Taiqing scriptures, alchemical elixirs are prized foremost for their capacity to bestow longevity and even immortality; their apotropaic and summoning benefits are secondary. In sources pertaining to the Writ, however, the emphasis is inverted. Like talismans, elixirs are esteemed above all for their capacity to protect from noxious influences and summon spirits to immediate audiences. Nonetheless, their collateral effects on lifespan are still prized. Another Minor Elixir Recipe (youxiao danfa 又 小 丹 法 ) from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors relates: Use quicksilver, cinnabar, and realgar. Each of the three ingredients should be separated into equal amounts and prepared. Then, mix them together with white honey and make pills the size of large beans. Rise early on a clear dawn, on a day without clouds or fog, face eastwards and ingest seven pills. Gargle with fragrant water [i.e. fresh water drawn from a well]. Ingest one pill per day for three years. Your body will become radiant. If you continue to ingest them for a long time, you will be able to escape death.12

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用水銀、丹砂、雄黃，凡三物，各使分等治，和以白蜜，丸如大豆。 清旦早起，無雲霧日，東向服七丸，漱以華水。 一日再服，服之三 年，身有光，長服可不死。

A method with a similar title, the Recipe for the Minor Divine Elixir (xiao shendan fang 小 神 丹 方 ), is encountered in “The Golden Elixir” (“Jindan” 金 13 丹 ), the alchemical chapter of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity. The instructions for preparing the medicine, as well as its effects, are redolent of the prescription from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors. Although this particular recipe does not compel gods to descend, other ones from the same passage do.14 Indeed, more than half of the nine alchemical medicines described in the “Golden Elixir” chapter can marshal deities.15 Some of the elixirs are concocted expressly for the purpose of visionary divination. According to the “Jade Pillar Elixir Recipe” (Yuzhu danfa 玉 柱 丹 法 ), after ingesting the medicine for a hundred days, “the jade maidens of the Six Jia (liu jia 六 甲 ) and the divine maidens of the Six Ding (liu ding 六 丁 ) will come to one’s service; one may command them and know matters of the realm.”16 In Taiqing sources and The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, the gods of the Six Jia and Six Ding are summoned with elixirs, wheareas in the surviving fragments of the talisman-centered Writ, the same gods are summoned by means of their true names in celestial script.17 The passages above establish that in the religious landscape of early medieval southern China, talismans and elixirs were viewed as having similar, if not identical, applications. Highlighting the functional overlap between both objects, Taiqing elixirs were sometimes plainly referred to as fu 符 , a graph that was traditionally associated with talismans.18 The selected excerpts illustrate that both elixirs and talismans were common and interchangeable implements in the broader ritual tradition of Jiangnan lore. The materials associated with the Writ privileged practices that revolved around talismans, but this did not preclude adepts from relying on alchemical methods as well. For the Writ and the Taiqing corpus, shared roots overshadowed any proprietary inclinations. Their practices were above all incarnations of the same collective Jiangnan legacy.

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The Taiqing (Great Clarity) Line The Taiqing tradition of alchemy and the Writ are both iconic expressions of Jiangnan religious culture.19 Both can be traced to the common bedrock of southern lore and both currents developed in concert during the third and fourth centuries. Many of their transmission networks and communities of practice overlapped, and they shared a common genealogy of pivotal figures. The appearance of alchemical patriarchs in the sections of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors that have nothing to do with alchemical elixirs confirms the permeability between Jiangnan traditions. Instructions for the “Talisman for Ascending to Heaven” (Shengtian fu 昇 天 符 ), a regular fixture in the cast of ancillary talismans appended to the three scrolls of the Writ, document the following transmission line: “Formerly, Wei Shuqing transmitted the [talisman] to Li Shaojun; he passed it down on the day that he ascended to Heaven.”20 Wei Shuqing 衛 叔 卿 was a Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) fangshi, or master of methods, who was active around the time of Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 141–87 BCE). He famously achieved immortality after ingesting an elixir based on “five-colored cloud mother” (wuse yunmu 五色雲母 ), a variety of mica.21 Li Shaojun 李 少 君 (fl. ca. 133 BCE) was also a master of methods who was celebrated as one of the patron saints of Waidan. No record exists of him ever meeting Wei Shuqing, but the two figures were more or less contemporaries. Li Shaojun served Emperor Wu as an advisor in all matters pertaining to ritual and spiritual cultivation, from the transmutation of gold to the feng 封 and shan 禪 sacrifices.22 His alchemical techniques involved making offerings to deities such as the Stove God (Zaoshen 灶神 ) in an effort to solicit their assistance in the preparation of elixirs.23 These early practices associated with Wei Shuqing and Li Shaojun may constitute one of the initial intersections between alchemy and conjuring, laying the groundwork for later points of contact between Taiqing and the Writ. A foundational source for alchemical practices, the lost Arts from the Garden of Secrets of the Immense Treasure (Hongbao yuanbi shu 鴻 寳 苑 祕 術 ), notably expounded upon “holy immortals and their arts of conjuring spirits and making gold.”24

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By the Han already, the pairing of alchemy with summoning appears to have been commonplace. Li Shaojun was succeeded at the court of Emperor Wu by his disciple Li Shaoweng 李 少 翁 , a famed alchemist that had a reputation for making gods and manes appear. Presaging the divisions of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns, part of his method involved “depicting the gods of Heaven, Earth, and the Great Unity” in a ritual area in order to summon them.25 The kinship between alchemy and summoning practices was most probably forged in the fangshi circles of the second century BCE to the second century CE and was later reinforced in the courts of the Wu kingdom (220–280 CE). This translated into a shared transmission line for the Taiqing corpus and the Writ. In The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Ge Hong, a privileged heir to both textual traditions, chronicles the early bestowal of the alchemical scriptures beginning with Zuo Ci 左慈 (alt. Zuo Yuanfang 左元放 ), a famed fangshi of the Han and Three Kingdoms period:26 Of old, Zuo Yuanfang was absorbed in contemplation on Mount Heaven’s Pillar [in present-day Anhui], when a divine being transmitted to him the scriptures of immortals about the Golden Elixir. At that time, the Han came to a chaotic end [ca. 220 CE] and it was too late to produce [the elixir] according to the recipes [in the scriptures]. He fled the disorder, crossing into Jiangdong [south of the Yangzi River] intending to retire to a famous peak to cultivate the Way. My paternal grand-uncle the Immortal Duke [Ge Xuan 葛 玄 ], in turn received the scriptures from Yuanfang. Altogether, he obtained the Scripture on the Elixir of Great Clarity in three scrolls, the Scripture on the Elixirs of the Nine Tripods in one scroll, and the Scripture on the Elixir of Gold Liquor in one scroll.27 昔左元放於天柱山中精思，而神人授之金丹仙經。 會漢末亂，不遑合 作，而避地來渡江東，志欲投名山以修斯道。 余從祖仙公，又從元放 受之。 凡受太清丹經三卷及九鼎丹經一卷金液丹經一卷。

Ge Hong continues to vaunt his alchemical pedigree, narrating the transmission to and from his master, during the late third century: My own teacher, Lord Zheng [Yin], was first a disciple of my paternal grand-uncle, the Immortal Duke [Ge Xuan]. He received [the scriptures]

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from him, but his family was poor and so he was unable to purchase medicines [to make elixirs]. I served him and sprinkled and swept his floors for a long time. I set up an altar on Mount Maji [in present-day Jiangxi], and swore a covenant. I received the scriptures together with all the oral instructions, which cannot be written down. Formerly, these texts had never existed in Jiandong. They originated with Zuo Yuanfang, who transmitted them to my paternal grand-uncle, who in turn transmitted them to Lord Zheng, who then transmitted them to me. This is why no other adepts know of them.28 余師鄭君者，財余從祖仙公之弟子也。又於從祖受之，而家貧無用買 藥。余親事之，灑掃積久，乃於馬迹山中立壇盟受之，并諸口訣訣之 不書者。江東先無此書，書出於左元放。元放以授余從祖，從祖以授 鄭君，鄭君以授余，故他道士了無知者也。

The Writ likely made its way into Ge Hong’s hands through a similar chain of transmission. Ge Hong received the first version of the Writ from his master Zheng Yin (ca. 215–ca. 302 CE), who obtained it from Zuo Ci, via Ge Xuan (trad. 164–244 CE), Ge Hong’s grand-uncle. This is the so-called “mountain transmission,” which is associated with Lord Wang of the Western Citadel and Bo He. Ge Hong came to possess the second version, that of Bao Jing (alt. 230 or 260–330), through a so-called “cave transmission.” In some sources, Bao Jing is said to have received the text by divine revelation, its characters having suddenly appeared before him on the wall of a cave where he had been meditating inside of Mount Song. Other accounts are more detailed, adding that Zuo Ci bestowed upon him the oral instructions that went along with the text. The Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds (Yunji qiqian) notably suggests such a scenario: It is said that [Bao Jing’s] learning excelled in the Classics and Weft commentaries.29 From his master Zuo Yuanfang, he received the Central Methods of [Taiqing] along with the essentials of summoning for the [Writ of the] Three Sovereigns and the [True Form Charts of the] Five Peaks. He applied [their methods] and they were divinely verified. He was able to command gods and demons, seal mountains, and suppress devils.30

Beyond Talismans ︱ 91

說學明經書緯候，師左元放受中部法及三皇五嶽劾召之要。行之神 驗，得能役使鬼神，封山制魔。

Thus, while the Writ may spontaneously appear to a worthy individual, the all-important oral instructions were carefully handed down from master to disciple over generations. Although he is not mentioned in this particular passage, Ge Xuan is sometimes included as a link between Zuo Ci and Bao Jing.31 A passage from the Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way (Daojiao yishu) relates that Bao Jing made offerings and pledges to Ge Xuan after receiving the Writ, a ritualized gesture of reverence, which typically takes place when a master hands down oral instructions to his disciple.32 The Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds is not exceptional in relating that the Writ (and True Form Charts) followed the same line of transmission as Taiqing alchemical scriptures. In The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Ge Hong reminisces, in the same breath, about having obtained both sets of documents. He boasts that “although [Zheng Yin had] more than fifty disciples, I was the only one to whom the scriptures of the Golden Elixir and the Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns were transmitted. [. . .] There were many of them who had never even laid eyes on the title page of these works.”33 As highlighted in chapter 1, The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, the Biographies of Divine Immortals (Shenxian zhuan), and the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors all state that the Writ was transmitted together with either a single Taiqing scripture (typically the Central Scripture of Great Clarity [Taiqing zhongjing]) or multiple ones (the Scripture of Great Clarity [Taiqing jing 太 清 經 ], the Scripture of the Nine Elixirs [Jiudan jing 九 丹 經 ], and the Scripture of the Golden Liquor [Jinye jing 金 液 經 ]).34 Ge Hong received the version of the Writ that originated with Lord Wang and Bo He from his master Zheng Yin at the same time that he obtained alchemical materials. The transmission must have occurred in or before 302, the year that is traditionally given for Zheng Yin’s “retirement from the world.”35 Throughout The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Zheng Yin is mentioned in connection with Bo He and the “mountain transmission,” but Ge Hong remains silent on any intermediaries that may have existed between

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the two.36 It is possible that no go-between was involved since their respective timelines overlap to some extent. Yet, no extant sources chronicle that Bo He and Zheng Yin ever met, let alone exchanged documents. In this and other instances, the Taiqing lineage can be potentially helpful in clarifying links or even filling in gaps that exist in the Writ’s chain of transmission (see figure 3.1). If the Taiqing and Writ lines were indeed superimposed, then the logical connection between Bo He and Zheng Yin would be Ge Xuan.37 In alchemical sources, Zheng Yin inherits the oral and written legacies of Ge Xuan that originally descended from Zuo Ci; accordingly, Zuo Ci would have also handed down the Writ to Ge Xuan as suggested above. At this stage in the transmission, the Bo He and Bao Jing lines are still identical. In turn, Ge Xuan would have subsequently handed down the same document, or at the very least its oral instructions, to Zheng Yin and Bao Jing, even if a few accounts affirm that Bao Jing obtained it directly from Zuo Ci. In either case, the instructions that Bao Jing obtained can actually be traced back to Bo He, despite later efforts to separate both figures and their spiritual pedigree.38 Unlike his predecessors Zuo Ci and Ge Xuan, Bao Jing is not habitually depicted as an alchemist. One of his masters, however, Yin Changsheng 陰 長 生 (fourth century), is closely associated with the Scripture on the Divine Elixir of the Golden Liquor (Taiqing jinye shendan jing 太清金液神丹經 ) and transmitted it, along with a number of other centerpiece documents of Taiqing alchemy.39 Bo He, the other figure from whom Ge Hong received the Writ, was more firmly identified with the Taiqing tradition40 and enjoyed an established alchemical pedigree. As noted above, his hagiography explains how he received the Central Scripture of Great Clarity from Lord Wang of the Western Citadel on the same occasion as the Writ, and independent sources corroborate that Bo He was known as an alchemist with a talent for transmuting metals. Another of his hagiographies recounts that he “lived in seclusion on Mount Wuzhong, and synthesized the divine elixir. He also made five thousand catties of gold on the mountain, by means of which he came to the aid of commoners.”41 Furthermore, Bo He is sometimes conflated with Master Horseneigh (Ma Mingsheng 42 馬鳴生 ), an alchemical figure of consequence in the Taiqing tradition. Lord Wang of the Western Citadel, one of the patriarchs in the Writ’s

Heaven 天 ↓ Fu Xi 伏羲 Heaven 天          ↙ Three Sovereigns {  Shennong 神農   三皇 Heaven 天 (via Master of the Purple Residence 紫府先生 ) ↙ Yellow Emperor 黃帝 *    […] ↘

Antiquity

ca. 0 CE

↓ Lord Wang 西城王君 * [He Shang Zhangren 河上真人 ] ↓ Anqi sheng 安期生 * ↓      ↓     ↘ Bo He 帛和 * Li Shaojun 李少君 * Ma Mingsheng 馬鳴生 * ↓ ↓

ca. 200

[Ji Zixun 蘇子訓 ] ↓ [Feng Junda 封君達 ]

          ↙ Zuo Ci 左慈 * ↓ ↘    Ge Xuan 葛玄 * ( ↘ )       ↓ ↙ Zheng Yin 鄭隱 * Bao Jing 鮑靚︎ ↘

      ↓

Yin Changsheng 陰長生*

↙

ca. 300

Ge Hong 葛洪 *

ca. 400

    ↓ Lu Xiujing 陸修靜

ca. 500

    ↓ Sun Youyue 孫遊嶽     ↓ Tao Hongjing 陶弘景

Fig. 3.1. Reconstitution of the transmission line for the Writ of the Three Sovereigns on the basis of Sanhuang and Taiqing alchemical sources. Figures marked with an asterisk (*) appear in both Sanhuang and Taiqing sources. Those in brackets are hypothetical links in the transmission of the Writ, appearing in Taiqing sources with respect to alchemical transmissions only. Those with no marks appear in Sanhuang sources alone.

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line, is also cited in the inaugural stages of alchemical transmissions. He notably revealed the method of the Reverted Elixir in Nine Cycles (Jiuzhuan huandan 九 轉 還 丹 ) to humans and circulated its instructions.43 His namesake also appears in the title of a recipe for compounding an “age-arresting medicine” (zhu’nian yao 住 年 藥 ) in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity. The formula, known as “Lord Wang’s Elixir Recipe” (Wangjun danfa 王 君 丹 44 法 ), makes use of cinnabar and mercury, two key alchemical ingredients. The elixir recipes revealed by Lord Wang in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors also rely on cinnabar and mercury, and they purport to halt or even reverse the aging process.45 Albeit generic, the fragments of the Writ and its instructions betray a definite consonance with alchemy. To summarize, the Writ and the early alchemical tradition were both products of the same sociocultural milieu in Jiangnan, with common roots in the fangshi lore of the Han and later Wu kingdoms. Elixirs and talismans were functionally analogous: both were tangible objects that conveyed legitimacy or spiritual authority, and both could heal and grant longevity or immortality just as effectively as they summoned gods and protected against baleful influences.

The True Form Charts of the Five Peaks In the same manner as talismans and alchemical elixirs, true form charts (zhenxing tu) are tangible objects that materialize a deity’s nature. As their name indicates, they are repositories of true form (zhenxing), an equivalent term for xiang, or images, the fundamental essence of things.46 The one “Great Image,” the Dao, underlies all the manifold individual expressions of xiang. Henry Corbin describes the imaginal realm in Islamic philosophy in a way that parallels the Daoist plane of true shape: he explains it as a space that mediates between the sensorial world and the hypersensory world of divinity; it translates the perceptible into the imperceptible while giving shape and dimension to the sublime.47 Both the imaginal and true form are hinges that connect and moderate between the intelligible and the unintelligible. In early medieval China, as with talismans and elixirs, having a true form chart in

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one’s possession granted control over the normally unruly denizens of the invisible world. In line with this general understanding, The Master Who Embraces Simplicity and a few other sources portray the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks as almost identical in function to Taiqing elixirs and the talismans of the Writ, interchangeable in their capacity to summon gods and protect against dangers of natural or supernatural orders.48 These three types of objects formed the highest echelon of Jiangnan lore. The True Form Charts, however, are most often listed as materials paired to the Writ.49 In the few texts in which they are not, alchemical sources replace them.50 But even in these cases, the charts are still included either as part of ancillary transmission gages or, in modified form, as talismans that are part of the Writ itself. The Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors and the “Essential Functions of the Three Sovereigns” chapter from the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials both offer clear examples of this.51 Given that a number of studies have previously examined the True Form Charts and its cult in considerable detail, there is no need to rehearse their findings here.52 Highlighting a few of the notions in which they are anchored, however, will help elucidate their relationship to the Writ. The diagrams of the True Form Charts are inscribed in the tradition of numinous topography (see figure 3.2).53 In early and medieval China as elsewhere, the unknown or the concealed elicited apprehension since uncertainty could potentially translate into harm. Diagrams of sacred space fulfilled their apotropaic function by mapping out terrae incognitae and their hidden denizens. They reintroduced an element of predictability, and consequently, of control for those who used them. Since gods and spirits defined the spiritual landscape of their primary sites of influence — whether inaccessible mountains, lofty asterisms, or the inner body — diagrams or true form “maps” essentially represented the supernatural shapes or contours of their inhabitants. In this regard, the True Form Charts were natural complements to the Writ, which, to reiterate, depicted the true forms of divine beings and were hidden in the recesses of famous mountains, including the Five Peaks. In addition to

Fig. 3.2. The True Form Charts of the Five Peaks, according to the Ancient Original True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Dongxuan lingbao wuyue guben zhenxing tu 洞玄靈寶五 嶽古本真形圖 ; DZ 441). These images represent Song to Ming dynasty reconstructions of what the original lost diagrams looked like.

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supplying the names and appearances of powerful local gods, like a treasure map, the True Form Charts could also reveal the location of the Writ on those same summits.54 The predictability and control that sacred diagrams promised also had pronounced political overtones. In one of the early legends pertaining to the transmission of the True Form Charts, the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwang Mu 西 王 母 ) bestows the supernatural documents upon Emperor Wu of the Han as a powerful tool for peaceful governance and, simultaneously, as a token of harmonious rule. But when hubris begins to fuel his reign, the gift is withdrawn and destroyed in a divine conflagration. Writing on the incorporation of revealed numinous diagrams as dynastic gages of celestial favor, Judith M. Boltz describes the True Form Charts as an eloquent example of “how symbolic loci of imperial power inspired concrete tokens of guardianship for Daoist Master and laity alike.”55 On the surface, the Scripture of Mountains and Waterways (Sanhai jing 山 海 經 ) is seemingly unrelated to the True Form Charts, but it belongs to the same broad genus of apotropaic sacred geographies and may offer some additional insight into how the Writ and the True Form Charts were related to each other. Scholars have suggested that the earliest layers of the extant Scripture of Mountains and Waterways were “oral” instructions (koujue 56 口 訣 ). While the written portion supplied the “secret names” of the semidivine creatures and gods, the images conveyed their true form, along with that of the surrounding flora and topographical features of their immediate environment. Together, the text and charts were intended to confer complete command over the beings they depicted and the realms in which they resided. In what was effectively an alternate version of feudal assemblies, adepts — symbolic sovereigns — united the images and text of the Scripture of Mountains and Waterways, constituting a tessera that confirmed the solemn bond between themselves and their new supernatural vassals.57 But instead of the sovereigns/adepts going out to establish their dominion, the vassals/spirits came to them. This dialectical relationship between text, wen, and image, tu, is also apparent between the Writ and True Form Charts. Individually, text and image function as compelling conjuring instruments and powerful apot-

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ropaia, but together they form a single tally and symbol of absolute control over the unseen. The Scripture of Mountains and Waterways is nominally attributed to Yu the Great (Da Yu 大 禹 ), who demonstrated his legitimacy as a centering ruler of all under Heaven by making the spirits come to him.58 Schipper remarks that in antiquity, one “who ruled by moral force (de 德 ) remained in place [like the North Star] while all the lesser stars did him homage.”59 Yu is more famously associated with another set of image (tu) regalia: the charts engraved on the nine tripods that guaranteed spiritual authority and political stability in the empire.60 The diagrams on these tripod vessels are thought to have corresponded to the earliest illustrations from Scripture of Mountains and Waterways.61 In other words, in its early incarnation, the source was a companion text to the nine tripods, constituting its “oral instructions.” This specific example reflects a more general convention in classical China of domesticating the unpredictability of the unknown by pairing text with image.62 This principle of cataloguing the supernatural through inventories of written esoteric names and depicting it through its true forms formed the backbone of early medieval demonographies, Daoist registers, and Buddhist litanies. As Robinet has pointed out, “The world of the gods thus takes form in language and vision; the process of sanctification occurs through that knowledge of topology and toponomy [true form and true name] at the core of many Daoist texts.”63 Numerous early and medieval Chinese sources illustrate how text and image were combined to secure absolute control over a site and its spirits. For example, the Diagrams of White Marsh (Baize tu 白 澤 圖 ) juxtaposed the names of protective deities and their images. It initially assumed the shape of a catalogue of true forms and true names of 11,522 unruly gods and demons. A divine creature known as White Marsh revealed the document to the Yellow Emperor (one of the Three Sovereigns) so that he could order them and pacify the realm. The Diagrams of White Marsh survive in a ninthor tenth-century Dunhuang version that combines text and image, but it can be traced as far back as the third century BCE.64 Another text and image coupling, the Luo [River] Writing (Luoshu 洛 書 ) and the [Yellow] River Chart

Beyond Talismans ︱ 99

(Hetu 河圖 ), exhibits further similarities with the Writ and True Form Charts, although what these materials originally looked like remains a matter of speculation. The boundaries between tu 圖 , usually translated as “image,” “chart,” “diagram,” or “illustration,” and the terms shu 書 or wen 文 , which evoke “writing” or “text,” were relatively fluid in early China. Hence the River Chart was just as likely to be composed of writing as the Luo Writing was of images. Fundamentally, the true name (zhenming) of a deity or its true form (zhenxing) were ontologically the same. Language and vision, writing and appearance, were intimately enmeshed. Donald Harper, among others, has established that the term tu in early China did not have the same meaning that it came to acquire in later periods. He has pointed out that during the Han dynasty, tu overlapped with the notion of banners (fan 幡 ) and tokens (fu 薄 ), and in terms of its formal features and applications, it was very close to that of talisman (fu 符 ).65 Just as some talismans that were expressly designed as one half of a tally came together as paired symbola (bingfu 並 符 ), an individual stand-alone talisman could be paired together with a counterpart to form a bipartite token. In this case, the counterpart to the original talisman’s wen or shu would be tu regardless of whether it took the form of writing or a figurative representation. Ultimately, text and image were interchangeable since they were both composed of the same cosmic essence transferred onto a material support. In some contexts, the tu exhibited a further layer of complexity as a temporal dimension was added on top of the spatial features of true form. One Weft Text (weishu 緯 書 ) commentary relates that the River Chart documented the names and surnames of various topographical deities, adding that the sovereign “who possesses the names of the gods of the rivers, mountains and the four seas has the power to invite them, summon them, as well as to employ or expel demonic breath (guiqi 鬼 氣 ).”66 A second commentary records that it also reproduced “the shape of the Jiang [River], the Yellow River, the seas, mountains, streams, hills, and swamps, as well as the divisions of the ruled provinces and kingdoms, and the countenances and appearances that arise in the Sons of Heaven and the Sages.”67 This suggests that the River Chart was also regarded as a kind of genealogical litany or portraiture

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of Chinese monarchs. The royal roster listed monarchs, both previous and future, and by some accounts it was nothing short of a prophetic enumeration of successive dynasties and their sovereigns.68 Yet another commentary from the Weft Text tradition explains that “the River Chart is the annal of the Mandate [of Heaven]. It is a diagram of the periods of the rise and decline of Heaven and Earth, of its emperors and kings. It records the patterns of the generations.”69 Thus, the River Chart was understood by some as a chronotopic record of sorts, combining representations of time and space. More commonly, however, a document with temporal features was paired with another bearing spatial features in order to form a chronotopic tally. The virtues of joining the River Chart together with the Luo Writing, for instance, are summed up by Anna Seidel: “To trace the layout of the land, to have fixed in a diagram the correct position of the heavenly bodies, to perceive the images of ancient sovereigns and to have insight into their succession in past and future, and finally, to possess the secret names of natures and demons — all these powers over Heaven and Earth, over space and time, are given to the sovereign who rightfully owns the [Luo River Writing] and the [Yellow River] Chart.”70 This description and much of what has been highlighted above about the Luo Writing and the River Chart can be extended to their textual cousins, the Writ and the True Form Charts. The latter pair respectively function as a genealogy and a cartography of a politicized sacred space. The Writ is a chronology of divine rulers and their unseen spirit officials and administrators, while the True Form Charts are a diagram of the unified space over which they rule. In and of itself, the number three was evocative of time (past, present, and future) just as five (representing the five directions) elicited notions of governed space. The Five Peaks and their charts are inseparable from the Five Emperors (wudi 五 帝 ), a quintet of divine potentates that are counted among China’s legendary emperors. And from its title alone, the Writ plainly refers to a sequence of legendary monarchs. What is more, in some accounts it is described as a prophetic almanac of Chinese rulers, with the first three sovereigns being a synecdoche for the entire gamut of once and future kings. In a brief quotation preserved in the Declarations of the

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Perfected (Zhengao), the enigmatic master Xu Jidao 徐 季 道 summarizes the essentials of the Way. He outlines a practice related to the Five Gods (wushen 五 神 ), manifestations of the Five Emperors inside the body, which must be combined with the ritual recitation of a document titled the Great Calendar (Dali 大歷 ): If you wish to study the Way, you should [visualize the Five Gods while] donning a sky-blue kerchief and intoning the Great Calendar. Tread forward on twin white [breaths] and pace back on double red [breaths]. This is the method of the Five Gods. Its words are secret. The Great Calendar is the Writ of the Three Sovereigns.71 欲學道者，當巾天青，咏大曆。

雙白，徊二赤。此五神之事也。其

語隱也。大曆，三皇文是也。

As a “great calendar” of theocratic succession, the Writ is sometimes identified with the Three Mounds (sanfen 三 墳 ), a lost historical genealogy of ancient China, in which the reigns of the first three sovereigns (sanhuang 三 皇 ) Fu Xi, Shennong, and the Yellow Emperor, Huangdi, were chronicled. The Three Mounds was a divinely revealed historiography that also incorporated esoteric instructions on governing in accordance with cosmological principles. In the image of the king lists of the Western Zhou and Han, it was conferred on only the worthiest leaders as a manual of statecraft, and it doubled as an imperial sacrament and material token of dynastic legitimacy.72 Yet, in contrast to traditional king lists, it infused cosmogony into royal lineages, tracing the origins of the divine mandate to rule to the beginning of the universe; moreover, in addition to listing past monarchs, the Three Mounds prophetically divulged the identity of the future rulers of China in the form of portents.73 In similar fashion, the Writ’s cosmic genealogy was not limited to past sovereigns. It allegedly foretold future reigns, although how it accomplished this is not entirely clear from surviving fragments. Nonetheless, aspiring rulers who dreamt of presiding over a unified China coveted the Writ, as they could identify with a sovereign featured in the list of monarchsto-come. Few clues remain as to how the Writ functioned as a tool of political augury, but some hints may be found in another set of diagrams distinct from the True Form Charts.

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The Charts of the Nine Sovereigns The Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors contains a series of nine portraits known as the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” (“Jiuhuang tu”). They represent three groups of three sovereigns (see figure 3.3).74 While the first and second triad are pretemporal demiurges, the last one is composed of the pseudo-historical three sovereigns. Nevertheless, all three groups are materializations of cosmic principles.75 Altogether, they form a royal line of succession that stretches from precosmic times to antiquity. Like the rest of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” appear to date from sometime between the fourth and sixth centuries.76 They are closely associated with the text’s talismans, although they are not formally part of the Writ’s three core scrolls. Rather, they figure among the materials that were costumarily transmitted with the talismans, not unlike the True Form Charts. As is typical of other chronologies of kingship, the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” display a prophetic tone. By the Tang dynasty (618–907), they developed a liturgical association with the River Chart, a document that, as we’ve seen, was likely made up of true form depictions of China’s past and future rulers. In the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns,” however, the habitual royal chronology doubles as a cosmogony, with different reign periods marking distinct stages in the development of the cosmos. The sovereigns themselves are equated with cosmic principles. At the same time, the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” were potent apotropaic devices. This was a common function of all “nonary charts,” as Boltz terms them, harking back to Han dynasty understandings of the underworld (and grave mounds) as unfolding in a nine-square grid pattern. Accordingly, ninefold diagrams sympathetically guarded against purgatorial limbo or wrongful death.77 The “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” could conceivably be used as sacramental omens or apotropaia, but the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors emphasizes their application in visualization-based conjuring practices. Elaborate iconographic cues and contemplation instructions flank the illustrations in the text. In this light, the charts take on the role of diagrammatic meditation aids in a practice that summons the Nine Sovereigns within the

初天皇

Initial Sovereign of Heaven

中天皇

Middle Sovereign of Heaven

後天皇

Latter Sovereign of Heaven

初地皇

初人皇

Initial Sovereign of Earth

Initial Sovereign of Humankind

中地皇

中人皇

Middle Sovereign of Earth Middle Sovereign of Humankind

後地皇

Latter Sovereign of Earth

後人皇

Latter Sovereign of Humankind

Fig. 3.3. The three Initial Sovereigns, the three Middle Sovereigns, the three Latter Sovereigns. From “Charts” of the Nine Sovereigns” in the Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, 6ab, 7a–8a, and 8b–9b, respectively.

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body.78 In the context of the Writ and its talismans, Poul Andersen refers to this meditative dimension of summoning practices as “visionary divination.” As in the example of the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” and the True Form Charts as well, true form charts (zhenxing tu) possessed this same faculty of convening gods and having them descend to the practitioner.79 Operating on the same graphico-mimetic logic, true form charts share their mode of representation with talismans: script and image are two sides of the same true form coin, just as the curvilinear patterns that make up talismanic script appear to trace the contours of the divine or of the cosmic subjects they represent. Some of the earliest samples of the True Form Charts exhibit curvilinear images that spell out the name of the mountain at the same time that they represent its numinous shape.80 The Nine Sovereigns from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors are divided along a tripartite temporal axis that consists of initial (chu 初 ), middle (zhong 中 ), and latter (hou 後 ) incarnations for each of the Three Sovereigns. The first group, the Initial Sovereigns (chuhuang 初 皇 ), adopt a human form and are represented in official garb with jade tablets in hand (see figure 3.3, top row). They are nine inches (cun 寸 ) in height, a detail that indicates they were to be visualized inside the body, most likely in the three Cinnabar Fields (dantian 丹 田 ). Only after three years of diligent practice would they actually manifest and bestow their secrets of immortality upon the adept. According to the text, the genesis of the Initial Sovereigns prefigures the known cosmos. The deities are transformations of vacuity (xu 虛 ), nonbeing (wu 無 ), and emptiness (kong 空 ), from which the Writ spontaneously formed.81 The Middle Sovereigns (zhonghuang 中 皇 ) are transformations of the Mysterious (xuan 玄 ), Primordial (yuan 元 ), and Inaugural (shi 始 ) breaths (qi), collectively known as the three breaths (sanqi 三 氣 ; 三 炁 ). They denote the Three Primes (sanyuan) from whence the “Great Characters” (dazi) script of Bo He’s Writ spontaneously emerged.82 Unlike in the previous series, the names of the Middle Sovereigns are provided, alongside the names of the precosmic reigns in which they manifest.83 All three espouse striking theriomorphic forms (see figure 3.3, middle row): the Middle Sovereign of Heaven

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(zhong tianhuang 中 天 皇 ) and Middle Sovereign of Earth (zhong dihuang 中 地皇 ) boast multiple human heads and the body of a snake, while the Middle Sovereign of Humankind (zhong renhuang 中 人 皇 ) has nine human heads atop the body of a dragon.84 These depictions are notably consonant with descriptions of the Three Sovereigns in the Weft Texts of the Han dynasty.85 The Middle Sovereigns are portrayed as generals of spirit battalions, redoubtable allies that rid adepts of disease demons and restore health. The primary plane of intervention for the Middle Sovereigns is identical to that of the Initial Sovereigns, namely, the somatic arena — the body of the adept — where they were visualized. In the last series, the Three Sovereigns of the Writ are unequivocally identified with the legendary three sovereigns of Chinese antiquity. The Latter Sovereign of Heaven (hou tianhuang 後 天 皇 ), Bao Xi 庖 犧 , otherwise known as Fu Xi 伏 羲 , is the ancestral culture hero and primogenitor of Chinese civilization. The Latter Sovereign of Earth (hou dihuang 後 地 皇 ) is Fu Xi’s wife and sister Nü Wa 女 媧 . She is a common substitute for Shennong as the second of the Three Sovereigns. Consistent with other descriptions, both Fu Xi and Nü Wa are represented as snakes with a single human head (see figure 3.3, bottom row). The Latter Sovereign of Humankind (hourenhuang 後人皇 ) is Shennong, who normally replaces the Yellow Emperor as the third Sovereign when Nü Wa is included on the roster. He is shown with a bovine head atop an anthropomorphic body clad in official robes. In this more conventional form as well, the monarchs transcend history and the mortal concepts of time and space. Like the other two triads before them, the Latter Sovereigns are identified as higher-order principles, namely the Three Terraces (santai 三 台 ), a constellation made up of three pairs of stars located directly below the Big Dipper.86 In some sources, the Three Terraces are referred to as the Celestial Staircase (tianjie 天 階 ), the path the Great Unity follows when descending from the sky to enter the microcosm of the body.87 The monarchs are also associated with the Three Primes, which manifest as the Great Unity internally. The connection between astral bodies, the Great Unity, and the Three Sovereigns can be traced back to the Han dynasty if not earlier. The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji ) locates the

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Great Unity within the Celestial Pole (tianji 天 極 ), another name for the Northern Asterism (beichen 北 辰 ), which refers either to the Big Dipper (beidou 北斗 ) or its stationary handle.88 The same text also describes the “three stars of Great Unity” (Taiyi sanxing 太 一 三 星 ), an asterism at the mouth of the Big Dipper that is otherwise known as Celestial Unity (Tianyi 天 一 ),89 a different name for the Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang 天 皇 ). It is unclear if the asterism refers to an alternate sidereal residence of the Great Unity or if it is simply an associated group of stars (perhaps the Three Terraces), but another passage contains an invocation to the god in which three stars are singled out, suggesting a close connection if not an equivalence between the Great Unity and the astral triad.90 More generally, both the Nine Sovereigns and the Three Sovereigns maintained a close association with stars, probably because of their divinatory functions and the semantic parallels between celestial script (tianwen 天 文 ) and “celestial patterns” (tianwen 天 文 ), the term for astronomy/ astrology/meteorology. The blinding brilliance of the Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang wen) was said to derive from the sun, the moon, and the twenty-eight asterisms.91 In late Six Dynasties and Tang dynasty visualizations of the Nine Sovereigns, the deities are depicted as the gods of the Big Dipper’s nine stars, the seven visible stars plus two hidden “dark” stars.92 The contemplations bear a strong resemblance to the practices described in a large number of Song to Yuan (1271–1368) Daoist and Buddhist meditation manuals on the nine anthropomorphized stars of Big Dipper examined by Christine Mollier, to the extent that one may legitimately wonder if the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors was not an early precursor.93 Elsewhere, the relationship between celestial bodies, the celestial script of the Writ, and divination is spelled out in detail. In his Great Doctrine of the Five Agents (Wuxing dayi 五 行 大 義 ), Xiao Ji 蕭 吉 (?–614) portrays the Three Sovereigns as embodiments of the three stars that administer human fate and can be contacted through divination.94 Two Dunhuang manuscripts dated to the tenth century also attest to a pronounced link between Sanhuang materials on one hand and divination and astrological computation on the other. Manuscript P.2623 rº counts the

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Three Sovereigns as individualized hemerological gods, listing their cycles of influence according to chronotopic markers such as stems (gan 干 ), branches (zhi 支 ), and trigrams (gua 卦 ), while manuscript S.1473 rº presents them as calendrical deities.95 The relation between the Nine Sovereigns as gods of the body — microcosmic reference points — and stars, planets, or constellations — macrocosmic reference points — underscores their spatial aspect, which is present in their charts as well. As established earlier, their portraits depict progressive chronological embodiments of the Primordial Breath of the cosmos along a temporal axis (which, on a microcosmic plan, also described human conception and gestation). In addition, they constitute figurative maps that delineate the boundaries of the entire universe. The Nine Sovereigns are the gods of the Nine Heavens (jiutian 九 天 ), and in this capacity, they represent the eight cardinal and ordinal celestial directions, along with the center.96 Just as the Writ combines the true names of local or directional deities (related to space) with cosmogonic or hemerological ones (related to time), the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” can be read as joining temporal and spatial features in one single mode of representation. The “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” is a relatively short subdivision of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, but it is important enough that it warrants its own prefatory section. The “Yang Hymns in Nine Verses” (Yangge jiuzhang 陽 歌 九 章 ) immediately precedes the depictions of the nine monarchs.97 It is composed of nine verses alternating between six and eight pentasyllabic stanzas, which were chanted to seal a contractual bond with the Nine Sovereigns, explicitly identified here as the gods of the Nine Heavens: Perform purifications rightly, uphold the precepts, maintain Unity, and harmonize with the gods. [It will] refine your perception and extend your discernment. The Imperial Sovereigns of the Nine Heavens [will] dispatch divine lads to come down to protect the records and the charts. In addition, they [will] order the Mysterious Maidens to intone the Yang Hymns in Nine Verses in order to diffuse marvelous breath, spread the auspicious, and erase the inauspicious. When students who practice the Dao perform circumambulations, they should rehearse intoning [these hymns] to join the divine compact.98

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齋直持戒，守一和神。精感遐徹，九天帝皇遣神童來下，侍衛錄圖。 並命玄女詠陽歌九章，以宣通妙炁，布吉消凶。學者行道巡迴之時， 宜習誦之，以會神契也。

Yang hymns were usually paired with Yin hymns to form a complete incantatory cycle, but the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors preserves only the former.99 The intonation of hymns was a ritual component in the sealing of sacred compacts with high-ranking spiritual figures, and it later became a standard element in ordination ceremonies. There was an implicit hierogamic tone in the coupling of Yin and Yang hymns, and particularly in the establishment of bonds with deities in general. Such rites typically prefigured a revelation of materials to adepts in which Jade Maidens or other female deities acted as initiatory figures for male adepts.100 In the case of the “Yang Hymns in Nine Verses” it is Mysterious Maidens (xuannü 玄 女 ) who descend to oversee the transmission and divine lads soon follow to protect the charts of the gods of the Nine Heavens. With a total of nine hymns, each of the Nine Sovereigns from the subsequent section of the text has his own distinct chant, yet they are all avatars of a single godhead. The closing lines of the section are unequivocal: As for the preceding Nine Sovereign Lords, these gods are fundamentally one. It responds and then differentiates, stretching in the beginning and spreading out in the middle, where its gradations are also different, until it arrives at its utmost extremes. Thereupon it reverts back to sameness.101 右九皇君，其神本一，其應則殊，引初及中，階級亦異，至於極詣， 故復還同也。

The ontological unity that describes the Nine Sovereigns’ single origin is the same unity that inaugurates and concludes the cosmogonic process in Daoist cosmology. Adepts strive to reach this unity through self-cultivation, and rulers aim to emulate it through governing. When it manifests as deities in a differentiated state, this unity appears as the Nine Sovereigns of the Nine Heavens. When it manifests as a singular deity in unified form, it is the Great Unity.102

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Visualizing the Great Unity In The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Ge Hong establishes a hierarchy of prevalent practices in southern esoterica. “Minor arts” (xiaoshu 小 術 ), as he terms them, rank third and last in the hierarchy. These arts consist of simple techniques for healing or increasing longevity by a few years. Nourishing Life (yangsheng) methods ranked second. These encompassed sexual hygiene or the “arts of the bedchamber” (fangzhong shu 房 中 術 ), dietetics such as the avoidance of grains (bigu 辟 穀 ), breathing techniques including the circulation of breath (xingqi 行 氣 ), and calisthenics (daoyin 導 引 ). According to Ge Hong, the most efficacious and highest category of practice was made up of two sister disciplines: alchemy and meditation. Taiqing scriptures and the visionary divination of the Writ fell under this rubric. Additionally, Ge Hong included the meditative practices related to the True Form Charts and those pertaining to Maintaining Unity (shouyi 守 一 ), the latter of which denoted intense concentrations on a point of the body where the Great Unity was thought to manifest.103 The Master Who Embraces Simplicity distinguished between two types of contemplations of Maintaining Unity. The first, “Maintaining the Mysterious Unity” (shou xuanyi 守 玄 一 ), was primarily apotropaic. Practitioners were enjoined to seek the Great Unity in the sun and visualize the deity. As a result, malicious creatures or spirits were dispelled. This technique also afforded adepts the power of ubiquity, or “dividing one’s form” (fenxing 分 形 ), that is, duplicating one’s body and appearing in multiple places at once.104 It could further serve as a conduit for communicating with the gods of Heaven and Earth, all of whom were ultimately manifestations of the Great Unity. In extolling the virtues of this visualization method, Ge Hong explained that those who “wish to communicate with gods” (yu de tongshen 欲 得 通 神 ) should practice Maintaining the Mysterious Unity, for in “dividing their form, they will then see the three cloudsouls and seven whitesouls within their body; they will be able to meet with all the numina of Heaven and the spirits of the earth, and they will be able to put into their service all the gods of the mountains and rivers.”105

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The second variety of Maintaining Unity, “Maintaining the True Unity” (shou zhenyi 守 真 一 ), could also be used to disperse threats, but in contrast to the first, it conferred the capacity to obtain divine protection by directly communicating with the Great Unity via its hypostases within the body.106 As Ge Hong clarifies, “maintaining the Mysterious Unity is an easier substitute to Maintaining the True Unity. True Unity has names, sizes, and the colors of its clothing [to keep in mind], but in Maintaining the Mysterious Unity, these can be [simply] seen.”107 Nonetheless, in order to gain access to the supreme deity, adepts first had to visualize and meditate on the avatars of the Great Unity within the somatic landscape. These inner gods took residence in the three Cinnabar Fields: Unity has surnames and names, clothes and colors. In men it is ninetenths of an inch tall; in women, it is six-tenths of an inch tall. Sometimes it is in the lower Cinnabar Field, two inches and four-tenths below the navel. Sometimes, it is in the middle Cinnabar Field, below the heart in the Golden Portal of the Crimson Palace. Sometimes it is between the eyebrows. When it recedes one inch [into the head] it is the Bright Hall; [when it recedes two inches] it is the Inner Spelunk Chamber; [when it recedes three inches] it is the upper Cinnabar Field. This is what experts of the Dao value. From generation to generation, they smear their mouths with blood and orally transmit [the Unity’s] surnames and names.108 一有姓字服色，男長九分，女長六分，或在臍下二寸四分下丹田中， 或在心下絳宮金闕中丹田也，或在人兩眉閒，卻行一寸為明堂，二寸 為洞房，三寸為上丹田也。此乃是道家所重 , 世世歃血口傳其姓名耳。

Alchemy and meditation, the two practices that Ge Hong regarded as culminations of the Jiangnan heritage, were interrelated, and one notable point of intersection was the Writ. As outlined above, Taiqing alchemy and the True Form Charts considerably overlapped with Sanhuang materials not only in their applications or functions, but also in the correspondence of their transmission lines. Great Unity visualizations were no different. To begin with, they were associated with Taiqing alchemy from early on.109 Moreover, they also had a central position in the materials that were habitually transmitted with the Writ. As we have seen, the deities in the “Charts

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of the Nine Sovereigns” were manifestations of the Great Unity on which adepts meditated with the help of iconographic cues and illustrations. An additional early source cements the ties between Great Unity meditations and the Three Sovereigns of the Writ. The Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors contains a “Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on [Maintaining] the Triple Unity” (Sanhuang sanyi jing 三 皇 三 一 經 ), hereafter “Scripture on the Triple Unity,” a short visualization manual that teaches practitioners how to contemplate the different embodiments of the Great Unity along the three Cinnabar Fields.110 Its content appears to essentially match the description of “Maintaining the True Unity” in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, even though Ge Hong does not provide many details on the practice. In any case, the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” is closely related to the locus classicus of Great Unity meditations, the lost Scripture of the Sovereign of Heaven on the True Unity (Tianhuang zhenyi zhi jing 天皇真一之經 ), which Ge Hong relied on for his précis. This source is saliently cited in the fourth-century Array of the Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao wufu xu 靈寶五符序 ), in a passage that narrates the Yellow Emperor’s peregrination to the four corners of the world in order to obtain coveted scriptures from illustrious immortals. He receives the Scripture of the Sovereign of Heaven on the True Unity from the Celestial Perfected Sovereign (Tianzhen Huangren 天 真 皇 人 ) on Mount Emei 峨 眉 山 .111 In this case, the term “sovereign” (huangren 皇 人 ) refers specifically to the Great Unity,112 who, as mentioned above, was associated with the Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang) at least since the Han. Thus the Yellow Emperor obtains the technique for visualizing the Great Unity from Taiyi, the Great Unity itself. In its own account of the Yellow Emperor’s odyssey, The Master Who Embraces Simplicity also alludes to the Scripture of the Sovereign of Heaven on the True Unity, referring to it under the more generic umbrella terms “instructions on Maintaining Unity” (shouyi jue 守 一 訣 ) and “oral instructions on the True Unity” (zhenyi koujue 真 一 口 訣 ).113 A noteworthy detail is that in both accounts the Yellow Emperor receives the coveted teaching on Maintaining Unity after receiving the Writ.114 The tenth-century Imperial Digest of the Great Peace [Reign Period] (Taiping yulan 太 平 御 覧 ) cites a few lines from

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the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” that the Array on the Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure attributes to the Scripture of the Sovereign of Heaven on the True Unity.115 This strongly suggests that the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” and the Scripture of the Sovereign of Heaven on the True Unity were one and the same source. Some texts that reproduce or paraphrase passages ascribed to either identify an ur-source called Scripture of the Sovereign on Maintaining the Triple Unity (Huangren shou sanyi jing 皇人守三一經 ), a title that collapses the previous two.116 In other words, a lost pre-fourth-century common source most likely constituted the basis for the earliest extant elaborations on Maintaining the True Unity.117 All three of the recorded titles for the manual on Great Unity visualizations bear a strong resemblance to the “Scripture on the Triple Unity,” whose full title, as a reminder, is the “Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on [Maintaining] the Triple Unity.” This section of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors preserves what appears to be a core segment of the original ur-source on Maintaining the True Unity. The segment seems to have served as a basic template for contemplations of the Great Unity in the inner landcape. Other early medieval sources, such as the third- or fourth-century Laozi’ s Central Scripture (Laozi zhongjing 老 子 中 經 ) and the fifth- or sixth-century Concealed Writing on the Great Elixir of the Lord Emperor Great Unity (Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu 太 一 帝 君 太 丹 隱 書 ), feature almost identical visualizations on corporeal hypostases of the deity. Neither cites the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” or any of its alternate titles, but the methods are unmistakably the same as the one that survives in the “Scripture on the Triple Unity.”118 The visualization method in question is relatively straightforward, but it proved influential in early medieval contemplations of the inner pantheon, particularly those that centered on the three Cinnabar Fields. The surviving fragment of the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” instructs adepts to first meditate on the Great Unity in its highest abode within the body, the Upper Cinnabar Field of the head. They must contemplate its gradual descent into the Middle Cinnabar Field of the heart, where it appears as a “young lad” (Taiyi tongzi 太 一 童 子 ) in crimson vestments. The adept is then enjoined to detain it there through periodic meditations before moving it along to the

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lower Cinnabar Field via the spleen. The method reaches its pinnacle when the Great Unity manifests below the navel, between the kidneys. At this point in the exercise, the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” explains the significance of what adepts have accomplished: The Great Unity is the essence of the womb and of the embryo. It is the foundation of metamorphosis. The cloudsouls and whitesouls are generated from the spirit of the embryo; the breath of one’s destiny is generated from the womb matrix. They transform and merge with the Lord Emperor, and blend to form a human being. Therefore, the god Great Unity is the mother of life. The venerable Lord Emperor is the father of life. [When] father and mother are originally joined, they are known as primordial breath. [When] they transform in response into separate forms they are called “father” and “mother.” [. . .] If you know these names, be cautious not to divulge them to others. Visualize [these gods] in your body. You will obtain long life and evade death. [. . .] Jade lads and jade maidens will assist you in entering the Nine Heavens. [. . .] When [the Lord Emperor] and the Great Unity merge, they are also called the Primordial Lord Great Unity. Neither male nor female, its brilliant radiance is the most marvelous. Sometimes it manifests as Lord Lao, sometimes as the Infant. Its responses are inexhaustible, its transformations boundless.119 太一者，胞胎之精，變化之主，魂魄生於胎神，命炁生於胞府 , 變合帝 君 , 混化為人 。故太一之神，生之母也。帝君之尊，生之父也。父母 本合，號曰元炁，應化分形，號曰父母。 [. . .] 知此名字，慎勿告人， 存之在身，長生不死 [. . .] 玉童玉女，侍入九天 [. . .]。 [ 帝君 ] 與太一混 合，亦號太一元君，非男非女，光明妙絕，或為老君，或為嬰兒，應 感無窮，變化無極也。

I have addressed elsewhere how this section of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors narrates human reproduction — from conception to gestation and finally birth — in cosmogonic terms.120 The superposition of cosmic genesis and procreation was also hinted at in our discussion of the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns,” whereby each progressive stage in the cosmogonic development of primordial breath (yuanqi) is replicated on the microcosmic plane in the chronology of conception, gestation, and birth.121

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More pertinent to the present inquiry is the Great Unity’s identification as the “foundation of metamorphosis” (bianhua zhi zhu 變 化 之 主 ), a title that implies oversight over all manner of transformation, whether on the scale of the universe or that of individual beings. Through the changes it operates, the Great Unity begets itself as mother and father, only to reunite as one when the fledgling Infant (ying’er 嬰 兒 ) takes its final form within the womb. The recomposed deity is the fully developed embryo. In this framework, the Great Unity constitutes the core or kernel of each and every individual. It is the “true self ” (zhen wu 真 吾 ), the fundamental essence of identity, our true form (zhenxing). But at the same time that it constitutes the root of the individual self, the Great Unity is simultaneously common to and shared by everyone. All human beings are manifestations of the initial cosmic singularity that is the Great Unity.122 In the “Scripture on the Triple Unity,” during the early stages of practice, adepts are first meant to realize this undergirding singularity. Subsequently, in successive stages, they must actualize it through contemplation methods, and finally transcend the singularity by returning to the all-encompassing Way (see figure 3.4).123 The power of ubiquity that practitioners acquired from Maintaining the Mysterious Unity did not consist so much of casting numerous versions of one’s true self in various places as it did of casting multiple duplicates of the Great Unity.124 By simultaneously projecting the “true self” onto an infinite number of possible points on the canvas of the cosmos, adepts occupied every point of space at once. The other meditation on the Great Unity that Ge Hong mentions, Maintaining the True Unity, operated along similar lines but in reverse. Adepts gathered external manifestations of the Great Unity from sites such as constellations, and then condensed them into three locations in the body. Eventually, they collapsed these multiple manifestations into one, which became identical to the adept. Just as the Nine Sovereigns of the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” are originally one as the Great Unity, the Triple Unity from the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” reverts to the same divinized singularity. Likewise, the Three Sovereigns of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind are ultimately incarnations of the same cosmic Great Unity.

[0]

Dao 道

1)

Taiyi 太一 ↙

2)

Taiyi 太一 ↙

3)

↘ Lord Emperor 帝君

↘

↙

Essence (Womb) Essence (Embryo) 精(胞) 精(胎) ↘

4)

↙

[0]

Spirit (Embryo) 神(胎)

↘

Womb 胞

↙ Embryo 胎

↘ 5)

↘

Breath (Womb) 氣(胞)

↙

Taiyi (Person; True Self; the Infant) 太一 ( 人 ; 真吾 ; 嬰兒 ) Dao 道

Fig. 3.4. Five stages of meditation from the “Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on [Maintaining] the Triple Unity” in the Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, 2b–4b.

The view that the Three Sovereigns are avatars of the Triple Unity and instantiations of the Great Unity predates the Writ. Early Chinese sources sometimes list the divine triad of the Three Sovereigns as Tianhuang 天 皇 , the Sovereign of Heaven; Dihuang 地 皇 , the Sovereign of Earth; and Taihuang 泰 皇 , the Supreme Sovereign.125 In addition to being identified with the Sovereign of Heaven, the Great Unity, Taiyi 太 一 , whose name is alternatively written 泰 一 or 泰 乙 (Supreme Unity), was sometimes listed in lieu of Renhuang 人 皇 , the Sovereign of Humankind.126 In some instances the association between the Three Sovereigns and the Triple Unity was even less equivocal, with sources describing the monarchs as Tianyi 天 一 , Celestial Unity; Diyi 地 一 , Terrestrial Unity; and Taiyi 太 一 (var. 泰 一 ), the Great Unity.127

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The Master Who Embraces Simplicity combines all these relations into a single concise passage, establishing correspondences between the Great Unity, the Triple Unity, the domains of the Three Sovereigns, and thus by extension the Three Sovereigns themselves: I heard my master say that the person who knows Unity can accomplish ten thousand matters. As for those who know Unity, there is not one thing they cannot know. As for those who do not know Unity, there is not one thing that they can know. The Dao arises as Unity. Its value is peerless. Each and every thing resides in [this] one place. Through it [the Dao], they take on the images of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind. Therefore, one speaks of the Triple Unity. By obtaining Unity, Heaven is clear. By obtaining Unity, the Earth is settled. By obtaining Unity, humans live. By obtaining Unity, gods are numinous.128 余聞之師云，人能知一，萬事畢。知一者，無一之不知也。不知一 者，無一之能知也。道起於一，其貴無偶，各居一處，以象天地人， 故曰三一也。天得一以清。地得一以寧。人得一以生。神得一以靈。

The equivalence established in these lines between the Triple Unity and Heaven, Earth, and Humankind dispels any doubt that the three corporeal Great Unity deities from the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” are forms of the Three Sovereigns of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind, who are themselves hypostases of the Great Unity. For this reason, the successful outcome of the meditation from the “Scripture on the Triple Unity,” and any contemplation related to the Writ, was a fully realized interpenetration between adepts and the Great Unity, one in which practitioners directly identified with a unified form of all Three Sovereigns (or Nine Sovereigns) at once. The Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors is unambiguous on this point: in the section that introduces the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” translated above, the text stipulates that adepts should “perform purifications rightly, uphold the precepts, maintain Unity, and harmonize with the gods,” namely, the “Imperial Sovereigns of the Nine Heavens” (jiutian dihuang), that is, the Nine Sovereigns.129 Adepts can achieve complete “harmony” (he 和 ) with them by meditating on how the nine hypostases revert to their singular

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origin, the Great Unity. Similarly, the contemplation method from the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” directs practitioners to meditate on the Triple Unity, transformations of the Three Sovereigns, in order to join with them and resorb into the Great Unity. In all these practices the Three Sovereigns are understood as equivalents of the Triple Unity or Three Primes, and ultimately as cosmogonic manifestations of the original cosmic Great Unity. The following passage from the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” is representative of this position: As for that which the Three Sovereigns have received, its essentials lie in the Triple Unity. The Great Unity, the True Unity, and the Mysterious Unity, these are called the Triple Unity. They are titled the Three Primes. Primordial breath generates the divine, divine breath descends into humans, and humans become divine.130 三 皇 所 受，要 在 三 一，太 一、真 一、玄 一，是 謂 三 一 者 也。號 為 三 元，元炁生神，神炁降人，人成神矣。

By identifying with the Great Unity through meditation practices, adepts “may extend their years, escape death, undertake transformations, and become divine immortals.”131 The deified singularity is equated with primordial cosmic unity, which would conventionally suggest chronological remoteness, harking back to the dawn of time. Yet, despite constituting the distant origin of the universe, the Great Unity remains immanent, present within the world. It is the fountainhead of the cosmos, the source of the celestial river from which the ten thousand creatures flow into being, but it is also, at the same time, all of the ten thousand creatures that it generates.132 In producing the cosmos, the Great Unity spreads through time and space, transforming itself into an almost infinite number of reproductions that all differ from one another. Through its endless incarnations, each and every one emanating from the same singular source, the Great Unity circulates and is present everywhere at once. Just as through transformation “Unity generates Duality, Duality generates Ternarity, and Ternarity generates the ten thousand creatures,” so too the ten thousand creatures — including individual adepts — can transform and return to Unity.133 Correspondingly, via an

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awareness of their common roots in cosmic unity and through the processes of transformation, practitioners of the methods from the “Charts of the Nine Heavens” or the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” could harmonize with the Sovereigns of Heaven, Earth, or Humankind. In realizing the common part of themselves that they all share with the divine, they too could become wholly divine. The different sections of this chapter illustrate that the constellations of practices that developed around the Writ were not solely limited to the deployment of talismans. The inclusion of certain facets of Taiqing alchemy under the aegis of the Writ was a natural development of a shared textual and transmission history, but it was also the result of the functional overlap between talismans and alchemical elixirs. These medicines were valued for bestowing longevity and immortality upon users, but they could also expel or protect against noxious influences and summon gods just as effectively as talismans. The True Form Charts, too, could conjure deities and expel demons or other dangers and were equally elemental to the broader tradition of the Writ. In transmission narratives, either the True Form Charts or Taiqing alchemical scriptures figured as complements to the Writ. All three objects — the talisman, the elixir, and the chart — were physical repositories of true form, and their materiality was paramount in making them potent ritual implements. Later Daoists customarily extolled the virtue of inanimate tools over that of gentlemen and sages because they executed their tasks directly and immediately, without the muddling effects of intention or reflection. A passage from a Tang dynasty treatise illustrates this point by asking, “Now, the balance and mirror are things that are made by people; people achieved these tools by themselves, yet contrary to expectation, they seek the measure of weight in the balance and the [standards of ] beauty in the mirror — why is this?” The text proceeds to answer the question: “Because the balance has no intention (wuxin 無 心 ) yet [its measurement] is fair; the mirror also has no intention yet [its reflection] is clear.”134 Even more so than man-made instruments, divinely revealed talismans, elixirs, and charts express the Dao fairly and clearly, without mediation. They constitute physical and

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direct articulations of true form, spontaneously fulfilling their functions. The tangible immediacy of their spiritual potential was one of the determining factors of their success in early medieval China, particularly among ruling classes, who operated in a milieu where regalia and sacraments were imagined as legitimations of authority since antiquity. The perceived efficacy of these ritual objects was magnified by pairing together “text” (wen) with “image” (tu). In this manner, the Writ could be combined with the True Form Charts, conjugating the chronological dimensions of the former with the spatial aspects of the latter. Thus adepts in possession of both documents could effectively claim to have the gods and spirits of all of space and time at their fingertips. In some instances, the properties of text and image were already present in a single chronotopic item. Such is the case of the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, another set of diagrams closely tied to the Writ. These charts enjoined adepts to visualize their eponymous deities, and then collapse them into a point of cosmic singularity, represented by the Great Unity. Charts stood out from talismans and elixirs in that they were the only one among the three types of objects that were used to represent inner space. While the other two yielded admittance to the outer world of mountain gods and astral deities, in the cluster of practices that accrued around the Writ, only charts granted practitioners access to the divine microcosm of the body. Its inner world was an unexplored territory teeming with supernatural life, much akin to densely forested peaks or the lofty firmament. The somatic landscape was the subject of many late medieval or early modern Daoist charts that depicted its anatomy as a network of rivers, roads, mountains, and valleys populated with divine inhabitants.135 The material body (ti 體 ) was an important locus of self-cultivation practices. True form charts referred to an equally material yet subtler body that was invisible to the naked eye. While charts could guide practitioners through their somatic microcosm, the mind’s eye was required to illuminate it. Accordingly, the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” describes a contemplation practice revolving around the true-form portraits of the supernatural monarchs. Although it does not rely

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on numinous diagrams, the meditation from the foundational “Scripture on the Triple Unity” is closely connected to that of the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns.” In both cases, visualizations that unfold inside the body culminate with the adept merging in time and space with the deity Great Unity, who also doubles as an ontological supreme singularity. By gaining dominion over their compact inner world, adepts could also call on the supernatural denizens of the vast outer world. Visualizations associated with the Writ and its transmission constituted more esoteric elaborations on the basic and comparatively straightforward method of summoning gods. Yet such meditations, while taxing in terms of ritual preparations and mental focus, afforded adepts the possibility of bypassing the lengthy protocols and formalities normally required when seeking a deity’s services of prescience. Instead, they could directly unite with the deity, thereby acquiring its powers of prescience and much more. Practitioners refined and gradually transformed their true form in such a way that it rejoined the original divine stock, or spirit (shen 神 ), from which it emerged. In The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, Ge Hong connects the Writ and its practices to the notion of transformation.136 A line from the Appended Statements (Xici 繫辭 ) to the Book of Changes (Yijing 易經 ) cited in a scripture related to the Writ explains: “Those who know the Way of transformation know what gods can do!”137 Through the cosmic process of transformation, practitioners of the Writ’s contemplation methods could become gods, the Three Sovereigns, and even the Great Unity.

Chapter Four

From Local Lore to Universal Dao The Cavern of Divinity and the Early Daoist Canon

Previous chapters have considered the Writ of the Three Sovereigns as a paragon of southern religious culture in early medieval China, but for most of its documented history, the scripture was also a foundational component of a variety of Daoism that transcended regional particularism. This chapter traces the text’s transition from icon of Jiangnan local lore to canonical pillar of institutional Daoism, shedding light on its expansion from a three-scroll scripture to an eleven-, then fourteen-scroll corpus. It examines the role of key actors in this transition, most notably Lu Xiujing 陸 修 靜 (406–477) and Tao Hongjing 陶 弘 景 (456–536), both influential systematizers in the development of state Daoism. Figures such as these intertwined the fates of the Writ and that of institutional Daoism, and the principal thread with which they were bound together was the Daoist Canon (Daozang 道 藏 ). The Writ and its materials contained many of the theological building blocks necessary for erecting Daoism’s scriptural corpus, some of them predating the contributions of the Shangqing 上 清 (Highest Clarity) and Lingbao 靈 寶 (Numinous Treasure) revelations.

Lu Xiujing and the Writ After Ge Hong (283–343), the Writ continued to circulate among southern elites. The renewal in Jiangnan lore brought about by the late fourth-century

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Shangqing revelations reinvigorated the traditional, tightly knit family networks of transmission that the Ge Hong had been an integral part of, facilitating the dissemination of older materials such as the Writ along with newer items.1 The recipients of the Shangqing revelations, the Xu family, were related to the Ge clan by marriages over several generations,2 and Bao Jing served as a teacher to Xu Mai (300–348), who was a primary recipient of the new revelations. Thus, members of the Xu familiy undoubtedly had access to the Writ. The Lingbao scriptures were revealed to Ge Chaofu 葛 巢 甫 (fl. 402), Ge Hong’s grandnephew, one generation later, and these new scriptures too spread along the same web of local elite families. Lu Xiujing subsequently obtained the Lingbao revelations, along with Shangqing texts and the Writ, through the same familial circuits. During the half-century that separated Ge Hong and Lu Xiujing, the Writ changed hands along these channels a number of times, but the specifics are unclear and the names of the intermediaries remain obscure. We do know, however, that by his thirties, Lu Xiujing had already established himself as a defining figure in the emergence of integrated Daoism. His deep knowledge of Jiangnan lore, in addition to his understanding of Tianshidao and Buddhist materials, guided his organization and editing of the Lingbao scriptures. He compiled an influential Lingbao catalogue in 437,3 but his penchant for taxonomy and systematization extended to other corpora as well. In 471, he submitted to the throne a Catalogue of Scriptures and Writings of the Three Caverns (Sandong jingshu mulu 三洞經書目錄 ), hereafter the Catalogue, the first attempt at a comprehensive canonical inventory of Daoist sources.4 The Catalogue was divided into three sections known as the “Three Caverns” (sandong 三 洞 ): The Cavern of Perfection (dongzhen 洞 真 ) contained thirty-four works of the Shangqing corpus (Shangqing jing 上 清 經 ) in forty-one scrolls. The Cavern of Mystery (dongxuan 洞 玄 ) held the twenty-seven titles of the Lingbao corpus (Lingbao jing 靈 寳 經 ). Lastly, the Cavern of Divinity (dongshen 洞神 ) preserved the Sanhuang corpus (Sanhuang jing 三 皇 經 ) in four scrolls. At this embryonic stage in the development of the Daoist Canon, the Sanhuang “corpus” was more or less in the shape that Ge Hong described it a century and a half earlier. It included the three scrolls

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of the Writ, along with its instructions, some of which had already been integrated into the text.5 A handful of ancillary materials that functioned as initiation documents or transmission gages occupied a separate fourth scroll. A passage from the seventh-century Great Meaning of the Gate of Mysteries (Xuanmen dayi 玄 門 大 義 ) preserved in the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds (Yunji qiqian) proposes that Lu Xiujing received the Bao Jing version of the text, the so-called cave transmission, and then designed the Cavern of Divinity to accommodate it.6 Judging from later accounts, however, Bo He’s version of the Writ was also integrated into the corpus as part of the fourth scroll. In an attempt to both distance Lu Xiujing from the Bo He line and emphasize the esoteric nature of the Bao Jing version, the author of the passage from Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds adds that the cave transmission “is not the same as the one [that is known] in the world” (yu shi bu tong 與 世 不 同 ).7 Nevertheless, if the Bo He version was most widely spread as we previously ascertained, it would make sense to retain at least some of its content. Assigning it to an appendix in the Bao Jing transmission would have constituted a reasonable compromise. In the fourth century, the title Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) was more or less interchangeable with that of Scripture/Corpus of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang jing). The second title, however, referred more specifically to the Writ as a compendium of talismans and instructions together with a host of ancillary talismans and transmission materials.8 Thus the notion that the Writ could function as a stand-alone multiscroll corpus (jing 經 ) was already taking shape. By the late fifth century, when it was incorporated into the Catalogue and the Three Caverns structure, the fourscroll Writ was considered a full-fledged and independent scriptural collection. Shortly thereafter, when it grew to ten, eleven, and eventually fourteen scrolls, the term Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) was generally reserved for the first three scrolls, whereas Scripture/Corpus of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang jing) referred to the entire corpus, namely the Writ and all the additional sources that accrued around it over the span of a century or two. More commonly, however, post-fifth-century sources designate the Writ

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and its accumulated materials as the “Cavern of Divinity corpus” (dongshen jing 洞神經 ), a term that underscores their integration into unified Daoism.9 Lu Xiujing’s catalogue arranged Lingbao, Shangqing, and Sanhuang texts according to an implicit order that became standard in subsequent accounts of the Three Caverns. The Cavern of Divinity, which housed Sanhuang sources, was the last and lowest of the three repositories. It represented the most basic teachings and practices that adepts would first encounter upon entering the Way. The “Appended Preface to the [Catalogue of Scriptures and Writings] of the Three Caverns” (“Sandong bingxu” 三洞並 序 ), which appears to preserve parts of Lu Xiujing’s preface to his Catalogue of 471, states: Moreover, as to the origins of the Three Caverns, they are rooted together in the breath of the Dao. The breath of the Dao is only one, but in its responses, it divides into three. All [three divisions] are to induce common people to cultivate immortality, and [for them] to go from the ordinary to experiencing the Dao. All [three divisions] are gradually differentiated, and for this reason they have three names. Their corpora are titled: “Cavern of Divinity,” which is to say the “Three Sovereigns of the Cavern of Divinity”; “Cavern of Mystery,” which is to say the “Numinous Treasure of the Cavern of Mystery”; and “Cavern of Perfection,” which in fact has various [other] titles and names. Some say [these scriptures] are teachings that have been conferred in writing, others [say] they are visual and aural materials that were expressed in physical form. In either case, they are difficult to ponder and to know how to use. Their names were solely established in accordance with their methods.10 又三洞之元，本同道氣，道氣惟一，應用分三。皆以誘俗修仙，從 凡證道，皆漸差別，故有三名。其經題目，洞神即云洞神三皇，洞 玄即云洞玄靈寶。洞真即雜題諸名，或言以教垂文，或以色聲著 體，並是難思知用，隨方立名耳。

The order of the Three Caverns in this passage suggests a sequence that progressed from teachings and practices that were relatively close to the “ordinary” (fan 凡 ) trivialities of daily life to teachings and practices that permitted adepts to experience the Dao more directly. This scale was

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intended to “induce” (you 誘 ) or entice people to seek gradually more esoteric teachings that put them into steadily closer contact with the Dao. In this schema, the division corresponding to Shangqing materials, the Cavern of Perfection, was ranked on top, while the Lingbao’s Cavern of Mystery occupied the middle rung. The Sanhuang Cavern of Divinity was at the bottom. In early medieval China, the purview of the Writ and its associated materials was limited to quotidian concerns involving health, prosperity, safety, and general well-being. Nonetheless, their techniques were straightforward and their benefits could extend beyond the individual user to other family members, larger groups, and even to all the subjects in the empire. Lingbao materials, on the other hand, were valued for their liturgical applications and appreciated for the way they structured the growing Daoist community. Thus many of their rituals, although communal in essence, catered to a specific collectivity. They were also comparatively more elaborate to undertake than Sanhuang methods. As for Shangqing texts, they were highly prized for their abstruse metaphysics and their highly complex individual introspective practices, chiefly visualizations. In these, practitioners intently focused on their own self-cultivation alone, spiritually refining themselves over long periods of time until they merged with the Dao. Therefore, in the broadest of strokes, we may describe the corpora of the Three Caverns as having a broad base with increasingly smaller circles of application and lower levels of accessibility as adepts progress higher up the ladder of initiations. This vertical arrangement of corpora, however, was not necessarily indicative of their inherent value. The caverns had different uses and were intended for different audiences, much like the three vehicles (sancheng 三 乘 ; Skt. triyāna) of Buddhism. In fact, some sources explicitly drew parallels between the two textual taxonomies; a section on the “Origins of the Three Caverns of Daoism” (Daojiao sandong zongyuan 道 教 三 洞 宗 元 ) from the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds elaborates on the disposition of the Three Caverns, explaining that “the first is the Cavern of Perfection, it is the Greater Vehicle (dacheng 大 乘 ); the second is the Cavern of Mystery, it is the Middle Vehicle (zhongcheng 中 乘 ); the third is the Cavern

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of Divinity, it is the Lesser Vehicle (xiaocheng 小 乘 ).”11 While Shangqing materials come out on top in this assessment as well, the text does not claim that they are superior teachings. By the same token, Sanhuang sources are not discounted as lowly or relegated to the dustbin of revealed scriptures. The specific rationale for the order of corpora in Lu Xiujing’s Catalogue remains ambiguous, but overall the systematizer indisputably intended to create a balanced scheme for a unified form of Daoism. From this perspective, divisions and contrasts would have necessarily been minimized in favor of overall coherence and harmony, with each corpora fulfilling different but equally important functions.

The Three Caverns and the Three Sovereigns The unified Three Caverns classification scheme of the Catalogue reflects Lu Xiujing’s federative vision of Daoist scriptures, but the systematizer was not its original architect. The three-pronged division between Shangqing, Lingbao, and Sanhuang saliently appeared in early fifth-century sources associated with the Shangqing lineage. In contrast to the later Catalogue, these sources plainly rank the corpora and assign most value to their own revelations over those of competing scriptural collections. In one text, the Cavern of Perfection is described as aiding citizens of the present and future generations, whereas the Cavern of Mystery is venerated for having previously saved those who lived during the reigns of the Five Emperors (wudi 五 帝 ). The Cavern of Divinity and its merits are relegated to the bygone epoch of the Three Sovereigns.12 In this diachronic account, all but the Shangqing scriptures are effectively obsolete for the Six Dynasties practitioners. A selection from another early fifth-century Shangqing source, the Wondrous Scripture of the Pure Numina of Great Existence (Suling dayou miaojing 素 靈 大 有妙經 ), proposes its own logic behind the three categories: All study should proceed from the bottom up, practicing according to the sequence, without dropping or abridging [anything]. [Doing so] would contravene clauses of the celestial code. There are three categories of

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scriptures [just as] the Dao has three perfections. The Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns, the Great Characters in Celestial Script, the registers of the Nine Heavens, and the Way of the Yellow and Red, all of these enable one to pull the reigns of the mysterious empyrean and roam around the Five Peaks. Thus, they are the grade of the lowest category. The scriptures of the Lingbao Cavern of Mystery were all generated together with the Primordial Commencement. [. . .] They can cause Perfected to descend and [make one] soar up to the Heaven of Great Clarity. They are the marvels of the middle category, the lesser methods of earthly immortals. The scriptures of the Way of Highest Clarity are concealed writings of the Great Cinnabar [Palace] totaling three hundred treasured titles and nine thousand jade commentaries. These are the head section of upper perfection [. . .] the instructions of the upper category. They are kept secret in the Palace of Great Existence above the Nine Heavens. Thus, studying should proceed from the lowest category and arrive at Shangqing.13 凡學當從下上，按次而修，不得越略，虧天科條。經有三品，道有 三真。三皇內文，天文大字，九天之籙，黃白之道，亦得控轡玄 霄，遊盤五嶽，故為下品之第。靈寶洞玄，亦元始俱生 [. . .] 亦致 真人下降，飛騰太清。中品之妙，下方地仙。上清道經，太丹隱 書，凡三百寶名，玉訣九千。此上真之首目 ，[. . .] 上品之訣。祕 在九天之上，大有之宮。夫學當從下品，造於上清也。

These lines and the scripture in which they appear are often cited as evidence that the authors of Shangqing texts were the earliest to develop the Three Caverns schema.14 As the passage makes clear, this tripartite structure provided a cursus for study of the Way, but it also supplied the logic behind the Shangqing assimilation of earlier methods and texts.15 Tracing the origins of the Three Caverns to Shangqing sources contributes an explanation as to why the Cavern of Perfection ranked first in Lu Xiujing’s Catalogue and subsequent versions of the Daoist Canon.16 Nevertheless, Shangqing texts drew heavily from non-Shangqing materials, and some evidence suggests that the passages from the Wondrous Scripture of the Pure Numina of Great Existence that present a detailed ranking of Daoist works were in fact subsequently re-articulated on the basis of early Lingbao formulations of the Three Caverns.17

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Around the turn of the fifth century, the emerging notion of Daoist scriptural identity and cohesion went hand in hand with claims of textual supremacy. While Shangqing sources insisted that the Cavern of Perfection was the “Greater Vehicle” (dacheng 大 乘 ) and the “head section of upper perfection” (shangzhen zhi shoumu 上真之首目 ), other sources often advanced the same argument for the corpus to which they belonged. One of the scriptures that exhibits parallels with the Wondrous Scripture of the Pure Numina of Great Existence’s description of the Three Caverns is the Treasured Instructions on the Jade Scripture, A Secret Commentary by [the Perfected of] the Great Ultimate of Highest Clarity (Shangqing taiji yinzhu yujing baojue 上 清 太 極 隱 注 玉 經 寶 訣 ). This fifth-century source is listed in the catalogue of early Lingbao revelations received by Ge Chaofu. It proclaims that its own corpus is the supreme “Greater Vehicle of Lingbao” (lingbao dacheng 靈 寶 大 乘 ) and that the entire content of the Three Caverns originally stemmed from the “spontaneous celestial writings” (ziran tianshu 自 然 天 書 ), a term that refers to divinely manifested Lingbao texts.18 In other words, regardless of their assigned rankings, Shangqing, Lingbao, and Sanhuang texts all stemmed from the common fountainhead of Lingbao revelations in their purest cosmic form.19 Accordingly, they were lumped together in the Three Caverns, the highest of scriptural categories, but as their original wellspring, Lingbao materials still enjoyed greater prestige in this optic.20 The notion that the Three Caverns configuration was an early Lingbao innovation that subsequent Shangqing sources re-articulated finds support in the prominent place afforded to the Three Primes (sanyuan 三 元 ) in the Lingbao revelations. Three Primes theology, which supplies a sizable proportion of the theoretical undergirding for the Three Caverns, was developed in early Lingbao scriptures. According to these texts, the spontaneous celestial writings (ziran tianshu), otherwise known as Lingbao celestial writs (Lingbao tianwen 靈 寶 天 文 ), were formed from divine unitary breath (qi). They were subsequently rendered intelligible to humans and revealed by the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Commencement (Yuanshi tianzun 元 始 天 尊 ).21 In the early stages of their transition to intelligibility, the scriptures transmuted from unitary breath to the congealed three breaths (sanqi) of the Three

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Primes. Under this guise, they manifested in the script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions (sanyuan bahui zhi shu). Each of the three breaths, the Mysterious (xuan), Primordial (yuan), and Inaugural (shi), was identified with a divine transformation or god who emerged in consecutive precosmic eras. During their reigns, the Three Treasures (sanbao 三 寶 ), as these deities were known, each produced the scripture that corresponded to their respective breath. The resulting three scriptures, generated in the script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions, formed the original teachings of the Three Caverns. From the first lines of the “Appended Preface to the [Catalogue of Scriptures and Writings] of the Three Caverns” (“Sandong jingxu”) cited at the outset of the chapter, it is clear that the nascent canon is indebted to Three Primes theology: “as to the origins of the Three Caverns, they are rooted together in the breath of the Dao. The breath of the Dao is only one, but in its responses, it divides into three.”22 Another important Lingbao text dated to around 400 CE offers one of the earliest and fullest theological accounts of the formation of the Three Caverns. The Scripture on the Spontaneous Stanzas of the Life Spirits of the Nine Heavens (Dongxuan lingbao ziran jiutian shengshen zhang jing 洞 玄 靈 寶 自 然 九 天 生 神 章 經 ), hereafter Scripture on the Spontaneous Stanzas, connects the scriptural divisions to the three breaths of the Three Primes and, more specifically, to the deities — the Three Treasures — who arise from them. The Lord of the Celestial Treasure (Tianbao jun 天 寶 君 ) emerged first, producing and overseeing the Great Cavern (dadong 大洞 ), another name for the Cavern of Perfection (dongzhen), which houses Shangqing scriptures. The Lord of the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao jun 靈 寶 君 ), who produced and oversees the Cavern of Mystery (dongxuan), appeared afterward. He was followed by the Lord of the Divine Treasure (Shenbao jun 神 寶 君 ), who produced and oversees the Cavern of Divinity (dongshen), which comprised the Writ of the Three Sovereigns and its appended materials.23 The text proceeds to shed light on the cosmogonic processes in which all revealed Daoist scriptures are rooted: These three titles [i.e., deities] are fundamentally one and the same, although their reign periods are distinct and their names are different. They

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divided into the three breaths of Mystery, Primordial, and Inaugural, and ruled. All Three Treasures are worthy gods of the three breaths. [Each] title generates the living three breaths and the three titles jointly generate the nine breaths. [. . .] None of the ten thousand transformations of Heaven and Earth could live if they had not themselves been nurtured by the Three Primes and guided by the nine breaths. The Three Primes are the worthies of Heaven and Earth, the nine breaths are the root of the ten thousand creatures.24 此三號雖年殊號異，本同一也，分為玄元始三炁而治。三寶皆三炁 之尊神，號生三炁，三號合生九炁。[. . .] 天地萬化，自非三元所 育，九炁所導，莫能生也。三炁為天地之尊，九炁為萬物之根 。

On the basis of the Scripture on the Spontaneous Stanzas, Wang Chengwen has made a strong case that Shangqing texts reformulated earlier notions of the Three Caverns, highlighting that even though the Shangqing imprint on the organization of scriptures prevailed as a result of close ties to the court in the Sui and Tang dynasties, the fundamental shape of the canon was indebted to a Lingbao vision of consolidated Daoism.25 Even if Shangqing sources still nominally occupied the first rank according to this vision, Lingbao scriptures, with their exhaustive precepts and intricate ritual program, constituted the structural framework upon which the other two corpora rested. The understanding of the Three Caverns that gave shape to the Daoist Canon was likely indebted to the Lingbao scriptures, but the account from the Scripture on the Spontaneous Stanzas is reminiscent of yet another text, the Cavern of Divinity’s Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors (Dongshen badi miaojing jing). As detailed in chapter 2, the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors is composed of anterior materials — some of them dating back to the fourth century if not earlier — and it details that the Writ originally manifested in the script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions as an emanation from the Three Primes.26 Moreover, the section on the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” (Jiuhuang tu) describes the Three Sovereigns as transformations of Mysterious, Primordial, and Inaugural, the three breaths of the Three Primes.27 Thus certain fundamental aspects of Three Primes theology that surface in Shangqing or Lingbao sources that were

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crucial in the elaboration of the Three Caverns appear in early materials tied to the Writ. The accounts of the Three Primes are all consonant with each other with the exception that Sanhuang sources refer to the deities of the three breaths as the Three Sovereigns instead of as the Three Treasures. The cosmology associated with the Writ is noteworthy for drawing an equivalence between the Three Primes on one hand and the Three Powers (sancai 三 才 ) of Heaven, Earth, and humankind (via the Sovereign of Heaven, Sovereign of Earth, and Sovereign of Humankind) on the other. This correspondence is not common in Lingbao sources, but it does appear in one of the most detailed accounts of the genesis of the Three Caverns. The aforementioned Lingbao-inspired “Origins of the Three Caverns of Daoism” begins with the following: The source from which the house of the Dao [i.e., Daoism] proceeds initially arose from that which has no precursor. It sent down its traces and responded to elicitations, coming to life in the wondrous Unity. From within the wondrous Unity, it separated into the Three Primes. Then, from the Three Primes, it transformed into the three breaths. Then, from the three breaths, it transformed and generated the Three Powers. Once the Three Powers multiplied, the ten thousand creatures were differentiated and completed.28 原夫道家由肇，起自無先。垂跡應感，生乎妙一，從乎妙一，分 為三元。又從三元變成三氣，又從三氣變生三才。三才既滋，萬物 斯備。

The passage subsequently documents how the traces of the Three Caverns emerged from the three breaths to constitute the lords of the Three Treasures, connecting the Mysterious, Primordial, and Inaugural breaths of the Three Primes with Heaven, Earth, and humankind. The connection between the Three Primes and Three Powers, namely Heaven, Earth, and humankind, was critical in explaining the genesis of the Three Caverns. Yet nowhere in the received version of the Scripture on the Spontaneous Stanzas, which the above passage cites as its source, do we find a clear association between Three Primes and Heaven, Earth, and humankind.29 In the Wondrous Essence of

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the Eight Emperors, however, the correspondence between the Three Primes, the Three Sovereigns of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind, and Mysterious, Primordial, and Inaugural is explicitly stated.30 Even the identity of the Three Sovereigns or Three Treasures with the Triple Unity (Sanyi 三 一 ) is given fuller treatment in Sanhuang sources than in surviving Lingbao sources. The notion of the Triple Unity was central to establishing a theological basis for the Three Caverns because it provided a parallel cosmological justification for the existence of the Three Treasures. Just as the cosmic Three Primes were present within an individual’s body as the Triple Unity, they could also manifest in the teachings or scriptures of the Three Caverns and their divine personified forms, the lords of the Three Treasures. Another early Lingbao scripture, the Scripture on Original Actions and Predestined Causes (Taishang dongxuan lingbao benxing suyuan jing 太 上 洞 玄 靈 寶 本 行 宿 緣 經 ), addresses the relationship between the Three Primes, the Triple Unity, and the Three Treasures. It clarifies that the Three Treasures are the Three Worthies (sanzun 三 尊 ), who are found inside the body. They occupy the Three Palaces (sangong 三 宮 ) and go by the names Lord Emperor Great Unity (Taiyi dijun 太 一 帝 君 ), Blossomless (Wuying 无 英 ), and Lordling (Gonzi 公 子 ). They are otherwise known as the Triple Unity (Sanyi).31 The text is slightly corrupted in that it lists Lordling as the third corporeal deity, when the term should in fact be part of the second god’s name. Indeed, the standard list consisted of the Lord Emperor Great Unity, Lordling Blossomless (Wuying gongzi 无 英 公 子 ), and a third deity, White Prime (Baiyuan 白 元 ), who is not mentioned in the Scripture on Original Actions and Predestined Causes. At any rate, this triad has roots in the Eastern Jin’s (265–420) Scripture of the Inner Effulgences of the Yellow Court (Huangting neijing jing 黃 庭 內 景 經 ), and it exists as a familiar set of inner gods in Lingbao documents, although these sources do not go into much detail about them. Shangqing texts, which appropriated the deities for their own visualization practices, are comparatively more loquacious, but much of the information they provide can be traced back to earlier Sanhuang materials. For example, the Concealed Writing on the Great Elixir of the Lord Emperor of Great Unity (Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu), which is connected to one of the

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original revelations received by the medium Yang Xi (330–386), elaborates on this group of internalized Triple Unity gods and ties them to a Great Unity (Taiyi 太 一 ) meditation that is featured in the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” (Sanhuang sanyi jing” 三 皇 三 一 經 ) section of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors.32 Both texts, and others that dealt with meditations on the Triple Unity, shared the same stem source, the lost Scripture of the Sovereign on Maintaining the Triple Unity (Huangren shou sanyi jing 皇人守三一經 ), but only in the surviving Sanhuang version of the meditation is the identity between the Three Sovereigns (who double as the Three Treasures), the Three Primes, and the Triple Unity explicitly established. Thus, the “Scripture on the Triple Unity” opens with the following assertion: “That which the Three Sovereigns received, its essentials lie in the Triple Unity. The Great Unity, the True Unity, and the Mysterious Unity, these are called the Triple Unity. They are titled the Three Primes.”33 After describing their appearance, listing their names, and explaining how to visualize them, the passage continues: “These three deities, they are heavenly gods, lords of the Way, they are the precious gods of the Three Primes, they are prior to humans.”34 The Shangqing Concealed Writing on the Great Elixir of the Lord Emperor Great Unity introduces the connection in a more indirect way, stressing that the Triple Unity are instead transformations — not direct incarnations — of the Three Sovereigns, cosmic deities who inhabit the celestial palace of Great Tenuity (Taiwei 太微 ) and are made up of the breaths of the Three Primes: In the [Palace] of Great Tenuity there are the Three Sovereigns. The first is called Lord Sovereign, the second is called Sovereign of Heaven, the third is called Sovereign Elder. All these are breaths of the Three Primes, perfections of spontaneity and inchoateness. Each of the Three Primes is a lord. Together, they are in the [Heaven of ] Great Clarity. In the [Heaven of ] Great Clarity, there are three palaces. The Unsurpassed is the palace of the Imperial Lord Sovereign of Heaven. To the left is the palace of Great Simplicity and to the right, the palace of Great Harmony. The location of the three palaces [in the body] is at the gate of the Muddy Pellet, inside the Limitless. Thus, the Sovereign Lord marshals Unity; he assembles and maintains divine vigor. The Sovereign of Heaven governs Duality; he transforms effulgences and maintains the form. The Sovereign Elder

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oversees Ternarity; he preserves and regulates the ten thousand gods. As the Great Unity they [i.e., the Three Sovereigns] are merged and become life in one’s body. Therefore, the Three [Primes/Sovereigns] and the Five [inner gods: Lord Emperor Great Unity, Blossomless, White Prime, the Director of Destinies (Siming 司 命 ), and Peach Vigor (Taokang 桃 康 )] divide and transform, filling up the Nine Palaces. For this reason, as for the god of the Great Unity, it is the foundation of metamorphosis.35 太微中有三皇，一曰皇君，二曰天皇，三曰皇老。此皆三元之炁， 自然混成之真也。三元各是一君。同在太清之中。太清有三宮。 無上為天皇帝君之宮，左為太素宮，右為太和。三宮所在，泥丸之 門，無極之內。故皇君御一，總持神剛。 天皇統二，變景守形。 皇老監三；維制萬神。太一混合，成生兆身。於是三五分化，填滿 九宮。故太一之神，為化生之主也。

Lingbao scriptures may have served as the headwater from which later sources developed their own understanding of the Three Caverns, but they provide tellingly scant details about key theological relationships between the Three Primes, the Triple Unity, and the Three Treasures. In comparison, even though Sanhuang materials were scant and only a small fraction of them have survived, their expressiveness on the topic is compelling. The “Scripture on the Triple Unity” and “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns,” both preserved in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, weave much of the conceptual tapestry in which the Three Caverns were eventually shrouded. The correlation of the Three Primes (via its Mysterious, Primordial, and Inaugural breaths) with the Triple Unity, and with Heaven, Earth, and humankind, was the theological cement of the Three Caverns, as was their embodiment as three textual tutelary deities of the Three Treasures. If the sources preserved in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors predate the early Lingbao scriptures, as is my contention, some of the more pivotal elements of the Lingbao model of the Three Caverns would find their origins in the Writ and its associated material. This is a highly probable scenario given that Shangqing and Lingbao sources are known to have integrated and reformulated elements from preceding southern traditions.

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The Unsurpassed Secret Essentials (Wushang biyao), compiled around 580, preserves a final passage relevant to the connection between Sanhuang sources and the concept of the Three Caverns, which warrants closer inspection: The Yellow Emperor said: “the Three Sovereigns are the worthy gods of the Three Caverns, the ancestral breaths of the [Heaven] of Great Existence.” Lord Celestial Treasure is the Head of the Jade Mystery of the Great Primordial of the Great Cavern. Lord Numinous Treasure is the Inaugural Prime of the Inchoateness of Supreme Simplicity of the Cavern of Mystery. Lord Divine Treasure is the Wondrous Breath of the Great Void of the Luminous Numen of the Cavern of Divinity. Therefore, the Three Primes transmuted and were called the Three Caverns. Their breaths traverse the void on high and reside in the divisions of the Great Canopy [Heaven]. Therefore, the Great Cavern is located above the Jade Clarity [Heaven]. The Cavern of Mystery is in the region of the thousand [Heavens of ] Highest Clarity. And all the titles [i.e., gods] of the Cavern of Divinity are in the Great Ultimate. The breath of the Great Cavern is none other than the Sovereign of Heaven, the breath of the Cavern of Mystery is none other than the Sovereign of Earth, and the breath of the Cavern of Divinity is none other than the Sovereign of Humankind.36 黃帝曰：三皇者，則三洞之尊神，大有之祖氣也。天寶君者，是大 洞太元玉玄之首。靈寶君者，是洞玄太素混成之始元。神寶君者， 是洞神皓靈太虛之妙氣。故三元凝變，號曰三洞。氣洞高虛，在於 大羅之分。故大洞處于玉清之上，洞玄則在千上清之域，洞神總號 則在于太極。大洞之氣則天皇是矣，洞玄之氣則地皇是矣，洞神之 氣則人皇是矣。

This unambiguous claim echoes some of the other excerpts that were discussed above, most notably from the Concealed Writing on the Great Elixir of the Lord Emperor Great Unity, a Shangqing text that identifies the Three Sovereigns as the Triple Unity and the Three Primes but does not include the Three Caverns in the equation. Likewise, the Scripture on the Spontaneous Stanzas of the Life Spirits of the Nine Heavens ties the Three Treasures of the Three Caverns to the Three Primes, but no mention is made of the Three Sovereigns.37 These lines from the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials fill in the gaps,

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providing a complete theological background to the Three Caverns with the Three Sovereigns at its center. The passage is cited from the Scripture/Corpus of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang jing), a term that, as we have seen, denotes the Writ along with a number of additional appended materials. In the fourth century, it designated what for all intents and purposes would have been closer to a scripture (jing 經 ); auxiliary documents were relatively limited in number, consisting of the oral instructions and transmission gages. But as time passed and the scripture accrued more materials, it developed into a corpus (jing 經 ), growing from three to four, and then to eleven scrolls by the time the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials was compiled in the late sixth century. Therefore, the passage above could very well have been cited from a source that was added to the corpus after the Lingbao revelations and before the compilation of the Daoist summa. This would make it no less important, as it would constitute a lucid illustration of how Sanhuang sources theologically posited themselves at the center of the emerging Three Caverns structure, much like their Shangqing and Lingbao counterparts.38 Nevertheless, when citing scrolls from the Sanhuang corpus that were added after the fourth century, the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials often refers to them as coming from the “Cavern of Divinity corpus” (dongshen jing), generally reserving the appellation Scripture/Corpus of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang jing) for the first four scrolls of documents dating from around the early fourth century. If this is the case here, as I surmise, then the passage would predate Shangqing and Lingbao expositions of the Three Caverns, and what is more, it could very well have served as a basic template for Shangqing and Lingbao elaborations on the structure of the Daoist Canon.39 With that said, because sources from this period are difficult to date with absolute precision and many of the relevant texts were written within a hundred years of each other, the proposed chronology of the Three Caverns’ theological history remains tentative. Nonetheless, from a strictly practical perspective, the tripartite division of the Three Sovereigns and its inbuilt theology would have served as a natural model for organizing three major sets of Daoist scriptures and integrating them into a coherent whole. Despite being outsiders to the intricacies

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of the formation of the Daoist Canon, medieval Buddhists were clearly under the impression that Sanhuang sources had been instrumental in crafting the Three Caverns schema. The polemical Treatise on Disputing the Correct (Bianzheng lun 辯 正 論 ) from ca. 630, refers to the passage from the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” in elaborating on how the Three Sovereigns correspond to the three lords of the Cavern of Perfection, Cavern of Mystery, and Cavern of Divinity.40 Earlier still, in the same section of the Treatise on the Two Teachings (Erjiao lun) in which he accuses Bao Jing of forging the Writ, Dao’an (fl. sixth century) adds that “afterwards, people avoided it [the title], so they changed the [‘Three Sovereigns’] to ‘Three Caverns.’ ” 41 The text stops short of clearly stating that the Three Sovereigns was the original designation for the three repositories of Daoist scriptures, but this idea is unmistakably implied, as more than one scholar has noted.42 Other scholars are more cautious with respect to the Writ’s role in the the scriptural classification of Daoist corpora and many altogether overlook the Sanhuang corpus to focus solely on Lingbao or Shangqing sources, providing what is at best an incomplete picture of the development of the Daoist Canon. While the extent of the Writ’s contribution to the emergence of the Three Caverns remains to be determined, the scripture’ s impact certainly cannot be ignored.

Why No Cavern of Correct Unity? And Why a Cavern of Divinity? A driving impetus behind the emergence of institutional integrated Daoism was the desire to articulate a state creed that would correspond to the needs and aspirations of a unifying ruler. By meeting the expectations of imperial ideology and securing patronage, Daoists could ensure the perennity of their tradition and even aspire to its dissemination in an expanding dominion. For southerners such as Lu Xiujing, this translated into the indefinite preservation of their local culture and a guarantee of important roles on the political stage. In northern courts, Buddhists had secured positions of influence and solidified a hefty cultural footprint. For members of elite Jiangnan lineages eager to accomplish the same results with Daoism, the

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first step was the integration of diverse scriptural traditions into a coherent, inclusive, and ordered canon, a projection of the imperial administration’s ambition of integrating diverse polities into a pacified and ordered unified realm. Through a standardization of its texts and the establishment of ordination regulations, the architects of state Daoism knocked down boundaries of the locally and temporally circumscribed precursors and translated their traditions into universal and eternal teachings. In so doing, they posited Daoism as the ideological motor for political unification and the instauration of a lasting universal theocracy.43 In light of the consequential presence of the Way of the Celestial Masters in the South roughly since the turn of the fourth century, one might have expected that Tianshidao texts would have occupied one of the Three Caverns. They had a robust and cohesive canonical profile well before the Sanhuang, Shangqing, or Lingbao corpora were established, as evidenced by the third-century Scripture of the Code and Precepts Taught by the Heavenly Master (Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiao jie ke jing 正 一 法 文 天 師 教 戒 科 經 ) and other titles of the early Tianshidao corpus that bore the prefix “Statutory Writs of Correct Unity” (zhengyi fawen 正 一 法 文 ). Beyond strictly textual concerns, the Celestial Masters libationers made a significant impression on local culture and society throughout their time in early medieval Jiangnan. Lingbao sources for example integrated many elements from their rituals. Sanhuang sources also borrowed certain theological notions, including most probably the idea of corporeal manifestations of the three breaths (Mysterious, Primordial, and Inaugural).44 Moreover, many of the local aristocratic families — among them the Xu clan, who received the Shangqing revelations — were devotees of the Way of the Celestial Masters. Even Wei Huacun 魏 華 存 (251–344), the celebrated Shangqing matriarch and divine transmitter of the revelations, had reportedly been a libationer (jijiu) as well. What is more, the Way of the Celestial Masters had previous experience in and success with precisely what Lu Xiujing and other systematizers were attempting to achieve: hoisting their tradition to the level of state creed. The Celestial Master Zhang Lu 張 魯 (d. 216) and his followers established an independent polity in northwest China that lasted nearly thirty years.

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Amid the storm of political turmoil and social upheaval at the end of the Han dynasty, the Hanzhong 漢 中 (ca. 191–215) state stood out as a haven of peace and prosperity. It was led by a governing authority of religious officiants known as libationers (jijiu), who effectively took over as ruling agents. They organized citizens on the basis of individual and family registers (lu 錄 ), implemented humane laws, established charitable institutions to meet the needs of the populace, and managed commercial activities to benefit the common good.45 Yet the Celestial Masters’ program of institutional religion was ultimately exclusionary. Libationers were more preoccupied with delineating their area of influence than expanding it. Their rapid spread from the northwestern Chengdu plain to all of China in under two centuries was in the end, not the fruit of effective proselytizing but rather the inadvertent result of a diaspora of early communities fleeing the chaos and warfare that followed the fall of the Han dynasty. Because of their strong group identity, their relationships with local religious traditions in the regions where they relocated were often tumultuous. Moreover, as it spread to new areas, the Way of the Celestial Masters became increasingly reliant on patronage from members of the local gentry to carve out its niche; consequently the movement gradually shifted from a popular one to an elite one. The Way of the Celestial Masters made another temporarily successful foray into state building during the early-to-middle fifth century when the Northern Wei (386–534) named Daoism as the official religion between 424 and 448. In an attempt to set up a new imperial state in north China, Tuoba Tao 拓拔燾 (408–452), the eventual Emperor Taiwu (Taiwu di 太武帝 ; r. 423–452), installed the Celestial Master Kou Qianzhi 寇 謙 之 (365–448) as the head of a new Daoist papacy.46 Kou Qianzhi served as an influential ideological beacon, and, among other functions, he was entrusted with providing the ritual infrastructure for the emerging state. The prime minister Cui Hao 崔 浩 (381–450), who was partly responsible for Kou Qianzhi’s rise to power, championed him from within the secular administration. Together, they promoted policies that resulted in a well-ordered but tightly regulated centralized state instead of the free and egalitarian society envisaged by earlier Celestial Masters. The Daoist grip on the Northern Wei waned after Kou

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Qianzhi’s death in 448, and Cui Hao and his entire clan were executed two years later. In 452, Emperor Wencheng (Wencheng di 文 成 帝 ; r. 452–465), a devout Buddhist, took the throne, and Kou Qianzhi’s reforms were overturned one by one. As an ordained Celestial Master and contemporary of Kou Qianzhi, Lu Xiujing was surely aware of the favorable (albeit short-lived) experiment at the Northern Wei court. Most likely inspired by this success, Lu Xiujing devoted himself to reforming the southern Celestial Masters movement in Jiangnan during the first part of his career. He notably reinstituted mainstays of the early Celestial Masters community such as the “days of the Three Assemblies” (sanhui ri 三 會 日 ); he revised and amended the registers system, including the “domestic register” (zhailu 宅錄 ) and “fate roster” (mingji 命籍 ), and also attempted to re-establish a meritocratic infrastructure of promotion. A standardized ordination system was one of the most critical components of the institutionalization of religion that the Celestial Masters had accomplished early on in the late second century, and Lu Xiujing sought to reproduce it in his vision of unified Daoism.47 In light of the canonical maturity of the Way of the Celestial Masters, its cultural impact in Jiangnan, its institutional experience with state religion, and Lu Xiujing’s personal proximity to the tradition, it remains unclear why Tianshidao texts were not included in the Catalogue and the Three Caverns. For reasons unknown, Lu Xiujing gradually turned away from the Way of the Celestial Masters during the mid-430s to focus his energy on Lingbao. By 437, the introduction to the Catalogue of Lingbao Scriptures (Lingbao jing mu 靈 寶 經 目 ) that he submitted to the throne framed the revelation of the Lingbao scriptures as auspicious omens and confirmations of the Liu Song dynasty’s (420–479) mandate of unification.48 Lu Xiujing then formulated an integrated taxonomy of scriptural corpora that privileged Lingbao texts and excluded Tianshidao materials. At the same time, he refashioned and incorporated a significant proportion of their ritual template into the Lingbao liturgical system, to the extent that a Tianshidao cavern would have been redundant.49 Thus Lingbao ritual and theology were devised as a targeted answer to, and ultimate replacement of, the Way of the Celestial

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Masters dispensation that had taken root in Jiangnan between the early third to early fourth centuries.50 Lu Xiujing’s precise motivations for shifting away from a reformed Celestial Masters ecclesia to support a Lingbao-inspired architecture of unified state Daoism are unclear, but we may surmise that the events at the Northern Wei court could have been a factor. Lu Xiujing was determined to integrate the various local traditions and afford each of them a designated place under the umbrella of a new form of institutionalized Daoism. Unless these conditions were met, the religion could not serve as the ideological legitimation for reunifying the disparate polities of the Chinese cultural sphere under one single potentate. Without the federative dimension of state Daoism, imperial support would have been difficult to garner. By the time the ill effects of the Northern Wei’s stringent policies were felt and word of them traveled to southern China, Lu Xiujing might have found Kou Qianzhi’s brand of authoritative state Daoism too rigid for his purposes. Convincing his contemporaries that southern Celestial Masters were of a different ilk than those at the Tuoba court would have proven difficult. Moreover, Sun En’s 孫恩 (?–402) rebellion (399–403) had recently occurred. Even if the uprising was not religiously motivated per se, it remained amalgamated with the Way of the Celestial Masters in the popular imagination and its specter still loomed large.51 Thus, in the early stages of the formation of the Daoist Canon, Tianshidao materials were sidelined. That is not to say that there were no efforts to include their sources in the new Three Caverns schema: although it was more representative of a millenarian Celestial Masters offshoot than the mainstream current, the late fourth-century Scripture of the Divine Spells of the Cavernous Abyss (Taishang dongyuan shenzhou jing 太 上 洞 淵 神 呪 經 ) defined the Three Caverns as being made up of the Shangqing scriptures, Lingbao scriptures, and “absorptive concentration” or samādhi (sanmei 三 昧 ) scriptures, with the third category referring to the Scripture of the Divine Spells of the Cavernous Abyss and associated materials.52 Nevertheless, this format did prove convincing as the local intelligentsia that made up Lu Xiujing’s immediate circle of patrons were more interested in rehabilitations of autochthonous traditions that had been neglected and that northerners had vilified

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since their arrival. This predilection for southern lore was notably reflected in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, a sweeping sixth-century anthology that brought together disparate forms of Daoism and presented them in a manner that converged with state interests. While the Writ, Shangqing materials, and especially the Lingbao revelations constituted the core of the collection, the Way of the Celestial Masters, whose tenets were undeniably known to the compilers, was thoroughly ignored. Despite their integration into the fabric of southern society, the Celestial Masters remained cultural outsiders, and their texts were judged to be less compatible with other Jiangnan products within the scope a new form of integrated state Daoism. Roughly two centuries after Lu Xiujing’s Catalogue, however, Tianshidao scriptures were finally added to the Three Caverns, albeit at a lower rung, as part of the Four Supplements or Four Auxiliaries (sifu 四 輔 ); the resulting Seven Sections (qibu 七 部 ) of Daoist scriptures still form the backbone of the canon today.53 But in the meantime, for Six Dynasties southern systematizers, the nascent Daoist Canon had to be rooted in Jiangnan traditions. To a large extent, Shangqing and Lingbao scriptures were designed, edited, or reorganized with the project of integrated Daoism in mind. As a result, they naturally lent themselves to institutionalization. One could say they were fated to occupy two of the Three Caverns. But the destiny of the third cavern was more uncertain; numerous other southern sources including the Scripture of the Divine Spells of the Cavernous Abyss or those from the Taiqing (Great Clarity) corpus could have conceivably served as its basis instead of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns. Yet, after all, the Writ took precedence. One reason for this outcome was that the tripartite arrangement of the Three Sovereigns provided a ready-to-use framework from the emerging canon, as discussed above. Another was that the Writ, as Ge Hong presented it, was celebrated as the epitome and sum of southern lore. All the components of Jiangnan traditions were closely interconnected because of the tightly knit clan-based circuits in which they evolved; the Writ and its materials centered on conjuring methods but they also incorporated crucial elements from local traditions of alchemy and meditation. To put it another way, the Writ was esteemed both for its hallmark talismanic methods and

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for its synthetic nature, the latter aspect being particularly germane to Lu Xiujing’s federative program. Finally, the summoning methods and apotropaic applications that served as the Writ’s centerpiece were straightforward and less costly, time-consuming, and technical than methods from other sources. Although its doctrinal contributions were by no means as sophisticated as those of the Shangqing and Lingbao scriptures, its talismans were tangible gages of legitimacy, and the direct mechanics of their use were immediately decipherable to rulers and subjects, as well as practitioners and nonpractitioners alike; they were a familiar and recognized common denominator of ritual lore and statecraft since the Han, if not earlier. Bringing them into the fold of unified Daoism not only provided an important proportion of the liturgical and theological framework for unified imperial rule, it also restricted access to the supernatural — one of the key sources of sovereignty for rulers — to anyone outside the clergy and their patrons. Taken as a whole, these factors must have motivated systematizers such as Lu Xiujing to award the Writ an important place in the Three Caverns configuration.

Tao Hongjing and the Expansion of the Cavern of Divinity In order to understand the Writ’s transition from local tradition to textual bulwark of institutional Daoism, we must return to its expansion from a single text to a full-fledged scriptural corpus. Lu Xiujing died at the age of seventy-two in 477. Before passing away he handed down the four scrolls of the Writ — which by then was already known as the Cavern of Divinity — to his pupil, Sun Youyue 孫 遊 嶽 (399–489), the eighth Shangqing patriarch and the eventual head of the capital’s prestigious Abbey of World Prosperity (Xingshi guan 興世館 ).54 Sun Youyue died twelve years after his master in 489, at the age of ninety-one. Since it was customary for acolytes to follow their masters, Sun Youyue moved with Lu Xiujing to the capital during the Taishi period (465–471) of the Southern Qi (452–498), relatively late in his life. Tao Hongjing became a disciple of Sun Youyue in 484 and obtained the scriptures sometime during the next four years.55 The Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds records that Sun Youyue did not modify the Sanhuang

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materials he received from Lu Xiujing,56 thus the Cavern of Divinity still consisted of four scrolls in or around 489, when Tao Hongjing received it. During the time the corpus was in Tao Hongjing’s possession, however, the number of scrolls more than doubled, reaching ten. That is not to say that new content was added; some accounts relate that Tao Hongjing merely reorganized the corpus, “dividing it according to branches and currents.”57 The specifics of his restructuring are blurry, but a rare inventory of what appears to be the ten-scroll corpus exists in P.2559, a Dunhuang manuscript that reproduces a section of a work collected and edited by Tao Hongjing during the Tianjian period (502–519) of the Liang dynasty (502–587). Together with P.2559, Dunhuang manuscripts S.6301, S.3750, and BD.11252 form the complete “Lord Tao’s Transmission Protocols” (*Taogong chuanshou yi 陶 公 傳 授 儀 ), a compilation of ritual instructions for the transmission of an important set of Jiangnan techniques for divination, summoning, exorcism, or apotropaia associated with esoteric talismans and charts (see figure 4.1).58 The Five Methods (wufa 五 法 ), as these techniques were collectively known, were made up of the “Method of the Talismans of the Six Jia [Spirits] (Liujia fu fa 六 甲 符 法 ), the “Method of Charms and Mountain Talismans” (Jin shan fu fa 禁 山 符 法 ), the “Method of the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks” (Wuyue zhenxing tu 五 嶽 真 形 圖 ), the “Method of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang wen fa 三皇文法 ), and the “Method of the Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure” (Lingbao wufu fa 靈 寶 五 符 法 ).59 The following passage from P.2259 is specifically concerned with the fourth item. It appears in a section titled “Rites for the Transmission of [the Writ of] the Three Sovereigns” (Shoushou sanhuang fa 授受三皇法 ): The [Writ of the] Three Sovereigns is the great scriptural statute.60 Nowadays, in the world, there are the equivalent number [three] of scrolls, all of which were transmitted down from Bao [Jing] and Ge [Hong]. Those “perfect characters” that are large are only in the Green Embryo in one scroll, whereas the Practices of [Lord Wang of the] Western Citadel in one scroll consists entirely of the essentials for commanding and summoning [spirits]. As for the remaining scrolls and those that I did not elaborate upon, altogether they amount to one satchel in ten scrolls. They are transmitted and received together.61

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三皇是大經法。今世中有此數卷。皆由鮑葛所傳至。此大者之真 字唯青胎一卷是耳。而西城施行一卷。全為勑召之要。其餘卷並 吾所未詳而合集得成一袠十卷。相傳併受之。

s Transmission Protocols,”in Dunhuang Fig. 4.1. The central segment of“*Lord Tao’ Ms. P.2559, l. 122–156; from the International Dunhuang Project, http://idp.bl.uk/.

These lines confirm that the materials Tao Hongjing received from Lu Xiujing via Sun Youyue and later transmitted were indeed from the Bao Jing line. Although the phrasing is elliptical, it appears that three out of ten scrolls in this new format were still devoted to the three parts of the Writ. The manuscript provides information about two other scrolls as well: the Practices of Lord Wang of the Western Citadel (Xicheng shixing 西 成 施 行 ), another name for the Lord Wang–Bo He transmission of the Writ; and the Green Embryo (Qingtai 青 胎 ) in “perfect characters,” a document listed in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials as one of the ancillary talismans.62 These ancillary materials were independent of any specific transmission lines and were tied to the Writ since the early fourth century at the latest (see appendix 4). For instance, they appear in the bibliographic chapter of The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, and the Green Embryo even appears side by side with the Writ in a passage listing the most celebrated methods for summoning gods and keeping noxious influences at bay.63

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“*Lord Tao’s Transmission Protocols” implies that the materials which came into Tao Hongjing’s possession were the same exact ones that passed through Lu Xiujing’s hands and circulated during Bao Jing’s and Ge Hong’s time around the turn of the fourth century.64 Roughly a third of the way through the Dunhuang manuscript, a detailed section presents the organization of the ten scrolls. The inventory is part of a declaration made by the adept upon receiving the materials: Previously, [I] so-and-so reverently received from my former master soand-so: the three sections of esoteric writs of the Sovereign of Heaven, the Sovereign of Earth, and the Sovereign of Humankind, the Great Characters in Celestial Script, the Green Embryo, and the Myriad Talismans for Controlling Heaven, amounting to 10 scrolls.65 厶 [ 某 ] 甲 昔 從 先 師 厶 [ 某 ] 奉 受 天 皇 地 皇 人 皇 三 部 內 文，天 文 大 字，青胎，監乾眾符，合十卷。

Although the exact structure of the ten scrolls still remains unclear, this second passage furnishes some additional information. As suspected, Bao Jing’s Writ occupies three scrolls. As previously established, the Great Characters in Celestial Script is another name for the Practices of Lord Wang of the Western Citadel, Bo He’s version of the Writ. In the passage above, the text was listed as occupying one scroll. In the present inventory, it appears as the fourth item and, in contrast to the previous list, it precedes the Green Embryo. As a transmission gage, the Green Embryo is perhaps more appropriately relegated to the fifth scroll, after the two versions of the Writ. It is followed by the Myriad Talismans for Controlling Heaven (Jianqian zhongfu 監 乾 眾 符 ), another set of appended materials that appears in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity and was commonly handed down as a transmission gage.66 This collection of talismans might have occupied the sixth to the tenth scrolls of the ten-scroll Cavern of Divinity, although this is no more than a guess based on later inventories; unfortunately, Tao Hongjing does not elaborate on the contents or structure of the Myriad Talismans for Controlling Heaven.

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While on one hand the account from the Dunhuang manuscripts insists on a ten-scroll Cavern of Divinity during Tao Hongjing’s time, the excerpt about the Cavern of Divinity from the Great Meaning of the Gate of Mysteries (Xuanmen dayi) mentioned at the outset of this chapter specifies that Tao Hongjing expanded the corpus from “a few to eleven scrolls” ( 稍 至 十 一 卷 67 耳 ). The corpus did eventually grow to eleven scrolls, and later to fourteen, thus the eleventh scroll would have conceivably been added sometime after Tao Hongjing compiled his ritual manual in the Tianjian period (502–519) and his death in 536.

The Cavern of Divinity after Tao Hongjing With the three-scroll Writ at its center, the Cavern of Divinity expanded from four to ten scrolls, and then to eleven during Tao Hongjing’s lifetime. The Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, a Daoist summa compiled around 580, contributes a rationale for the structure of the eleven-scroll corpus that would serve as the basis for the fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity as well. Citing an otherwise unattested Scripture of the Secret Registers of the Cavern of Divinity (Dong mishen lujing 洞秘神籙經 ), the passage explains: When the Three Sovereigns ruled the world, each received one scroll in order to govern all under Heaven. When there was urgency, they summoned the gods from Heaven above and the demons from the Earth below, commanding them all into service. These [three scrolls] were called the Three Mounds. Later, there were the Eight Emperors who ruled after the Three Sovereigns. Each [emperor] again received one scroll and they too ruled all under Heaven by means of the teaching of the divine numina. The first three scrolls were called the Three Essences, the following three were called the Three Transformations, and the last two scrolls were called the Two Changes. Altogether, the eight scrolls were called the Eight Rules.68 三皇治世各受一卷以治天下。有急，召天上神地下鬼，皆勑使之。 號曰三墳。後有八帝，次三皇而治，又各受一卷，亦以神靈之教治 天下。上三卷曰三精，次三卷曰三變，次二卷曰二化。凡八卷號曰 八素。

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According to this source, the eleven-scroll Sanhuang corpus is composed of the mythical Three Mounds (sanfen 三 墳 ) and Eight Rules (basuo 八 索 ), legendary documents that were divinely bestowed on the earliest rulers to assist them in their task of governing the realm. They are part of a larger set of esoteric manuals — completed by the Five Standards (wudian 五 典 ) and Nine Hills (jiuqiu 九 丘 ) — that expounded cosmically derived governing principles. They circulated during the Warring States period (475–221 BCE) and the Spring and Autumn period (771–476 BCE), as attested in the Zuo Commentary (Zuozhuan 左 傳 ).69 They were lost early on, but their content remained the subject of speculation well into the Common Era, with at least one antiquarian reconstitution surviving from the tenth or eleventh century.70 In its eleven-scroll version, the Cavern of Divinity’s first three scrolls were devoted to Bao Jing’s Writ. The next eight were collectively known as the Scriptures of the Eight Emperors (Badi jing 八 帝 經 ), divided into three sets, the Three Essences (sanjing 三 精 ), Three Transformations (sanbian 三 變 ), and the Two Changes (erhua 二 化 ). The identification between the latter eight scrolls of the Cavern of Divinity and the Eight Rules provided a rationale for the organization of the growing corpus at the same time that it increased its prestige by anchoring it in a remote golden age.71 Likewise, some medieval accounts that suggest an equivalence between the Writ of the Three Sovereigns and the Three Mounds conscientiously name the foundational demigod monarchs of antiquity who received the latter set of prized documents — Fu Xi, the Sovereign of Heaven, Shennong or the Divine Husbandsman, Sovereign of Earth, and Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor and Sovereign of Humankind — seamlessly blending two similar yet distinct textual mythologies.72 The superimposition of the two transmission narratives, one historical and the other cosmological, highlighted the Writ’s pedigree along with its suitability for statecraft at a time that Daoism was coalescing into a state religion. It also vividly connected the cosmic history of the Three Sovereigns as divine forms of metaphysical principles with the human history of culture heroes and archetypal rulers. In addition to the eleven-scroll corpus based on Bao Jing’s version of the Writ, a Cavern of Divinity in fourteen scrolls elaborated on the basis of

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Bo He’s version may have also circulated concurrently. A passage in the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds records something to that effect: The Scripture of Lesser Existence is documented and recorded in eleven scrolls that cover the parts on the core scripture, [but] the ritual methods are separate. Altogether there are fourteen scrolls.73 小有經下記所載十一卷，推部本經，分別儀式，合一十四卷。

The Bo He version, referred to here by the title Scripture of Lesser Existence (Xiaoyou jing), also circulated in an expanded form. It was reorganized into eleven scrolls (juan) that housed the Writ along with documents that immediately concerned it, most likely ancillary transmission talismans. This section on revealed materials was partitioned from nonrevealed liturgical materials. The liturgical scrolls, which presumably outlined the ritual steps to be taken during the transmission, amounted to three additional scrolls, bringing the total to fourteen. The passage from the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds concludes with the following: That which at present Master Meng has recorded is also what was transmitted within the mountain; it equally has eleven scrolls. These two editions [i.e., the eleven scroll version and the eleven-plus-three scroll version mentioned above] both circulate in the world.74 今孟先生所錄者，是其山中所傳，猶十一卷。此二本並行於世。

These lines confirm that at a certain point in time, Bo He’s version of the Writ circulated in an eleven-scroll format and in a fourteen-scroll format. The eleven-scroll format — the one without extra liturgical scrolls — was mentioned in a text by Master Meng (Meng xiansheng 孟 先 生 ). The text in question is Master Meng’s Scriptural Catalogue of the Seven Sections of the Jade Apocryphon (Meng fashi yuwei qibu jing shumu 孟 法 師 玉 緯 七 部 經 目 ), hereafter the Jade Apocryphon.75 This was a key source on the early Daoist Canon, and, although lost, a number of citations are preserved in the late seventh-century Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way (Daojiao yishu) and the eleventh-century Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds. The identity of Master Meng is a matter of debate: some scholars propose

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that he was Meng Zhizhou 孟 智 周 , a Twofold Mystery (Chongxuan 重 玄 ) thinker and systematizer of Daoism active during the Liu Song dynasty (420–479 CE).76 This is problematic, as the Jade Apocryphon contains the earliest known reference to the Four Supplements (sifu) of the Daoist Canon, and a mid- to late-fifth-century date of composition for the text would imply that these additional scriptural categories already existed around the time the Three Caverns were first elaborated. The other, more plausible scenario is that Master Meng was Meng Anpai 孟 安 排 (fl. 699), a medieval court Daoist under Tang Empress Wu Zetian 武 則 天 (r. 690–705). Meng Anpai was known for his Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way, much of which is based on the seventh-century Great Meaning of the Gate of Mysteries (Xuanmen dayi). The Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds also relies on the Great Meaning of the Gate of Mysteries as one of its main sources, notably via its citations preserved in the Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way. Thus, it would not be unexpected to encounter references to the Jade Apocryphon, another text by Meng Anpai, in the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds. Another point in support of Master Meng and Meng Anpai being one and the same is that the Seven Sections (Three Caverns and Four Supplements) of the Daoist Canon would have been compiled before the Jade Apocryphon, as is commonly held. The distinction of devising the Four Supplements goes to either of two figures: Wang Yan 王 延 (d. 604), who presented a catalogue of Daoist scriptures — now lost — in seven scrolls,77 or, more plausibly, the Shangqing patriarch Pan Shizeng 潘 師 正 (585–682), who mentions the Seven Sections by name in his Transmission Sequence of the Daoist Scriptures (Daomen jingfa xiangcheng cixu 道 門 經 法 相 承 次 序 ), dated to the second half of the seventh century.78 Leaving aside the question of the Seven Sections, if we follow the most feasible course of events, both Bo He’s and Bao Jing’s versions of the Writ existed as eleven- or even fourteen-scroll corpora around 700 CE at the latest. The translated passage, however, explains that Master Meng only recorded the eleven-scroll Bo He version, “which was transmitted within the mountain.” The orthodox line of Bao Jing’s cave transmission is not mentioned.79

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The citations from the Jade Apocryphon pertaining to the Cavern of Divinity that survive in the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds exclusively deal with Bo He’s Scripture of Lesser Existence.80 One reason for Master Meng’s omission of the orthodox transmission from his Jade Apocryphon could have been that Bao Jing’s Writ was completely discredited after the proscription of 648. It would also explain why he only listed eleven scrolls of revealed materials, ignoring the last three man-made ritual scrolls in order to avoid further allegations of a “fabricated” Cavern of Divinity. The Jade Apocryphon reflects some of the misgivings that the imperial ban on Bao Jing’s Writ generated among members of the Daoist intelligentsia. The peculiar passage from the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds supports the argument that Meng Anpai compiled the text. It also indicates that, at the turn of the eighth century, the Writ’s relevance to institutional Daoism was not discounted. If the Jade Apocryphon is any indication, Daoists merely replaced Bao Jing’s version of the Writ with the previously maligned Bo He version. In so doing, they overlooked the initial concerns about blood oaths and local excessive cults (yinsi), which had grown irrelevant with Daoism’s gradual institutionalization and recognition as a viable state creed. With its integration into the Three Caverns system, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns became an elemental part of unified Daoism. The architects of the Daoist Canon had achieved the remarkable feat of aligning scriptural corpora with clerical structure, thereby piecing together loosely federated local traditions into an organized religion with a common unified vision. The Writ was an essential part of this vision, but it remained associated with a basic level of spiritual attainment that included mundane concerns such as the pursuit of prosperity and health, longevity, and eschewing death. The Concealed Commentary and Treasured Instructions to the Jade Scripture of the Grand Ultimate (Shangqing taiji yinzhu yujing baojue 上 清 太 極 隱 注 玉 經 寳 訣 ), dated to the early fifth century, summarizes: “The Celestial Writ of the Three Sovereigns is also called Cavern of Divinity, or Cavern of Immortals, or Supreme Jade Tablet.”81 In contrast to the abstract musings of the Shangqing

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corpus, and to the merit-generating Lingbao rituals, both of which ultimately granted complete transcendence and full cosmic communion with the Dao, Sanhuang materials were perceived as “merely” granting the worldly benefits that came with the conventional aspiration to immortality. Systematizers posited the newer Shangqing and Lingbao revelations and their methods as improvements over the traditional spiritual pursuits of Jiangnan. Pan Shizheng’s Transmission Sequence of the Daoist Scriptures is even more curt in its characterization: “In the study and practice of the three vehicles [i.e., the Three Caverns], the Lesser Vehicle is the learning of the Cavern of Divinity to obtain the Dao and achieve immortality.”82 These lines emphasize both the Writ’s origins in the arts of immortality — the fervor for which had peaked a few centuries prior — and the subordinate rank it occupies in the Three Caverns. Nevertheless, the corpora of the Three Caverns were all equally regarded as the “highest category” (shangpin 上 品 ) of revealed scriptures. Distinctions between them or between individual texts were not drawn on the basis of spiritual value but rather on that of function. Different corpora had different purposes in integrated Daoism, and that of the Sanhuang corpus, institutionally speaking, was to provide the first level of initiation into the Three Caverns. The next chapter will consider how the mature fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity fulfilled this role. It focuses on the liturgical materials that developed as a result of the Writ’s increasing importance in protocols of investiture, on the ossification of its loosely organized appended materials into formal liturgical registers (falu 法 籙 ), and on the Writ’s own transition from esteemed grimoire of visionary divination to ordination gage, a symbolic shadow of its former self. Yet, even as it came to be valued first and foremost for its symbolic function as a material token of introduction into the Daoist order, the powerful message of the Writ somehow remained intact. In Jiangnan lore, only the most meritorious and accomplished adepts were awarded the scripture and the instructions on how to unlock its secrets, one per generation, as Ge Hong reminded his readers. Through ceaseless devotion and tireless refinement, recipients of the Writ could not only become immortals but also supreme overlords of all of the denizens of the world,

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both supernatural and human.83 Merely possessing the text was evidence of having received favor from Heaven and obtained legitimation for imperial ambitions. By the early Tang, as the scripture’s transmission became the centerpiece of standardized ordination rites, the number of initiates swelled to considerably more than one per generation. Thus, in principle, any person ordained into Daoism could also become a ruler, a prospect that was surely appealing to those who aspired to the position, but far less so to those already in it.

Chapter Five

The Writ and Its Corpus The Rise and Fall of the Cavern of Divinity in Institutional Daoism

Over the span of three centuries, the Writ of the Three Sovereigns grew from a local collection of talismans to the Cavern of Divinity, a full corpus replete with alchemical recipes, meditation practices, hymns, and substantive narrative components, including discussions of theology. In this form, it became one of the scriptural anchors of integrated Daoism. Building on the close relationships that Lu Xiujing and Tao Hongjing established with the courts of the Liu Song (420–479) and Liang (502–587), integrated Daoism smoothly segued into state Daoism as early as the sixth century. Emperor Wu (Wudi 武 帝 ; r. 561–578) of the Northern Zhou (557–581) was initiated into the Three Caverns and subsequently elevated Daoism to state creed in 574. By the early Tang dynasty (618–907), the ruling house of Li 李 claimed direct descendance from Laozi, whose personal name was Li Er 李 耳 (courtesy name Li Boyang 李 伯 陽 ; posthumous name Li Dan 李 聃 ), in a bid to establish their divine mandate to rule over a unified China. Seeing in Daoism the ideological glue that could bind the culturally and ethnically diverse inhabitants of the empire, authorities established its supremacy over Confucianism and Buddhism. Emperor Taizong (r. 626–649; personal name Li Shimin 李 世 民 ) was a fervent defender of Daoism before gradually shifting toward Buddhism later in life. For his part, Emperor Xuanzong 玄 宗 (r. 713–755; personal name Li Longji 李 隆 基 ) wrote a commentary on the Scripture of the Way and Virtue, placed his effigy next to that of the deified Laozi, Lord Lao, in a temple dedicated to the god, set up a Daoist education

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system, and took Daoist ordination. In subsequent Tang administrations, Laozi’s birthday was decreed a state holiday and the ordination of emperors continued.1 The institutionalization gambit paid off for the systematizers of previous generations, as Daoism became a necessary gear in the machinery of state formation. The religion notably contributed to the transition of power away from the local gentry and toward a centralized bureaucratic imperial state, much in the image of the Writ’s transformation from a paragon of Jiangnan lore to a canonized pivot of unification ideology. The suitability of the Sanhuang corpus to imperial designs and its enshrinement as one of the Three Caverns were largely rooted in the tangibility of its emblematic talismans and their symbolism of sovereignty. But with the scriptural body’s promotion came some required functional changes as well: as the focus changed from conjuring and expelling to ordination and legitimation, the Writ was converted into a symbol of itself, a gage of initiation into the Cavern of Divinity and, more generally, into the higher rungs of the Daoist tradition. The Writ’s new and primarily liturgical role in the state Daoism of the late sixth and seventh centuries was formalized with the addition of three liturgical scrolls to the eleven revealed scrolls. Although this mature fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity was lost with the imperial ban of 648, a catalogue of its contents survives. The present chapter reconstitutes the lost fourteen-scroll corpus on the basis of this catalogue. It identifies possible fragments of the revealed scriptures that make up the so-called Eight Emperor (badi) texts, the eight scrolls of revealed materials that immediately follow the Writ. Much of the content for these scrolls was drawn from the fluid collection of auxiliary materials that had been transmitted or associated with the Writ during prior centuries. But with codification, these were fossilized in their roles as emblematic liturgical registers, documents, and artifacts that were rarely put to the use for which they were originally intended and whose applications became primarily symbolic. Potential candidates are identified for the three additional liturgical scrolls of the fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity before briefly turning to the role of precepts in what had essentially become an initiatory corpus of institutional Daoism. The chapter closes by

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revisiting the imperial proscription on the Writ and shedding light on some of the reasons why a figurehead of seventh-century Daoist orthodoxy, seemingly defanged as a result of its liturgical turn, elicited such suspicion from the Tang court.

The Eight Emperors and the Eight Archivists (Scrolls 4–11) The first detailed catalogue of the Cavern of Divinity dates from the late sixth or early seventh century, three hundred years after Lu Xiujing organized the Writ into one of the basic corpora of Daoism. During the intervening years, as it was passed down through the hands of Sun Youyue and especially Tao Hongjing, the Cavern of Divinity changed shape and structure. It was reorganized and enlarged, eventually reaching a fourteen-scroll format that was perfectly suited to the ritual demands of consolidated state Daoism. The early Tang Protocols of the Three Sovereigns (Taishang dongshen sanhuang yi 太 上 洞 神 三 皇 儀 ), the last of the fourteen scrolls in the Sanhuang corpus, reproduces an excerpt from the now lost Catalogue of Registers, Charts, and Scriptures of Great Existence (Dayou lutujing mu 大 有 籙 圖 經 目 ). This catalogue provided the earliest detailed inventory of the Cavern of Divinity’s fourteen scrolls:2 Scroll 1: The Sovereign of Heaven’s Esoteric Writ of the Registers and Charts of Great Existence 洞神經卷一

大有籙圖天皇內文

Scroll 2: The Sovereign of Earth’s Esoteric Writ of the Registers and Charts of Great Existence 洞神經卷二

大有籙圖地皇內文

Scroll 3: The Sovereign of Humankind’s Esoteric Writ of the Registers and Charts of Great Existence 洞神經卷三

大有籙圖人皇內文

Scroll 4: Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, part 1 洞神經卷四

八帝妙精經上

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Scroll 5: Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, part 2 洞神經卷五

八帝妙精經中

Scroll 6: Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, part 3 洞神經卷六

八帝妙精經下

Scroll 7: Scripture of the Mysterious Transformations of the Eight Emperors, part 1 洞神經卷七

八帝玄變經上

Scroll 8: Scripture of the Mysterious Transformations of the Eight Emperors, part 2 洞神經卷八

八帝玄變經中

Scroll 9: Scripture of the Mysterious Transformations of the Eight Emperors, part 3 洞神經卷九

八帝玄變經下

Scroll 10: Scripture of the Divine Changes of the Eight Emperors, part 1 洞神經卷十

八帝神化經上

Scroll 11: Scripture of the Divine Changes of the Eight Emperors, part 2 洞神經卷十一

八帝神化經下

Scroll 12: Protocols of the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns 洞神經卷十二

三皇齊儀

Scroll 13: Audience Ceremony of the Three Sovereigns 洞神經卷十三

三皇朝禮

Scroll 14: Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns 洞神經卷十四

三皇傳授儀

The order of the first eleven scrolls in this inventory corresponds to the one outlined in the passage from the Scripture of the Secret Registers of the Cavern of Divinity (Dong mishen lujing) that was translated in the previous chapter.3 It faithfully reproduces the subdivisions of the Three Essences (sanjing 三 精 ), the Three Transformations (sanbian 三變 ), and the Two Changes (erhua 二化 ).

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The first three items in the inventory are immediately recognizable as the Writ in its Scripture of Great Existence (Dayou jing) incarnation. As noted beforehand, a second Cavern of Divinity based on Bo He’s Scripture of Lesser Existence (Xiaoyou jing) may have circulated concurrently, but the one based on the Bao Jing version remained orthodox and was preserved in canonical sources at least until the ban of 648.4 The subsequent eight scrolls, those of the Eight Emperors (badi 八 帝 ), hold materials that were tied to and habitually transmitted with the Writ (see appendix 4). Scrolls 4 through 6, the so-called Three Essences (sanjing), correspond to the Daoist Canon’s Scripture of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors (Dongshen badi miaojing jing) preserved in one scroll. If, as suggested in previous chapters, the scrolls immediately following the orthodox Writ contained its alternate version, then the “Essential Instructions from the Western Citadel on the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns” (Xicheng yaojue sanhuang tianwen dazi) from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors should include Bo He’s Scripture of Lesser Existence and its oral instructions. This is confirmed by a quotation from the “Sixth scroll of the Cavern of Divinity corpus” (Dongshen jing di liu 洞 神 經 第 六 ) that survives in the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds (Yunji qiqian) and is found verbatim in “Instructions from the Western Citadel.”5 A second citation corroborates that the Daoist Canon’s Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors corresponds to the set of appended materials directly after the Writ in the mature Sanhuang corpus. The citation from the Great Meaning of the Gate of Mysteries (Xuanmen dayi) relates that the sixth scroll of the Cavern of Divinity lists three Former, three Middle, and three Latter Sovereigns, a description that matches the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” (Jiuhuang tu) section of the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors.6 Since the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” were a central part of the appended materials that were handed down together with the Writ as transmission gages, such citations reinforce the claim that they are preserved in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors together with Bo He’s version of the Writ.7 Scrolls 7 through 11, the Three Transformations (sanbian) and Two Changes (erhua), require a bit more unpacking. The overviews of the ten- or

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eleven-scroll Cavern of Divinity from which we have drawn in the previous chapter — those from the Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way (Daojiao yishu), the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds, and “*Lord Tao’s Transmission Protocols” (*Taogong chuanshou yi) — simply list the titles of scriptures or describe their grouping without clarifying their content. They do indicate, however, that scrolls 4 through 11 (identified as the “Eight Emperors” section) housed the subsidiary methods that were separate from, but transmitted together with the Writ.8 Scrolls 9 through 11, which made up the Scripture of the Divine Changes of the Eight Emperors (Badi shenhua jing 八帝神化經 ), are unfortunately lost and cannot be reconstituted with our current knowledge. But scrolls 7 through 9, the Scripture of the Mysterious Transformations of the Eight Emperors (Badi xuanbian jing 八 帝 玄 變 經 ), have survived in the Daoist Canon as the Scripture of the Primordial Transformations of the Eight Emperors (Badi yuanbian jing 八 帝 元 變 經 ), hereafter the Primordial Transformations.9 The extant version appears to be of comparably late origin, dating from the late sixth century to the middle of the eighth century, but it was elaborated on the basis of an earlier redaction — presumably the Scripture of the Mysterious Transformations of the Eight Emperors — which it largely preserves.10 According to the Primordial Transformations, the Buddhist monk Huizong 惠 宗 edited the earlier redaction in the first part of the fourth century.11 The lost Buddhist edition was itself based on an earlier document that was originally associated with the Writ and Jiangnan lore more generally. This document, roughly dating to the early fourth century, also survives in the Daoist Canon under the title True Form Charts and Sagely Writ of the Eight Archivists for Spiritual Communication (Taishang tongling bashi shengwen zhenxing tu 太 上 通 靈 八 史 聖 文 真 形 圖 ), hereafter referred to as the Charts of the Eight Archivists.12 It describes two methods involving talismans — which are called “charts” (tu 圖 ) — for summoning and questioning the Eight Archivists (bashi 八 史 ).13 The Primordial Transformations presents two equivalent techniques that are comparable in tenor. Despite some variations, the two sources are indubitably connected.14 The Primordial Transformations is considerably longer than the Charts of the Eight Archivists; it totals thirty-nine

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folios in comparison with its predecessor’s fourteen. Nonetheless, the central methods in both texts remain fundamentally the same. The Eight Archivists, gods of the Eight Trigrams, ranked relatively high in the pantheon of Six Dynasties southern esoterica. They acted as protectors of the Great Unity, Taiyi, a deity closely tied to the Writ and its meditation practices in particular.15 Under the guise of the Eight Emperors (badi), the Eight Archivists lent their name to the eight outer sections of the Cavern of Divinity that encase and protect the inner section occupied by the Writ’s three scrolls. These scriptures of the Eight Emperors, identified as the legendary Eight Rules (basuo) in some sources, were purportedly revealed by the imperial incarnations of the gods of the Eight Trigrams.16 Even before the eleven-scroll Cavern of Divinity and its Eight Emperor scriptures were devised, the Eight Archivists were related to the Writ. For instance, the combination of Three Sovereigns and Eight Emperors/Eight Archivists was a frequent alternative to the ritual pairing of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, since the coupling of Three and Eight basically fulfilled the same theological and chronotopic functions as that of Three and Five.17 Thus materials tied to the Eight Archivists sometimes surfaced as addenda to the transmission of the Writ and as substitutes for the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Wuyue zhenxing tu). In a passage from The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: The Inner Chapters (Baopuzi neipian), Ge Hong proposes a few variants to the visionary divination technique of the Writ, which consisted of forcing gods and spirits to manifest within the mind’s eye or one’s body by means of talismans, and subsequently asking them about future events. One of the prognostication methods he introduces involves enticing the spirits of the Eight Archivists to descend by means of sacrifices. Once they arrive, the officiant may question them about what has yet to come.18 Ge Hong explains that the Eight Archivists “are the essence of the Eight Trigrams, and they are also sufficient for knowing beforehand what has not yet taken form.”19 He also records a Charts of the Eight Archivists (Bashi tu 八 史 圖 ) in the catalogue of his master’s library.20 This source and the prognostication ritual that Ge Hong briefly describes are linked to the fourth-century Charts of the Eight Archivists, the same text that made its way

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into the eleven-scroll Cavern of Divinity and the Primordial Transformations through successive recensions.21 The Master Who Embraces Simplicity is not the only early medieval source to connect the visionary divination of the Three Sovereigns with the method of the Eight Archivists. The Supreme Scripture of the Boundless Great Way and the Spontaneous True Unity Talismans of the Five Ascendants (Taishang wuji dadao ziran zhenyi wucheng fu shangjing 太 上 無 極 大 道 自 然 真 一 五 稱 符 上 經 ), hereafter the Talismans of the Five Ascendants, contains its own set of eponymous talismans for conjuring the divine octet. The Talismans of the Five Ascendants is an early Lingbao scripture that dates from around 400 CE.22 It establishes the primacy of the Talismans of the Five Ascendants (wucheng fu 五 稱 符 ) and also introduces a set of potent adjuncts, the Divine Talismans of Eight Trigrams of the Mysterious Cavern for Communicating with the Numina of the Eight Majesties (Bagua xuandong tongling bawei shenfu 八卦玄洞通靈八威神符 ), more customarily abbreviated as the Eight Talismans for Communicating with Numina (tongling bafu 通 靈 八 符 ).23 These appear to have been closely related to the Charts of the Eight Archivists and may have been a substitute designation for the same documents. Very similar or even identical materials were sometimes referred to by different names depending on the source in which they appeared.24 In any case, the Talismans of the Five Ascendants describes the Eight Talismans for Communicating with Numina as the terrestrial (bao 寶 ; lit. “treasure”) counterpart to the heavenly (ling 靈 ; lit. “numinous”) talismans of the Five Ascendants.25 Together, they are known as the Talismans of the Eight Majesties and Five Ascendants (bawei wucheng fu 八 威 五 稱 符 ), or in some cases as the Talismans of the Eight Majesties and Five Supremacies (Bawei wusheng fu 八 威 五 勝 符 ).26 In other words, the talismans of the Eight Archivists — the same deities who lend their names to the Charts of the Eight Archivists — were used in ritual pairings that involved other sets of talismans as well, and they were employed in visionary divination practices that were similar to those of the Three Sovereigns. What is more, the talismans of the Eight Archivists and the Writ were both composed of the highest grade of divine writing. A passage from the

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Talismans of the Five Ascendants explains that the characters left over after their creation were used for the celestial script of the Talismans of the Sovereigns (huang fu 皇 符 ) that make up the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns.27 The text elaborates: Additionally, the Eight Talismans for Communicating with Numina subjugate the gods of the eight directions. The Talismans of the Sovereigns are difficult to use, therefore, make a separate offering as when receiving them in order to coerce the eight gods into service.28 又通靈八符，威制八方之神。皇符難服，故別祭如受之，以威使八神也。

Here the Eight Archivists or the Eight Gods are identified as the gods of the eight directions (bafang zhi shen 八 方 之 神 ). The talismans for conjuring them are once more forwarded as an alternative to those of the Writ, as they were in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity.29 This passage specifically and the Talismans of the Five Ascendants in general suggest that in the early fifth century at the latest, the Eight Archivists and their related materials, whether charts or talismans, were in the constellation of visionary divination practices associated with the Writ. Furthermore, as corroboration of the early ties between the Eight Archivists and the Three Sovereigns, the Talismans of the Eight Majesties and Five Ascendants that form the centerpiece of the Talismans of the Five Ascendants consistently appear in a number of inventories of appended transmission gages for the Writ.30 In contrast to the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks, the Charts of the Eight Archivists did not share common links with the Writ in their chain of transmission. Given the privileged relationship between the Writ and the True Form Charts, one would expect that the structure of the Cavern of Divinity would have been inspired by the latter’s guardian deities, the Five Emperors (wudi 五 帝 ). For reasons that are not entirely clear, this did not materialize. One explanation might be that by the time Tao Hongjing reorganized the Sanhuang corpus into an eleven-scroll Cavern of Divinity, the Five Emperors were already too closely identified with the Lingbao corpus via the emblematic Array of the Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao wufu xu). Instead, the Charts of the Eight Archivists were integrated into the

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fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity as a stand-alone scripture, the Scripture of the Primordial Transformations of the Eight Emperors, and on the basis of theological, textual, and ritual connections to the Three Sovereigns, the Eight Emperors/Eight Archivists lent their names to scrolls 4 through 10 of the mature Sanhuang corpus.

The Liturgical Materials (Scrolls 12 to 14) The last three scrolls of the mature Cavern of Divinity consisted of ritual programs for the transmission of the Writ and initiation to its scriptural tradition. Unlike the other eleven scrolls, these three liturgical texts were not revealed and they essentially functioned as a procedural appendix to the eleven-scroll corpus. Nonetheless, their addition was significant as it marked the completion of the Writ’s transition from a locally circumscribed source of Jiangnan lore to a fully integrated pillar of state religion. Although the titles of the liturgical scrolls survive in the excerpt of Catalogue of Registers, Charts, and Scriptures of Great Existence reproduced at the beginning of this chapter, no details regarding their content remain. A few sources that survive in the Daoist Canon, however, are convincing candidates for the lost ritual manuals. They are presented below under the relevant scroll number and text from the mature Cavern of Divinity: Scroll 12: Protocols for the Purification Rites of the Three Sovereigns 洞神經卷十二

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三皇齊儀

Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination 太上洞神行道授度儀 (DZ 1283) “Protocols for the Transmission of the Cavern of Divinity” 授洞神三儀品 ( 無上秘要 38 [DZ 1138]) “Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns” 三皇齋品 ; ( 無上秘要 49 [DZ 1138]) Writ on the Five Sentiments [of Gratitude] 洞玄靈寳五感文 (DZ 1278) Scripture on the Registration as a Divine Immortal [through the

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Performance of] the Precious Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns 太上三皇寳齋神仙上籙經 (DZ 854)

Scroll 13: Audience Ceremony of the Three Sovereigns 洞神經卷十三

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三皇朝禮

Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination 太上洞神行道授度儀 (DZ 1283)

Scroll 14: Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns 洞神經卷十四

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三皇傳授儀

Protocols of the Three Sovereigns 太上洞神三皇儀 (DZ 803) Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns from the Cavern of Divinity 太上洞神三皇傳授儀 (DZ 1284

Remnants of scroll 14, the Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang chuanshou yi 三 皇 傳 授 儀 ), can be identified in the Daoist Canon with relative ease, so they will be discussed first. The source survives as two separate titles: the aforementioned Protocols of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang yi) and the Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns from the Cavern of Divinity (Taishang dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi 太 上 洞 神 三 皇 傳 授 儀 ), both dated to the late sixth or early seventh centuries.31 One of the passages in the first text corresponds to lines that are cited in the Seven WritingSlips from the Bookcase of the Clouds as coming from scroll 14 of the Cavern of Divinity.32 The Protocols of the Three Sovereigns is visibly incomplete; although it includes instructions for opening the burner (falu 發 鑪 / 爐 ), which is the crucial first step in many Daoist rituals, it conspicuously lacks the section on closing the burner. On the other hand, the second text begins abruptly, omitting the customary section on opening the burner, but concluding with the requisite closing of the incense burner (fulu 復 鑪 / 爐 ).33 Elsewhere, the texts fill in each other’s gaps, with one elaborating on writs and talismans that are featured as subject headings in the other.34 Thus even

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a cursory examination reveals that the Protocols of the Three Sovereigns and the Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns from the Cavern of Divinity are two complementary halves, opening and closing respectively, of what was originally the Transmission Rites of the Three Sovereigns, scroll 14 of the fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity.35 Since the Protocols of the Three Sovereigns holds the inventory of the mature Cavern of Divinity presented in the opening pages of this chapter, the text effectively lists itself as scroll 14 within its own pages.36 This may seem odd at first glance, but it is not peculiar for Daoist sources, especially those that constitute overhauled recensions of earlier materials.37 We can also identify with some certainty surviving fragments of scroll 12 of the mature Cavern of Divinity, the Protocols for the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang zhai yi 三皇齋儀 ). These are found in the Tang dynasty Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination (Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi 太 上 洞 神 行 道 授 度 儀 ) and chapter 38 of Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, with which the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination partially overlaps.38 The chapter from the sixth-century anthology, fittingly titled “Protocols for the Transmission of the Three Sovereigns Cavern of Divinity” (Shou dongshen sanhuang yi pin 授 洞 神 三 皇 儀 品 ), copiously cites the lost Scripture of the Numinous Treasure Purification Rite (Lingbao zhaijing 靈 寳 齋 經 ), a detail that indicates that the Sanhuang purification rite was considered to be a subdivision of Lingbao liturgies at that time.39 Nevertheless, the chapter also quotes non-Lingbao sources such as the “Cavern of Divinity corpus” (dongshen jing), which corresponds to the mature corpus of materials that developed around the Writ. The exact scroll number is not provided, but the excerpt in question does contain the “Yang Hymns in Nine Verses” (Yangge jiuzhang). These were included in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors and — more pertinently to transmission rituals — in the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination as well.40 Thus it is more than likely that the citation that the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials attributes to the “Cavern of Divinity corpus” in general came, more specifically, from a source that partially survives in the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination.

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In a colophon to the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination, its anonymous compilers explain that they assembled the liturgy because the transmission rituals of the Cavern of Divinity corpus were already incomplete in their time.41 The text offers precious glimpses into the largely opaque world of Sanhuang liturgies during the early period of institutionalization.42 Additionally, it preserves elements that would have certainly figured in scroll 12 but were not documented in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials’ cursory summary of the purification rite. One example is the ritual of nocturnal announcement (suqi fa 宿 啓 法 ), a generic, imperially endorsed ceremony that was included in the transmission protocols for a number of corpora including Sanhuang and Lingbao.43 The Catalogue of Missing Books from the Daoist Canon (Daozang quejing mulu) records an alternate name for scroll 12 of the Cavern of Divinity; the Protocols for the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns was also known as the Precious Purification and Nocturnal Announcement Rites of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang baozhai suqi yi 三 皇 寳 44 齋 宿 啓 儀 ). As the title indicates, the text must have contained a ritual of nocturnal announcement. Although missing from the account in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, it is preserved in the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination, reinforcing the notion that this text contains considerable portions of the missing Protocols for the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns. The Catalogue of Missing Books from the Daoist Canon further informs readers that scroll 12 was known by two additional titles, the Protocols of the Three Times for Practicing the Dao (Sanshi xingdao yi 三 時 行 道 儀 ) and the Protocols of Communication of the Three Times for Practicing the Dao (Sanshi tongyong xingdao yi 三 時 通 用 行 道 儀 ). This suggests that the lost Protocols for the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns also contained instructions for the “Protocols for Practicing the Dao” (xingdao yi 行 道 儀 ), a ritual for the solemn invocation of gods.45 Once more, the Ritual for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination includes a central section on the “Protocols for Practicing the Dao of the Cavern of Divinity” (Dongshen xingdao yi 洞 神 46 行 道 儀 ), which lends its name to the scripture. Taken collectively, these elements constitute sufficient evidence to conclude that the Protocols for Prac-

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ticing the Dao and Conferring Ordination are closely related to and may even be a partial reconstitution of the Protocols for the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns, scroll 12 of the Cavern of Divinity. In addition to the Ritual for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination, and to a lesser extent chapter 38 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, another source appears to preserve parts of scroll 12. Chapter 49 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, titled “Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang zhai pin 三 皇 齋 品 ), cites an otherwise unattested Protocols for Establishing the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang zhai licheng yi 三 皇 齋 立 成 儀 ) as the single source for all of its content. Both the chapter title and that of the cited source are evocative of the lost Protocols for the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang zhai yi) from the Cavern of Divinity corpus.47 The “Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns” chapter also shares terminology and a structural likeness with some of the materials examined above that are tied to scroll 12.48 The opening passage on establishing the altar, for instance, is strongly redolent of its counterparts from chapter 38 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials and from the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination.49 The ritual of nocturnal announcement (suqi fa), appears yet again in association with the transmission of the Cavern of Divinity; what is more, it shares some very specific phrasing with the version found in the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination.50 Purification rites were already an intrinsic part of the Cavern of Divinity in the first half of the fifth century, when it counted a mere four scrolls. Lu Xiujing’s Writ on the Five Sentiments [of Gratitude] (Dongxuan lingbao wugan wen 洞 玄 靈 寳 五 感 文 ), compiled in 453 CE, supplies a few lines of information on a “Purification rite of the Three Sovereigns of the Cavern of Divinity” (Dongshen sanhuang zhi zhai 洞 神 三 皇 之 齋 ).51 In this account, which predates all liturgical materials related to the Writ, the purification rite is listed as the seventh among a catalogue of nine Lingbao retreats. This early grouping, in which Sanhuang purifications are subsumed under a larger Lingbao liturgical framework, explains why chapter 38 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials cites a Scripture of the Numinous Treasure Purification Rite as an

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authority on Cavern of Divinity rituals. While the passage is unremarkable, consisting of the standard regimen of incense burning and ritual bathing, much of its terminology and procedures are reflected in the “Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns” chapter of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials.52 The ritual use of “cloud water” (yunshui 雲水 ) or “fragrant pearls” (xiangzhu 香珠 ) stand out as common elements between the anthology’s account and that of the Writ on the Five Sentiments [of Gratitude]. Moreover, the precise number of times the officiant must light incense, perform ablutions, and swallow aromatic pills (thirty-six) is also consistent between both texts.53 These similarities have led scholars such as Ōfuchi Ninji to conclude that the “Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns” from the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials is intimately tied to the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns, scroll 12 of the Cavern of Divinity corpus. Ōfuchi entertains the possibility, however, that the Protocols for Establishing the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang zhai licheng yi), upon which chapter 49 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials is based, may be a different text than scroll 12, speculating that two concurrent sets of purification rituals (zhaifa 齋 法 ) that were analogous yet distinct may have been related to the Cavern of Divinity.54 One final source warrants mention with respect to identifying surviving fragments of the Protocols for the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns. The Scripture on Registration as a Divine Immortal [through the Performance of] the Precious Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns (Taishang sanhuang baozhai shenxian shanglu jing 太上三皇寳齋神仙上籙經 ), dated to the late Six Dynasties, frames a purification ritual for the transmission of Cavern of Divinity materials and related ordination rites much in the same terms as chapter 49 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials.55 The scripture also features detailed instructions for perfuming ablution water, making oil lamps, and producing the omnipresent fragrant pearls. Elsewhere in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, the same directives are encountered in a passage that cites the Cavern of Divinity corpus as its source.56 The scripture’s title is also evocative of the Precious Purification and Nocturnal Announcement Rites of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang baozhai suqi yi), which is known as an alternate designation for Protocols of the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns.57

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Therefore, to summarize, although scroll 12 of the fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity, the Protocols of the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns, is no longer extant, significant excerpts survive in a number of Six Dynasties and Tang period scriptures from the Daoist Canon. These are the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination, the “Protocols for the Transmission of the Three Sovereigns Cavern of Divinity” from the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, and the “Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns,” also from the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials. We may also note that the Writ on the Five Sentiments [of Gratitude] records a few descriptive lines about the purification rite without directly citing it. Similarly, the Scripture on Registration as a Divine Immortal [through the Performance of] the Precious Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns is based on the lost liturgy, but it does not reproduce any of its content. In all likelihood, these last two sources constitute respectively earlier and later synoptic iterations of the Sanhuang purification rite.58 Moving on, scroll 13 of the mature Cavern of Divinity corpus, the Audience Ceremony of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang chaoli 三 皇 朝 禮 ), is also no longer extant, and unlike the other two liturgical scrolls, surviving fragments are considerably harder to pinpoint. The “Protocols for the Audience Ceremony” (Chao liyi 朝 禮 儀 ) section of the aforementioned Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination is potentially related, but there is little concrete evidence beyond the similarity in titles and the latter text’s association with Cavern of Divinity liturgical materials.59 Finally, as noted at the outset of this section, remnants of scroll 14 of the mature Cavern of Divinity corpus, the Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns, can be identified with confidence in two sources from the Daoist Canon, the Protocols of the Three Sovereigns and the Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns from the Cavern of Divinity. The addition of three liturgical scrolls to the previous eleven scrolls of revealed materials confirmed the formalization of the Writ and its Cavern of Divinity. This process was both congruent with and parallel to the gradual institutionalization of Daoism and the requisite standardization of its ritual scaffolding. Some of the elements in the remnants of the liturgical scrolls were gleaned from earlier revealed Sanhuang materials, but much of their

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content was also imported with the scope of codification in mind from the common reservoir of integrated Daoism shared with Shangqing and Lingbao — one that finds its fount in the liturgical tradition of the early Way of the Celestial Masters.60 The incorporation of moral injunctions into the central scrolls of the Cavern of Divinity is another cue that the Cavern of Divinity was deemed a linchpin in the program of Daoist institutionalization; precepts were an important component of the ordination rituals that doubled as initiations into liturgical ranks, and the Cavern of Divinity constituted the first and most general level of introduction to the Three Caverns from the late fifth century until the middle seventh century.

Precepts and Interdictions During the late Six Dynasties, as the Cavern of Divinity developed into a set of fundamental initiation documents for the growing priestly class of institutional Daoism, liturgical materials related to their transmission were organized into additional scrolls. Many of the rites described in their pages were elaborated during the time the corpus grew from eleven to fourteen scrolls, but some existed in earlier versions of the Cavern of Divinity, from whence they were extracted and reassigned to new texts exclusively dedicated to ritual.61 As a case in point, the seventh-century encyclopedia the Pearl Satchel of the Three Caverns quotes an entire folio from the twelfth scroll of the Cavern of Divinity corpus, the lost Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns, which lists eight precepts and includes some remarks on the benefits of observing the rules in question.62 The excerpt, titled “Purification Rite for Maintaining the Eight Precepts” (Shouchi bajie zhai pin 授 持 八 戒 齋 品 ), also appears with some variations in the opening pages of the sixthcentury Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, a text that corresponds to scrolls 8 to 11 of the mature Cavern of Divinity and is rooted in some of the earliest materials of the corpus. Thus, if the Pearl Satchel of the Three Caverns’ attribution is reliable, the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns effectively borrowed its precepts from a pre-existing source in the same corpus. In the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, they are listed in a section titled “Ritual

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of the Purification Rite for Maintaining the Eight Precepts” (Zhai chi bajie fa 齋持八戒法 ) as follows: The steps to quietude take purification as their basis. Purification makes rectification urgent. Urgency rectifies the body and mind. The rectification of the body and mind preserves from chaos and failure. Failure arises from many causes, but there are eight principal ones: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Killing others to save your life Stealing from others to provide for yourself [Indulging in] lascivious yearnings and unrestrained desires Falsely speaking of your abilities Losing decorum by means of drunkenness Sloppily reclining on high, broad, or roomy furniture Adorning yourself with precious fragrances and extravagant ornaments Engaging in the superfluous pastimes of singing and dancing or making merry

If a person with a persevering mind who studies the sages and perfected immortals does not commit these eight deeds, then the eight failures do not arise. If the eight failures do not arise, then the eight achievements are spontaneously established. If they are established for a long time and you do not lapse, then your years will be extended and your [life] mandate preserved; you [will gain] divine powers and penetrating insight, profound wisdom and vast intelligence, the capacity to hide or manifest, and you will shine together with the world.63 安定之階，以齋為本。齋以齊整為急。急以齊整身心。身心齊整 保無亂敗。敗起多端大略有八。一者殺生自活。二者盜他自供。 三者滛欲放意。四者妄語為能。五者醉酒恣適。六者雜卧高廣大 牀。七者競翫香愛華飾。八者躭著歌舞作倡。勵心之子，學聖真 仙，不為此八事，則八敗無從起。八敗無從起，則八成自然立。立 久不失，延年保命，神通洞達，智慧淵汪，能隱能顯，與世和光。

In this first instantiation, the “precepts” are formulated as transgressions. Avoiding them is the core of the purification rite, which amounts to a type of meditation that requires constantly keeping in mind ritual restrictions and

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requirements. The segment opens by establishing a relation between quietude and the purification rite; it ends by describing the effects of the rite in terms that are usually reserved for the benefits that practitioners receive upon completing lengthy and elaborate contemplation practices. As the passage continues, it frames the same precepts in the more familiar injunctive format, elaborating upon the harms avoided and rewards earned from complying with the moral directives: For this reason, those who [perform] the purification must uphold the eight precepts: Do not kill; then the failure of blame and revenge will not arise, and the achievement of compassion, benevolence, and long life will be spontaneously established. Do not rob; then the failure of poverty, suffering, and ruin will not arise, and the achievement of abundance and generosity will be spontaneously established. Do not be lascivious; then the failure of solitude and sorrow will not arise, and the achievement of purity and reticence will be spontaneously established. Do not falsely speak; then the failure of deception and vanity will not arise, and the achievement of apprehending the pleasure of the true and correct will be spontaneously established. Do not get drunk; then stupor and wild madness will not arise, and the achievement of wisdom and intelligence will be spontaneously established. Do not recline on high, broad, or roomy furniture; then the failure of befuddlement and the fear of death will not arise, and the achievement of clarity and fearlessness will be spontaneously established. Do not [indulge in] precious fragrances and extravagant ornaments; then the failure of fettering slander and binding obsolescence will not arise, and the achievement of bright handsomeness and deliverance will be spontaneously established. Do not sing and dance or make merry; then the failure of melancholy resentment and restless rocking will not arise, and the achievement of harmonious sound and unimpeded ease will be spontaneously established.

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If these failures do not arise, these achievements will be spontaneously established. It is like a shadow following one’s body and it has never been otherwise. If you can cause the eight failures to not arise, the eight achievements will be spontaneously established. Cultivate purification and uphold the precepts, wear or ingest divine talismans, ponder the true and practice of the Dao, and your comprehension will be boundless, the manifestations of efficacy will necessarily be speedy, and all will be as you expect.64 是故齋者，受持八戒。不殺，則怨報之敗不起，慈仁長壽之成自 立。不盜，則窮苦卑退之敗不起，富饒廉讓之成自立。不淫，則孤 獨憂傷之敗不起，貞素蕭邈之成自立。不妄語，則欺誣枉濫之敗不 起，悟愉貞確之成自立。不醉，則昏迷荒狂之敗不起，智慧聦達之 成自立。不卧高廣大牀，則癡渾死懼之敗不起，清淨無畏之成自 立。不香愛華飾，則纏縳毀廢之敗不起，光鮮解脫之成自立。不歌 舞作倡，則悲怨搖蕩之敗不起，和音柔暢之成自立。此敗不起此成 自立，如影隨形，未甞謬矣。能使八敗不 起，八成自立。修齋持 戒，佩服神符，思真行道，通而無窮，顯驗必速，皆如所期也。

The Pearl Satchel of the Three Caverns cites most of the first excerpt, but it tellingly omits the paragraph that mentions the supramundane benefits of maintaining the precepts. It cites only the closing lines from the second excerpt, which lists benefits that are more generic. As a Tang dynasty anthology of integrated Daoism, the Pearl Satchel of the Three Caverns is less preoccupied with self-cultivation than with the proper conduct that is expected of adepts — or “good men and good women” (shan nanzi shan nüzi 善 男 子 善 女 子 ) as they are referred to — who are undertaking purification rites for initiation.65 Indeed, after the late Six Dynasties, the Cavern of Divinity’s principal contribution to Daoism was in the realm of liturgy and ordination. It is no coincidence that the polemical account of the Writ’s ban presented at the outset of this book centers on issues of legitimacy related to ordination and precepts.66 Although absent from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, the annotation “Submitted to the court by the ranking official Lu Xiujing” precedes the passage on the eight precepts in the Pearl Satchel of the Three Caverns.67 Similarly, a parallel segment titled “Writ of the Purification Rite

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for Maintaining the Eight Precepts” (Shouchi bajie zhaiwen 授 持 八 戒 齋 文 ) from the Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds notes that the eight Sanhuang precepts were “Submitted to the court by Master Lu Xiujing of the Liu Song dynasty.”68 Lu Xiujing’s name was thus closely tied to the purification rite, and he may have very well penned the original version from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors that was reproduced in the lost Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns and in later anthologies, introducing it into the corpus at the time it was still four scrolls.69 But why would Lu Xiujing have thought it necessary to introduce moral precepts into the Sanhuang corpus? Early accounts of the Writ, such as those found in the fourth-century The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, describe transmission rites typical of southern esoterica, replete with sacrificial offerings and blood oaths devoid of any moral content.70 Nevertheless, in order to standardize the tradition developing around the Writ and integrate it into the Three Caverns as a liturgical tool for investiture, the establishment of a formal purification ritual and the inclusion of ethically tinged precepts were indispensable. Ordination into integrated Daoism largely consisted of transmissions of scriptural corpora, yet the observance of disciplinary rules was also central to the process and different sets of precepts corresponded to different transmission grades and their related corpus.71 Buddhists, who had successfully garnered imperial support at a number of courts during the Six Dynasties, had a robust moral code and an elaborate tradition of precepts. Thus the impulse of Daoist systematizers toward behavioral self-regulation (coupled with liturgical restructuring) was, at least in part, a reaction to the incursion onto the imperial stage of highly structured Buddhist religious systems. The eight Sanhuang precepts exude an undeniably Buddhist aura, and aside from a few details such as the absence of taboos governing food intake, they are a near-perfect match with the eight precepts of Buddhism.72 Lu Xiujing, who was conversant with Buddhism, was surely aware of the importance of canon formation, liturgy, and moral proscriptions in generating legitimacy for an institution. A good deal of his work as a systematizer was related to erecting a ritual superstructure for Daoism, which would have inevitably included purification rites.

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Aside from the eight precepts, the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors incorporates another set of behavioral taboos, and these too are not fundamentally moral in scope. Thirteen interdictions (jin 禁 ) survive in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” as part of the instructions that Bo He received from Lord Wang. As such, they represent an earlier layer of Writ-related materials than the eight precepts. The proscriptions figure among the first in a series of directives that Lord Wang dispenses as a prelude to the Writ’s transmission. He admonishes Bo He to avoid lasciviousness (yin 淫 ), covetousness (tan 貪 ), and slander (chan 讒 ), the “three vehicles of calamity” (huo zhi che 禍 之 車 ), as they can injure the individual and are harmful to the clan. Furthermore, he warns: If you wish to study the Dao and cultivate Perfection, to extend your years and lengthen your life, you should guard against the interdictions as follows: Do not exhibit languor, for it drains your life. Do not overeat, for it obstructs the conduits of breath. Do not drink in too much, for it hurries the bladder. Do not expose yourself to excessive heat, for it dissolves bone marrow. Do not expose yourself to excessive cold, for it harms the flesh. Do not eat cold food, for it causes illness. Do not cry and spit, for it drains the body of fluids. Do not stare for a long time, for it dims the eyes. Do not listen for a long time, for it dulls the faculties. Do not weep for a long time, for it saddens the [internal] spirits. Do not shout unexpectedly, for it startles the cloudsouls and whitesouls. Do not think too hard, for it invites distraction. Do not become excessively angry, for it upsets the [inner] gods.73 夫欲學道修真，延壽長生，當避諸禁忌如左： 禁無施洩命夭沒，禁無大食炁脉閉，禁無大飲膀胱急，禁無大溫消 髓骨，禁無大寒傷肌肉，禁無寒食生病結，禁無涕唾失肌汁，禁無 久視令目蔑，禁無久聽總明閉，禁無久泣神悲慼，禁無卒呼驚魂 魄，禁無內念志恍惚，禁無恚怒神不樂。

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The terms “interdiction” (jin) and “precept” (jie 戒 ) were generally interchangeable during the Six Dynasties, especially from the sixth century onward, but some sources uphold that while the precept is just as important, the interdiction is a more solemn and “grave” (zhong 重 ) proscription.74 The thirteen interdictions from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, however, are not concerned with ethical solemnity or moral gravity. In contrast to the eight precepts, the consequences of transgressing these prohibitions are purely physical and spiritual; failure to observe the taboos takes a toll on the body of adepts and negatively affects their longevity. The thirteen interdictions were visibly framed in terms of the Nourishing Life (yangsheng) self-cultivation practices, which flourished from the early third century BCE to about the second or early third century CE. They bear neither the marks of Lu Xiujing’s editorial hand nor the imprint of Buddhism.75 Lord Wang of the Western Citadel once more introduces an alternate set of thirteen interdictions in the “Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns” chapter (Sanhuang zhai pin) of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials considered above.76 They are phrased differently, but their substance parallels the list from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors. While these prohibitions are presented as a component of the formal purification ritual, they nonetheless retain their distinctive Nourishing Life inflection. They are essentially an amended reiteration of the earlier set designed with the new requirements of an emerging and more organized community of practitioners in mind.77 Nevertheless, this did not nullify the need to add a set of eight precepts that were comparatively moral in content in order to reflect what had become the Buddhist-inspired norm. As a final note on the topic of the thirteen interdictions and their Nourishing Life origins, the Tang dynasty Record on Nourishing [One’s] Nature and Lengthening the Life Mandate (Yangxing yanming lu 養 性 延 命 錄 ) contains an intriguing citation from the Scripture of Lesser Existence (Xiaoyou jing), which we have previously identified as Bo He’s version of the Writ together with the oral instructions he received from Lord Wang. The citation partially corresponds to the thirteen interdictions from the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, but it

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additionally lists “twelve lessenings” (shi’er shao 十 二 少 ) that are detrimental to one’s health. Their wording and specifics are distinct from the thirteen interdictions, yet their tenor is strikingly similar: The Scripture of Lesser Existence says: lessen thinking, lessen reflecting, lessen desiring, lessen undertaking, lessen speaking, lessen laughing, lessen worrying, lessen enjoying, lessen being happy, lessen being angry, lessen liking, lessen hating. These twelve lessenings are the essential aspects of Nourishing Life. Too much thinking imperils the [inner] gods. Too much reflecting disperses focus. Too much desiring diminishes purpose. Too much undertaking wears out the body. Too much speaking conflicts the breaths. Too much laughing harms the viscera. Too much worrying frightens the heart. Too much enjoying makes thoughts overflow. Too much being happy makes one forgetful and befuddled. Too much being angry unsettles the hundred channels. Too much liking makes one absorbed and disordered. Too much hating makes one wry and discontent. To not eliminate these twelve excesses is the root of losing life. To be without excess is to be nearly Perfected.78 小有經曰 : 少思，少念，少欲，少事，少語，少笑，少愁，少樂， 少喜，少怒，少好，少惡。此十二少，養生之都契也。多思，則神 殆。多念，則志散。多欲，則損志。多事，則形疲。多語，則氣 爭。多笑，則傷藏。多愁，則心懾。多樂，則意溢。多喜，則忘 錯惛亂。多怒，則百脉不定。多好，則專迷不治。多惡，則憔煎 無懽。此十二多不除，喪生之本也。無多者，幾乎真人。

The exact relationship between this Tang quotation of the Scripture of Lesser Existence and the thirteen interdictions from the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors is unclear, but in both cases, the proscriptions revolve around physical and emotional/spiritual attainment.79 Echoing the account from the Record of Nourishing [One’s] Nature and Lengthening Life, other sources that mention the twelve lessenings firmly inscribe them within the tradition of Nourishing Life.80 In addition to the eight precepts and thirteen interdictions (as well as the twelve lessenings), a third group of prohibitions was associated with the Writ. They survive in the “Cavern of Divinity Precepts” (Dongshen jie pin

The Writ and Its Corpus ︱ 179 洞 神 戒 品 ), chapter 46 of the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials, and are made up

of three distinct groups of regulations that number three, five, and eight, respectively.81 They do not appear in surviving excerpts or any other accounts of the Cavern of Divinity, so their status within the corpus or with respect to Sanhuang liturgy cannot be fully ascertained. Wu Chengquan believes the sets were designed to reflect the three teachings of Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism.82 The first, titled Cavern of Divinity Precepts for the Three Times (dongshen sanjie jie 洞神三世戒 ), is once more associated with “imperial dignitary sir Lu [Xiujing]” (dili Lu shi 帝 栗 陸 氏 ).83 Like the eight precepts, these tenets too display an unmistakable Buddhist flavor and were likely elaborated to lend legitimacy and uniformity to the motley collection of materials Lu Xiujing was restructuring during the fifth century. These directives enjoin adepts to avoid generating “karma” or causal conditioning (yinyuan 因 緣 ), to be unselfish, and to practice diligently and earnestly. Respecting these three injunctions will cause the Correct Spirits of the three breaths (sanqi zhengshen 三氣正神 ) to descend and unite with the adept.84 The second group of rules, known as the Five Precepts of the Cavern of Divinity (dongshen wujie 洞 神 五 戒 ), were promulgated by the Yellow Emperor to ensure the protection of the fifteen inner gods that report to the Five Elder Lord Emperors (wulao dijun 五 老 帝 君 ). The precepts are intended to govern the excesses of the five senses. For instance, the fourth one instructs adepts to “not crave the five flavors, but to practice embryonic breathing and desist from slanderous talk.”85 These instructions are similar to Buddhist ones, but the curbing of desire that arises from the five senses, or the five offices (wu guan 五 官 ) as they were sometimes called, was common to Daoism as well.86 The final set of regulations are the Eight Precepts of the Cavern of Divinity (dongshen bajie 洞 神 八 戒 ). These are different from the eight precepts discussed above; many of the rules borrow from or refer to the “Nine Divisions” (jiuchou 九 疇 ) section from the “Great Plan” (Hong fan 洪 範 ) chapter of the Hallowed Documents (Shang shu 尚 書 ).87 Some of them read more like instructions for meditations with input from cosmological correlative thought than traditional rules of conduct; they include for instance,

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exhortations to “be conscious of the five arrangements and simultaneously visualize them blending with one’s breath.”88 The five arrangements can refer to units of time (days, months, years, planets, zodiacal constellations, and orbits) or, in this case, Confucian ethical principles (either the Five Virtues or the Five Relations). These eight precepts also display elements of Nourishing Life practices, reinforcing the relationship between self-cultivation and behavioral codes in the Cavern of Divinity, but they nonetheless retain a pronounced Confucian overtone. Aside perhaps from the thirteen interdictions recorded in the Wondrous Essence of the Eight Emperors, which appear to predate any efforts of standardization or institutionalization, the Cavern of Divinity precepts were drafted with the purpose of facilitating the integration of the Writ and its corpus into the Three Caverns framework of unified state Daoism. The appearance of Lu Xiujing’s name in a number of sources related to precepts would indicate as much. With a formalized structure and complete liturgical cohesion, the eclectic collection of talismans, charts, meditations, and elixir recipes that composed the early Writ and its corpus acquired the image of orthodoxy that systematizers sought. The canonization of the Writ, however, also occasioned its devaluation during the Tang. Formerly the pride of Ge Hong’s library and counted among the most distinguished scriptures of southern lore, the Writ became more appreciated as a token of ordination for growing numbers of adepts entering institutional Daoism than for its insights into the workings of gods, spirits, and the Dao.

The Writ as Ordination Gage Precepts and interdictions were a defining feature of scriptural transmission rituals from the fifth century onward, as adepts were inducted into institutional Daoism through the successive transmission of talismans, registers, and scriptural corpora. The Three Caverns were much more than simple bibliographical classifications: they constituted sequential stages of initiation, beginning with Sanhuang materials. In some cases, it was preceded by other, preliminary materials: the late sixth-century Unsurpassed Secret

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Essentials notably prescribes receiving the ten precepts (shijie 十 戒 ) and the Scripture of the Way and Virtue (Daode jing) before obtaining Sanhuang, Lingbao, and finally, Shangqing revelations.89 Nevertheless, the Cavern of Divinity represented the initial and most basic level of initiation into revealed esoteric sources. Similarly, subsequent to the addition of the Four Supplements in the seventh century, the Writ and its Cavern of Divinity were handed down in later stages of ordination, after canonized Tianshidao texts and the Scripture of the Way and Virtue. They acquired some measure of prestige, but they still remained the first of the Three Caverns to be transmitted to adepts, ahead of the Lingbao and Shangqing corpora.90 The Regulations for Honoring the Dao in Accordance with the Scriptures of the Three Caverns (Dongxuan lingbao sandong fengdao kejie yingshi 洞 玄 靈 寳 三 洞 奉 道 科 戒 營 始 ), compiled by the systematizer Jinming Qizhen 金 明 七 真 (fl. 545–554), offers a complete panorama of the Daoist ordination program along with clerical titles corresponding to investiture documents. The text, compiled sometime between 550 and the 620s, provides a two-tiered transmission list of materials for Sanhuang documents.91 The first transmission confers the title of “Disciple of the Cavern of Divinity” (dongshen dizi 洞 神 弟 子 ) on ordinands upon reception. It contains fifteen talismans that are listed in other inventories as transmission gages for the Sanhuang initiation.92 The second set of documents also includes fifteen talismans, and it contains the three scrolls of the Writ, the Great Characters of the Three Sovereigns in Celestial Script (Sanhuang tianwen dazi), and, once more, a number of ancillary materials that are found in remnants of the fourteen-scroll corpus.93 Its recipients are granted the title of “Unsurpassed Ritual Master of the Cavern of Divinity” (wushang dongshen fashi 無上洞神法師 ).94 In contrast to the fourteen-scroll Sanhuang inventory from the early Tang Rites of the Three Sovereigns (Taishang dongshen sanhuang yi), reproduced at the beginning of the chapter, Jinming Qizhen’s catalogue includes specific individual documents rather than a numbered list of titles. Still it provides no organizational structure for the thirty items it contains, a shortcoming that diminishes its usefulness as a table of contents for the late sixth- or early seventh-century Sanhuang corpus. Instead it functions as an enumeration of

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documents that were transmitted, in two stages, as part of an elaborate ordination process. Most if not all the documents can be traced to the fourteen-scroll corpus, but all nonrevealed materials such as the liturgical scrolls are left out.95 Foreshadowing what would become the orthodox sequence of initiation less than a century later, Jinming Qizhen’s Sanhuang investiture was preceded by the Tianshidao Scripture of the Divine Spells of the Cavernous Abyss (Dongyuan shenxhou jing), its ancillary documents (registers, charts, compacts, talismans, etc.), and the Scripture of the Way and Virtue with supporting materials.96 Together, these three initial grades of initiation relied on materials that were outside the Three Caverns. Accordingly, they conferred only lay ranks in the Daoist hierarchy. With the transmission of scriptures or documents from the Three Caverns, adepts usually transitioned to ordination into a hieratic order, although in some cases involving high-ranking political figures or members of the imperial household, receiving such materials, especially Cavern of Divinity sources, did not necessarily imply induction into the Daoist priesthood. Subsequent to the Cavern of Divinity transmission, Jinming Qizhen’s Regulations for Honoring the Dao records three stages of transmission for Lingbao sources that are necessary to attain the grade of “Unsurpassed Ritual Master of the Cavern of Mystery” (wushang dongxuan fashi 無 上 洞 玄 法 師 ). These are followed by transmissions for the Shangqing corpus, which are required for obtaining the ultimate title of “Unsurpassed Ritual Master of the Cavern of Perfection” (wushang dongzhen fashi 無 上 97 洞 真 法 師 ). But even around the late sixth or early seventh centuries, relatively late in the institutionalization of Daoism, transmission inventories were not fixed and materials could still migrate from one cavern to another. For example, documents that were commonly associated with the Sanhuang corpus, such as the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Wuyue zhenxing tu), accompany the transmission of the Lingbao Array of the Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao wufu xu) in Jinming Qizhen’s text.98 Nevertheless, excluding minor variations as these, the broad strokes were consistent with both earlier and later ordination protocols, and the Cavern of Divinity’s role as an introductory corpus to the Three Caverns endured, even after the addition of the Four Supplements.99

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One last source that we must consider confirms this continuity. Dated to about one hundred years after the Regulations for Honoring the Dao and postdating the ban of the Writ, Zhang Wanfu’s 張 萬 福 (fl. 710–713) Short Exposition on the Transmission of the Scriptures, Precepts, and Liturgical Registers of the Three Caverns (Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüe shuo 傳授三洞經戒法 籙 略 說 ), hereafter the Short Exposition, is a pristine account of the medieval ordination sequence for Daoist clerics. The text, compiled in 713, connects the different ordination grades of Tang Daoism with their corpora. It begins with various sets of precepts and proceeds to list investiture materials in the following order: the Zhengyi 正 一 (Correct Unity) corpus of the Celestial Masters, the Scripture of the Way and Virtue, the Sanhuang corpus, and the Lingbao revelations.100 The Shangqing scriptures are conspicuously absent, hinting that the text’s author had not attained the corresponding grade of initiation. Yet the inventory does not end there; the same pair of documents that prefigured the Shangqing investiture in the Regulations for Honoring the Dao reappear — namely the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks and the Array of Five Talismans — but this time with the addition of three other documents, constituting an additional Lingbao transmission and transitional bridge to the Shangqing corpus. One of these three documents is the Jade Writ of the Correct Statutes of the Three Heavens for Eradicating the Six Heavens (Santian zhengfa chu liutian yuwen 三天正法除六天玉文 ), a lost Shangqing adaptation of what was originally a Tianshidao text. The other two sources are the [Duke of the Western Peak’s] Writ of East and West Charms ([Xiyue gong] dongxi jinwen [ 西 嶽 公 ] 東 西 禁 文 ), often listed in inventories of the Writ’s transmission materials, and, lastly, the Writ itself.101 The Writ thus appears twice, in the section on the Sanhuang ordination and in this one. The Shangqing adaptation of the Tianshidao text is actually a substitute for the Talismans of the Six Jia [Spirits] (Liujia fu 六 甲 符 ), which is commonly associated with the other two titles in third- and early fourth-century Jiangnan lore. Taken together, this grouping of five talismans — or chart-based documents made up of the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks, the Array of Five Talismans, the [Duke of the Western Peak’s] Writ of East and West Charms, the Writ, and the Talismans of the Six Jia [Spirits]—was known as the Five Methods (wufa 五法 ).102

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Tao Hongjing was the first to formally combine the Five Methods in “*Lord Tao’s protocols of transmission and reception” (Taogong chuanshou yi). He joined them in a single transmission ritual designed with the Writ and the True Form Charts as centerpieces.103 By Zhang Wanfu’s time, they were united under the banner of the second Lingbao transmission or alternatively divided across multiple grades of ordination, with the Talismans of the Six Jia [Spirits], the [Duke of the Western Peak’s] Writ of East and West Charms, and the Writ remaining with the Cavern of Divinity and the True Form Charts and Array of Five Talismans going to the Cavern of Mystery.104 This explains why the True Form Charts eventually no longer figured as companion documents to the Writ. The Regulations for Honoring the Dao does not list them in the materials required for the grades of “Disciple of the Cavern of Divinity” or “Unsurpassed Ritual Master of the Cavern of Divinity,” squeezing them instead between the Lingbao and Shangqing ordinations together with the Array of the Five Talismans. In any case, with the exception of the intriguing Five Methods, the sequence of transmission described in Zhang Wanfu’s Short Exposition and in his other texts on Daoist ordination rites from around the turn of the eighth century is generally consonant with earlier sources.105 The Cavern of Divinity, which included the Writ and its accessory materials, was the first corpus bestowed upon disciples of the Three Caverns. Surprisingly, this did not change, even after the imperial ban of 648. Since the ban was primarily recorded in polemical Buddhist texts, some doubts may exist as to whether it occurred as described. The description of events, however, is consistent in multiple high-profile Buddhist sources, and even according to Daoist sources Bao Jing’s version of the Writ fell into disrepute. Rather than questioning the veracity of Buddhist accounts, we may consider the fickle nature of imperial politics, the most likely explanation for the sudden resurgence of the Writ so quickly after the ban. Proscriptions and their revocations were habitual during the sixth and seventh centuries, and many of them had little or no long-term effects. For instance, Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou raised Daoism to the status of state creed, making it a keystone of his vision of a reunified empire and commissioning the compilation of a catalogue of

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Daoist scriptures, the Scriptural Catalogue of the [Abbey of] the Mystic Capital (Xuandu[guan] jingmu 玄 都 [ 觀 ] 經 目 ), in 569. Five years later, in the fifth month of 574, he decreed that Buddhism and Daoism should both be eradicated. One month after that, he ordered the establishment of the Abbey of the Penetrating Dao (Tongdao guan 通 道 觀 ), which became a vital institution for the dynasty.106 A stele records that under Tang emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756), roughly a hundred years after what should have been a death blow to the fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity, the corpus had grown to forty scrolls.107 A mere thirty years after the ban, around 680, the Shangqing patriarch Pan Shizheng (585–682) describes a six-tiered ordination scheme in which the “Three Sovereigns’ Cavern of Divinity” (sanhuang dongshen 三 皇 洞 神 ) was already re-integrated.108

The Politics of the Writ The only apparent long-term aftereffect of the Tang proscription was the introduction of the Scripture of the Way and Virtue into formal liturgy, originally as a replacement for the Writ in initiations. Upon learning that authorities considered spurious the text on the basis of which clergy received land, tax exemptions, and other benefits, the Daoists of the capital filed a petition to substitute the centerpiece of the Cavern of Divinity with the Scripture of the Way and Virtue. The chancellor Zui Renshi 崔 仁 師 complied, issuing an edict for the eradication of the Writ and its replacement with Laozi’s scripture in ordination rites for novitiates.109 As we have seen, the Scripture of the Way and Virtue was already used as an ordination document in some circles since the Northern Zhou (557–581). Nevertheless, as of 648, a rationale for its elevation to the role of investiture gage for the first stage of initiation into the Three Caverns was articulated and officially recorded. Since the core text of the Cavern of Divinity was corrupted, it had to be replaced by a scripture of equal or higher standing that could also serve as an inclusive common denominator for all Daoists. The Scripture of the Way and Virtue did not integrate the Cavern of Divinity; it constituted its own

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distinct and independent class of Daoist writings. But the events of 648 and the resulting visibility it acquired undeniably paved the way for the Scripture of the Way and Virtue’s canonization at the head of the Four Supplements roughly thirty years later. The sidelining of the Writ and its substitution with the Scripture of the Way and its Virtue was in keeping with the general thrust of integrated state Daoism. With the encouragement of authorities and individual rulers, systematizers gradually transformed individual localized esoteric traditions into a unified institutional religion for all. The exclusive divine revelations that once were awarded to only the most deserving members of privileged regional clans were now available across the empire to a much wider swath of meritorious and talented candidates. They were enshrined in monastic institutions (guan 觀 ) or imperial collections rather than in private libraries. As the prime exemplar of traditional Jiangnan lore in the Three Caverns, the Writ garnered considerable attention throughout the Six Dynasties. Its straightforward message of empowerment and sovereignty, along with the immediate verifiability of that message through the material tangibility of its talismans, were among the main factors that contributed to its popularity. But at the same time, the Writ’s political resonance, which undoubtedly contributed to its success as a component of Daoism as well, eventually placed it in the crosshairs of imperial authorities. The Cavern of Divinity’s narration of its own history unabashedly flaunted the Writ’s usefulness in determining and ordering the affairs of the state. We have seen how the revelations of its three scrolls to the successive Sovereigns of Heaven, Earth, and Humankind were intended to provide the demigod monarchs with a plan to unite all of China under a single harmonious rule.110 The reputation of the Writ’s usefulness to rulers in particular traveled far and wide: in his Treatise on Disputing the Correct (Bianzheng lun), the Buddhist prelate Falin 法 琳 (572–640) summarizes the Cavern of Divinity purification rite as “a method to seek immortality and protect the state.”111 Even from secular perspectives such as that of Xiao Ji and his Great Doctrine of the Five Agents (Wuxing dayi), the Three Sovereigns were powerful astral gods whose designs could be uncovered through prognos-

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tication methods. They commanded lower-ranking surrogate spirits that were tied to individual fate, but as a group they presided over the empire’s destiny.112 There are numerous other sources in which the Cavern of Divinity is described as primarily benefiting the state and its ruling elite. To cite one example, the aforementioned “Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns” from the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials stresses that the merits generated in one section of the ritual benefit monarchs, emperors, and rulers of the state first and foremost; only then do they extend to high-ranking officials, state and prefectural governors, various retainers and the hundred superintendents, before finally reaching commoners and the masses.113 That the Writ and the Cavern of Divinity are well represented in the Unsurpassed Secret Essentials is significant in and of itself since the anthology was compiled with the explicit purpose of supplying the court of the Northern Zhou dynasty with an ideological or even theological argument for unification. In comparison to other Daoist corpora whose language and mechanics were sometimes abstruse, the Cavern of Divinity was relatively direct. As the first of the Three Caverns, gaining access to it required a comparatively moderate amount of effort and expenditure in the form of offerings and oaths. It also entailed fewer years of devotion and sacrifice in comparison to the higher echelons of ordination. A number of texts underscore the Writ’s accessibility and emphasize its communal merits: the Cavern of Divinity is “for the kingdom and for the people” (wei guo wei min 為 國 為 民 ) explains the Protocols for Practicing the Dao and Conferring Ordination.114 The formulation suggests that rulers, either directly or through the intermediary of a member of the Daoist clergy acting on their behalf, could reap the personal benefits of the Writ but also extend its boon to all of his subjects. The following lines from the same source support this interpretation: The methods of the Sanhuang Cavern of Divinity are for communicating with spirits, employing demons, and summoning the ten thousand spirits. They are for pacifying the kingdom, stabilizing households, and helping the masses. By cultivating [these methods] adepts may ascend to immortality and transcend the world.115

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洞神三皇之法，通靈使鬼役召萬神。安國寕家匡濟兆民。學士修行 可以昇仙度世。

For the average individual adept, the Writ was deployed in visionary divination and for the pursuit of immortality, but the addition of “pacifying the kingdom,” “stabilizing households,” and “helping the masses” among the scripture’s virtues indicates that monarchs could rely on it for greater purposes. Through this juxtaposition of micro and macro contexts, the passage not only underscores how the Writ suits the goals of commoners and those of the ruling elite as well, but that both sets of goals were actually compatible and intertwined. Another source adds that while the texts of the Great Cavern of Perfection are not revealed to mortals, and those Cavern of Mystery materials are only passed down to a select few at proper times, “the writings of the Sanhuang Cavern of Divinity are made available and are transmitted below in the world for the protection of and assistance to the kingdom, as well as for supporting and aiding the masses.”116 Reducing the divide between rulers and commoners was a central theme of the Writ since the fourth century at least, but by the Sui or early Tang, when it became a basic ordination document for institutional Daoism and was more widely available than ever before, such leveling tendencies posed a problem. Would-be rulers and Jiagnan’s spiritual nobility could no longer lay exclusive claim to the prized collection of talismans, as the following surviving citation from an unspecified scroll of the Sanhuang corpus makes clear: The Three Sovereigns said: “The Way of Heaven is vast, and the worthy and stupid blend together. The strong lie in the west, and the weak are in the east. The Nine Heavens fix the weft, and the Nine Earths unite the warp. The lowly become rulers and ministers in order to establish the state. Those who follow [the Way of ] Heaven are auspicious, those who do not follow are calamitous.”117 三皇曰：天道廣大，賢愚混同。彊者在西，弱者在東。九天定橫， 九地合縱。下成君臣，以立國邦。順天者吉，不順者凶。

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These lines reinforce the idea that one of the scripture’s primary applications was to assist rulers and ministers in the proper governance of their state by revealing the Way of Heaven to them. But more boldly, the excerpt also implies that any person — even those of humble origins — could access the highest stratosphere of state hierarchy. Regardless of pedigree or provenance, a ruler’s success is dependent upon whether or not they follow the Way of Heaven, which is what the Writ happens to facilitate. Thus, although damning, Madam Wang’s seditious suggestion that any person who possessed the Writ could amass riches and even become empresses or monarchs of kingdoms was doctrinally sound.118 Such a brazen declaration during her interview with imperial authorities, coupled with the fact that the scripture was more or less readily obtainable in the Tang, set in motion a series of events that culminated in the proscription and destruction of the Writ. The scripture’s perceived political efficacy along with its availability led to its demise. The official reason for the ban was that Bao Jing had forged the Writ, as a number of polemical Buddhist sources did not fail to relay.119 Be that as it may, the transgression had occurred more than three centuries prior to the government taking action. The earliest surviving record of the alleged offense is in the sixth-century Treatise on the Two Teachings (Erjiao lun), a text that was widely disseminated in court circles. Since then, successive administrations had not addressed the matter, but by the winter of 648, the state manifestly felt the need to curtail the influence of the Writ. Bao Jing’s forgery was pretense enough to suppress what emperor Taizong and his administration regarded as a subversive threat. The “pure and orderly Daoism” (qingzheng daojiao 清整道教 )120 that had developed in the late Six Dynasties after a series of Daoist-inspired uprisings was still de rigueur in the Tang. Courts and elite society only sponsored docile institutionalized religion, and the Cavern of Divinity, while domesticated after its introduction into the Three Caverns system, still retained enough unsavory elements to make authorities uneasy about its expanded circulation. Another Buddhist source, Daoxuan’s 道 宣 (596–667) Collectanea of Former and Current Weighed Debates Between Buddhists and Daoists (Ji gujin fodao lunheng 集 古 今 佛 道 論 衡 ), explains that

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in the seventh century, the Writ was still considered potent enough that “those who desired to be emperor or who desired to be empress could read this scripture” to fulfill their ambitions.121 Unlike many of his predecessors who relied on institutional religion to buttress their authority throughout their lifetime, toward the end of his rule, Emperor Taizong of the Tang was famously irritated with the interference of clerics in secular state affairs, going to such lengths as to promulgate a new legal code that explicitly forbade it. The ban on the Writ and its corpus came shortly before his death in 649, at a time when his power and health were both waning. In the last years of his reign, Taizong suffered a succession of political disputes and an unsuccessful military campaign against the Korean Goguryeo 高 句 麗 (37 BCE–668 CE) dynasty. During that campaign, he also contracted a mysterious illness, most likely as a result of ingesting alchemical elixirs in pursuit of immortality. The illness would ultimately claim his life. Taizong was perhaps wise to take preventive measures against Daoists, but while he worried about their meddling in government matters and the destabilizing potential of a spurious Writ, he did not anticipate meeting his end at the hands of his trusted alchemists and their counterfeit immortality pills. With its integration into institutional Daoism reaching completion in the seventh century, the mature Cavern of Divinity was endowed with an intricate liturgical framework like the other two corpora of the Three Caverns. Its documents were often the first set of esoteric sources that novitiates came into contact with through ordination, and, as such, the Cavern of Divinity was the gateway to the Daoist tradition. Because of their initiatory function, the Writ and its materials grew increasingly divorced from their local uses as summoning and apotropaic tools. They became viewed first and foremost as symbols of investiture into clerical Daoism. When new disciples received the Cavern of Divinity during ordination ceremonies, the corpus acquired the function of its constituent talismans: that of tangible and material proofs of initiation and the spiritual prerequisites thereof. Yet, even as a gage of investiture, the Cavern of Divinity was indissociable from the language of sovereignty in which it was forged. In fact, the renewed ritual

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emphasis on the Writ as a physical badge of authentication accentuated the scripture’s long-standing imagery of divine regalia and imperial sacraments. Madam Wang spelled out the likeness between the Writ and the omenobjects on which emperors throughout Chinese history had relied to establish their mandate, and in the end, the parallels proved too real and incendiary for an administration whose legitimacy was eroding. After all, the proscription of 648 did not prove to be the death blow to the Writ that its architects had intended. Taizong’s successor, Emperor Gaozong 高 宗 (r. 649–683), assumed the title Great Emperor Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang dadi 天 皇 大 帝 ) in 674, thereby projecting the type of transcendent political authority typical of the Writ and cementing formal ties to institutional Daoism.122 As the conclusion to this book relates, the late Tang and Song (960–1279) witnessed important additions to and renewed interest in the Cavern of Divinity. Not only did the corpus remain an active locus of scriptural ferment well into the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), but the Writ was also read in Japan.

Conclusion

This book opened with the imperial proscription of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns in 648 tracing the original circumstances of the ban to the turn of the fourth century. In the intervening three hundred years, the Writ developed from an iconic scripture of local lore to a centerpiece of institutional Daoism, reaching the apex of its cultural relevance at a crucially formative time for the religion. But it enjoyed a much longer history. Before reviewing the principal findings of this study, the following pages consider the Cavern of Divinity’s afterlife in the centuries subsequent to the ban. They also supply a glimpse of the text’s transmission to Japan and briefly excavate its roots in fangshi (masters of methods) and Weft Texts traditions of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE).

In the Aftermath of 648: The Cavern of Divinity in the Late Tang and Song Dynasties Despite Tang (618–907) authorities officially banning and burning the Writ, the scripture survived its ordeal and tottered into the Song dynasty (960–1279), suffering a few casualties in the process. Since Bao Jing’s name was synonymous with the forgery controversy after 648, ordained Daoists distanced themselves from the figure just as earlier generations had avoided Bo He on account of his ties to sacrificial blood oaths. The compilers of official sources went further, expunging Bao Jing’s name from their pages

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altogether. The History of the Song Dynasty (Songshi 宋 史 ), for example, lists a Yin Changsheng’s Scripture of the Three Sovereigns (Yin Changsheng sanhuang jing 陰 長 生 三 皇 經 ).1 The attribution to Bao Jing’s master cleverly sidesteps the contentious personage while preserving the transmission line and maintaining the Shangqing pedigree intact. Similarly, the section on Daoist scriptures from the eleventh-century General Catalogue of Venerated Works (Chongwen zongmu 崇 文 總 目 ) mentions a Scripture of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang jing) in three scrolls compiled by Yin Changsheng, just as the twelfth-century Comprehensive Annals (Tongzhi 通 志 ) records a Scripture of the Three Sovereigns collated once more by Yin Changsheng.2 In the wake of the proscription, Bao Jing became a posthumous persona non grata, omitted from official inventories in favor of his less disreputable master, Yin Changsheng. Another noticeable casualty of the Tang ban was the neat structure of the fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity corpus, over which Lu Xiujing, Tao Hongjing, and others had painstakingly toiled. Official inventories from the Song dynasty reveal a ragtag corpus composed of surviving scraps and fragments. The aforementioned Concise Comprehensive Annals describes a Scripture of the Three Sovereigns made up of a single scroll; this central document is supplemented with a number of additional materials in no apparent order: the True Form Charts and Writs of the Five Peaks (Wuyue zhenxing tuwen 五 嶽 真形圖文 ), the Numinous Treasure True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Lingbao wuyue zhenxing tu 靈 寳 五 嶽 真 形 圖 ), the Esoteric Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang neiwen 天 皇 內 文 ), the Esoteric Sounds of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang neiyin 三皇內音 ), and the Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang neiwen 三 皇 內 文 ), all in one scroll.3 All these titles look familiar to some extent, but confusion or duplication appears to have occurred. Although the ban compromised the scriptural integrity of the Cavern of Divinity after 648, the corpus still rebounded and experienced something of a renaissance during the Song dynasty. The interest that illustrious court Daoist Du Guangting 杜 光 庭 (850–933) took in reforming the neglected liturgies of the third cavern was certainly a factor in improving its fortunes, and it may have sparked its eventual revival.4 The establishment of a shrine

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to the three sovereigns and five emperors (sanhuang wudi miao 三 皇 五 帝 廟 ) in 747 also contributed to the rehabilitation of the Writ, albeit indirectly. While the cult had no formal ties to institutional Daoism, it grew considerably during the Song. In the Yuan dynasty (1271–1368), it developed into a state-sponsored network of shrines devoted solely to the three sovereigns, who were by then rebranded as ancestral patron gods of physicians.5 Another, more direct factor for the Cavern of Divinity’s rebound after the ban, especially with respect to the codification of new Sanhuang scriptures, was the return of state Daoism after a period of imperial infatuation with Confucianism. During the Northern Song (960–1126), emperors Zhenzong 真 宗 (r. 998–1022) and Huizong 徽 宗 (r. 1101–1126) adopted Daoism as the official creed of China once again. Excluding liturgical texts and an idiosyncratic pair of brief ritual manuals about the gods of the Five Planets (wuxing shen 五 星 神 ), there were eight new revealed texts added to the Sanhuang corpus between the ninth and twelfth centuries.6 Overall, these new sources reflected a preoccupation with divination and apotropaia, the same concerns that brought the Writ to prominence during the early Six Dynasties. Late- or post-Tang developments are beyond the scope of this study, but surveying a few salient features will provide a glance of how the Sanhuang corpus was revived and transitioned into the early modern era. The Perfect Scripture of the Mysterious and Wondrous White Monkey (Taishang dongshen xuanmiao baiyuan zhenjing 太 上 洞 神 玄 妙 白 猿 真 經 ) and the Book of the Luminous Mirror of the Six Ren Tallying with Yin (Taishang liuren mingjian fuyin jing 太 上 六 壬 明 鑑 符 陰 經 ) are two representative scriptures of the Sanhuang revival. According to narrative sections in both documents, the texts were originally part of a single Sanhuang scripture, which is now lost.7 The second text is also known as the Monkey Book (Yuanshu 猿 書 ) since a white ape allegedly revealed it to the preimperial strategist Sun Bin 孫 臏 (d. 316 BCE).8 This detail reinforces the connection to the first source, which refers to a “white monkey” in its title, but the link between texts and to the Cavern of Divinity is readily apparent from the methods alone; these include the absorption of alchemical elixirs (dan 丹 ), incantations (zhou 呪 ), and especially practices that employ talismans (fu 符 ) or

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diagrams (shi 式 ).9 Many of these implements are used in elaborate Hidden Stem (dunjia 遁甲 ) divination rites that involve calculating specific times and directions known as “gates” (men 門 ). The gates are then crossed via a ritual space in order for practitioners to become invisible to the world and enter into the realm of unmediated true form (zhenxing 真形 ).10 There practitioners may shield themselves from mundane misfortunes such as war, banditry, famine, and disease, but they may also freely interact with divine beings and inquire about future events. The longer Monkey Book notably supplies a detailed account of a complete ritual cycle called the “Jade Maiden Shutting [the Gates] Behind Her” (yunü fanbi 玉女反閉 ), a variety of the Hidden Stem method that involves summoning a female deity to descend into the ritual area and spirit away the officiant to the ethereal parallel dimension.11 Such techniques constitute the inverse of the Writ’s visionary divination inasmuch as they feature practitioners traveling to the deities rather than having deities descend to them. Nevertheless, the Writ was associated with many different forms of augury, including Hidden Stem prognostication.12 While the latter method could be deployed in the context of government, most often in military undertakings,13 it also professed turning one’s back on the world in times of trouble, an escapist strategy that was consonant with the principle of nonintervention in government so precious to Emperor Taizong (r. 626–649) of the Tang. This laissez-faire approach of the new Sanhuang scriptures is also discernible in the ubiquitous Method of the Five Simulations (wujia fa 五 假 法 ). This technique that enabled adepts to merge their bodies with one of the Five Agents (wuxing 五行 ) in order to become undetectable and hide in plain sight or to obtain protection from a harmful manifestation of the agent in question. Diagrams and incantations for the Five Simulations are contained in the Perfect Scripture of the Mysterious and Wondrous White Monkey.14 The method also appears in the Three Registers of the Cavern of Divinity in Red Script (Taishang chiwen dongshen sanlu 太 上 赤 文 洞 神 三 籙 ), in the second of the three registers referred to in the title.15 The other two registers of the Sanhuang revival text contain techniques that are more consistent with the pre-Tang Cavern of Divinity. For example, the first register relies on the talis-

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mans of the Eight Trigrams (bagua) to conjure deities and inquire about the future.16 Bao Jing notably resurfaces as a Sanhuang patriarch in the source, in a passage that explains how he and his son-in-law Ge Hong transmitted the three registers as a part of the appended materials handed down with the Writ.17 The Three Registers of the Cavern of Divinity in Red Script is attributed to Tao Hongjing, and its preface, dated to 632, was purportedly composed by Li Chunfeng 李 淳 風 (602–670). Yet, references to the exorcistic deity known as the Black Killer (heisha 黒 殺 ), along with the use of “mudras” or ritual hand seals (qianyin 掐 印 ; shouyin 手 印 ), and pseudo-Sanskrit spells — all watermarks of Song dynasty Daoist scriptures — betray subsequent additions to the text or, more plausibly, a later date of composition. In addition to the world-renouncing outlook and downplaying of political applications highlighted above, two other features characteristic of Cavern of Divinity scriptures emerge. One is the antiquarian inclination of many of these sources, by which, through calculated references to Six Dynasties elements and less tangible aspects such as the structure and “feel” of its contents, texts were designed to give the impression of earlier compositions.18 Throwback elements are apparent in the two Monkey scriptures for example, both of which skillfully underscore their putative Han dynasty origins. The second feature is the relatively porous contours that the Cavern of Divinity came to acquire. For Daoism, the Song dynasty was a period of intra- and extramural interchange, and the Cavern of Divinity was no exception. With the rise of new Daoist lineages and ritual corpora between the tenth and thirteenth centuries, exorcistic cults and their patron deities, including the Black Killer and the Perfect Warrior, Zhenwu 真武 , exploded in popularity. Certain components from these pan-Daoist cults appear in newer Sanhuang sources, as do hallmark elements of Buddhist praxis such as the aforementioned ritual hand gestures and pseudo-Sanskrit incantations. The Esoteric Secret Writ of the Three Sovereigns, Divine Chapters of the Eight Poles in the Immortal Writing of Jade Florescence of the Golden Portal of Great Clarity (Taiqing jinque yuhua xianshu baji shenzhang sanhuang neibi wen 太清金闕玉華仙書八極神章三皇內祕文 ) is another among the new scriptures that were incorporated into the Cavern of Divinity around the Song.

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Like its counterparts, this text casts various methods traditionally associated with Jiangnan lore in a distinctly eremitic light, keeping allusions to statecraft to a strict minimum. Once again, the method of the Five Simulations is expounded in considerable detail, together with instructions on retiring into mountains.19 In this context of recondite living, readers encounter directives for identifying divine minerals — the “medicines of immortality” (xianyao 仙 藥 ) — as well as cryptogrammic growths known as marvelous fungi or alternatively, as numinous mushrooms (lingzhi 靈 芝 ). The text provides descriptive catalogues for thirty-six growths and thirty-six minerals in a manner that emulates earlier inventories from the Six Dynasties such as the one from The Master Who Embraces Simplicity.20 These vestigial topics and the archaizing way in which they are treated express the antiquarian flavor of many of these scriptures. Another example is the numerous techniques for summoning spirits and subjugating demons that appear in the pages of the Esoteric Secret Writ. The methods enable practitioners to exploit the demons they have subdued and have them take revenge on enemies or even commit robbery on their behalf.21 The anachronistic and intentionally superannuated qualities of these texts sharply contrast with newer elements through which compilers sought to connect their works to current trends in ritual technology, be they Daoist, Buddhist, or from another tradition. In the case of the Esoteric Secret Writ, for instance, a biographical sketch of the exorcistic deity Perfect Warrior, who rose to prominence after the Tang, is featured in a discussion of the Spelunk Heavens of the Divine Empyrean (shenxiao dongtian 神 霄 洞 天 ) of Song repute.22

The Puzzle of the Three Sovereigns in Japan Although it never regained its prior status, the Writ recovered well enough from the proscription to make its imprint beyond the reaches of the Chinese empire. With the revitalization of the Cavern of Divinity came a crossfertilization between the Writ’s view of the Three Sovereigns as cosmic deities and perspectives from traditions beyond institutional Daoism. We have already mentioned the civil cult to the three sovereigns as medical gods, but

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another example can be found in a Buddhist document from Japan. During his time in Japan, the journalist, author, and eventual Tendai Buddhist High Priest (tendai sōjō 天 台 僧 正 ) Bruno Petzold (1873–1949) acquired several hundred illustrated scrolls, among which figured the Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (Sankō Gotei emaki 三 皇 23 五 帝 絵 卷 ). Now held in the Harvard-Yenching Library’s Petzold collection, the item is classified as “Buddhist” and undated. Nevertheless, the bulk of the artifacts that Petzold obtained are from the Tokugawa (1600–1868) or Meiji (1868–1912) eras, and correspondingly, a summary appraisal based on iconographic features suggests an early Tokugawa or even late Muromachi period (1336–1573) date of origin for the document. The scroll is composed of thirteen illustrated figures accompanied by twelve short lines of text, most of them made up of names of deities. The figures are divided into four groups. The initial group is Buddhist. Starting from the right, its first image is a long dragon, devoid of arms or legs (see figure E.1). It bears the title ba zhang gui 八 張 䂓 [ 規 ], which literally translates as “Eight-span regulation” or “Eightspan circle,” with the measurement likely referring to the length of the creature. The second image depicts an (winged?) elderly man in ritual vestment. The annotation reads, “[You] have dissipated my delusions, and caused me to gain entry [into the path]” (jie [kai] wo miyun, ling wo de ru 皆 [ 開 ] 我 迷 雲， 令 我 得 入 ), a line from a famous Chan/Zen 禪 parable recorded in the thirteen-century Gateless Pass (Ch. Wumen guan; Jp. Mumon kan 無 門 關 ).24 The figure has a cenobitic air about him. In the parable, a non-Buddhist master utters the line in an exchange with the Buddha, so the illustration could be a likeness of the former. The third illustration from the first set is the primordial (a 阿 ) in Siddham script, resting on a lotus pedestal. Its five seed-syllable A strokes are painted in the five root colors of Buddhist cosmology (red, white, yellow, black, and blue). The seed-syllable bears no title. The second series of figures are the Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang 天皇 ), the Sovereign of Earth (Dihuang 地皇 ), and King Pangu (Pangu wang 盤 牛 [ 古 ] 王 ), who stands in for the Sovereign of Humankind (Renhuang 人 皇 ). A note below his name reads tukong 圡 [ 土 ] 空 , which refers to the meditation cells or "dirt caves" (tuku 土 窟 ) employed by Chan/Zen

Fig. E.2. The second group of figures from the Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Petzold Collection, Harvard-Yenching Library.

Conclusion ︱ 201

Fig. E.1. The first group of figures from the Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Petzold Collection, HarvardYenching Library.

monks (see figure E.2). Pangu is depicted as a naked, muscular, red-haired humanoid sitting in a half-lotus position. The Sovereign of Heaven and the Sovereign of Earth from the illustrated scroll unmistakably correspond to the Median Sovereign of Heaven (zhong tianhuang 中 天 皇 ) and Median Sovereign of Earth (zhong dihuang 中 地 皇 ) described and illustrated in the “Chart of the Nine Sovereigns” (“Jiuhuang tu”) discussed in chapter 3; both sets of representations have the same number of heads — thirteen for the Sovereign of Heaven and eleven for the Sovereign of Earth — atop scaly serpentine or draconic bodies.25 Pangu is not traditionally considered one of the Three Emperors, but he appears in Lingbao accounts such as the “Abridged Scripture of the Celestial Venerable Lord Lao’s Names Throughout the Eons” (“Tianzun Laojun minghao lijie jinglüe” 天 尊 老 君 名 號 歷 劫 經 略 ), hereafter “Scripture of Lord Lao’s Names,” as a recipient of the divine Writ from the cosmic Lord Lao (Laojun 老 君 ) and as a precursor to the earliest group the Nine Sovereigns, the Initial Sovereigns (chu huang 初 皇 ; alt. shang huang 上 皇 ). He uses the Writ to establish Heaven and Earth and create the ten thousand living beings before bestowing a different version of the same scripture to the first Sovereign of Heaven.26

202 ︱ Conclusion

The first figure in the third group depicts a solitary dragon emerging from billowing waves. The caption, however, refers to the Five Dragons (wulong 五 龍 ), a group of mythical rulers that is also sometimes counted among the Writ’s early recipients (see figure E.3). As illustrated below on the basis of the same “Scripture of Lord Lao’s Names,” the Five Dragons follow the three Median Sovereigns (zhong huang 中 皇 ), who succeed the Five Emperors (wudi 五帝 ) that come after the three Initial Sovereigns.27 Pangu → Initial Sovereigns → Five Emperors → Middle Sovereigns → Five Dragons 盤古

上皇

五帝

中皇

五龍

→ Divine Person → Latter Sovereigns (Fu Xi → Shennong → Yellow Emperor)     神人 下皇 伏羲 神農 黃帝

After the Five Dragons, the Lingbao text lists a “divine person” (shenren 神 人 ) in the transmission of the Writ. In the Japanese illustrated scroll, it is

another Buddhist figure, the King of Asuras (Axiuluo wang 阿 修 羅 王 ), who occupies that position in the sequence. He has three heads and three pairs of arms, two of which are resting, palms open, on his crossed legs as he hovers in a seated position. The palms of a second pair of arms are joined in supplication in front of the chest. A final pair of hands holds two orbs: a white one — the moon — in his left hand, and a red one — the sun — in his right hand. The final figure in this series is Tai Hao 大 [ 太 ] 昊 , another name for Fu Xi 伏 羲 , the Sovereign of Heaven. He sits astride a fierce four-legged blue dragon, donning military armor and holding a sword. The dragon’s tail also ends in a blade, a common feature in Esoteric Buddhist imagery. Similarly evoking Esoteric Buddhist iconography, Tai Hao’s hair stands on end in the style of the wrathful Wisdom Kings (Ch. mingwang 明王 ; Skt. vidyārājas). The last group is made up of four figures. The first two appear under a caption for Fu Xi 伏 儀 [ 羲 ]. In most sources related to the Writ as in this one, Fu Xi is the first of the Latter Sovereigns (hou huang 後皇 ; alt. xia huang 下皇 ), the Sovereign of Heaven, but here his appearance instead is that of the Middle Sovereign of Humankind (zhong huangren 中 皇 人 ) from the “Chart of Nine

Conclusion ︱ 203

Sovereigns” (see figure E.4). The Japanese scroll depicts twelve heads instead of nine, but both sources have them balanced atop the craned neck of an imposing dragon. Even the shocks of hair bolting from the articulations of his three-fingered legs are faithfully reproduced, along with the flame emerging from the oxter of its front limbs. The scroll adds a blade at the tip of the tail, as in the previous image. The second figure represented under the caption of Fu Xi in this last series is a woman with untied long hair. She is disrobed from the waist up, while the lower half of her body is that of a snake. This must be Nü Wa 女 媧 , Fu Xi’s sister and wife, the Latter Sovereign of Earth (hou dihuang 後地皇 ) from the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns.” The third figure from the final set is Shennong 神 農 . He holds two unidentified red flowers, one in each hand, and sports imposing talons on his avian feet. He has an ox head and is clothed in official garb, as in the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns,” where he is the Latter Sovereign of Humankind (hou renhuang 後 人 皇 ). In the “Scripture of Lord Lao’s Names” however, he takes on the role of the Sovereign of Earth (Dihuang), which he seems to reprise in the Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. Since Fu Xi and Nü Wa are both Sovereigns of Heaven in this case, the last and fourth figure in the set, the Sovereign of Humankind, is identified as the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi 黃 帝 ). The title “Yellow Emperor” next to the image is preceded by what appears to be a Japanese variant of the character sui 㸂 , itself a variant of sui 燧 , followed by the character ren 人 ; thus the full caption reads “Suiren, the Yellow Emperor” (Suiren Huangdi 燧人黃帝 ). In a few Chinese sources, Suiren replaces the Yellow Emperor as the Sovereign of Humankind.28 Hence it is probable that there was some confusion between the identities of the Three Sovereigns in Japan. It is also possible that Japanese were aware of the variations and the caption is signaling that the Sovereign of Humankind could be either Suiren or the Yellow Emperor. In any event, the last four figures of the scroll depict the Three Sovereigns, who in a broader cosmic context are the Latter Sovereigns. Fu Xi and Nü Wa are the Sovereigns of Heaven, Shennong is the Sovereign of Earth, and Suiren or the Yellow Emperor (alternatively Suiren, the Yellow Emperor) is the Sovereign of Humankind.

Fig. E.3. The third group of figures from the Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Petzold Collection, HarvardYenching Library.

Fig. E.4. The fourth and last group of figures from the Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, Petzold Collection, HarvardYenching Library.

206 ︱ Conclusion

To all appearances, the illustrated scroll combines elements from the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” and the “Scripture of Lord Lao’s Names,” with a prevalence of iconographic details stemming from the first source and the chronology or sequence of transmission largely deriving from the second. Because of the dearth of supporting materials and the complete absence of contextual information, the precise function of the Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors is unknown. At the most basic level the document appears to have been an illustrated register of divine rulership somewhat akin to the Writ. It could constitute a pictorial Japanese version of the scripture or perhaps an updated and expanded edition of the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns.” The scroll draws substantially on Buddhist imagery from the Chan/Zen and Esoteric traditions, resulting in a fascinating example of iconographical creolization. Such bricolage was not uncommon for the texts of the Cavern of Divinity after the Tang, but the input of Japanese Buddhism for adaptive purposes in this case is particularly striking.29 Although it is impossible at this juncture in time to ascertain the place of the Writ in Japanese religious history, we may confirm its presence in some form on the archipelago from the late medieval or early modern period and establish that it was hybridized with local varieties of Buddhism. Future research into the Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors will hopefully yield additional clues to help us understand the dissemination of what was initially a local tradition across much of East Asia.

Toward a Prehistory of the Writ This study has largely focused on the ascent and institutionalization of the Writ from the early fourth century to the middle of the seventh century, along with its contribution to the formation of state Daoism until the Tang prohibition. In spite of the seeming finality of the ban, the Writ nevertheless enjoyed a significant afterlife after 648. Likewise, the scripture also had a deep prehistory, reaching back several centuries before it was documented in The Master Who Embraces Simplicity. Many of the key figures in the scripture’s transmission line, including Ge Hong and Bao Jing, traced both their

Conclusion ︱ 207

familial ancestry and their spiritual roots to the fangshi (masters of methods) circles of the Han dynasty (206 BCE–220 CE) and Wu kingdom (220–280 CE).30 Numerous fangshi took up official posts and some were active at court while others were local masters that vied for followers and fame. In all cases, they strayed from the Confucian mold of the scholar-official (ru 儒 ). Instead, they entertained strong ties with local cultic networks and their traditions.31 Some fangshi are mentioned by name in the texts of the Cavern of Divinity, including the alchemist Li Shaojun, who was a prized advisor and ritual technician at the court of Emperor Wu of the Han (r. 141–87 BCE).32 The Writ inherited many ritual aspects from this stratum of Han and Wu culture, particularly the practices of summoning spirits and protecting against nefarious influences, but also the emphasis on materiality. The fangshi were first and foremost technical experts in “methods and techniques” (fangji 方 技 ) and the “reckoning arts” (shushu 數 術 ). Their know-how included the manipulation of implements such as cosmographs, astrological charts, diagrams, elixirs, medicaments, and talismans. The workings of the instruments they wielded remained impenetrable to most, and as a result those objects became symbols for and proof of the fangshi’s capabilities. In addition to their knowledge of alchemy, medicine, and cosmology, fangshi were valued diviners. At court, they called up gods or dead ancestors on behalf of rulers and exorcised malevolent forces that threatened the state. They also interpreted the celestial signs and omens that enabled them to manage threats and validate the legitimacy of their royal employers. These signs, tokens of Heaven’s approval of human undertakings, especially those of rulers, often manifested physically as spontaneously revealed divine writing or diagrams. Since only fangshi knew how to decipher them, they were uniquely positioned to buttress the authority of monarchs; in early China, to know the will of Heaven was to know the Dao, and to know the Dao was to unite and rule over the realm. Thus talismans, charts, and other divine sacraments were also tokens for the unification of divine and human realms under the same ritual framework. The notion was imprinted in the Writ’s earliest historical narratives, which recounted how Fu Xi, Shennong, and the Yellow Emperor used the theocratic might of talismans — veritable response gages (fuying 符 應 ) or

208 ︱ Conclusion

response portents (ruiying 瑞 應 ) from the fangshi perspective — to harmonize both the supernatural and mortal denizens of the realm under their rule. In this respect, the scripture is inscribed in the tradition of imperial treasure-objects and credential-sacraments that began at the dawn of Chinese kingship and peaked during the Han. Fangshi also developed an exegetical tradition around the science of political prognostication; they amassed revealed documents and spontaneously manifested esoteric commentaries known as Weft Texts (weishu) or Prognosticatory Weft [Texts] (chenwei 讖 緯 ). These sources combined omenlore revelations with emerging Five Agent (wuxing) cosmology, forming a sophisticated body of literature that could establish canonical precedents for the legitimation of sovereignty. Some Weft Texts had the familiar descriptors “writ” (wen 文 ), “token/tally/gage” (fu 符 ), “compact” (qi 契 ), or “record” (lu 錄 ) in their titles, while others were known as “charts” (tu 圖 ), “tablets” (ban 版 ), or “tables/charts” (biao 表 ). A few centuries later, the same technical terms resurface in the pages of the Cavern of Divinity. Moreover, much like the Writ and its charts, Weft Texts contained the true names (zhenming) or true forms (zhenxing) of gods and demons; in some instances, the names recorded in Weft Texts bear a strong resemblance to those from the surviving fragments of the Writ.33 Many of the prophetic commentaries of the Weft Text tradition centered on Confucian classics,34 but others commented on the hexagrams of the Book of Changes (Yijing) or the divine markings of the [Yellow] River Chart (Hetu) and the Luo [River] Writing (Luoshu), a particularly influential pair of portents. As we have seen, the Writ was also combined with other artifacts, most commonly charts (tu), to form sets analogous to the River Chart and the Luo Writing. In addition to their role as divine tallies and gages of authority, all these documents plotted the succession of dynastic rules, past, present, and future, drawing on the model of Western Zhou and Han king lists. They simultaneously constituted a history and prophetic register of the names and likenesses of the rulers of a unified China. Anna Seidel has established the close affinity between the Han common religion that informed fangshi beliefs and Daoism.35 More pointedly, she has

Conclusion ︱ 209

also established kinship between symbols of sovereignty during the Han and Six Dynasties Daoism via Weft Texts and omen lore.36 In her study on “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” she singles out the Writ as one of the Daoist sources that most glaringly reflects fangshi discourses of theocratic legitimation.37 Even a cursory comparison of surviving Weft Texts and the Writ exposes numerous correspondences. The imperial rite of investiture known as the “reception of registers” (shoulu 受籙 ), in which the ruler secures the mandate of Heaven, is first mentioned in Weft Texts during the Han dynasty.38 The rite was absorbed into Six Dynasties Daoist movements such as the Way of the Celestial Masters, and eventually, with the Writ as one of its core registers, it was also used for initiating ordinands. In regimes that relied on Daoism to establish their divine authority, emperors too “received gages and registers” (shou fulu 受 符 籙 ).39 Some monarchs even dispatched scouts to comb the land for omens or portents that could legitimize their rule.40 Beyond this and other generalities, including subjugating the supernatural and providing the esoteric countenance of past and future dynastic sovereigns, there remain more specific signs of a shared history between Weft Texts and the Writ.41 The divinized Three Sovereigns figure prominently in Weft Texts, and even the details of their appearance, down to the exact number of heads, match those found in the Writ and its associated materials.42 Another noteworthy consonance is the way the Three Sovereigns are portrayed as rulers who do not use conventional words or language. The phrase “the Three Sovereigns had no writing” (sanhuang wuwen 三 皇 無 文 ), or variations thereof, appears in a number of preserved Weft Text passages.43 The standard explanation is that they ruled more directly by means of the sovereign gages (wangfu 王 符 ) and response portents (ruiying), or that they tied knots in order to govern (jiesheng yizhi 結 繩 以 治 ). This interpretation refers to archaic yet spontaneous forms of communication, like bird tracks or other natural patterns, that were closer to cosmic languages in which the Writ manifested. The “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” preserves many of these notions originally encountered in Weft Texts:

210 ︱ Conclusion

The Initial Sovereigns transformed [the world] without speech.44 The Middle Sovereigns taught by means of subtle speech. The Latter Sovereigns governed by tying knots in cords. Scholars studying the Nine Sovereigns should first study the Latter Three [Sovereigns]. They should be able to tie knots in cords. Next, they reach subtle speech. Then, they culminate in speechlessness and unite with the Dao.45 初皇不言為化。中皇微言以教。後皇結繩而治。學士諦識九皇先 學後三，須能結繩。次至微言，乃極無言，與道同矣。

The three stages of knots, subtle speech, and speechlessness correspond to progressive levels of initiation, but since the three groups of Three Sovereigns succeeded each other in transforming the world, they also double as stages of cosmogonic development. Other elements support the likelihood of the Writ and its associated sources having emerged from fangshi lore in general and the Weft Text tradition in particular. The ubiquity of the Great Unity (Taiyi 太 一 ) as a supreme deity, an object of meditation, or as a symbol for cosmological unity in sources from the Cavern of Divinity — rather than a divinized Laozi, more common in other Daoist corpora — is reflected in the Weft Texts as well.46 The Great Unity’s connection to imperial ideology can be traced to the Qin dynasty (221 BCE–206 CE) if not further back, but it found its fullest expression as the fulcrum of a new fangshi ritual model: under it, Emperor Wu of the Han periodically worshipped the deity, a divine embodiment of cosmological unity and, by extension, political unification. A passage from the “Feng and Shan Sacrifices” (Fengshan 封 禪 ) chapter of the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji 史 記 ) states that in addition to his biannual offerings to the Great Unity, Emperor Wu also performed a separate great sacrifice every three years to worship the gods of the Triple Unity (Sanyi 三 一 ): the Celestial Unity (Tianyi 天 一 ), the Earthly Unity (Diyi 地 一 ), and the Great Unity (Taiyi), deities otherwise known as the Three Sovereigns.47 By this time, the Three Sovereigns were perceived as cosmic (often astral) gods rather than semihistorical kingly ancestors.48 In the cult of the Great Unity and Triple Unity/Three Sovereigns, which exhibits many of the key conceptual elements of later sources from the Cavern of the Divinity, the emperor verti-

Conclusion ︱ 211

cally inserted himself into the divine hierarchy by consolidating his relation to supreme gods; no longer did rulers have to wait for death to be divinized through sacrifice. At the same time, the emperor horizontally extended his control over local subordinate gods, whom he could summon and control at will. In so doing, he effectively expanded political control over the same regions whose local gods fell under his ritual purview. The geopolitical and spiritual realms completely overlapped in this fangshi-inspired model of sovereignty, as did the human and the divine. With a fluid boundary between the celestial bureaucracy and imperial administration, the names of gods were more akin to impersonal official posts than to monikers of individual spiritual entities, and the highest official post in China — that of emperor — was also a divine office. As governing took on explicitly liturgical or sacerdotal functions, the fangshi were privileged delegates of gods and the emperor at once, all of whom operated in the same sacrificial hierarchy.49 Sima Qian 司 馬 遷 (145 or 135–87 BCE) and Kuang Heng 匡 衡 (first century BCE) laid the foundation for an alternative ritual system that neatly demarcated humankind and the divine and eventually supplanted that of the fangshi and its concept of sovereignty at court during the Later Han (25–220 CE).50 But the persistent fascination with Weft Texts, which reiterated the tenets of the emperor’s divinization and the imbrication of human and divine realms, was a sign that the ritual innovations of the fangshi retained popularity in some elite circles. They even endured after the fall of the Han: although the collapse of the state left it incapable of defending its citizens from epidemics, famine, warfare, and other misfortunes, its awesome administrative potency along with its unshakable faith in the bureaucratic virtues of the written word were salvaged and deployed by an alternative state.51 Emerging out of the fangshi milieux of the Later Han, communities of protoand early Daoists picked up where their forebears left off. The Celestial Masters figured prominently among these groups, as did others who defended the idea of a conjunction between the world of the humans and that of the supernatural via the common language of governance. Early cults to a divinized Laozi would have been counted among them since they equated Lord Lao (Laojun) with the Great Unity and the emperor,52 as would have

212 ︱ Conclusion

independent elite lineages of self-divinizers and immortality seekers, such as the Ge family. With the merging of these disparate communities and the codification of their scriptural corpora, Daoism returned to the court with the same message of unification crafted in an identical language of divine sovereignty as their fangshi predecessors. On more than one occasion, Daoist texts were presented to the court as dynastic treasures, tokens of celestial favor in support of the reigning ruler.53 Like those of Daoism, the fortunes of the Writ followed a sinusoid trajectory, with the scripture oscillating between exemplar of local lore and stanchion of state religion throughout its history. In a line that speaks to the interconnections between the world of fangshi and that of the Writ, Seidel reflects, “how difficult it may be to differentiate among the ancient dynastic treasures of the apocryphal [Weft Text] tradition, the proscribed prognostic diagrams and charts used in rebel movements and . . . the sacred scriptures and talismans of the Taoist religion.”54 The first goal of this study has been to provide a comprehensive picture of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns, a poorly understood and understudied scripture that played a key role in the emergence of integrated Daoism as an institutional religion and state cult. Each of the five chapters that make up this book provided a crucial aspect of the overall picture: the first chapter situated the Writ in its original local context, fourth- and fifthcentury Jiangnan; the second chapter pinpointed surviving fragments of its centerpiece talismans in canonical sources; the third chapter recognized overlooked facets of the Writ and its tradition, namely alchemy, the use of charts, and meditation; the fourth chapter considered the scripture’s relation to other corpora in the formative period that culminated in the development of the first Daoist Canon; and finally, the fifth chapter investigated the Writ’s liturgical dimension and its role as an ordination gage in the investiture ceremonies of institutional state Daoism. The second goal of this study has been to identify some of the elements that elicited interest from systematizers or the ruling elite and ensured the Writ’s perennity in the landscape of Chinese religions. This was accomplished by following a number of interwoven threads throughout the book’s chap-

Conclusion ︱ 213

ters, specifically the material dimension of the Writ and its talismans, their function as widely recognizable tokens of legitimacy, the accessibility and universality of their use, their pronounced political or juridical overtones, and the strong connotations of unification both with respect to the Chinese imperium and between the worldly and otherworldly. Many of these threads originated with the understanding that the border between the political sphere and the spiritual sphere is blurred, if not completely absent. In the incipient forms of Daoist ritual, the prelate’s role was unambiguously that of an imperial administrator operating in a celestial bureaucracy that shadowed the one earth. The talismans of the Writ were another, perhaps clearer expression of this understanding. Because of the superimposition of political and spiritual registers, the Writ’s fortune waxed when it was viewed as a product of regional lore that could serve greater designs, such as state sponsorship through institutionalization for Daoist systematizers and unification through supreme authority for rulers. The Writ’s fortunes waned when it grew too delocalized and became more accessible via the institutional networks it helped to forge. At that point, by the mid-seventh century, as the scripture’s subversive potential overshadowed its political expedience, it had to be quickly relocalized away from the metropolitan center. The fangshi’s trajectory centuries earlier from local lore to imperial ideology and back to local lore before returning once more to the imperial stage (under the guise of Daoism) presaged those of the Writ. After the proscription, the Writ and its Cavern of Divinity were revitalized on the margins of state Daoism, rising back to prominence in the Song and Ming dynasties. Daoism’s highly codified liturgical framework and its bureaucratized idiom of governance enabled its various dispensations to soak up vernacular gods and spirits from informal religious systems in order to repackage them as part of a unified pantheon. Every time the Writ dipped back down into the local, it surfaced re-energized and infused with new ideas to nourish the legitimacy of imperial orthodoxy. While the Writ undoubtedly contributed to the consolidation of centralized state power, it also promoted local culture, hoisting regional lore into the limelight, bringing visibility to what would have otherwise been

214 ︱ Conclusion

neglected traditions, and promoting their assimilation into metropolitan culture. Even in more recent times, Daoism and the Writ along with it have continued along this sine-wave path. In the late imperial period and especially since the middle of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912), Daoist proximity to the court weakened. While still couched in theocratic ideology and a rationale of unification, the religion reinvested its local networks, infusing small-town life on the periphery with bureaucratic imagery and imperial metaphors.55 Daoist ritual in particular generated shared cultural practices among very diverse communities; to some extent, it conditioned subjects to internalize the logic of imperial domination and to submit to a central authority, a dynamic that largely persists to this day.56 But at the same time, similarly to what the Writ accomplished in fourth-century Jiangnan, Daoist ritual provided local communities with independent access to theocratic legitimacy.57 What at first appears as a mere simulacrum of imperial ritual forms can turn into a valid alternative source of divine authority, constituting the basis for peripheral but equally empowering centers of sovereignty.

Appendix 1 List of Variant Titles for the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) in Early Medieval Sources

BH: Bo He’s version of the Sanhuang wen BJ: Bao Jing’s version of the Sanhuang wen BJ+BH: both Bo He and Bao Jing’s versions of the Sanhuang wen The absence of adjoining initials indicates the passage does not clearly or specifically refer to either Bo He or Bao Jing’s version. Sources are listed in approximate chronological order. Scroll and page/folio references appear in parentheses following the title, along with the number of occurrences if more than one. Taishang lingbao wufu xu 太 上 靈 寶 五 符 序 [Array of the five talismans of the Numinous Treasure]. Eastern Jin (265–420) or earlier. Daozang DZ 388. 三皇內文天文大字 (3.17b) BH Baopuzi neipian 抱朴子內篇 [The master who embraces simplicity: The inner chapters]. Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–343), 317, revised 330. 三皇文 (19.336 X2) BH 三皇內文 (18.323) 三皇內文 (4.70; 17.300; 19.333) BH 三皇天文 (15.272) 三皇內文天文 (19.333) BH 天文 (9.177; 15.271)

216 ︱ Appendix 1 天文大字 (17.308) BH

[ 三皇 ] 元文 (19.333) BJ Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞 神 八 帝 妙 精 經 [Scripture of the wondrous essence of the Eight Emperors]. Fifth or sixth century. Daozang DZ 640. 三皇文 (17a) BH 三皇內文 (32a) BJ 三皇天文 (16b) BH 三皇天文內大字 (12a) BH 三皇天文大字 (15b) BH 三皇文及大字 (30b) BH 天文三皇大字 (31a) BH 天文大字 (32a) BH 三皇大字 (32a X2) BH 天文 (16b X2; 30a) BH 大字 (17a) BH 大有經 (31b) BJ 小有經 (31b) BH 大有經 (32a X2) BJ 小有 [ 天 / 宮 ] 文 (32a) BH 大有 [ 天 / 宮 ] 文 (32a) BJ 西城要訣 (12a) BH 王君施行 (29a) BH 鮑公內經 (29a) BJ 鮑先生節解 (32a) BJ “*Taogong chuanshou yi” 陶公傳授儀 [Lord Tao’s protocols for transmission and reception]. Tao Hongjing 陶 弘 景 (456–536). Dunhuang manuscripts S.6301, S.3750, BD11252, and P.2559. Stein Collection British Library, National Library of China, and Collection Pelliot Bibliothèque Nationale de France. [ 三皇內文 ] 天皇內文，地皇內文，人皇內文 (P.2559.724 l.119 — 120) BJ 天文大字 (P.2559.724 l.120) BH 西城施行 (P.2559.724 l.99) BH

Appendix 1 ︱ 217

“Sanhuang yaoyong pin” 三 皇 要 用 品 (Essential functions of the Three Sovereigns), in Wushang biyao 無 上 祕 要 [Unsurpassed secret essentials], chapter 25. Circa 580. Daozang DZ 1138. [ 三皇文 ] 天皇文，地皇文，人皇文 (3a; 5b; 7a) BJ 三皇天文大字 (1b) BH 天文字 (1b) BH 天文 (2a X2; 5a; 6b; 7a; 7b; 9b) BH 大字 (8b); (9b) BH Taishang dongshen sanhuang yi 太 上 洞 神 三 皇 儀 [Protocols of the Three Sovereigns]. Late Sui or early Tang. Daozang DZ 803. 三皇文 (6a) 三皇天文 (1a; 5b) [ 三皇文 ] 天皇內學字，地皇內記經文，人皇內文 (7a–12a) BJ 三皇天文大字 (5a) BH Taishang dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi 太上洞神三皇傳授儀 [Transmission protocols of the Three Sovereigns]. Late Sui or early Tang. Daozang DZ 1284. 三皇寶文 (13a) BJ 皇文大字 (13a) BH Dongxuan lingbao sandong fengdao kejie yingshi 洞 玄 靈 寳 三 洞 奉 道 科 戒 營 始 [Regulations for honoring the Dao in accordance with the scriptures of the Three Caverns]. Jinming Qizhen 金 明 七 真 (fl. 545–554). Sixth or early seventh century. Daozang DZ 1125. [ 三皇文 ] 天皇內學文，地皇記書丈，人皇內文 (4.7b) BJ 三皇天文大字 (4.7b) BH Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüe shuo 傳 授 三 洞 經 戒 法 籙 略 說 [Short exposition on the transmission of the scriptures, precepts, and liturgical registers of the Three Caverns]. Zhang Wanfu 張 萬 福 (fl. 710–713). 713. Daozang DZ 1241.

218 ︱ Appendix 1 三皇內文 (1.7a) BJ 三皇大字 (1.7a) BH

Yunji qiqian 雲 笈 七 籤 [Seven writing-slips from the bookcase of the clouds]. Zhang Junfang 張君房 (fl. 1008–1029), ca. 1028. Daozang DZ 1032. 三皇文 (4.11a; 6.5b; 6.12a) BJ 三皇文 ( 天皇文內字，地皇內記書文，人皇文 ) (6.10a; 6.10b) 三皇內文 (6.5b; 6.11b) BJ 1 三皇天文 (6.5b) BJ 三皇天文 (6.10a; 7.8b; 9.13b) 三皇天文大字 (79.16a) BH 三皇內文大字 (100.27a) 三皇經 (4.10a X2; 4.10b; 6.10b; 6.12a; 7.6a; 41.3b) 三皇內經 (3.13b; 3.15b X2; 3.17b X2; 3.18b X2) 小有三皇文 (6.5b; 6.11a) BH 大有 [ 三皇文 ] (6.5b; 6.11a) BJ 大有經 (32.4; 35.b) 小有經 (6.11; 9.9; 32.6a; 32.8b) 鮑南海序目 (10b; 11a) BJ

Appendix 2 Synopsis of the Principal Six Dynasties Sources Containing Fragments of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen) and Its Oral Instructions

Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞 神 八 帝 妙 精 經 [Scripture of the wondrous essence of the Eight Emperors]. Fifth or sixth century. Daozang DZ 640. 32 folios. This text is composed of seven sections with illustrations of talismans and meditation aids. 1. “Zhai chi bajie fa” 齋 持 八 戒 法 (Ritual of the purification rite for maintaining the eight precepts”) (1a–2b). This opening section consists of the Sanhuang purification rite that precedes the transmission of methods and other materials. The passage notably discusses the eight precepts (bajie 八 戒 ) and the eight failures (babai 八 敗 ) that arise from failing to maintain the precepts. 2. “Sanhuang sanyi jing” 三 皇 三 一 經 (Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on [maintaining] the Triple Unity) (2a–4b). This section details a visualization method on the Triple Unity (sanyi 三 一 ), hypostases of the god Taiyi 太 一 , the Great Unity, in the three cinnabar fields (dantian 丹 田 ) of the body. The text draws parallels between the meditation on one hand and procreative and gestational processes on the other. This section is likely a sizable fragment of the lost Huangren shou sanyi jing 皇 人 守 三 一 經 (Scripture of the Sovereign on maintaining the Triple Unity) meditation manual, a locus classicus for

220 ︱ Appendix 2

Maintaining the True Unity (shou zhenyi 守 真 一 ) contemplations. A similar passage to this one occurs in chapter 25 of the Laozi zhongjing from Yunji qiqian (DZ 1032), 18.20ab, and Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu (DZ 1330), 26a–27b. 3. “Yangge jiuzhang” 陽 歌 九 章 (Yang hymns in nine verses) (4b–6a). This segment contains nine verses addressed to Imperial Sovereigns of the Nine Heavens (Jiutian dihuang 九 天 帝 皇 ) and their emissaries, the divine youths (shentong 神 童 ). These must be intoned in preparation for the visualization practice described in the following section. 4. “Jiuhuang tu” 九 皇 圖 (Charts of the Nine Sovereigns) (6a–10a). This section is an iconographic guide for visualizing the Nine Sovereigns: the Three Initial, Three Middle, and Three Latter Sovereigns. The gods are manifestations of the Great Unity across different spatial and temporal planes. The charts (tu) of their likenesses are early transmission gages for the Sanhuang wen, appearing as ancillary materials as early as the fourth century. 5. “Zhao zhen[shen] jiangling [guan] fu” 招 真 [ 神 ] 降 靈 [ 官 ] 符 (Talismans for summoning the true [spirits] and making the numinous [officers] descend) (10a–12a). The first half of this section (10a–11a) introduces three talismans for summoning the true spirits of the Three Sovereigns. Detailed ritual directions complement reproductions of the talismans in question. The second half of the section (11b–12a) contains a Talisman for Ascending to Heaven (shengtian fu 昇 天 符 ) along with instructions for its application. The instructions notably mention two alchemical figures, Wei Shuqing and Li Shaojun, both from the second century BCE. This item is also most likely part of the ancillary talismans handed down with the Sanhuang wen as transmission gages. 6. “Xicheng yaojue sanhuang tianwen dazi” 西城要訣三皇天文大字 (Essential instructions from the Western Citadel on the Great characters in celestial script of the Three Sovereigns) (12a–29b). This is the core section of the Badi

Appendix 2 ︱ 221

miaojing jing around which the other materials accrued. While segments such as the “Sanhuang sanyi jing” appear fragmentary or abridged, the “Xicheng yaojue sanhuang tianwen dazi” is comparatively lengthy, complete, and internally coherent from beginning to end. The text is presented as the original Sanhuang wen along with the oral instructions that Bo He obtained from Lord Wang of the Western Citadel. The latter are composed of ritual directions on how to use the talismans, but also prefatory material and discursive commentaries. In this incarnation, the Sanhuang wen consists of ninety-two talismans, the so-called Tianwen dazi. These are reproduced, but the illustrations date from the Ming dynasty. The “Xicheng yaojue” appears to combine the talismans from Bo He’s version of the scripture, the Xiaoyou jing, with those from Bao Jing’s version, the Dayou jing. Nevertheless, the instructions, commentaries, and introductory materials reflect Bo He’s transmission. This section is subdivided into a number of distinct segments without headings. Section A (12a–13b): This portion of the text functions as a prologue. After a brief exposition of Sanhuang cosmology, Bo He also relates how he obtained the Sanhuang wen from Lord Wang. A discussion of the moral prerequisites and mental fortitude expected of adepts follows. Thirteen interdictions (shisan jin 十三禁 ) are listed in this context. Section B (14a–15a): This subsection introduces a series of alchemical methods and meditation techniques. The first alchemical method, also encountered in Lingbao wufu xu (DZ 388), 2.19a, is concerned with the ingestion of the herb gelsemium (gouwen 鉤 吻 ); the second technique, entitled Minor Elixir Recipe (xiao danfa 小 丹 法 ), involves realgar (xionghuang 雄 黄 ) and cypress seeds (bozi 柏 子 ). A third method, Another Minor Elixir Recipe (youxiao danfa 又 小 丹 法 ), makes use of realgar, mineral cinnabar (dansha 丹 砂 ), and quicksilver (shuiyin 水 銀 ). It shares a number of points with an alchemical recipe from the Baopuzi, 4.86. The last method discussed, the Method for Detaining Cloudsouls (juhun fa 拘 魂 法 ), is a visualization technique based on the absorption of astral essences, as encountered in Lingbao wufu xu (DZ 388), 1.18b–19b and chapter 11 of the Laozi zhongjing from Yunji qiqian (DZ 1032), 18.7ab.

222 ︱ Appendix 2

Section C (15a–17a): This segment relates in great detail the exchange that occurred between Bo He and Lord Wang on Mount Xicheng, culminating in the transmission of alchemical sources and the Sanhuang wen. It emphasizes secrecy and the purification rite as key components of initiation. The passage ends with an elaborate exhortation against misdeeds and breaching ritual prohibitions. Section D (17a–28b): This is a list of ninety-two talismans from the two versions of the Sanhuang wen. Reproductions of the talismans along with some oral instructions for their application are provided: at minimum, the name of the summoned deity and the number of constituent celestial characters for its true name talisman are listed. Section E (29a–29b): The last subsection of the “Xicheng yaojue” begins with an annotation that contrasts Bao Jing’s version of the Sanhuang wen to Lord Wang’s [and Bo He’s], constituting proof of the composite nature of the list of talismans from the previous section. Subsequent lines are devoted to further procedural notes on the writing of talismans for the purpose of summoning deities, and specifications on proper decorum when in the presence of summoned deities. 7. “Baopu miyan” 抱 朴 密 言 (Secret words of [the Master] who Embraces Simplicity) (29b–32a). This final section contains two distinct narrative threads. In the first (29b–30b), Ge Hong candidly relates his experience with using the Sanhuang wen to summon deities. In the second (30b–32a), Bao Jing briefly discusses the importance of precepts and ritual observances when using the Sanhuang wen for summoning. He then proceeds to elaborate on the origins of the scripture and its different versions. This and the first section (on maintaining the eight precepts), make up the most recent layer of the Badi miaojing jing. They were visibly added to earlier materials at a time when standardized ordination and transmission protocols were becoming a requirement for canonization, in other words, between the late fifth and late sixth centuries. “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” 三 皇 要 用 品 (Essential functions of the Three

Appendix 2 ︱ 223

Sovereigns), in Wushang biyao, chapter 25. Circa 580. Daozang DZ 1138. 10 folios. The “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” is a record of the Sanhuang wen, largely but not exclusively based on Bao Jing’s version of the scripture. It has no illustrations but preserves some oral instructions. These primarily address the ritual requirements for individual talismans. The names of the summoned deities and the number of constituent celestial script graphs is provided for each of the sixty-one talismans it contains. The chapter is divided into eight titled sections corresponding to eight groups of talismans. Section A: “Tianwen dazi” 天 文 大 字 (Great characters in celestial script [of the Three Sovereigns]) (1a–3a). The title of the first section is missing, but it can be reconstructed as above. The section opens with a short introduction and then presents sixteen talismans, with little or no instructions, composed of 171 characters. The talismans in this section constitute a partial inventory of Bo He’s version of the Sanhuang wen, also known as the Tianwen dazi. The eighth and last section (Section H) of the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin,” described below, is the second part of the present section. Section B: “Tianhuang wen diyi fa” 天 皇 文 第 一 法 (First method: Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven) (3a–5b). The second section lists fourteen talismans in 192 characters. The talismans correspond to Bao Jing’s version of the “Tianhuang wen,” the first of the Sanhuang wen’s three scrolls. There is some overlap with the talismans of Bo He’s version from the previous section. Section C: “Dihuang wen di er fa” 地皇文第二法 (Second method: Writ of the Sovereign of Earth) (5b–7a). The third section lists fourteen talismans made up of 164 characters, with instructions. The talismans correspond to Bao Jing’s version of the “Dihuang wen,” the second of the Sanhuang wen’s three scrolls. Section D: “Renhuang wen disan fa” 人 皇 文 第 三 法 (Third method: Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind) (7a–7b). The fourth section lists five talismans totaling sixty characters. Some instructions are appended. The talismans correspond to Bao Jing’s version of the “Renhuang wen,” the third of the Sanhuang wen’s three scrolls. Section E: “Sanhuang neiyin” 三 皇 內 音 (Esoteric sounds of the Three Sovereigns) (7a–9a). The fifth section contains five talismans representing the

224 ︱ Appendix 2

true names (zhenming 真 名 ) or “esoteric sounds” (neiyin) of deities. These are part of the transmission gages handed down with the Sanhuang wen. The instructions are detailed but end abruptly. Section F: “Sanhuang neishu miwen” 三 皇 內 書 祕 文 (Secret writ on the esoteric writing of the Three Sovereigns) (9a). The sixth section contains the second half of the instructions to the last of five talismans from the previous section (Section E). No new talismans are listed. Section G: “Sanhuang zhuanwen” 三 皇 傳 文 (Writ on the transmission of the Three Sovereigns) (9a–9b). The seventh section holds two more talismans and their instructions. These are also part of the ancillary talismans that function as transmission gages. Section H: “Dazi xiapian fu” 大 字 下 篇 符 (Talismans from the latter chapter of the Great Characters) (9b–10b). The eighth and last section of the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” contains nine talismans with some instructions. The talismans of this section are misplaced, as they should sequentially follow those from the first section of the text (Section A). Together, the twenty-five talismans of the “Tianwen dazi” section and the present “Dazi xiapian fu” constitute a substantial part of Bo He’s Sanhuang wen, otherwise known as the Tianwen dazi.

Appendix 3 Comparative List of Talismans from the “Essential Instructions from the Western Citadel on the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns”(Xicheng yaojue sanhuang tianwen dazi) and the “Essential functions of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang yaoyong pin)

In the following table, the left-hand column itemizes the deities summoned with the ninety-two talismans of the “Xicheng yaojue” from Dongshen badi miaojing jing (Scripture of the wondrous essence of the Eight Emperors; DZ 640), 12a–29b. They are listed in order of their appearance in the text and numbered from one to ninety-two. The true names (zhenming) depicted by the talismans appear in parentheses when these are different from the summoned deity and when provided. The column on the right records the corresponding deities from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” in the Wushang biyao (Unsurpassed secret essentials; DZ 1138), 25.1a–10b. In some cases, multiple deities correspond to a single talisman from the “Xicheng yaojue,” or vice versa, a single talisman from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” may be connected to multiple talismans or deities from the “Xicheng yaojue.” All deities are listed when a talisman from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” summons more than one deity (even if those deities are not related to the corresponding talisman from the “Xicheng yaojue”). When supplied, true names appear in parentheses. The title of the section from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” in which the talisman occurs is provided in brackets along with their assigned number in that section. An identification with either the Bo He (BH) or Bao Jing (BJ) version of the Sanhuang wen is included for talismans in the right-hand column.

226 ︱ Appendix 3

Out of the fifty-eight talismans in the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin,” only one––talisman 13 from the “Tianwen dazi” 天 文 大 字 section (section A), which summons Laozi 老 子 (or Laopeng 老 彭 )––does not find an equivalent or parent in the “Xicheng yaojue.” List of Talismans from the “Xicheng yaojue,” Badi miaojing jing, 17a–28b

Corresponding or Associated Talismans from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin,” Wushang biyao, 25.1a–10b

1. 高士太和 ( 高上名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 高上 [“ 天皇文”3] BJ 高上太和 ( 高上名 ) [“ 大字下篇符”1] BH

2. 司命 ( 天皇名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 司命 [“ 天皇文”6] BJ 司命 ( 天皇上名 ) [“ 大字下篇符”2] BH 司命 , 司錄 , 太一 , 天一 [“ 人皇文”2] BJ

3. 司錄 ( 高天名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 司祿 [“ 天皇文”7] BJ 司錄 ( 高天名 )
 [“ 大字下篇符 ” 3] BH 司命 , 司錄 , 太一 , 天一 [“ 人皇文”2] BJ

4. 司陰 ( 太上名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 司陰 [“ 地皇文”3] BJ 司陰 ( 太上名 ) [“ 大字下篇符”4] BH

5. 司危 ( 皇天名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 司危 [“ 天皇文”8] BJ 司危 ( 皇天名 ) [“ 大字下篇符”5] BH

6. 天神 ( 蒼天名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 天神 [“ 天皇文”2] BJ 山神 ( 蒼天名 ) [“ 大字下篇符”6] BH

7. 河伯 ( 高皇名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 河伯 ( 高皇名 ) [“ 大字下篇符”7] BH 河侯君 [“ 天文大字”15] BH

8. 大丞相 ( 上帝名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 天丞相 [“ 天皇文”9] BJ 天丞相 ( 上帝名 ) [“ 大字下篇符”8] BH

9. 九天父母 ( 天帝名 )

九天之名 [“ 天文大字”16] BH 天帝 [“ 天皇文”1] BJ 九天父母 ( 天帝名 ) [“ 大字下篇符”9] BH

Appendix 3 ︱ 227

List of Talismans from the “Xicheng yaojue,” Badi miaojing jing, 17a–28b

Corresponding or Associated Talismans from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin,” Wushang biyao, 25.1a–10b

10. 六丁

六丁 [“ 天皇文 ” 10] BJ 百鬼制六丁 [“ 人皇文 ” 1] BJ

11. 日月將軍

日月將軍父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 14] BH 日月將軍 [“ 天皇文”11] BJ

12. 日遊

日遊 [“ 天皇文 ” 13] BJ

13. 蜚廉

飛廉 [“ 天皇文 ” 12] BJ

14. 天御史

御史 [“ 天皇文 ” 14] BJ

15. 社公

社公 [“ 地皇文”2] BJ

16. 土公

土公 [“ 地皇文”1]

17. 阡陌亭長

阡陌亭長 [“ 地皇文”4] BJ

18. 百邪之長

門丞戶尉 , 百邪之長 [“ 地皇文”5] BJ

19. 門丞戶尉

門丞戶尉 , 百邪之長 [“ 地皇文”5] BJ

20. 百蛇之精

蛇虺蟲鼠 [“ 地皇文”7] BJ

21. 河中童 22. 太一

太一君 [“ 天皇文”4] BJ 司命 , 司錄 , 太一 , 天一 [“ 人皇文”2] BJ

23. 天一

天神 [“ 天皇文”2] BJ 司命 , 司錄 , 太一 , 天一 [“ 人皇文”2] BJ

24. 魂神魄鬼

家中魂魄鬼 , 八獄吏 [“ 人皇文”4] BJ

25. 百鳥之精

百烏 [“ 地皇文 ” 6] BJ

26. 地中百精之神

地中百精 [“ 人皇文 ” 3] BJ

27. 九天錄史

九天錄吏 [“ 人皇文 ” 5] BJ

28. 九天扶命

九天校事 , 刺姦吏 [“ 天文大字”1] BH

29. 北斗 30. 南斗 31. 百里精 32. 東嶽君

東嶽 [“ 地皇文 ” 12] BJ

228 ︱ Appendix 3

List of Talismans from the “Xicheng yaojue,” Badi miaojing jing, 17a–28b

Corresponding or Associated Talismans from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin,” Wushang biyao, 25.1a–10b

33. 西嶽君

西嶽 [“ 地皇文”8] BJ

34. 南嶽君

南嶽 [“ 地皇文 ” 10] BJ

35. 北嶽君

北嶽 [“ 地皇文 ” 9] BJ

36. 中嶽君

中嶽 [“ 地皇文 ” 11] BJ

37. 四瀆夫人

四瀆 [“ 地皇文 ” 13] BJ

38. 河中夫人 39. 六甲父母 40. 北君

北君父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字”6] BH 北君 [“ 天皇文”5] BJ

41. 南海夫人 42. 高仙君 43. 平山大王 44. 蓬萊地主 45. 高仙玉女 46. 王母

西王母 [“ 天文大字”11] BH

47. 衡山世子 48. 都官司命夫人

都宮司命
 [“ 天文大字 ” 12] BH

49. 九天父母之世種

九天父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字”3] BH

50. 黃山大伯中明子 51. 鬼使 52. 虎豹之精

三河 , 百獸麒麟之所主 [“ 地皇文”14] BJ

53. 百草之精 54. 百木之精 55. 河中將軍 56. 海中三大夫 57. 源瀆攝都尉

河侯君 [“ 天文大字”15] BH

Appendix 3 ︱ 229

List of Talismans from the “Xicheng yaojue,” Badi miaojing jing, 17a–28b

Corresponding or Associated Talismans from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin,” Wushang biyao, 25.1a–10b

58. 北斗父母 59. 西嶽父母

五帝父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 4] BH 五嶽父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 7] BH

60. 東嶽父母

五帝父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 4] BH 五嶽父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 7] BH

61. 南嶽父母

五帝父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 4] BH 五嶽父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 7] BH

62. 北嶽父母

五帝父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 4] BH 五嶽父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 7] BH

63. 中嶽父母

五帝父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 4] BH 五嶽父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 7] BH

64. 四瀆父母

四瀆父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 8] BH

65. 三河父母

三河父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 9] BH 三河 , 百獸麒麟之所主 [“ 地皇文”14] BJ

66. 九江夫人 67. 天門吏

天丞相 [“ 天皇文”9] BJ

68. 百靈魃鬽 69. 三公父母

三公父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字”10] BH

70. 東王父

東王父 [“ 天文大字”12] BH

71. 天皇君 72. 人皇君 73. 地皇君 74. 九都仙伯 75. 太山君王 76. 天帝遊女 77. 東越三王 78. 洛水將軍 79. 地胇丈人

天帝 [“ 天皇文”1] BJ

230 ︱ Appendix 3

List of Talismans from the “Xicheng yaojue,” Badi miaojing jing, 17a–28b

Corresponding or Associated Talismans from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin,” Wushang biyao, 25.1a–10b

80. 土地百鬼師

百鬼制六丁 [“ 人皇文 ” 1] BJ

81. 土地百傷 82. 玉女子安 83. 高皇太祖 84. 高上聖母

高上 [“ 天皇文”3] BJ

85. 司陰世祖

司陰 [“ 地皇文 ” 3] BJ

86. 西海趙夫人 87. 九炁丈人 88. 正一功曹 89. 西嶽世子

西嶽 [“ 地皇文”8]
BJ　

90. 太一丈人

太一父母夫人女 [“ 天文大字 ” 5] BH 司命 , 司錄 , 太一 , 天一 [“ 人皇文”2] BJ

91. 七世祖父母 92. 咤水王 , 南嶽郎

南嶽 [“ 地皇文 ” 10] BJ

Appendix 4 Comparative Inventory of Transmission Gages Associated with the Writ of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang wen)

The inventory of talismanic transmission gages from the Dongxuan lingbao sandong fengdao kejie yingshi 洞 玄 靈 寳 三 洞 奉 道 科 戒 營 始 (Regulations for honoring the Dao in accordance with the scriptures of the Three Caverns) is the most complete and elaborate surviving specimen. Accordingly it is used as the control source or baseline reference for comparison to other inventories. The Dunhuang version (P.2337) of the text contains three fewer documents than the canonical version. In total, twenty-eight consecutively numbered talismans or texts are listed in the inventory from the Sandong fengdao kejie yingshi. Corresponding documents from other inventories are listed according to the numbers and order from the Sandong fengdao kejie yingshi in each case, but they are sometimes listed under their variant titles depending on the source. If the transmission gages are listed as a group, the page reference for that source is provided immediately after the opening bibliographic information. Alternatively, if references to transmission materials are isolated or scattered throughout a text, the page reference is provided in parentheses after the title of the document. Additional documents that are absent from the baseline inventory from the Sandong fengdao kejie yingshi but consistently appear in other (often earlier) inventories are listed as “Additional Transmission Materials” (a) through (e) under the relevant source. Cross-references to other inventories are provided when available.

232 ︱ Appendix 4

Dongxuan lingbao sandong fengdao kejie yingshi 洞 玄 靈 寳 三 洞 奉 道 科 戒 營 始 [Regulations for honoring the Dao in accordance with the scriptures of the Three Caverns]. Jinming Qizhen 金 明 七 真 (fl. 545–554). Sixth or early seventh century. Daozang DZ 1125, 4.7b. 1. 金剛童子籙 2. 竹使符 3. 普下版 4. 三皇內精符 5. 三皇內真諱 6. 九天發兵符 7. 天水飛騰符 8. 八帝靈書內文 9. 黃帝丹書內文 10. 八成五勝十三符 11. 八史籙 12. 東西二禁 13. 三皇三戒五戒八戒文 14. 天皇內學文 15. 地皇記書文 16. 人皇內文 17. 三皇天文大字 18. 黃女神符 19. 三將軍圖 20. 九皇圖 21. 昇天券 22. 三皇傳版 23. 三皇真形內諱版 24. 三皇三一真形內諱版 25. 三皇九天真符契令 26. 三皇印 27. 三皇玉券 28. 三皇表鞶帶

Appendix 4 ︱ 233

Taishang dongshen sanhuang yi 太 上 洞 神 三 皇 儀 [Protocols of the Three Sovereigns]. Late Sui or early Tang. Daozang DZ 803, 7a–12a. 1. 童子籙 2. 竹使符 4. 祝內精符 5. 三皇內諱板 6. 九天發兵 [ 符 ] 7. 飛騰符 8. 靈書內文 9. 丹書內文 10. 八威五勝十三符 14. 天皇內學字 15. 地皇內記經文 16. 人皇內文 17. 三皇天文大字 18. 黃女神符 19. 三皇將軍 20. 九皇圖 21. 昇天券 23. 三皇內諱板 24. 三一內諱板 25. 九天符契 26. 九天印 27. 三皇券文 ( 玉券 ) Taishang dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi 太上洞神三皇傳授儀 [Transmission Protocols of the Three Sovereigns]. Late Sui or early Tang. Daozang DZ 1284, 13a. 1. 童子籙 2. 符使符 3. 普下版 6. 九天符

234 ︱ Appendix 4

7. 天水符 8. 靈書 9. 丹書 10. 八威五勝符 14–16. 三皇寶文 17. 皇文大字 18. 黃女符 20. 九皇圖 21. 昇天符 22. 傳版 24. 三一真形 25. 符契 26. 三皇越章印 27. 券文 28. 鞶帶 Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüe shuo 傳 授 三 洞 經 戒 法 籙 略 說 [Short exposition on the transmission of the scriptures, precepts, and liturgical registers of the Three Caverns]. Zhang Wanfu 張 萬 福 (fl. 710–713). 713. Daozang DZ 1241, 1.7a. 1. 金剛童子籙 3. 普下版 24. 三一真諱 19. 三將軍圖 20. 九皇圖 14–16. 三皇內文 17. 三皇大字 Dongshen badi miaojing jing 洞 神 八 帝 妙 精 經 [Scripture of the wondrous essence of the Eight Emperors]. Fifth or sixth century. Daozang DZ 640. 13. 八戒 (1a–2b) 14–16. 三皇文 (12a–29b)

Appendix 4 ︱ 235

17. 三皇天文大字 (12a–29b) 20. 九皇圖 (6a–10a) 21. 昇天符 (11b–12a) 23. 招真降靈符 (10a–11a) 24. 三皇三一經 (2b–4b) “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” 三 皇 要 用 品 (Essential functions of the Three Sovereigns), in Wushang biyao 無 上 祕 要 [Unsurpassed secret essentials], chapter 25. Circa 580. Daozang DZ 1138. 6. 九天發兵內符 (25.8a) 7. 天水飛騰內符 (25.8b) 14–16. 三皇文 (25.3a–7b; 9b–10b) 17. 三皇天文大字 (25.1a–3a; 9b–10b) 21. 神仙昇天大券文 (25.8b–9a) Additional Transmission Materials: (a) 金光自來內音符 (25.8a), see Baopuzi, 19.335, for a 自 來 符 and a 金 光 符 ; (b) 朱 官 青 胎 之 符 (25.7b–8a), see Baopuzi, 17.300, for a 朱 官 印 and 19.335 for a 朱 胎 符 , see also “*Taogong chuanshou yi,” P.2559.724 l.100 and l.120 for a 青 胎 ; (c) 五 嶽 陰 符 (25.9b), compare to 五嶽真形圖 ; (d) 太上長存符 (25.9b). “*Taogong chuanshou yi” 陶 公 傳 授 儀 [Lord Tao’s protocols for transmission and reception]. Tao Hongjing 陶 弘 景 (456–536). Dunhuang manuscripts S.6301, S.3750, BD11252, and P.2559. Stein Collection British Library, National Library of China, and Collection Pelliot Bibliothèque Nationale de France. 2. 竹使符 (P.2559.723 l.82) 12. 三五之符 , 西嶽公禁山符 (S.3750.721 l.3–4) 14. 天皇內文 (P.2559.724 l.119–120) 15. 地皇內文 (P.2559.724 l.119–120) 16. 人皇內文 (P.2559.724 l.119–120) 17. 西城施行 / 天文大字 (P.2559.724 l.100/ l.120)

236 ︱ Appendix 4

Additional Transmission Materials: (b) 青 胎 (P.2559.724 l.100; l.120), see Baopuzi, 19.335, for a 朱 胎 符 (and 17.300 for the related 朱 官 印 ); see also “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” in Wushang biyao, 25.7b–8a, for a 朱 官 青 胎 之 符 ; (e) 監 乾 眾 符 (P.2559.724 l.120), see Baopuzi, 19.335, for a 監 乾 符 , and Wushang biyao, 5.7a–8a, and 42.6a–7a, for citations from a 洞神監乾經 . Baopuzi neipian 抱朴子內篇 [The master who embraces simplicity: The inner chapters]. Ge Hong 葛洪 (283–343), 317, revised 330. 2. 竹使符 (17.308; 20.349–50) 4. 五精符 , 玄精符 (19.335) 6. 九天發兵符 (19.335) 7. 天水符 (17.308; 19.333) 天水神符 (19.335) 8. 九靈符 (19.335) 9. 黃帝符 (19.335) 10. 八威五勝符 (17.313; 19.335) 11. 八史圖 (19.333); 八卦符 (19.335) 12. 三五禁 , 西嶽公禁山符 (17.313) 14–17. 三皇內文 (19.333) 18. 黃神越章之印 (17.313) 採女符 (19.335) 19. ( 三部將軍 [ 符 ] [17.308]) ( 少千三十六將軍符 [19.335]) 21. 昇天儀 (19.333) 25. 九天符 (19.335) Additional Transmission Materials: (a) 自來符 , 金光符 19.335, see “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” in Wushang biyao, 25.8a, for a 金 光 自 來 內 音 符 ; (b) 朱 官 印 17.300, also 朱 胎 符 19.335, see “*Taogong chuanshou yi,” P.2559.724 l.100, and l.120, for a 青 胎 , and “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” in Wushang biyao, 25.7b–8a, for a 朱 官青胎之符 ; (e) 監乾符 19.335, see Taogong chuanshou yi, P.2559.724 l.120, for a 監 乾 眾 符 , and Wushang biyao, 5.7a–8a, and 42.6a– 7a, for citations from a 洞神監乾經 .

Notes

Introduction 1

三皇經文字既不可傳。又語涉妖妄宜並除之。即以老子道德經替處。有諸道觀及 以 百 姓 人 間 有 此 文 者。並 勒 送 省 除 毀 ; Fayuan zhulin (T. 2122), 55.708a, compiled

in 688 by Daoshi 道 世 . The complete passage is reproduced in Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 76–77. A substantial paraphrase can be found in Barrett, Taoism under the T’ang: Religion and Empire during the Golden Age of Chinese History, 23–25. 2

凡諸侯有此文者。必為國王。大夫有此文者。為人父母。庶人有此文者。錢財自 聚。婦人有此文者。必為皇后 ; Fayuan zhulin, 55.708a.

3 The Ji gujin fodao lunheng 集古今佛道論衡 (Collectanea of former and current weighted debates between Buddhism and Daoism; T. 2104), 3.386c, compiled by Daoxuan 道 宣 (596–667), contains a shorter account of the events; it dates the prison inspection to the tenth month of 648, a few months later than the Fayuan zhulin. This offsets the chain of events and pushes the actual proscription into 649 of the Gregorian calendar. 4

In the Tang, one mu was equivalent to 6.6 acres; hence, thirty mu roughly correspond to two hundred acres. For the existence of Tang statutes granting land rights to the clergy, and this report in particular, see Shigenoi, Todai bukkyō shiron, 131–136.

5

Fayuan zhulin, 55.708a.

6 Barrett, Taoism under the T’ang, 13–21, especially 19–21; see also Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, 11–27. 7

京城道士等。當時懼怕畏廢蔭田。私憑奏官請將老子道德經替處 ; Fayuan zhulin,

55.107a. On the Daode jing’s role in ordination rituals, see Barrett, Taoism under the T’ang, 25; Chen, Daozang yuanliu kao, 469; and Yoshioka, Dōkyō to Bukkyō, vol. 3, 161–219. 8

See Tsuchiya, “Chōan no Taisei kan no dōshi to sono dōkyō; Shi Chongxuan to Zhang Wanfu o chūshin ni,” 124–127.

238 ︱ Notes to Pages 3–6 9

Emperor Taizong’s volte-face with respect to Daoists and his sudden appreciation for Buddhism during the last stages of his life (probably as a result of Xuanzang’s 玄 奘 [602– 664] direct influence) is documented in Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, 11–27.

10

See details and textual references in Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, 16–17. On the dangers of reading religious motivations behind political insurrections, see Espesset, “Local Resistance in Early Medieval Chinese Historiography and the Problem of Religious Overinterpretation.”

11

Xu gaoseng zhuan 續高僧傳 (Continued biographies of eminent monks; T. 2060) 4.455bc; cited in Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, 25.

12

Ji gujin fodao lunheng, 3.386c; Robinet, Les commentaires du Tao tö king jusqu’au VIIe siècle, 104, briefly discusses Cheng Xuanying.

13

Fo yijiao jing 佛 遺 教 經 (Scripture of the teaching left behind by the Buddha; T. 389), 1110c; the scripture’s full title is Fo chui ban niepan luëshuo jiaojie jing 佛 垂 般 涅 槃 略 說 教誡經 (Scripture on the abbreviated instructions of the Buddha on perfect nirvana).

14

Tang lü shuyi 唐 律 疏 議 (Discursive commentary on the Tang legal code), 9.12a, cited in Weinstein, Buddhism under the T’ang, 20 and 157 n. 48.

15

Fayuan zhulin, 55.703ab; cf. Ji gujin fodao lunheng, 3.386ab, which emphasizes the illegitimate nature of the Daoist scripture. For a list of Buddhist texts that were modified and reprinted in the Daoist Canon, see Kamata Shigeo, Dōzō nai bukkyō shisō shiryō shūsei.

16

晉 元 康 中。鮑 靖 造 三 皇 經 被 誅。事 在 晉 史 ; Erjiao lun 二 教 論 (Treatise on the two

teachings; 569) in Daoxuan’s Guang hongming ji 廣 弘 明 集 (Expanded collection for the spread of the [Buddhist] light; T. 2103), 8.141b. The dates proposed in the Erjiao lun match the chronology of Bao Jing’s revelation on Mount Song, on which see chapter 1. See also Despeux, “La culture lettrée au service d’un plaidoyer pour le bouddhisme. Le ‘Traité des deux doctrines,’ (‘Erjiao lun,’) de Dao’an”; she translates the relevant passage on 209 of her work. 17 See Erjiao lun, 8.141b; Bao Jing’s biography in the Jinshu 晉 書 (History of the Jin dynasty) does, however, mention the strange circumstances that led to another execution, that of Wang Ji:    At the time that Wang Ji was Regional Inspector of Guangzhou, he entered the toilet and suddenly noticed two people dressed in black robes. They struggled with Ji, and [after] a long time he caught them but [it turned out that] he obtained two creatures that appeared to be black ducks. [He inquired about this to Bao Jing.] Jing answered: “These creatures are inauspicious.” And so Ji burned them, but they shot up straight to Heaven. Shortly thereafter, Ji was executed.

Notes to Pages 6–8 ︱ 239   王機時為廣州刺史，入廁，忽見二人著烏衣，與機相捍，良久擒之，得二物似 烏鴨。靚曰：「此物不祥。」機焚之，徑飛上天，機尋誅死



See Jinshu, 95.65; see chapter 1 for more on Bao Jing’s biographies.

18

鮑 靜 造 三 皇。事 露 而 被 誅 ; Xiaodao lun 笑 道 論 (Essays to ridicule the Dao) in Guang

hongming ji, 9.151b. See Livia Kohn’s monograph on the Xiaodao lun, Laughing at the Tao: Debates among Buddhists and Taoists in Medieval China; she translates the above passage on 138; and Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao: Somme taoïste du VIe siècle, 21–28, for a discussion of both the Erjiao lun and the Xiaodao lun. 19 Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 76, and Ōfuchi, Shoki no Dōkyō, 325–326, concur that Bao Jing’s execution was a polemical confabulation. 20 Aside from having served as a basic ordination document, the tripartite division of the Sanhuang wen into the Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang 天 皇 ), the Sovereign of Earth (Dihuang 地 皇 ), and the Sovereign of Humankind (Renhuang 人 皇 ) may have functioned as the blueprint for the earliest incarnations of the Daoist Canon; see Erjiao lun 8.141b. See chapter 4 for more on the topic. 21

See Chen, The Poetics of Sovereignty: On Emperor Taizong of the Tang Dynasty.

22 Throughout this study, I have elected to leave the terms Shangqing 上 清 , Lingbao 靈 寶 , Sanhuang 三 皇 , Taiqing 太 清 , and Tianshidao 天 師 道 (as well as Zhengyi 正 一 ) untranslated when they refer to scriptural/liturgical categories in order to

clearly distinguish them from when they denote specific heavens, cosmic principles, metaphysical notions, soteriologies, or communities of practice. In those instances, I translate the terms accordingly. 23

洞神者，召制鬼神，其功不測，故得名神 ; Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 (Seven writing-slips

from the bookcase of the clouds; DZ 1032), 6.1b; translation from Schipper’s “General Introduction” to Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang, 16. The Yunji qiqian is an eleventh-century anthology, but most of the passages that discuss the Sanhuang wen and its corpus cite materials dating from late fifth to the turn of the eighth century. 24

Schipper, “General Introduction,” 14.

25

道 書 之 重 者，莫 過 於 三 皇 內 文 [. . .] 也 ; the complete sentence puts the Wuyue

zhenxing tu 五嶽真形圖 (True form charts of the Five Peaks), a companion artifact to the Sanhuang wen, on equal footing with the latter; the passage, however, goes on to describe the virtues and powers of the Sanhuang wen in considerably more detail; Baopuzi, 19.336, from Wang Ming, ed., Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi; all subsequent citations to the Baopuzi refer to the Wang Ming edition.

240 ︱ Notes to Pages 9–10 26 “Roll” (from the Latin rotulus; pl. rotuli), in which the writing runs parallel to the binding, may be a more accurate translation for juan 卷 than “scroll,” in which the writing is perpendicular to the binding cylinder or rod. In Chinese manuscript and early print cultures writing runs vertically along the media, thus rendering them rolls by default. In Western sources, the roll stands out because of its rarer, specialized use (for legal documents for instance) and by the fact that it is also unwound vertically, which is not the case with Chinese sources. 27

Baopuzi, 19.336–37; see Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in the China of A.D. 320: The Nei P’ien of Ko Hung (Pao-p’u tzu), 314–316, for a dated but useful English translation. More recently, a large portion of this passage was translated into French by John Lagerwey, “Littérature taoïste et formation du canon,” 479–480.

28 This is not explicitly spelled out in the Baopuzi or other early sources, but the most cursory of glances at the names of the deities from the fragments of the Sanhuang wen’s three scrolls preserved in the sixth-century Wushang biyao 無 上 祕 要 (Unsurpassed secret essentials; DZ 1138), 25.3a–7b, certainly suggests such an arrangement. Another passage from the Wushang biyao, 6.5b adds, “The Sovereign of Heaven presides over [primordial] breath, the Sovereign of Earth presides over gods, and the Sovereign of Humankind presides over life” 天 皇 主 氣，地 皇 主 神，人 皇 主 生 ; see Suzuki, “Rikuchō ‘Sankō bun’ no hensan katei ni tsuite—‘Sankō bun’ ni okeru sankō kun wo chūshin to shite,” 310–311, 306. 29 See for example the case study by Harper, “Contracts with the Spirit World in Han Common Religion.” 30

受之四十年一傳，傳之歃血而盟，委質為約 ; Baopuzi, 19.337.

31

In Han China, shishi 石 室 also referred to the chamber where imperial documents were stored, a detail that is not without significance in establishing strong ties between the Sanhuang wen and kingship; see for example Shiji 史 記 (Records of the grand historian), 130.3296.

32



Baopuzi, 19.337: 諸名山五嶽，皆有此書，但藏之於石室幽隱之地，應得道者，入山精誠思之， 則山神自開山，令人見之。如帛仲理者，於山中得之，自立壇委絹，常畫一本 而去也。

See also Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 136, for a translation of the passage.

33

Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui’s Sanhuang kao aimed to dismantle traditional historiography by problematizing the historicity of the Three Sovereigns of Chinese Antiquity. The work is a complex critique of the Golden Age myth, which the authors

Notes to Pages 10–11 ︱ 241 considered to be a hindrance to China’s modernization. On the Three Sovereigns in Daoism, see 111–130 and 152–163. See also 111–206 for some potential connections that the authors tease out between the religious culture of the Han dynasty and the Sanhuang wen of the Six Dynasties and early Tang (618–907). 34

Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 71–78.

35

Liu Zhongyu, “Sanhuang wen xintan.” Liu Zhongyu offers an overview of the Sanhuang wen’s semiotics, drawing the conclusion that the text was a guidebook for assembling the elemental stem-graphs of divine “celestial patterns” or “celestial script” (tianwen 天 文 ) into talismans; see also Ren Jiyu et al., Zhongguo daojiao shi, 59–64, 124–127,

308–316, and 363–368; Ren Jiyu’s work reiterates many of the positions advanced by his predecessors, but it also adds an invaluable analysis of precepts and transmission rites. Wang Ka has also written on the transmission rites relying on data from Dunhuang manuscripts; see his “Dunhuang can chaoben Taogong chuanshou yi jiaodu ji.” 36

See Hsieh Shu-wei, “Zhongguo daojiao shi zhong de Sanhuang wen chuantong yanjiu”; Wang Chengwen, Dunhuang gu lingbao jing yu Jin-Tang daojiao, 159–266, especially 210–230; and Lü Pengzhi, Tangqian daojiao yishi shigang, 56–70.

37

Fukui Kōjun, Dōkyō no kisoteki kenkyū, 170–211; for Yoshioka Yoshitoyo’s work on the Three Sovereigns, see for example, Dōkyō kyōten shiron, 46–48; or his “Sandō hōdō kakai gihan no kenkyū.”

38 Kobayashi Masayoshi, Rikuchō dōkyōshi kenkyū, especially 223–225 and 371–373; see also his “Kyūten shōshin shōkyō no keisei to Sando setsu no seiritsu.” Ōfuchi Ninji’s Dōkyō shi no kenkyū, originally published in 1964, looks at the Sanhuang wen’s development from a single text into a central corpus of the Daoist Canon. More than thirty years later, Ōfuchi Ninji reviewed and expanded his own findings in the influential Dōkyō to sono kyōten, incorporating a deeper analysis of primary sources pertaining to the Sanhuang wen; see 219–296 for the relevant section. To this day, Ōfuchi’s study is the standard in scholarship on the text. 39 See Yamada Takashi’s 2009 “Dōshinkyō no kisoteki kenkyū,” a detailed study devoted to the textual history of the Cavern of Divinity (dongshen 洞 神 ) section of the Daoist Canon, which accrued around the Sanhuang wen. Yamada’s study provides an exhaustive inventory of all key passages on the Sanhuang wen and its corpus from the Daoist Canon; see also Suzuki Yūmi, “ ‘Sankō sai rissei gi’ no seiritsu ni tsuite,” and by the same author, “Rikuchō ‘Sankō bun’ no hensan katei ni tsuite.” 40

See Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du taoïsme, vol. 1, 9–34, especially 17–34; and Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao: Somme taoïste du VIe siècle, 25 and 106–107.

242 ︱ Notes to Pages 11–20 41 Andersen, “Talking to the Gods: Visionary Divination in Early Taoism (The Sanhuang Tradition).” Andersen also authored the entries for key Sanhuang texts in Schipper and Verellen’s The Taoist Canon; see 261–265, 266–269, and 502–503. See also Steavu, “The Many Lives of Lord Wang of the Western Citadel: A Note on the Transmission of the Sanhuang wen 三皇文 (Writ of the Three Sovereigns)”; and by the same author, “Cosmos, Body, and Meditation in Early Medieval Taoism.” 42 Scholars of Daoism have long refuted what Strickmann, “History, Anthropology, and Chinese Religion,” 211, calls the “lingering myth of the subversive Taoist,” but it persists nonetheless in certain writings. For a critique of the view of seditious or anarchist Daoism, see, for instance, Strickmann, ibid., and Sivin, “On the Word ‘Taoist’ as a Source of Perplexity. With Special Reference to the Relations of Science and Religion in Traditional China.”

Chapter One 1

三 皇 內 文 召 天 神 地 祇 之 法 ; Baopuzi, 4.272–273; along with the Sanhuang neiwen, the

“undertakings of the Divine Elixir and Golden Liquor” (shendan jinye zhi shi 神 丹 金 液 ) are mentioned in the same sentence as the other group of practices that afford conjuring powers. 2

受三皇內文以劾召萬神 ; Baopuzi, 18.323.

3

Baopuzi, 15.272–273.

4

On the Eight Archivists, see chapter 5.

5

The first involves ingesting Emei pueraria flowers and a cannabis bud, aptly described as “fuzzy cannabis autumn flower” (qiu mang mabo 秋 芒 麻 勃 ). After lying down, adepts will hear voices that tell them about future or unresolved matters. The second method relies on the use of “bright mirrors” (ming jing 明 鏡 ) to summon multifarious deities, the highest ranking one being a nine-foot-tall, yellow-colored, beak-mouthed Lord Lao (Laojun 老君 ) mounted on a divine tortoise. Baopuzi, 15.273.

6

Baopuzi, 17.299; Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion, 279, translates the title as “Into Mountains: Over Streams.”

7

Baopuzi, 17.300.

8 Ibid. 9

For Hucker’s notes on the last two relatively less common titles, see A Dictionary of Official Titles in Imperial China, no. 7657, 564, and no. 6750, 511, respectively.

10 Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, 167, coined the term “travel magic” in reference

Notes to Pages 20–23 ︱ 243 to the charming spells (jinzhou 禁 呪 ) and the methods of Yue (Yue fang 越 方 ). The notion of travel magic aptly describes much of the South’s thaumaturgical heritage. According to Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, 167, “This kind of magic is well documented in the fourth-century A.D. Baopuzi 抱 朴 子 [where it is termed ‘charming methods’ (jinfang 禁 方 ; alt. jinfa 禁 法 )] as part of the essential knowledge for anyone who would go into the wilds in search of spirits and the magical substances which confer immortality, and who must beware of tigers, wolves, and demonic machinations”; see Baopuzi, 17.305–306. For more on the topic, see Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, 165–166; and Harper, “A Chinese Demonography of the Third Century B.C.,” 479; see also Kiang Chao-yuan’s Le voyage dans la Chine ancienne. 11 For a detailed appraisal of talismans in early medieval China consult Bumbacher, Empowered Writing, and Raz, “Talismans: The Power of Inscription,” in his The Emergence of Daoism: Creation of Tradition, 127–176; see also Despeux, “Talismans and Diagrams”; Mollier, “Talismans”; Robinet, Taoist Meditation, 29–57; Robson, “Signs of Power: Talismanic Writing in Chinese Buddhism”; Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha”; Strickmann, “Ensigillation” from his Chinese Magical Medicine, 123–193; and Wang Yucheng, “Zhongguo gudai daojiao qiyi fuming kaolun.” 12 On the administrative uses of fu see Des Rotours, “Les Insignes en deux parties (fou) sous la dynastie des Tang (618–907).” See also the chapters “From Tally to Certificate of Legitimation” and “Fu-Tallies and Political Authority,” in Bumbacher, Empowered Writing, 13–32 and 33–56, respectively. 13

Baopuzi, 17.311.

14

Ibid., 17.300–301.

15

As Pregadio, Great Clarity: Daoism and Alchemy in Early Medieval China, 127, observes, “Ge Hong’s statements, as well as evidence available elsewhere, show that the Sanhuang wen and the Wuyue zhenxing tu embodied essential features of the religious lore of Jiangnan before the Shangqing and Lingbao revelations.”

16

I modify Wang Ming’s punctuation from 自立壇委絹，常畫一本而去也 to 自立壇委絹 常，畫一本而去也 , taking chang 常 as a measure word for silk (one chang = 16 chi 尺 ).

17

Baopuzi, 19.336.

18

Ibid., 20.350–351; see Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 236; and Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 137; Petersen, “The Early Traditions Relating to the Han Dynasty Transmission of the Taiping jing,” 194–195, discusses this passage.

19

Shuijing zhu 水 經 注 (Annotated classic of waterways), 15.206; see Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 137; Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 276.

244 ︱ Notes to Pages 23–24 20

Shenxian zhuan, from Taiping yulan 太 平 御 覧 (Imperial digest of the Taiping Xingguo reign period), 663.6b (2961); Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, believes the Shenxian zhuan account to be inaccurate, but as Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 133 n. 1, explains, a person’s “origins” refers to where a subject’s clan is officially registered and does not always denote the place of birth. Either Bo He or his master might have been of foreign extraction, as Bo 帛 was a common ethnikon used in the Chinese names of Kucheans; Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China, 281. A common alternate way of rendering his patronym, however, is Bo 白 (var. 伯 ; see for example Taiping yulan, 187.4a [907]), which has a distinctly Chinese resonance; see also note 94 below. Bo He’s Shenxian zhuan vita survives in various sources; see Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 133–136 and 387–388.

21 Dong Feng has his own hagiography in the Shenxian zhuan; see Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 141–146 and 390­–393. He is said to have been about forty years of age during the reign of Sun Quan 孫 權 (229–252 CE); this agrees with the chronology from Bo He’s vita. However, Dong Feng’s entry does not mention Bo He. 22

Shenxian zhuan, from Taiping yulan, 663.6b (2961); Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven

23

A passage from the lost Xuanmen dayi 玄門大義 (Great meaning of the gate of mysteries)

and Earth, 134. preserved in the Daojiao yishu 道 教 義 樞 (Pivot of meaning of the teaching of the Way; DZ 1129), 2.6b, and in Yunji qiqian, 51.a, relates that the Western Citadel refers to a western chamber (xishi 西 室 ) inside the mountain. Thus it would denote a presumably prominent cave on the western flank that gave its name to the summit. In some instances, the graph cheng 城 is substituted with the graph yu 域 , rendering the immortal’s title “Lord of the Western Realm” instead of the habitual Lord Wang of the Western Citadel; see for example, Tao Hongjing’s Dongxuan lingbao zhenling weiye tu 洞玄靈寶真靈位業圖 (Table of ranks and functions of the Perfected and numinous [beings]; DZ 167), 3a, where he appears as Lord Chief Perfected of the Western Realm from the Western Ultimate (Xiyu xiji zongzhen jun 西域西極總真君 ). 24

Shenxian zhuan, from Taiping yulan, 187.4a (907); Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 134–135. This passage is laconic in its inventory of transmitted materials, listing only the Taiqing jing 太 清 經 (Scripture of Great Clarity). Nevertheless, the identity of the two protagonists and the details of the transmission indicate that it is on this same occasion during which Bo He obtained the Sanhuang wen.

25 The Sanhuang tianwen dazi is a variant title for the Sanhuang wen. It appears fairly early, in the Baopuzi for instance; see appendix 1. The distinction between the Sanhuang wen

Notes to Pages 24–26 ︱ 245 and [Sanhuang] Tianwen dazi is drawn in later materials to discriminate between the text obtained by Bo He and that issued from a second transmission line; see the section on “The Writ through the Lens of the Shangqing (Highest Clarity) Revelations” in the present chapter for more on the topic. 26

Shenxian zhuan, from Taiping yulan, 663.6b (2961); translation from Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 135 n. 9, with minor changes.

27

Baopuzi, 19.333; Baopuzi, 4.70 also mentions both sets of materials in the same sentence, but the association is not as clear; for more on the connection between Taiqing materials and the Sanhuang wen, see chapter 3; on the Taiqing corpus and its tradition, see Pregadio, Great Clarity. The Tang dynasty Xianyuan bianzhu 仙 苑 編 珠 (Threaded pearls from the garden of immortals; DZ 596), 2.17b, and the Song dynasty Leishuo 類 說 (Classification of sayings), 3.9b, echo the account from the Shenxian zhuan.

28 The importance of oral instructions is highlighted in Bo’s Shenxian zhuan vita from the Xianyuan bianzhu, where Lord Wang prefaces his indications for prolonged cave contemplation with the admonishment: “Instructions on the Great Way may not be hurriedly obtained” 大 道 之 訣 非 可 卒 得 ; Shenxian zhuan, in Xianyuan bianzhu, 2.17b; Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 388. 29 Ge Hong’s master, Zheng Yin, was adamant about not having his own teachings and sayings written down, although the scriptures he transmitted could be copied; Baopuzi, 19.332. 30

Dongshen badi miaojing jing (Scripture of the wondrous essence of the Eight Emperors; DZ 640), 12a–29b.

31 From the context of the Sanhuang wen’s transmission narrative, it appears that the Mysterious Hill is located on Western Citadel Mountain. More generally, the Mysterious Hill was also construed as an earthly paradise in a spelunk heaven [dongtian 洞 天 ]) or as a netherworld populated with the manes of the deceased. Elsewhere, “Mysterious Hill” is an esoteric designation for Confucius, especially in the Han tradition of “Weft Texts” (weishu); see for example, Yasui Kōzan and Nakamura Shōhachi, Isho shūsei 5.58; and Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments,” 343. 32

Badi miaojing jing, 12a; Poul Andersen, in his entry on “Dongshen badi miaojing jing” in Schipper and Verellen’s The Taoist Canon, 267, has a slightly different rendering: “The ritual practices [shiyong 施 用 ] and established forms [licheng 立 成 ] [of the Sanhuang fu] of the Immortal of the Western Citadel.”

33

Badi miaojing jing, 12b.

34 Cf. Shenxian zhuan in Xianyuan bianzhu, 2.17b, to Badi miaojing, 12b.

246 ︱ Notes to Pages 26–30 26–30 35

Badi miaojing jing, 15ab.

36 For Dongfeng’s transmission to Bo He, see Shenxian zhuan in Taiping yulan, 663.6b (2961); and in Xianyuan bianzhu, 2.17b; and Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 133–134. 37

Baopuzi, 13.243.

38 Compare Badi miaojing jing, 14b, to Baopuzi, 4.86; also compare Badi miaojing jing, 14b–15a to Baopuzi, 5.112. 39

These are the three years, between 106 and 103 BCE, during which Lord Wang was away and Bo He was staring at a cave wall.

40

Badi miaojing jing, 15b; for the Mysterious Hill, see note 31 above.

41

From Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 268.

42 On the textual history of the Shenxian zhuan, see Penny, “The Text and Authorship of the Shenxian zhuan”; Campany’s section on “Text-Critical Matters,” in To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 118–128; and Bumbacher, “On the Shenxian zhuan.” See also Barrett, “On the Reconstruction of the Shenxian zhuan” for an assessment of the three studies and a reassertion of the inherent difficulties that come with the task of faithfully reconstituting the text. 43

In the passages translated above, from Baopuzi, 15.272–273, the talismans of the Sanhuang wen are said to summon the Director of Destinies, the Director of Dangers, the Lords of the Five Peaks, the Headmen of the Roads, and the numina of six ding; all these are found in “Xicheng yaojue.” See Badi miaojing jing, 17a, 17b, 21ab, 19a, and 18a, respectively.

44

Baopuzi, 19.331–332.

45

其 經 曰 ; “the classic itself states”; Baopuzi, 19.336. The citation that follows, however,

does not appear in any of the surviving fragments of the Sanhuang wen. 46 Yoshioka, Dōkyō kyōten shiron, 47; Wu Chengquan, Han mo Wei Jin Nanbei chao daojiao jielü guifan yanjiu, 132. See also the discussion on the date of the “Baopu miyan” in chapter 2. The “Baopu miyan” is in Badi miaojing jing, 29b–32a. 47

Yusa Noboru, “Seijyō ōkun,” 321, writes that the merging of figures occurred sometime after Ge Hong’s generation; see for example, Dongxuan lingbao zhenling weiye tu (DZ 167), 3a.

48 Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 276–277; see Ren Jiyu et al., Zhongguo daojiao shi, 57–64. 49 See Lai Chi-tim,  “The Opposition of Celestial-Master Taoism to Popular Cults during the Six Dynasties”; see also Kleeman, “Licentious Cults and Bloody Victuals: Sacrifice, Reciprocity, and Violence in Traditional China.” For the distinction between integrated

Notes to Pages 30–31 ︱ 247 30–31 institutional Daoism and Celestial Master Daoism, which was also institutional in its role as state creed, see note 81. 50 Tao Hongjing’s Zhengao (DZ 1016), 20.13b–14a, testifies to the rampant Bo jia dao phenomenon in Six Dynasties (220–589) southern China; see also Strickmann, Le taoïsme du Mao Chan, 132–133. On Ge Hong as a possible adept of the Bo jia dao see Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 277. 51 See Baopuzi, 19.336 and 20.350–351, for references to Bo He. 52

周 家 本 事 俗 神，檮 俗 稱 是 帛 家 道 ; Zhoushi mintong ji (DZ 302), 1.13a; see also Chen

Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 276–277. 53

Zhoushi mintong ji, 1.13a:



At the time he was asked, Master Xu also said this. [Zhou] Ziliang’s paternal grandmother was named Du and she was a great master shaman. Thus they [the Zhou clan and the Way of the Bo Clan] were mutually involved. The maternal line was the Xu family, and they were old Daoist libationers. The maternal aunt converted his [Ziliang’s] father’s branch to enter the Dao. Therefore, although anxious about it, they transgressed the profane gods.



許先生被試時亦云爾。子良祖母姓杜，為大師巫，故相染逮。外氏徐家，舊道 祭酒，姨母化其父一房入道。是以但慮為俗神所犯爾。



On the Zhoushi mintong ji along with a translation of key passages, see Bokenkamp, “Answering a Summons”; a segment on p. 192 corroborates that the Zhou family served profane gods.

54 See Zhengao, 4.10b–11a. 55

Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 72.

56 The Daojiao yishu (DZ 1129) was compiled around 700 largely on the basis of the lost Xuanmen dayi (Great meaning of the gate of mysteries), a doctrinal encyclopedia that was compiled during the seventh century, perhaps as early as the Sui period (581–618). Via surviving citations, the text is connected to a cluster of sources: the Daomen dalun 道 門 大 論 (Great treatise on the gate of the Dao), the Xuanmen (da)lun 玄 門 ( 大 ) 論 ([Great]

treatise on the gate of mysteries), and the truncated Dongxuan lingbao xuanmen dayi 洞 玄 靈 寶 玄 門 大 義 (Great meaning of the gate of mysteries; DZ 1124). Many if not

most of these citations survive in the Daojiao yishu as well as the eleventh-century Yunji qiqian, which reproduce a considerable amount of material from the Xuanmen dayi. In both anthologies, the majority of materials pertaining to the Sanhuang wen and its corpus derive from the same passages in the Xuanmen dayi. Therefore, a citation from the Daojiao yishu will often have a duplicate (with some variations) in the Yunji qiqian, and vice versa. In some cases, the same citation is duplicated or reproduced multiple times within the Yunji qiqian; see for example note 59 below.

248 ︱ Notes to Pages 31–32 31–32 57 Bao Jing’s discovery of the scripture on Mount Song, one of the Wuyue zhenxing tu’s Five Peaks, tallies with other descriptions of the Sanhuang wen’s revelation; as Ge Hong explained, the Sanhuang wen and Wuyue zhenxing tu were hidden in the very same “famous mountains” that gave their name to the latter document; Baopuzi, 19.336. 58 According to the Shenxian zhuan, Lord Liu, or Liu Gen 劉 根 , “left the world behind and practiced the Way. He entered a cave on Mount Songgao (Songgao shan 嵩 高 山 ) that was situated directly above a sheer cliff over fifty thousand feet high.” I borrow Campany’s translation of the passage from To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 240, see also 48–49 and 240–249. Liu Gen has a biographical entry in Hou Hanshu 後 漢 書 (History of the Later Han dynasty), 82b.2746. 59

Daojiao yishu, 2.7a; compare to similar versions of the same passage in Yunji qiqian, 4.10b–11a; and Yunji qiqian, 6.5b–6a and 6.11b­–12a; for the date of Bao Jing’s reception, the first version has “the second day of the second month of the second year of Yuankang” 晉元康二年二月二日 . This corresponds to the year 292 instead of 300.

60 In a different but generally consonant account of Bao Jing’s reception, he obtains the oral instructions and the Sanhuang wen not from Ge Xuan, but directly from Ge Xuan’s master, Zuo Ci 左 慈 ; see Yunji qiqian, 85.14b. This account is not usually regarded as authoritative, but it is interesting in that it invites Bao Jing into the prestigious transmission line of Taiqing alchemy; see chapter 3 for a discussion on the significance of this account. 61

Bao Jing’s origins vary according to the source, but many scholars agree that he was born in Langye 琅 邪 (present-day Shandong); see Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 76, for discordant views about his birthplace.

62 Otherwise known as “martial liberation,” this technique involved achieving a lesser form of immortality—deliverance from one’s perishable physical body—by sustaining a seemingly lethal injury from a bladed weapon. For more on Yin Changsheng and his association with corpse liberation (shijie) and alchemy, see his Shenxian zhuan hagiography in Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 274–276 and 295–297; see 485 for a complete list of primary sources pertaining to the figure. For more on Bao Jing’s encounter with Yin Changsheng, which reportedly took place in 318, see Yunji qiqian, 85.14b–16a; for more on Bao Jing’s corpse liberation, see chapter 3. Bao Jing’s biography is notably preserved in the Jinshu 晉 書 (History of the Jin dynasty), 95.2482. See also Jinshu 72.1911 and 80.2106–7; Bumbacher, Fragments of the Daoxue zhuan, 325–329; and Ōfuchi, Shoki no dōkyō, 536–552. 63

On silk (and to a lesser extent gold and cinnabar) as replacements for sacrificial animal

Notes to Pages 32–34 ︱ 249 32–34 victims, see Raz, The Emergence of Daoism, 91–127 passim, especially 93, 110, and 114; see also Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” 189. 64

傳之歃血而盟，委質為約 ; Baopuzi, 19.337.

65 The first three chapters of Terry Kleeman’s Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in Early Daoist Communities, 21–189, cover this period of the tradition’s development in detail. 66 An analysis of the disintegration of the Western Jin (265–316) in the North and the ensuing establishment of the Eastern Jin (317–420) in the South is found in Lewis, China between Empires; see also Holcombe, In the Shadow of the Han. A more concise account, with emphasis on the tensions between southern and northern literary factions, is given by Strickmann, Le taoïsme du Mao chan, 92–121. See also Nickerson, “The Southern Celestial Masters,” and more recently, Kleeman, Celestial Masters, 190–218. 67

See Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” 168–169, and Strickmann, “The Mao Shan Revelations,” especially 6–10 and 37–40.

68 Travel magic, discussed above and in note 10 is an example of ritual—and in this case exorcistic—elements derived from the traditions of southern kingdoms under the Zhou. 69 On Pure Conversation, see Tang Yiming, “The Voices of Wei-Jin Scholars: A Study of ‘Qingtan.’” On Sublime Learning, see the classic article by Balász, “Entre révolte nihiliste et évasion mystique: Les courants intellectuels en Chine au IIIe siècle de notre ère.” 70 Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China, 81. 71 Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine, 4, uses the term “nameless religion” to denote the local “proto-Daoist” traditions that followers of the Way of the Celestial Masters found themselves at odds with in Jiangnan and the rest of China. The expression was first coined by Stein, Tibetan Civilization, 191, in reference to indigenous Tibetan religious systems or practices that were distinct from Bön; see also Davis, Society and the Supernatural, 8–9. 72

According to Tianshidao sources that expound the Pure Bond (qingyue 清約 ), such as the Lu xiansheng daomen kelüe 陸 先 生 道 門 科 略 (Master Lu’s abridged codes for the Daoist community; DZ 1127), high-ranking deities cannot consume offerings. Mid-ranking local spirits or ancestors only require simple offerings a few times per year. Demons and maleficent entities, on the other hand, are fond of elaborate and live oblations at any time. Thus blood sacrifices are equated with demon worship and considered contrary to Way of the Celestial Masters; see Kleeman, “Licentious Cults and Bloody Victuals”; and Stein, “Religious Taoism and Popular Religion from the Second to Seventh Centuries.”

73

Dengzhen yinjue (DZ 421), 3.21b. The instructions are quoted from the “Qian’erbai guan zhangyi” 千 二 百 官 章 儀 (Protocols of the 12,000 officials); for an overview of the

250 ︱ Notes to Pages 34–35 34–35 Celestial Masters’ position on the question of local “excessive cults,” see the section on “Daoists and the Profane” in Kleeman, Celestial Masters, 96–104. 74 For a detailed account of Buddhism’s penetration into the South, and how displaced members of the northern aristocracy favored its incursion, see the chapter titled “Buddhism at Chien’kang and in the South-east” in Zürcher, The Buddhist Conquest of China, 81–159. 75

An analysis of the South’s sociopolitical stage and its main actors can be found in Zhou Yiliang’s Wei Jin Nanbei chao shilun ji, especially 30–93.

76

See the passages from chapters 25 and 26 of Ge Hong’s Baopuzi waipian, 1.632–635 and 2.12–19, translated in Strickmann, Le taoïsme du Mao Chan, 112–113 and 106–108, respectively.

77

Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” 169.

78 Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing, vol. 1, 64–65 (translated from French), explains, however, that “they are limited to certain fragmentary borrowings, a few bodily gods that are more or less similar, and one or two ritual forms.” She continues: “On the contrary, profound differences separate the two ways, principally those concerning the pantheon, the relation of the adept to the gods, demonology, and the concept of health, along with the parent notion of salvation”; see also Robinet, “Notes préliminaires sur quelques antinomies fondamentales entre le bouddhisme et le taoïsme”; and Robinet, “De quelques effets du bouddhisme sur la problématique taoïste.” 79 For liturgical Tianshidao imprints in Shangqing sources, such as the ritual for entering the pure chamber (rujing 入 靜 ), see, for example, Zhengao, 7.6a–9b, and Daojiao yishu, 3.5b–11b and 3.14b–23b. 80

On the topic of Lingbao’s permeability to input from other systems, see Schipper, “Purity and Strangers,” 61–81, which highlights the vagaries governing the Daoist emulation and sometimes glaring appropriation of Buddhist concepts. Bokenkamp, “The Silkworm and the Bodhi Tree”; and Bokenkamp, “Lu Xiujing, Buddhism, and the First Daoist Canon,” 181–199, also discuss the issue.

81 See chapters 4 and 5 for more on the role of the Sanhuang wen in the emergence of integrated state Daoism. I use the expression “integrated (state) Daoism” to refer to the form of the religion that emerged from the vision of fifth-century and sixth-century systematizers and resulted in the unification and organization of disparate scriptural traditions into a coherent whole under the Three Caverns (sandong 三 洞 ) structure. This form of Daoism federated regional corpora and articulated them into a unified translocal tradition that seamlessly lent itself to institutionalization on one hand and imperial state

Notes to Pages 36–37 ︱ 251 36–37 ideology on the other. Celestial Master Daoism, which predates integrated Daoism, was also a form of state Daoism, but its aims were neither federative nor imperialistic or universalizing. The institutionalization of the Celestial Masters was a result of the concern to first and foremost govern their own community and expand their influence. With an outlook that could be qualified as exclusionary with respect to other forms of Daoism (as evidenced for example by the notion of a chosen “seed people” [zhongmin 種 民 ]), the Celestial Masters had little incentive to articulate a united view of Daoism in which they would be only one of several dispensations. By contrast, defenders of integrated state Daoism adopted a consensual approach that could, in their eyes, serve as a template for sociopolitical order in a unified China. Consequently, they were most preoccupied with details of how individual components fit into the larger picture. Lagerwey, Wu-shang piyao: Somme taoïste du Viè siècle, 33, eloquently summarizes these points in his description of integrated Daoism as it appears in the pages of the late sixth-century Wushang biyao 無 上祕要 (Unsurpassed secret essentials; DZ 1138): “The Daoism of the Wushang biyao [. . .]

is a streamlined and rationalized Daoism. It is an aristocratic and encyclopedic Daoism in which an attempt is made, on one hand, to define earthly and celestial initiation grades, and on the other, to establish the foundations of a solid and complete doctrine. In short, it is imperial Daoism.” For more on the question see chapter 4. 82 The Lingbao view of the Sanhuang wen, discussed in chapter 4, had more to do with finding a place for southern traditions and their scriptural corpora within a newly envisioned unified Daoist religion and locating those corpora in the Lingbao cosmology. 83 See Schipper, “Le pacte de pureté du taoïsme”; and the second and fourth chapters of Raz, The Emergence of Daoism. 84 See Strickmann, Le taoïsme du Mao Chan, 187, and Strickmann, “The Mao Shan Revelations,” 35–40. 85

Shangqing systematizers applied this method of integration for many currents or corpora that were prevalent in the South during the fourth to fifth centuries, such as the Taiping jing 太 平 經 (Great Peace scripture) for example. See Espesset, “The Date, Authorship, and Literary Structure of the Great Peace Scripture Digest,” 323 and 328.

86 By the fifth century, Wang Yuan was also conflated with Wang Fangping 王 方 平 . On the fusion between Lord Wang of the Western Citadel and Wang Yuan as a deliberate Shangqing strategy for assimilating and reformulating local Jiangnan traditions, see Steavu, “The Many Lives of Lord Wang.” 87

Zhengao, 14.16a–17a; see Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” 131, for a translation of the passage.

252 ︱ Notes to Page 38 38 88

Japanese scholars generally situate the Western Citadel on or identify the Western Citadel Mountain with Mount Emei 峨 眉 山 ; see, for example, Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 242–243; and Yusa, “Seijyō ōkun,” 321. They do so on the basis of a passage from the Daojiao yishu, 2.6b, which that locates Lord Wang’s transmission to Bo He on the Shu peak: “[The Writ of the Three Sovereigns] is received by immortals, and concealed on famous mountains. Indeed, the Western Citadel in Shu commandery on Mount Emei is equipped with this writ” 諸仙人所受，以藏諸名山，其蜀郡西城、峨眉山，具有 此 文 . Compare to a similar passage from Yunji qiqian, 6.11b: “Immortals transmit it

and it is concealed in caves on famous mountains, but all are not endowed with it. Only Mount Emei in Shu commandery is equipped with this writ” 諸仙人授之，以藏諸名山 石室，皆不具足，唯蜀郡峨媚山具有此文 . Situating Lord Wang and his protectorate

on the western boundary of the Chinese cultural sphere would also be congruent with the Western Realm, Xiyu 西 域 , which sometimes replaces the Xicheng 西 城 in his title; see note 23. On other hand, scholarship in Western languages tends to situate the Western Citadel in Shaanxi; see Boltz, “Wuyue zhenxing tu,” and Yamada Toshiaki, “Bojia dao”; Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 134 n. 6, locates Western Citadel Mountain in Shaanxi as well. This discrepancy is likely attributable to the fact that Xu Mi’s 許 謐 (303–376 CE) father, Xu Fu 許 副 , was awarded a Western Citadel prefecture (Xicheng xian 西 城 縣 ; in present-day Shaanxi) as compensation for serving Sima Rui 司 馬 睿 (276–322 CE) and participating in the military campaigns of the Eastern Jin

(317–420 CE). In light of Lord Wang’s incorporation into the Shangqing pantheon, the existence of a local administrative unit named Western Citadel so close to the Xu family power base probably paved the way for the relocation of the Western Citadel (Mountain) from Shu to Shaanxi as an alternative to Mount Wangwu in Henan; see Zhengao, 20.6ab; and Strickmann, Le Taoïsme du Mao Chan, 122. 89

See Steavu, “The Many Lives of Lord Wang,” 130–138. Wang Bao was a teacher to Yang Xi’s master Wei Huacun 魏 華 存 , the Lady of the Southern Peak (Nanyue furen 南 嶽 夫 人 ). He is sometimes referred to as Wang jun 王 君 or Lord Wang, adding another layer

of complexity to the conflation of Lord Wang of the Western Citadel and Wang Yuan. 90 Outside the context of the Sanhuang wen, the terms dayou and xiaoyou have other meanings. Dayou 大 有 is also the name of a celestial palace at the center of Heaven and is referenced in the Shangqing Dongzhen taishang suling dongyuan dayou miaojing 洞真太 上素靈洞元大有 妙 經 (Wondrous scripture of the pure numina of Great Existence; DZ

1314); Moreover, Dayou 大 有 is the fourteenth hexagram of the Yijing 易 經 (Book of changes) in the King Wen sequence. One of the earliest passages to mention both xiaoyou

Notes to Page 38 ︱ 253 38 and dayou concurrently, however, is found in Zhengao, 13.11b, strongly suggesting that as an appositional pair, these terms were Shangqing innovations:

This man [Zhang Xuanbao 張 玄 寳 of the Cao Wei (220–265)] was apt at discussing Emptiness and Nothingness. He was an expert debater. He always addressed the principle of fundamental Non-being: “Non-being is the abode of Greater Existence. Lesser Existence is that by which there is life. One amasses Lesser Existence in order to nourish Lesser Non-being. One discerns Greater Existence in order to root [oneself ] in Greater Non-being. Having Existence is the same as not having Nonbeing; not having Non-being is the same as having Existence. This is why our eyes do not discern any object, and objects also do not discern Non-being. One depends on Existence in order to accomplish Non-being; but one [also] depends on Nonbeing to obtain Non-being. Therefore, Non-being is without abode. But Supreme Emptiness resides in Non-being. At the time we did not yet exist, all under Heaven did not have Non-being.”



此人善能論空無，乃談士，常執本無理云：無者大有之宅，小有所以生焉，積 小有以養小無，見大有以本大無，有有亦無無焉，無無亦有有焉，所以我目都 不見物，物亦不見無，寄有以成無，寄無以得無，於是無則無宅也，太空亦宅 無矣，我未生時，天下皆無無也。

91

All spelunk heavens are considered to be on equal footing. Nevertheless, Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 323–325, insists that the Heaven of Lesser Existence has a lower status than the Heaven of Greater Existence in some Shangqing sources. The order in which spelunk heavens are listed in a text does not indicate their ranking or value relative to each other. Although the Heaven of Great Existence may be listed ahead of the Heaven of Lesser Existence in one source, this may not be the case in the next. For example, in one inventory of the “ten major spelunk heavens” (da dongtian 大洞天 ), the Heaven of Lesser Existence under Mount Wangwu is first in the inventory. The second is the Heaven of Great Existence. The third in the list is the “spelunk [heaven] of Western Citadel Mountain”; see “Tiandi gongfu tu” 天地宮府圖 (Charts of the palaces and bureaus of the [spelunk-]heavens and the [blissful] lands) in Yunji qiqian, 27.1ab.

92 Bao Jing was taught by Yin Changsheng, who was a disciple of Master Horseneigh (Maming sheng 馬 鳴 生 ; alt. Ma Mingsheng) and had notably received the Taiqing shendan jing 太 清 神 丹 經 (Scripture on the divine elixir of Great Clarity). Master Horseneigh is sometimes confused with another alchemical figure, Bo He. The Taiping yulan, 661.7a (2954), gives Ma Mingsheng’s surname as Bo 帛 , while the “Ma Mingsheng zhenren zhuan” 馬 鳴 生 真 人 傳 (Biography of Master Horseneigh the Perfected) from Yunji qiqian, 106.15b–21a, lists it as He 和 . For more on the conflation, see Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 77–78. Perhaps it is not coincidental that the

254 ︱ Notes to Pages 39–41 39–41 variant graphs sometimes used for Bo He’s patronym 白 / 伯 denote an ancient equine astral deity venerated as the Horse Ancestor (mazu 馬祖 ), forebear of all horses. 93

靚所受學，本自薄淺，質又撓滯，故不得多也 ; Zhengao, 12.3a. An alternate reading

would be: “The teachings were obtained by Bao Jing [from Yin Changsheng]; he was shallow-minded from the beginning and dim-witted by disposition and for this reason he did not obtain many [teachings].” The rest of the passage documents Bao Jing’s relation to Yin Changsheng. 94 As noted above, even Bao Jing’s short Shenxian zhuan biography presents him as little more than a recipient and practitioner of corpse liberation (shijie); see Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 295. 95 Ōfuchi, Shoki no dōkyō, 503. 96

Chen Feilong, Baopuzi waipian jinzhu jinyi, 841–843; Pregadio, “Ge Hong,” 442.

97

See for example Yunji qiqian, 6.12a, and Daojiao yishu, 2.7a. Both passages are from the Xuanmen dayi (Great meaning of the gate of mysteries).

98

道經有三皇內文天地人三卷 ; Baopuzi, 19.333.

99

元文上中下三卷 ; ibid.

100 Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 67 n. 177, also endorses the possibility that the Yuanwen refers to a second version of the Sanhuang wen. This agrees with Ware, Alchemy, Medicine and Religion, 382, whose reading of the bibliography unequivocally finds a Sanhuang neiwen tianwen followed by a Sanhuang neiwen yuanwen 三皇內文元文 . 101 See Baopuzi, 15.272, for an example of the former, and Baopuzi, 17.308, for the latter. Wushang biyao, 84.6b, clearly refers to the Lord Wang–Bo He transmission as the Sanhuang tianwen. See also Wang Ming, Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi, 339–340 n. 25, who notes that the more accurate rendering of the Sanhuang wen’s title is Sanhuang neiwen tianwen 三 皇 內 文 天 文 ; he adds that the term tianwen in the title does not refer to the “celestial script” in which the source is written, but is rather a substitute for tian di ren 天 地人 , “Heaven, Earth, and Humankind,” which was sometimes employed as a suffix.

102 Badi miaojing jing, 29a. Furthermore, the instructions to Bao Jing’s Sanhuang wen appear under the title Bao xiansheng jijie 鮑 先 生 節 解 (Master Bao’s explanations in sections); see Badi miaojing jing, 32a. Both references are from the “Xicheng yaojue,” which is presented as the Bo He version of the Sanhuang wen, along with oral instructions. This suggests that the Badi miaojing jing was compiled at a time when both versions of the Sanhuang wen were in circulation. In actuality, the “Xicheng yaojue” is a pastiche of Dayou jing and Xiaoyou jing materials; see the following chapter for a complete discussion.

Notes to Page 41 ︱ 255 41 103 鮑君所得石室之文與世不同 ; Daojiao yishu, 2.7a. 104 Yunji qiqian, 6.12a. This line is echoed in a separate passage from the same scroll, a few folios earlier (where Bao Jing’s text is exceptionally identified as the Sanhuang tianwen): 石室所得，與今三皇文小異 ; Yunji qiqian, 6.5b­–6a. Citing a “Sanhuang jing xu” 三皇經 序 (Preface to the scripture of the Three Sovereigns), Yunji qiqian, 6.12a, adds, “Ge Hong

may have received them [both the Bo He and Bao Jing transmissions] concurrently” 洪 或 兼 受 也 ; unless Ge Hong fabricated his account of the reception of the Sanhuang wen

from Zheng Yin, the scenario of a simultaneous transmission is unlikely. Zheng Yin died in 302 and Ge Hong did not meet Bao Jing until 312; see Baopuzi, 19.331–333. 105 Following Ōfuchi Ninji’s reading in Dōkyō to sono kyōten, Suzuki, “Rikuchō ‘Sankō bun’ no hensan katei ni tsuite—‘Sankō bun’ ni okeru sankō kun wo chūshin to shite,” 310–308, considers the Tianwen dazi and the Sanhuang wen as two separate collections of talismans, both transmitted by Lord Wang to Bo He. According to this view, the Tianwen dazi is not a version of the Sanhuang wen at all. Alternatively, Ding Peiren, “Sanhuang jing xin kao,” proposes that there were in fact three concurrent versions of the Sanhuang wen issued from three distinct lines. A first version, the Tianwen dazi, was transmitted from Bo He directly to Ge Hong, skipping the intermediary of Zheng Yin. Ding Peiren argues that Ge Hong then obtained a second version—which had nothing to do with Bo He—from Zheng Yin. This one is the Sanhuang neiwen tian di ren 三皇文天地人 (Esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns: Heaven, Earth, and Humankind), in other words, the Sanhuang wen in three scrolls. In many sources, however, the Tianwen dazi is described as having three divisions corresponding to Heaven, Earth, and Humankind as well; see for example Wushang biyao, 43.7b. Finally, in Ding Peiren’s view, Ge Hong obtained a third version from Bao Jing, which was exclusively referred to by the name title Sanhuang jing 三 皇 經 . Transmitted by Yang Xi to Lu Xiujing and Tao Hongjing, this is the version that “does not agree with the version that was presently known in the world.” Yamada, “Dōshinkyō no kisoteki kenkyū,” 8–18, provides a much-needed synoptic overview of the sometimes conflicting perspectives of main scholars (Chen Guofu, Ren Jiyu, Wang Chengwen, Wang Ka, Fukui Kōjun, and Ōfuchi Ninji) on the knotty issue of the Sanhuang wen’s relation to the Sanhuang jing, the Tianwen dazi, the Xiaoyou jing, and the Dayou jing. See also Yamada’s (“Dōshinkyō no kisoteki kenkyū,” 119–133) assessment of how surviving citations differentiate between the titles. 106 This is perhaps analogous to the case of the Taishang huangting neijing yüjing 太 上 黄 庭 內 景 玉 經 (Jade scripture of the inner effulgence of the Yellow Court; DZ 331) and

the Taishang huangting waijing yüjing 太 上 黄 庭 外 景 玉 經 (Jade scripture of the outer

256 ︱ Notes to Pages 42–45 42–45 effulgence of the Yellow Court; DZ 332). Both texts predate the Shangqing revelations, but the “outer” version appears to be earlier. Despite this fact, like the Dayou jing, the “inner” version was considered to be more representative of Shangqing sensibilities. As a result, the Huangting neijing was promoted and favored over the Huangting waijing, although officially both fell under the banner of Shangqing scriptures. 107 Despite common roots, I distinguish for the sake of clarity between the pseudo-historical or ancestral three sovereigns, whom I render in lower case, and the Daoist mythological or cosmological Three Sovereigns, whom I capitalize. The former three sovereigns were an important theme in rhetorical efforts to consolidate power from the Qin dynasty (221–­ 206 BCE) to the end of the Han. Because of this, texts representing diverging political or ideological factions proposed different identities for the figures; see Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 108­–151, for a full treatment of the Three Sovereigns’ variant identities. On the aggregate, Daoist sources are consistent in listing Fu Xi, Shennong, and Huangdi as the Three Sovereigns, although in some cases Fu Xi, Nü Wa (Fu Xi’s wife and sister), and Shennong appear as an alternate group. 108 Yunji qiqian, 4.10b. 109 Yunji qiqian, 6.12a. For more on the Sanfen in relation to the Sanhuang wen, see chapters 3 and 4. 110 See Shiji 史 記 (Records of the Grand Historian), 28 passim, for a discussion of sacrificial tours performed by emperors; see 28.1366–1370 for a sample Qin Shi Huangdi’s tours. See also Shiji, 6.245, 252, and 258, among other passages, for glimpses into Qin Shi Huangdi’s self-divinization through the sacrificial process. Much of this paragraph benefits from the insights of Michael Puett’s findings in “Human and Divine Kingship in Early China.” 111 Puett, “Human and Divine Kingship,” 216–217. 112 See Puett, “Becoming Laozi: Cultivating and Visualizing Spirits in Early-Medieval China.” 113 Lai Chi-tim, “Ko Hung’s Discourse of Hsien-Immortality: A Taoist Configuration of an Alternate Self-Identity,” especially 197–203 and 210–211. 114 Ibid., passim. 115 Baopuzi, 2.19: “Therefore, if we look throughout history, among those who have obtained the way of immortality, many were poor and lowly gentlemen; they were not people of influence and status” 是 以 歷 覽 在 昔，得 仙 道 者，多 貧 賤 之 士，非 勢 位 之 人 . Also cited in Lai Chi-tim, “Ko Hung’s Discourse of Hsien-Immortality: A Taoist

Configuration of an Alternate Self-Identity,” 210. The character shi 士 , “gentleman,” “master,” “scholar,” is also a common term for a literatus, a member of the aristocracy or

Notes to Pages 46–51 ︱ 257 46–51 ruling elite, a noble. If read as such, this sentence would be reflective of the Baopuzi’s call to a dispossessed local aristocracy whose members had been kept away from power to reclaim their heritage and their place at the top of the Jiangnan social hierarchy. Echoing this reading of the Baopuzi, Sivin, “On the Word ‘Taoist’ as a Source of Perplexity,” 326, judges Ge Hong to be a “pedantic purveyor of occultism to the upper class.” He adds, “I can only think of him as the Alan Watts of his time.” 116 See Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments”; and on the relationship between sovereignty and revealed tokens of legitimacy, Espesset, “Epiphanies of Sovereignty and the Rite of Jade Disc Immersion in Weft Narratives.” 117 See the introduction for a translation and discussion of the passage.

Chapter Two 1

For a masterful Western-language study of talismans in Daoism, see Seidel’s “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha.” Other important works include Bumbacher, Empowered Writing; Despeux, “Talismans and Diagrams”; Mollier, “Talismans”; and Robinet, Taoist Meditation, 19–37, especially 29–37. In the broader context of Chinese Buddhism and Chinese religions, see Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine, 123–193; Mollier, Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face: Scripture, Ritual, and Iconographic Exchange in Medieval China, especially 87–89 and 123–132; Robson, “Signs of Power: Talismanic Writing in Chinese Buddhism”; and des Rotours, “Les insignes en deux parties (fou 符 ) sous la dynastie T’ang (618–907).”

2

For a useful elaboration on the key differences between these terms, see Bumbacher,

3

Espesset, “A Case Study on the Evolution of Chinese Religious Symbols” illustrates this

4

In ibid., Espesset presents text-based examples of how fu were applied in different

Empowered Writing, especially 13–56. point. contexts and for different purposes. See also Bumbacher, Empowered Writing, 13–31. 5 Bumbacher, Empowered Writing, 33–56. 6

See, for instance, Seidel, “Traces of Han Religion in Funeral Texts Found in Tombs”; and Strickmann, Chinese Magical Medicine.

7

See Kristofer Schipper, The Taoist Body, especially 8 and 225 n. 7; Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History, 155; and Espesset, “A Case Study on the Evolution of Chinese Religious Symbols,” passim, especially 1–5. See also Faure, Visions of Power, 255 n. 7, who follows Lagerwey’s reasoning.

258 ︱ Notes to Pages 51–52 51–52 8

The semantic field of “symbol” incorporates the meanings of emblem, token, sign, representation, figure, image, metaphor, allegory, icon, character, mark, ideogram, badge, stamp, insignia, etc. In comparison, the original Greek “sumbolon” also includes the meanings of tally, token, sign, signal, ticket, index, pledge, pawn, covenant, permit, license, proof, insignia, emblem, allegory, omen, portent, and others.

9

I use this expression in reference to Arjun Appadurai’s treatment of the social life of objects, which includes an analysis of the religious sphere of activity. See Appadurai, “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value,” in his edited volume The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective.

10

For early attempts, see Doré, Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine, especially volumes 1–3, and Ch’en Hsiang-ch’un, “Examples of Charms Against Epidemics with Short Explanations.” More recent efforts include Liu Lexian, Jianbo shushu wenxian tanlun, 272–296; Sakade, “Dōkyō no jufu ni tsuite”; and Wang Yucheng’s influential articles “Zhongguo gudai daojiao qiyi fuming kaolun” and “Dong Han daofu shilie”; see also Wang Yucheng’s periodization of Daoist talismans in “Wenwu suo jian Zhongguo gudai dao fu shulun.”

11 Compare for example the reading of individual graphic features between Drexler, Daoistische Schriftmagie: Interpretationen zu den Schriftamuletten Fu im Daozang, Liu Zhongyu, “Daofu suyuan,” and Baptandier-Berthier, “Le Tableau talismanique de l’Empereur de Jade. Construction d’un objet d’écriture.” Yang Zhaohua, “Devouring Impurities: Myth, Ritual, and Talismans in the Cult of Ucchuṣma in Tang China,” provides an informative overview of key studies, 271–280, especially 273 n. 29, as well as his own thoughts on the “Chinese Epistemology of the Talisman,” 262–271. Focusing on semiotic interpretations, most studies offer a representational logic of talismans more than they do an actual guide to accurately reading them. 12 Espesset, “A Case Study on the Evolution of Chinese Religious Symbols,” 13; see also Drexler, Daoistische Schriftmagie, 50, 53, and 73. 13

On illegibility as a fundamental aspect of the talisman, see Raz, The Emergence of Daoism, 141–142. On the related issue of “antiquarian” talismans, in which script was purposely occluded and esotericized during the late Six Dynasties, Tang, and Song, see Liu Zhongyu, “Daofu suyuan.”

14 For a comprehensive treatment of divine celestial script, see Hsieh Shu-wei, “Writing from Heaven: Celestial Writing in Six Dynasties Daoism”; see also his more recent Tianjie zhi wen: Wei Jin Nanbei chao Lingbao jingdian yanjiu. 15

This is not the case with the Chinese system of writing, as William Boltz has shown; see

Notes to Pages 52–56 ︱ 259 52–56 his The Origin and Development of the Early Chinese Writing System; and also Boltz, “The Invention of Writing in China.” 16

On true name as it relates to true form in talismans, see Raz, The Emergence of Daoism, 128–129 and 143–148.

17 Copp, The Body Incantatory: Spells and the Ritual Imagination in Medieval Chinese Buddhism, has demonstrated how dhāraṇī “spells” in medieval China operated according to a similar albeit more extreme logic. Regardless of whether a dhāraṇī was correctly copied or transcribed, it was deployed first and foremost as a material object of power. Mistakes were inconsequential to its perceived efficacy or accuracy. As a result, Copp argues for an approach to the study of the transmission of Buddhism to China that de-emphasizes scriptures and text; for most medieval practitioners the tradition was experienced locally and materially more than it was doctrinally or conceptually. In the Daoist case, Boltz, “Cartography in the Daoist Canon,” 82, argues that the requirements of institutional religion, including transmission rituals and the expectation of permanent records, dictated that talismans be eventually committed to more durable media. That they became objects of devotion also encouraged the development of “concrete representations.” 18 Rambelli, Buddhist Materiality: A Cultural History of Objects in Japanese Buddhism, 122. Rambelli lists two other ritual uses of the talisman: as a locus of condensation for cosmic power and as a medium of communication with the divine. Both of these are valid in the context of the Writ. 19 See Baopuzi, 17.300, translated in chapter 1. 20

Shuowen jiezi, 95; I follow Grégoire Espesset’s translation of the Shuowen jiezi’s title, which in turn is based on Françoise Bottéro’s rendering; see Espesset, “A Case Study on the Evolution of Chinese Religious Symbols,” 2 n. 3.

21

信，誠也 ; Shuowen jiezi, 95.

22

然今符上字不可讀，誤不可覺，莫有能知者也 ; Baopuzi, 19.336.

23 Saussy, “Xu Bing and Writing,” 81. For Wu Hung’s proposed translation of Tianshu as Nonsense Writing, see “‘A Ghost Rebellion’: Notes on Xu Bing’s ‘Nonsense Writing’ and Other Works,” 87–88. Both Saussy and Wu Hung’s essays appear in Spears, ed., Tianshu: Passages in the Making of a Book, which also conveniently reproduces the totality of the Book from the Sky, 114–152. Xu Bing followed up with a Book from the Ground, which is entirely composed of emojis, symbols, logos, and diagrams that are strung together to form coherent “sentences” whose meaning—in contrast to the Book from the Sky—is abundantly clear.

260 ︱ Notes to Pages 56–57 56–57 24 See Malinowski’s chapter on “An Ethnographic Theory of the Magical Word” in his Coral Gardens and Their Magic (vol. 2): The Language of Magic and Gardening, 213–250. The anthropologist argues that the weirdness coefficient is predicated on the expectation that the words in magical spells belong to a different category of speech. Ultimately, the nonsense is largely decipherable through semantic associations that are made, in a nutshell, according to the context in which the spell is uttered and the particular function it has (i.e., the effect it is expected to produce). At first glance, this aspect of Malinowski’s approach may seem antithetical to the above exposition on talismanic script, but it largely reinforces the notion that the meaning of talismans derives not from the shape, structure, or perceived sense of the characters that adorn them, but rather from the material support on which they are realized and, as a corollary, from the context in which they are deployed, in other words, their function or intended effect. Malinowski, ibid., 253– 342, however, pushes his analysis further and identifies a recurrent structure and basic grammar in the spells of Trobrianders, a feat that is not achievable with celestial script because of its pictographic nature. Since the markings on talismans do not represent words or phrases, there is no particular grammar to discern. 25 [ 鮑南海 ] 序目云：[. . .] 凡三卷，皆上古三皇時所授之書也。作字似符文，又似 篆 文，又 似 古 書 ; Yunji qiqian (DZ 1032), 6.11a. Liu Zhongyu, “‘Sanhuang wen

xintan,” 28–29, takes this sentence to mean that the Sanhuang wen was made up of three distinct scripts, presumably one per scroll; he argues that the Sanhuang wen was a type of instruction manual for the writing of talismans. See Liu Zhongyu, “ ‘Sanhuang wen xintan,” 30–31. Since the previous sentence in the passage underscores the antiquity of the text, it is equally likely that the reference to archaic scripts is designed to demonstrate how ancient and illegible—and therefore spiritually potent—the text was. 26

Shu duan 書 斷 (Judgments on calligraphy), in Zhongguo shuhua quanshu 中 國 書 畫 全 書 (Complete collection of Chinese painting and calligraphy) 1.85, cited in Wang, Shaping the Lotus Sutra, 218; see also Wang Yucheng, “Zhongguo gudai daojiao qiyi fuming kaolun,” 32.

27

Yunji qiqian, 6.10b, attributes this line to the sixth scroll of the Dongshen jing (Cavern of Divinity corpus). It is found in Badi miaojing jing, 16a. See chapter 5 for the significance of this correspondence.

28

The second quotation in the passage, attributed to the third scroll of the Dongshen jing, corresponds to the Renhuang wen 人 皇 文 (Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind). This segment does not survive in any of the identified fragments of the Sanhuang wen, but the Sandong shenfu ji 三洞神符記 (A record of the divine talismans of the Three Caverns; DZ

Notes to Pages 57–59 ︱ 261 57–59 79), 6a, reproduces the first part and attributes it to the Sanhuang jing 三皇經 (Scripture/ corpus of the Three Sovereigns). This can refer to either one of two things: the Scripture of the Three Sovereigns, that is to say the Sanhuang wen, the first three scrolls of the corpus of the Three Sovereigns/Cavern of Divinity corpus, or to the entire corpus of the Three Sovereigns. 29

Yunji qiqian, 6.10b–11a. The “Shuobu” 說 卦 (An explanation of the trigrams) chapter of the Yijing, 615, notably describes the Three Powers (sancai) as the way of Heaven (tian zhi dao 天 之 道 ), the way of Earth (di zhi dao 地 之 道 ), and the way of Humankind (ren zhi dao 人之道 ).

30

On the basis of Henri Maspéro and Léon Wieger’s work, Ware, “The Wei shu and the Sui shu on Taoism,” 220 n. 19, notes that the term miao 妙 or miaoyi 妙一 , which appears in the title of the Badi miaojing jing, refers to the ultimate cosmogonic unity from whence the Three Primes (sanyuan) emerge.

31 See Boltz, The Origin and Development of the Early Chinese Writing System, especially 138–142. 32

昔 者 倉 頡 作 書，而 天 雨 粟，鬼 夜 哭 ; Huainanzi, 8.571; see also Major et al., The

33

鬼恐為書文所劾，故夜哭也 ; Huainanzi, 8.571.

Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early China, 274. 34 Gao You’s commentary explains that as a result of being found out and subjected to written bonds (shuqi 書 契 ) with humans, demons discarded their tills (geng 耕 ) to develop weapons (zhui dao 錐 刀 ) instead. Since they abandoned agriculture, Heaven knew there would be famine, so it rained down grains (er tian yu su 而天雨粟 ). Gao You adds another reason for the demons’ despair, again connected to the power of writing or true names: “The graph for ‘demon’ is sometimes written as ‘rabbit,’ and since rabbits fear that their hair will be taken to make brushes, [the demons feared] the harm would extend to them and for this reason they wailed” 鬼或作兔，兔恐有取毫為筆，害及之，故哭 ; see Huainanzi, 8.571. 35

Moral inflection was typically indicated by adding a prefix such as e 惡 , “evil,” or xie 邪 , “deviant” to shen or gui.

36 Kleeman, Celestial Masters: History and Ritual in the Early Daoist Community, 73. 37 For the “talismanic” functions of writing and broader considerations concerning the written language in classical China and its relation to the divine or the supernatural, see Gernet, “La Chine, aspects et fonctions psychologiques de l’écriture”; Lagerwey, “Écriture et corps divin en Chine”; and Lagerwey, “The Oral and the Written in Chinese and Western Religion”; see also Vandermeersch, “La langue graphique chinoise.”

262 ︱ Notes to Pages 60–62 60–62 38

See for example the discussions in Zhuangzi’s 莊 子 (Book of Master Zhuang) “Tiandao” 天 道 (The way of Heaven) chapter, or the Huainanzi’s “Shuoshan xun” 說 山 訓 (A

mountain of persuasions). 39

See Gernet’s “La Chine, aspects et fonctions psychologiques de l’écriture.”

40 Fraenkel, La signature, 235. Translated from French. See also Ginzburg, “Signes, Traces, Pistes. Racines d’un paradigme de l’indice,” which looks at how infinitesimal traces such as writing can reveal broader aspects of reality. Agamben, The Signature of All Things: On Method, similarly considers signatures as a trace or clue that “puts an insignificant or nondescript object in effective relation to an event [. . .] or to subjects.” In a passage that strikingly highlights the semantic parenthood between signatures and the talismans of early medieval China, Agamben, The Signature of All Things, 78, refers to the signature as being essentially devoid of meaning and constituting the zero degree of meaning “that, in the absence of a signified, continues to operate as the exigency of an infinite signification that cannot be exhausted by any signified.” 41

Wushang biyao, 25.1b.

42 Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion, 126; the passage continues: “By voluntarily giving these ‘treasures’ to humankind, the gods at the same time contract to respond to them.” Here Robinet points to an understanding of talismans as one half of a two-part tally that attracts the other half. Mortal practitioners hold the earthly component, the “treasure,” bao 寶 , while the names or true form of gods and spirits in Heaven constitute the celestial half, the “numina,” ling 靈 . In its original context of dynastic legitimation, the bao is a sacrum, a physical emblem of the Celestial Mandate (tianming 天 命 ) divinely revealed to a ruler. The bao, like the fuming briefly mentioned, is a natural magnet for its celestial ling counterpart and serves as a guarantee of harmony with Heaven. Robinet is here elaborating on Kaltenmark’s views in “Ling-Pao 靈寶 : Note sur un terme du taoïsme religieux,” 573, translated from French: “There was no difference in kind between dynastic or familial talismans known as sacred treasures (bao) and magic charms (fu), but perhaps at most a difference of degree that was in sum, proportional to the prestige of their owner—king, noble, or simple magician.” 43

Even when not in use, talismans are treated with the same care and ritual attention as a god or demon; Legeza, Tao Magic: The Chinese Art of the Occult, 18, argues “the magic power of the talismans derived [. . .] from the fact that, according to Taoist belief, they were permanently inhabited by spirits. Thus men were able to communicate directly with spirits by means of these talismans without the participation of a medium.”

44

Cited in Robinet, The World Upside Down: Essays on Taoist Internal Alchemy, 18.

Notes to Pages 62–65 ︱ 263 62–65 45

Robinet, “Xiang,” 1086.

46

Daston and Galison, “The Image of Objectivity,” 82 and 123.

47

三元八會，自然成文。方丈懸空，字字各現 ; Yunji qiqian, 6.10b–­11a; the quotation

is from the thirteenth scroll of the fourteen-scroll Sanhuang corpus. For more on the composition of this corpus, see chapter 5. 48 Robinet, Taoist Meditation, 22. 49 Ibid. Lower-ranking gods are assigned lesser sets of graphs, such as Cloud Seal script (yunzhuan zhi zhang 雲 篆 之 章 ). The Lingbao scriptures also developed their own mythological esoteric script; see Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures, 386–387 and 422. 50

Badi miaojing jing, 30b–31a. Zhengao, 1.8b, reproduces the expression “and all directions” (qun fang). The complete sentence reads: 陰陽之分則有三元八會群方飛天 之 書 ; the addition of feitian 飛 天 , (flying) deva, brings in a distinct Buddhist flavor;

thus, the Eight Conjunctions, when read in a Buddhist light, could also be the Eight Assemblies, referring to the gatherings in seven places (qichu bahui 七 處 八 會 ) where the Avataṃsaka-sūtra (Huayan jing 華 嚴 經 ) was preached. Nevertheless, in either case, the term bahui is definitely spatial, whereas sanyuan is chronological. 51 See appendix 1 for specific textual references. The title Sanhuang neiwen tianwen dazi appears in early texts such as the Taishang lingbao wufu xu 太 上 靈 寶 五 符 序 (Array of the five talismans of the Numinous Treasure; DZ 388), 3.17b, whose last stage of compilation was between 280 and 317. It is mentioned in a segment that narrates the Yellow Emperor’s reception of the scripture from the Master of the Purple Residence (Zifu xiansheng 紫 府 先 生 ). Baopuzi, 18.323, reproduces the passage, but it refers to the transmitted scripture as the Sanhuang neiwen, omitting the Tianwen dazi component of the title. Nonetheless, pre-fifth century texts appear to have occasionally shortened the title of the Sanhuang neiwen tianwen dazi to Tianwen dazi; see, for example, Baopuzi, 17.308; and Wang Ming, Baopuzi neipian jiaoshi, 339–340 n. 25. 52

The passage is most probably referring to Dong Zhongshu 董 仲 舒 (179–104 BCE), who was also known as a master of talismanic script; see Mollier, “Talismans,” 416–417, for talismans in Dunhuang manuscripts that are associated with the figure. On Yingzhou, see Smith, “Record of the Ten Continents,” 91–92; and Campany, Strange Writing, 53–54.

53

This is an unattested source. It may very well constitute the “oral instructions” (koujue 口 訣 ) to Bao Jing’s Sanhuang wen.

54

Badi miaojing jing, 30b–32a; Daojiao yishu, 2.6b–7a, and Yunji qiqian, 6.5b, 6.11a, also relate that Bo He’s Xiaoyou Sanhuang wen was composed in the Xiaoyou heaven.

55

Badi miaojing jing, 31b–32a.

264 ︱ Notes to Pages 65–68 65–68 56 The bibliographic chapter of the Baopuzi, 19.335, mentions a now lost Li Xiansheng koujue zhouhou 李 先 生 口 訣 肘 後 (Vade mecum of Master Li’s oral instructions) in two scrolls (juan). It is not beyond the realm of possibility that this title and the above passage refer to the leading figure of the eponymous Li jia dao 李 家 道 (Way of the Li Clan; alt. Li shi zhi dao 李 氏 之 道 ); see also Baopuzi, 9.173–174. Nickerson, “The Southern Celestial Masters,” 259, sees in Ge Hong’s description of the Li jia dao a misportrayal of the early Way of the Celestial Masters in Jiangnan rather than a local clan-based esoteric current. 57 The Xiaoyou jing is also referred to as the Tianwen dazi in the “Secret Words.” The Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüe shuo 傳授三洞經戒法籙略說 (Short exposition on the transmission of the scriptures, precepts, and liturgical registers of the Three Caverns; DZ 1241), 1.7a, for example, clearly differentiates the Sanhuang neiwen from the Sanhuang dazi; the same is true for the Dongxuan lingbao sandong fengdao kejie yingshi 洞玄靈寳三 洞奉道科戒營始 (Regulations for honoring the Dao in accordance with the scriptures of

the Three Caverns; DZ 1125), 8a–12b. See chapter 5. 58 Yoshioka, Dōkyō kyōten shiron, 47, and Wu Chengquan, Han mo Wei Jin, 132, uphold that Ge Hong authored the “Baopu miyan.” 59 60

Wushang biyao, 25.2a. Wushang biyao, 25.2b–3a; out of the roughly fourteen deities or groups of deities (depending on how one divides them) mentioned in the text, only two—the gods of the Four Seas (sidu 四瀆 ) and the spirits of the administrative and security officers (luli cijian 錄吏刺姦 )—have no equivalent in the talismans. Conversely, six of the sixteen talismans

named in the subsequent list have no equivalent in the introductory passage. These are the Director of Destinies (Siming 司 命 ), Three Dukes (sangong 三 公 ), the Queen Mother of the West (Xiwang Mu 西 王 母 ), the King Father of the East (Dongwang Fu 東王父 ), Lord Lao (Laojun 老君 ), and the Lord Marquis of Rivers (He houjun 河侯君 ).

61

In total, the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” contains sixty-one talismans. Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 269, only lists forty-nine talismans, choosing to omit two groups of three and nine talismans that are found in the text’s last section, the “Sanhuang chuan wen” 三 皇 傳 文 (Writ on the Transmission of the Three Sovereigns). See appendix 3 for a list of its

talismans. 62

The sixteen talismans of the “Sanhuang tianwen dazi” section are collectively composed

63

Wushang biyao, 25.3a.

64

Ibid., 25.9a–10b; see Ofuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 261.

of 171 constituent characters.

Notes to Pages 69–70 ︱ 265 69–70 65

Badi miaojing jing, 29a. The Lord Wang-Bo He version of the Writ is referred to as the Wangjun shixing 王君施行 (Practices of Lord Wang) in this case.

66 As it happens, that first segment ends with the line: “Sixteenth [talisman]: these nine characters are the names of the Nine Heavens” 第 十 六，九 字 是 九 天 之 名 也 ; Wushang biyao, 25.3a. Thus, whereas the sixteenth talisman in the first set summons the gods of the Nine Heavens collectively, the subsequent nine talismans that were relocated to the “Dazi xiapian fu” would have summoned them individually, as do their homologues in the Badi miaojing jing, 17a–18b. 67

Wushang biyao, 25.3a–5b; the “Tianhuang wen diyi fa” section is constituted of 192 talismanic characters.

68

Wushang biyao, 25.5b–7a; the talismans from the “Dihuang wen” section are made up of 164 constituent characters.

69

Wushang biyao, 25.7ab; the five talismans of the “Renhuang wen” section consist of sixty characters.

70 See Wushang biyao, 6.6b, and Yunji qiqian, 3.14a­–15b, for example. 71

餘字注在天文中 ; Wushang biyao, 25.7b.

72

The gods that are listed in some capacity or another in the opening Bao Jing section as well as the “Tianhuang wen” are the Great Unity (Taiyi 太 一 ), the Director of Destinies (Siming 司 命 ), and the Generals of the Sun and Moon (riyue jiangjun 日 月 將 軍 ). See Wushang biyao, 25.2b. The true names for calling on the gods of the Five Peaks (Xiyue 西 嶽 ; Beiyue 北 嶽 ; Nanyue 南 嶽 ; Zhongyue 中 嶽 ; Dongyue 東 嶽 ), the Four Waterways (sidu 四 瀆 ), and the Three Rivers (sanhe 三 河 ) from the “Dihuang wen” also have their counterparts in the opening section. Finally, the “Renhuang wen” mentions the administrative officers of the Nine Heavens (jiutian luli 九 天 錄 吏 ), who resemble the examiner and security officers of the Nine Heavens (jiutian jiaoshi cijian li 九 天 校 事 刺 姦 吏 ) listed in the Tianwen dazi section of the “Essential Functions.” If the same

instructions could be included in both versions of the Sanhuang wen, Poul Andersen’s assertion that the Tianwen dazi sections from the Wushang biyao 25 are from Bao Jing’s version of the Sanhuang wen should be revised since the equivalence is grounded in instructions from that section appearing in another source where they are associated with Bao Jing; see his entry for the “Dongshen badi miaojing jing,” 269, in Schipper and Verellen’s Taoist Canon. 73

The talisman for summoning the Great Unity (Taiyi) precedes the one for the Lord of the North in the “Tianhuang wen.” Its instructions are comparatively more fleshed out; see Wushang miyao, 25.3b–4a.

266 ︱ Notes to Pages 70–74 70–74 74

Wushang biyao, 25.4a; see Wushang biyao, 25.2b, and Badi miaojing jing, 22a, for talismans related to the same deity.

75

持此書入山，辟虎狼 [. . .] 可以涉江海，卻蛟龍，止風波 ; Baopuzi, 19.336.

76

Baopuzi, 19.337.

77

Ibid., 17.308.

78 Ofuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 260, and 274, suggests that what is preserved in the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” (Essential functions) might be identical to texts that Ge Hong had in his collection. 79

See for instance, Wushang biyao, 25.7ab and 9b.

80

Wushang biyao, 25.4b–5a.

81

“The seventh [talisman]. These thirteen graphs can summon snakes, vipers, insects, and rodents. Each have their names individually [recorded] in the Celestial Script.” 第 七， 一十三字可召蛇虺蟲鼠，各有名在天文中 ; Wushang biyao, 25.6b.

82

For more on Lu Xiujing’s four-scroll corpus, see chapter 4. With appended materials, this “expanded” version of the text was sometimes referred to as a jing 經 , a “scripture,” or, more accurately, a “corpus,” as in the Sanhuang jing 三皇經 . See note 29.

83

Wushang biyao, 25.7b–9a. The term “esoteric sounds” (neiyin 內 音 ) refers to the true names of deities in divine language in both their spoken and written forms.

84 For example, the talisman titled “Shenxian shengtian daquan wen” 神 仙 昇 天 大 券 文 (Great contractual writ of divine immortals who ascend to Heaven) from the Wushang biyao’s “Sanhuang neiyin” is reproduced in the Badi miaojing jing, 11b, under the name “Shengtian fu” 昇 天 符 (Talisman for ascending to Heaven), whereas the “Jiutian fabing neifu” 九天發兵內符 (Esoteric talisman for issuing the troops of the Nine Heavens) and the “Tianshui feiteng neifu” 天 水 飛 騰 內 符 (Esoteric talisman for soaring in the azure) are listed in the Sanhuang wen’s transmission catalogues from Dongxuan lingbao sandong fengdao kejie yingshi, 4.7b; Taishang dongshen sanhuang yi 太 上 洞 神 三 皇 儀 (Protocols of the Three Sovereigns; DZ 803), 8a–12b; and Taishang dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi 太 上洞神三皇傳授儀 (Transmission protocols of the Three Sovereigns; DZ 1284), 13a. For

more on these sources and their inventories, see chapter 5. 85

Wushang biyao, 25.9a.

86

Ibid., 9ab.

87

“If the Charts of the Five Peaks do not have these hidden talismans, then the Five Peaks will not send forth their five divine protectors” 有五嶽圖无此陰符則五嶽不遣五神衛子 矣 ; Wushang biyao, 9b.

88 The talismans from the “Sanhuang neiyin” (Esoteric sounds of the Three Sovereigns)

Notes to Page 75 ︱ 267 75 section of Wushang biyao, 25.7b–9a, are notably listed in Baopuzi, 19.335, in the exact same order, with only minor variations in their names. Only the “Shenxian shengtian daquan wen” (Great contractual writ of divine immortals who ascend to Heaven) appears to be absent from the list, but a Shengtian yi 昇 天 儀 (Protocols for ascending to Heaven) is listed a few pages earlier in Ge Hong’s catalogue; see Baopuzi, 19.333. 89 Unfortunately, the images for the talismans from the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” are lost. Consequently, it is impossible to compare them with those preserved in the “Xicheng yaojue.” Nevertheless, the names of the deities from talismans 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, and 16 from the Tianwen dazi section of the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin,” along with some of their instructions, correspond to those for talismans 28, 48, 49, 59–63, 90, 40, 59–63, 64, 65, 69, 46, 70, 11, and 1–9 in the “Xicheng yaojue,” respectively. Only the thirteenth talisman from the first group, which summons Laozi, also known as Lao Peng 老彭 , has no equivalent in the “Xicheng yaojue”; see appendix 3 for details. 90

高 皇 名 可 召 河 伯，著 水 中，河 伯 立 至，可 問 水 事 ; Wushang biyao, 25.10a. This

talisman is also duplicated in the other section of the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” that corresponds to the Tianwen dazi: 第十五，一十字召河侯君，以問水事 ; Wushang biyao, 25.3a. 91

高皇名，可召河伯，如召山神法。著水中，河伯立至，可問水早 ; Badi miaojing jing,

18a. 92

All the stipulations from the “Dazi xiapian fu” are duplicated word for word in the same order in the “Xicheng yaojue,” although the latter contains more detailed directives. Compare Wushang biyao, 25.9b–10b, to Badi miaojing jing, 17a–18a. There is one exception: the last talisman from the “Dazi xiapian fu” is to be copied in “red writing” (danshu 丹 書 ), a detail that is not included in the corresponding passage from the “Xicheng yaojue.”

93

The account of Lord Wang and Bo He’s meeting is discussed in detail in chapter 1.

94 The deities from the fourteen “Tianhuang wen” talismans are also encountered, with some variations, in the “Xicheng yaojue’s” 9th and 76th, 2nd and 23rd, 1st and 84th, 22nd, 40th (again), 2nd, 3rd, 5th, 8th and 67th, 10th, 11th, 13th, 12th, and 14th talismans respectively. The talismans from the “Dihuang wen” section correspond to talismans 16, 15, 4 and 85, 17, 18 and 19, 25, 20, 33 and 89, 35, 34 and 92, 36, 32, 37, and 52 and 65 of the “Xicheng yaojue.” The five talismans of the “Renhuang wen” section are equivalent to the “Xicheng yaojue’s” 10th and 80th, 3rd (but also 2nd, 22nd, 23rd, and 90th), 26th, 24th, and 27th talismans respectively; see appendix 3 for correspondences.

268 ︱ Notes to Pages 76–79 76–79 95

右用繒廣九寸丹書於室中。隨方面所用色也 ; Badi miaojing jing, 25a.

96

皆丹書䌝廣一尺二寸，長亦同，書不得中息而語也 ; Badi miaojing jing, 29b.

97 If each of the three scrolls from the Bao Jing transmission had fourteen talismans, as the “Essential Functions” suggested, then the total number of talismans for that version would be forty-two. The “Instructions from the Western Citadel” contains ninetytwo talismans, which would leave fifty for Bo He’s version. Nevertheless, because of redundancies and the incomplete nature of the inventory, it is next to impossible to conclusively determine exactly which of the talismans and instructions in the “Instructions from the Western Citadel” come from which version of the Writ. 98

Badi miaojing jing, 29a; also see Ofuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 270–271.

99 The Wangjun shixing (Practices of Lord Wang) is equivalent to the Xicheng shixing 西 城 施 行 (Practices of the Western Citadel) listed in the “*Taogong chuanshou yi” 陶 公 傳 授 儀 (Lord Tao’s protocols of transmission and reception), which survives in a set of

Dunhuang manuscripts; see chapter 4 for more. The term xing 行 that appears in the title may refer to the centerpiece jiuxing 九 行 (Nine Agents) mentioned in the passage, or to activated talismans (fu) in general. In that case, the title of the Wangjun shixing or Xicheng shixing could translate to Talismans (or Agents?) of Lord Wang/the Western Citadel. In any case, the jiuxing of the Sanhuang wen are distinct from the jiuxing 九 行 of Celestial Master repute, the “Nine Practices.” These are a set of nine precepts featured in the Daode zunjing jie 道 德 尊 經 (Venerable scripture of the Way and Virtue); this text is preserved in the third-century (?) Taishang laojun jinglü 太上老君經律 (Lord Lao’s canonical rules; DZ 786), 1a. 100 The most common names after 471 were Sanhuang jing 三 皇 經 (Scripture/corpus of the Three Sovereigns) or Dongsheng jing 洞神經 (Cavern of Divinity corpus); these referred to the Sanhuang wen along with the expanded corpus of sources that developed around it. When differentiating between Bao Jing’s and Bo He’s transmission lines, it was standard to use the titles Dayou jing 大有 經 (Scripture of Great Existence) and Xiaoyou jing 小 有 經 (Scripture of Lesser Existence), respectively.

101 Wushang biyao, 3b. 102 Ibid., 10a. 103 These instructions match the bulk ritual specifications listed at the end of the first sixtyfour talismans, with the exception of the size of the cut of silk. While these particular specifications require the talisman to be written on a piece five inches (cun 寸 ) across, the general ones following the sixty-fourth insist on nine inches. 104 Badi miaojing jing, 17a.

Notes to Pages 80–85 ︱ 269 80–85 105 See Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China. Many of Lewis’ findings concerning the relationship between writing and authority resonate with the dynamic between the Writ, integrated Daoism, and the state. See also Wang Haicheng, Writing and the Ancient State: Early China in Comparative Perspective.

Chapter Three 1

Wushang biyao (DZ 1138), 25.1b.

2

For examples of talismans that summon the gods of the Five Peaks or related deities, see Badi miaojing jing (DZ 640), 24b­–25a and 28ab, and Wushang biyao, 2ab, 9b, and especially 6b–7a.

3

In early China, adducive and expulsive functions were considered parallel although separate ritual actions, as indicated in the following passage from the chapter “On Exorcism” (“Jiechu” 解除 ) in Wang Chong’s 王充 (27–100 CE) Lunheng 論衡 (Weighed debates), 75:



The mundane believe in sacrifice, saying sacrifice must bring about fortune, and likewise [they believe] in exorcism, saying exorcism must dispel the inauspicious.



世信祭祀，謂祭祀必有福。又然解除，謂解除必去凶。

4

Huangdi jiuding shendan jingjue 黄 帝 九 鼎 神 丹 經 訣 (Instructions on the scripture of the divine elixirs of the nine tripods of the Yellow Emperor; DZ 885) hereafter Jiudan jingjue, 1.9b, 1.10b, and 1.11a, from Pregadio, Great Clarity, 129.

5 See Badi miaojing jing, 19a, 18b, and 19b, for the talismans that summon the Duke of Soil and Grain (Shegong 社 公 or Dugong 土 公 ), the God of Wind (Feilian 蜚 廉 ), and the Great Unity (Taiyi), respectively. Compare Jiudan jingjue, 1.9b–1.11a to Baopuzi, 17.300. The latter describes the powers afforded by the Sanhuang wen in terms that closely mirror the account from Jiudan jingjue. 6 See Jiudan jingjue, 1.9b, and 1.13b; and Pregadio, Great Clarity, 129. 7 See Daojiao yishu, 2.12a; and Pregadio, Great Clarity, 152–155. On the formation of the Three Caverns (sandong 三 洞 ), the three basic divisions of the Daoist Canon, and the addition of the Four Supplements (sifu 四輔 ; alt. Four Auxiliaries), see chapter 4. 8

Realgar is part of the “Three Yellows” (sanhuang 三 黃 ), a celebrated alchemical trinity that also includes orpiment (cihuang 雌 黄 ) and arsenic (pihuang 砒 黄 ); see Pregadio, Great Clarity, 247. Some accounts substitute arsenic with sulfur (liuhuang 流 黄 ) or yellow gold (huangjin 黄 金 ); see also “Orpiment” and “Realgar,” in Schafer, The Peaches of Samarkand: A Study in T’ang Exotics, 213–214, and 219–220. See also Schafer,

270 ︱ Notes to Pages 85–88 85–88 “Orpiment and Realgar in Chinese Technology and Tradition” notes that the medicinal and exorcistic applications of realgar as listed in the Shennong bencao jing 神 農 本 草 經 (Canonical pharmacopoeia of the Divine Husbandman) were the following: “(1) as a general restorative and rejuvenator; for lightening the body to the condition of a deity or Taoist sylph; (2) for specific diseases, notably chills and fever, scrofula, ulcers, abcesses, and necrosis; (3) against insect and reptile poisons”; furthermore, (4) “this potent drug is able to kill all specters, demons, malignant emanations, and even to give protection against weapons.” Cf. the description from the Baopuzi in the following two notes. 9

服之皆令人長生，百病除，三尸下，瘢痕滅，白髮黑，墮齒生 ; Baopuzi, 11.203.

10

千日則玉女來侍，可得役使，以致行廚。 Baopuzi, 11.203; cf. Baopuzi, 17.304–305,

where Ge Hong presents realgar as a general apotropaion against snakes while on retreat in mountains and swamps. It is also an antidote against their bites: 或問曰隱居山澤辟蛇 蝮之道。抱朴子曰，昔圓丘多大蛇，又生好藥，黃帝將登焉，廣成子教之佩雄黃， 而眾蛇皆去。今帶武都雄黃，色如鷄冠者五兩以上，以入山林草木，則不畏蛇。蛇 若中人，以少許雄黃末內瘡中，亦登時愈也。

11

Badi miaojing jing, 14a.

12

Ibid., 14b.

13

The recipe, found in Baopuzi, 4.86, is listed as follows:



Minor Divine Elixir Recipe. Use three jin of true cinnabar and six jin of white honey. Stir them together and roast them under the sun until they can be made into pills. At dawn, ingest about ten pills the size of a hemp seed. In less than a year, white hair will turn black again, lost teeth will grow anew, and the body will be glistening. If you consume the pills for a long time the elderly will regain their youth, long life will be granted, and death will be avoided.



小神丹方，用真丹三斤，白蜜六斤攪合，亦日暴煎之，令可丸，旦服如麻子許 十丸，未一年，髮白者黑，齒落者生，身體潤澤，長服之，老翁成年少，長生 不死矣。

14

Baopuzi, 4.86.

15 See Baopuzi, 4.74–76. 16

服之百日，玉女六甲六丁神女來侍之，可役使，知天下之事也 ; Baopuzi, 4.81–82.

17

For the gods of the Six Jia and the Six Ding, see Badi miaojing jing, 22a and 32a, and for those 3b and 18a, respectively; see also “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” in Wushang biyao, 25.5a and 7a.

18

See Pregadio, Great Clarity, 172.

19 On the Taiqing’s grounding in Jiangnan culture, see Pregadio, Great Clarity, 15–16, and especially 123–139. On the Sanhuang wen as a symbolic text of southern lore, see chapter 1. 20

昔衛叔卿授李少君，登天之日傳 ; Badi miaojing jing, 11b. This talisman is featured in

Notes to Pages 88–91 ︱ 271 88–91 the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin”; Wushang biyao, 25.8b. It also appears in the bibliographic catalogue of the Baopuzi, 19.335, and in a host of other indexes of Sanhuang talismans; see appendix 3 for a list of these occurrences. 21

Shenxian zhuan 神 仙 傳 (Biographies of divine immortals), in Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 271–274 and 464–467; see also Baopuzi, 11.203.

22

Shiji, 28.1385; Li Shaojun also appears in Shiji, 12.453–455, and Hanshu, 25A.1217; his Shenxian zhuan hagiography mainly paraphrases the two previous sources, but it also adds an episode that sees him saving Dong Zhongshu on account of his medical prowess; see Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 222–228 and 434; see also, by the same author, Making Transcendents, 117–120, 145–146, and 253–254.

23

Shiji, 28.1385; see also Pregadio, Great Clarity, 31–32; Schafer, “The Stove God and the Alchemists,” 263–264, and Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, 5.3, 29, for more on the Stove God and his conjuration relative to Waidan alchemy. The Stove God is closely tied to Yandi 炎帝 , the Flaming Emperor, who is sometimes identified as one of the Three Sovereigns.

24

Hanshu, 36.1928; from Pregadio, Great Clarity, 26–27.

25

畫 天，地，太 一 諸 神 ; Shiji, 28.1388 and 12.458. The second passage is a duplicate

of the first, but it lists the Great Unity, Taiyi 太 一 , by means of the variant characters Taiyi 泰 一 . See also Schafer, “The Stove God and the Alchemists,” 264. Li Shaoweng is traditionally credited with summoning the spirit of Emperor Wu’s former consort, Lady Li, although the feat is sometimes attributed to Li Shaoweng; see Campany, Strange Writing, 64–77 and 306–318. 26 Zuo Ci is mentioned in the Hou Hanshu’s 後 漢 書 (History of the Later Han dynasty) second chapter on fangshi, 80b.2747. 27

Baopuzi, 4.71.

28

Ibid., 4.71.

29

Hou 候 denotes a commentary to the Shangshu 尚 書 ; together with wei 緯 it may be taken as a general referent to Weft Text commentaries. See Hou Hanshu, 82a.2703, and Ngo Van Xuyet, Divination, magie et politique, 74.

30

Yunji qiqian (DZ 1032), 85.15a.

31 Ōfuchi, Shoki no dōkyō, 545, regards any direct transmission from Zuo Ci to Bao Jing as highly improbable, but he does not reject the idea that the Sanhuang wen could have made its way from one figure to the next by way of intermediaries. 32

Daojiao yishu, 2.7a.

33

然弟子五十餘人，唯余見受金丹之經，及三皇內文 [. . .]，其餘人乃有不得一觀此書 之首題者矣 ; Baopuzi, 19.333.

272 ︱ Notes to Pages 91–92 91–92 34

Baopuzi, 19.333; Shenxian zhuan, from Taiping yulan 太 平 御 覧 (Imperial digest of the Taiping Xingguo reign period), 663.6b (2961), and 187.4a (907) records Lord Wang’s transmission of the Taiqing jing to Bo He, but the Sanhuang wen is not mentioned; see also Badi miaojing jing, 15b.

35

The passage describing the transmission is translated earlier in the chapter; see Baopuzi, 4.71. Pregadio, Great Clarity, 5, upholds that the transmission occurred around the time that Ge Hong was eighteen, circa 300. Zheng Yin’s date of birth would be around 210, since Ge Hong (283–343), who studied with Zheng Yin between the age of fourteen and nineteen, explains that he joined his master when he was “leaving his eighties”; Baopuzi, 19.331. For Zheng Yin’s passing, see Baopuzi, 19.338.

36

See the relevant passage in Baopuzi, 19.336–337, and Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 71.

37

Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 76.

38 For a comparable schematic of the transmission of Taiqing scriptures, see “Tableau 2” in Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing, vol. 1, 17; see also “Tableau 3,” 18, which documents the transmission of the Wuyue zhenxing tu and shares many figures with the Taiqing and Sanhuang wen transmissions. 39 See Taiqing jinye shendan jing (DZ 880), 1.14b–15a; see also Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 275–276; and Pregadio, Great Clarity, 39, 50, and 145. Nonetheless, no record exists of Yin Changsheng transmitting alchemical materials to Bao Jing. Instead, according to Zhengao (DZ 1016), 12.3a, he is credited with imparting the technique of “liberation from the corpse by means of a blade” (dao shijie 刀 尸 解 ) to Ge Hong’s future father-in-law in 318; cf. Yunji qiqian, 85.14b–16a. This method permits substituting one’s gross body for an invisible ethereal equivalent immediately after sustaining a lethal blow from a bladed weapon, thereby giving the impression of death to any onlooker. “Liberation from the corpse by means of a blade” was a useful way for transcendents to seize the opportunity of an armed conflict or a public execution—as in Bao Jing’s case perhaps—to escape the world. 40

See for instance, Pregadio, Great Clarity, 3–5.

41

隱居無終山中合神丹，又於山中作金五千斤以救百姓；Shenxian zhuan from Taiping

yulan, 45.10b (218); See Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 135–136, for a full translation of the hagiography. 42

See note 91. Ma Mingsheng is noted for transmitting Taiqing materials to Yin Changsheng. Ma Mingsheng (just as Li Shaojun) was a pupil of Anqi Sheng 安 期 生 (fl. ca. 200 BCE; alt. Anqi xiansheng 安 期 先 生 [Scholar Anqi]), an illustrious alchemist and

Notes to Page 94 ︱ 273 94 fangshi reputed to have already been one thousand years old by the Qin dynasty (221 BCE–206 CE); see Shiji, 12.455, 28.1385, and 80.2436; he is also the subject of an entry in the Lie xian zhuan 列 仙 傳 (Arrayed biographies of immortals); see Kaltenmark, Le Lie-sien tchouan : biographies légendaires des immortels taoïstes de l’antiquité, 115–118. For the most part, the admission of Anqi Sheng, Ma Mingsheng, and Yin Changsheng at the forefront of the Taiqing transmission line is the product of late fifth- to sixth-century Shangqing revisionism; see Pregadio, Great Clarity, 145–147; and Strickmann, “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching,” 145. See also Shangqing taishang yuanshi yaoguang jinhu fengwen zhang baojing 上清太上元始耀光金虎鳳文章寶經 (Treasured scripture of the stanzas on the brilliance of the primordial commencement in golden tiger phoenix script; DZ 1383), 14b. In this fifth-century Shangqing source, Anqi receives the talismans of the Three Sovereigns from the Perfected of the Paulownia and Cypress (Tongbo zhenren 桐柏 真 人 ), Wang Bao 王 褒 , who in Shangqing texts is conflated with Lord Wang of Western

Citadel. Zuo Ci and Zheng Yin, however, were considered crucial links in the Taiqing transmission line from the fourth century, if not earlier. 43

Taiji zhenren jiuzhuan huandan jing yaojue 太 極 真 人 九 轉 還 丹 經 要 訣 (Essential instructions to the Perfected of the great ultimate’s scripture on the reverted elixir in nine cycles; DZ 889), 1a and 5a; cited from Pregadio, Great Clarity, 58, see also 144–145. Appearing in the Taiqing lineage, the ubiquitous Yellow Emperor provides yet another, albeit more generic, link between alchemy and the Sanhuang wen. For the Yellow Emperor in alchemy, see Pregadio, Great Clarity, 40–43.

44 See Baopuzi, 2.16, for a reference to the recipe and Baopuzi, 4.82, for the recipe itself, which I translate as follows:

Another [recipe] is Lord Wang’s Elixir Recipe. [Place Sichuan] cinnabar and mercury inside some chicken eggs, and seal them with lacquer. Have a chicken incubate three of these eggs [at a time], and ingest them on a king and minister hour. It will arrest years and stop aging. Small children should not ingest [these, as they would] be unable to further grow. If given to newborn chicks and puppies they will no longer grow. [The eggs] are efficacious in this way for any bird or beast.



又王君丹法，巴沙及汞內雞子中，漆合之，令雞伏之三枚，以王相日服之，住 年不老，小兒不可服，不復長矣，與新生雞犬服之，皆不復大，鳥獸皆亦如此 驗。



The hemerological term “king and minister,” or, alternatively, “dominant and assistant” (wangxiang shi 王 相 ), regularly surfaces in Taiqing sources and twice in Badi miaojing jing, 11a, as well, underscoring the connection between alchemical materials and the Writ of the Three Sovereigns.

274 ︱ Notes to Pages 94–95 94–95 45

Badi miaojing jing, 14ab; see translations above.

46 On true form, see Huang, Picturing the True Form: Daoist Visual Culture in Traditional China, 135–186. 47 Corbin, Corps spirituel, Terre céleste. De l’Iran mazdéen à l’Iran shî’ite, 10–18; see also Corbin, “Mundus imaginalis ou l’imaginaire et l’imaginal.” 48

Baopuzi, 17.300, also translated in chapter 1; see also Baopuzi, 19.337, where the benefits of the Wuyue zhenxing tu are outlined immediately after those of the Sanhuang wen.

49 Many sources record the first step in the transmission of the Wuyue zhenxing tu and Sanhuang wen as having occurred from Lord Wang to Bo He; see Xianyuan bianzhu 仙苑 編珠 (Threaded pearls from the garden of immortals; DZ 596), 2.17b, and the Leishuo 類 說 (Classification of sayings), 3.9b; see also Shenxian zhuan, from Taiping yulan, 663.6b

(2961), translated in chapter 1. Others emphasize a transmission from Zheng Yin to Bao Jing; see, for example, Wuyue zhenxing tu xulun 五 嶽 真 形 圖 序 論 (Prefatory treatise to the True Form Charts of the Five Peaks; DZ 1281) and Yunji qiqian, 85.15a. 50

Chuxue ji 初 學 記 (Record of initial learning), 24.585, parallels the Shenxian zhuan account cited in note 45, but it replaces the Wuyue zhenxing tu with the Taiqing jing; see also Taiping yulan, 187.4a (907), mentioned above. The Badi miaojing jing, 15b, lists the Taiqing zhongjing and “methods of the divine Elixir and the Golden Liquor” (jinye shendan zhi fang 金 液 神 丹 之 法 ) as transmission complements to the Sanhuang wen instead of the Wuyue zhenxing tu.

51 See Wushang biyao, 25.2ab, and Badi miaojing jing, 21b and 29a; see also Wushang biyao, 25.9ab, for a set of talismans related to the Five Peaks. 52

The two most complete studies are Schipper, “Gogaku shingyō zu no shinkō,” and Boltz unpublished typescript, “Cartography in the Daoist Canon”; a copy of the latter is held in the archives of the École Française d’Extrême-Orient in Kyoto, Japan. See also Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 77–78 and 276–277; Schipper, “The True Form: Reflections on the Liturgical Basis of Taoist Art,” 91–113; Yamada, “Futatsu no shinpu: Gogaku shingyōzu to Reihō gofu”; and most recently, Huang, Picturing the True Form, 165–170.

53 Schipper, L’Empereur Wou des Han dans la légende taoïste, 30, argues that the Wuyue zhenxing tu discussed in the Han Wudi neizhuan 漢 武 帝 內 傳 (Esoteric biography of Emperor Wu of the Han) represents the paradisiacal five isles of the immortals instead of the five mountains usually depicted in the version of the charts associated with the Sanhuang wen. Various passages in the Wuyue zhenxing tu xulun (DZ 1281) support this hypothesis, indicating that there may have been two sets of Wuyue zhenxing tu

Notes to Pages 97–98 ︱ 275 97–98 with independent lineages. Sections from Zhengao, 10.23a and 14.20a, also point in this direction; see Schipper, L’Empereur Wou des Han dans la légende taoïste, 27–33 for a complete discussion of the issue. 54 See Baopuzi, 19.336; the passage is translated in chapter 1. 55

Boltz, “Cartography in the Daoist Canon,” 8; see also ibid., 3–4; and Schipper, L’Empereur Wou des Han dans la légende taoïste, 20–22, and 126–127.

56

Schipper, “The Written Memorial in Taoist Ceremonies,” 160–161.

57 Ibid.; in L’Empereur Wou des Han, 28, Schipper adds that with Wuyue zhenxing tu’s for marshalling deities and placating demons, “one could think that Taoists had in some ways a contractual link with the mountains they visited.” 58 For the attribution to Yu, see Schipper’s translation of the passage from the Wuyue chunqiu 吳越春秋 (Spring and autumn annals of Wu and Yue), 2.3b, in his “The Written Memorial in Taoist Ceremonies,” 160. 59 Schipper, “The Written Memorial in Taoist Ceremonies,” 161, paraphrasing the Lunyu 論語 (Analects) 2.1; 為政以德，譬如北辰，居其所而眾星共之。

60 See Granet, Danses et légendes dans la Chine ancienne, 489. The Zuozhuan 左 傳 (Zuo commentary) supplies a titillating description of the cauldrons in “Xuan gong, san nian” 宣公三年 (Duke Xuan, third year), 3.3.669–672; see Durrant, Wai-Yee Li, and Schaberg,

Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan: Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, 601–603, for an English translation. Baopuzi, 17.308, refers to a Jiuding ji 九 鼎 記 (Record of nine tripods) that also dealt with the fauna of faraway lands and the methods to subdue them; Yu’s nine tripods were considered such an effective political symbol that their image was resurrected in 699 to legitimate the reign of Empress Wu Zetian 武則天 (r. 690–705). 61 For the Shanhai jing as a companion to Yu’s tripods, see Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 320; and Lewis, Writing and Authority in Early China, 269–270. This hypothesis is not exclusively that of Western scholars. It has notable Chinese antecedents. We may cite for example the preface by Yang Shen 楊 慎  (1448–1559) to the first Wanli (1573–1619) edition of the text, discussed in Wang, “The Rhetoric of Book Illustrations.” For more, see Fracasso, “The Illustrations of the Shanhai jing from Yu’s Tripods to Qing Blockprints.” 62 Schipper, “The True Form: Reflections on the Liturgical Basis of Taoist Art,” 95, maintains that works from the Chinese southern cultural sphere such as the Lie xian zhuan and the Laozi zhongjing (Central scripture of Laozi) contained charts or images representing the subject’s true form. According to Schipper, this form depicted what could be best termed a “soul,” whether that of a demon, immortal, human being, or even a river or mountain.

276 ︱ Notes to Pages 98–102 98–102 63 Robinet, Taoism, Growth of a Religion, 111. 64 See Harper, “A Chinese Demonography of the Third Century B.C.,” 491–494; Jao Tsung-I, “Ba Dunhuang ben baize jingguai tu liang canjuan,” and Ch’en P’an, Gu chenwei yantao ji qi shulu jieti, 280. 65 Harper, “Communication by Design: Two Silk Manuscripts of Diagrams (Tu) from Mawangdui Tomb Three,” 184–186. Boltz, “Cartography in the Daoist Canon,” 80, notably reflects that topographic diagrams were “inherently texts unto themselves.” 66

君有四海河神名、並可請之呼之、卻鬼氣 ; Longyu hetu 龍魚河圖 (River chart of the

dragon fish) in Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 6.92; compare to 6.140, 140; translation modified from Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 322. 67

江河海水山川丘澤之形兆，及王者州國之分，天子聖人所興起容頰形狀也 ;

translation from Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 318–319; see Ch’en P’an, “Gu chenwei quan shu cunmu jieti (yi),” 57. 68

Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 319–323.

69

河圖命紀也、圖天地帝王終始存亡之期、錄代之矩 ; Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 319,

from Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 2.61; see also Ch’en P’an, “Gu chenwei quan shu cunmu jieti (yi).” 70 71

Seidel, “Imperial Treasures,” 323. Zhengao, 5.10b. As far as I can surmise, the practitioner is meant to pace back and forth, visualizing white qi 氣 or breath around his feet (or a projected path?) in one direction and red breath in the other, upon returning.

72 In early China, king lists found their apogee in the basic annals (benji 本 紀 ) of Sima Qian’s Shiji, a text that famously championed the ideology of celestially sanctioned universal kingship. On king lists, writing, and dynastic legitimacy, see Wang Haicheng, Writing and the Ancient State: Early China in Comparative Perspective, 40–52. For an informative survey of Egyptian, Mayan, Incan, Aztec, and Sumerian parallels, see ibid., 21–39. 73 For more on the Sanfen, see Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 194–195. They offer a critical historical analysis of the source on the basis of the scholarship of Qian Xuantong 錢 玄 同 (1887–1939) and Kang Youwei 康 有 為 (1858–1927), among others. 74 See Badi miaojing jing, 6a–10a. 75 This group is loosely related to but structurally different from an earlier set of nine sovereigns that Dong Zhongshu discusses in section 23 of his Chunqiu fanlu 春 秋 繁 露 (Luxuriant dew of the spring and autumn annals). These are made up of the three

monarchs (sanwang 三 王 ), five emperors (wudi 五 帝 ), and the ruling emperor (di

Notes to Pages 102–104 ︱ 277 102–104 帝 ), constituting an organizational system for generations of successive rulers that

combined imperial genealogy and Five Agents (wuxing 五 行 ) cosmology; see See Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 22–27. This earlier set of nine sovereigns also appears in the Heguanzi 鶡 冠 子 (Pheasant cap master), in sections 10 and 11; see Wells, The Pheasant Cap Master and the End of History, 156–157 and 164­–165, see also 34. Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 124–130, discuss the “Daoist” Nine Sovereigns as well. 76

By the seventh century, a Sacrificial Offering to the Nine Sovereigns (jiuhuang jiaoyi 九皇 醮儀 ) was practiced in relation to a Hetu baolu 河圖寳錄 (Treasured register of the River

Chart); see Dongxuan lingbao daoshi shou sandong jingjie falu zeri li 洞玄靈寳道士受三洞 經誡法籙擇日歷 (Calendar for selecting the days on which Daoist priests should receive

the scriptures, precepts, and liturgical registers of the Three Caverns; DZ 1240), 5b. The contemporaneous Shangqing hetu baolu 上 清 河 圖 寳 籙 (Treasured register of the River Chart of the Highest Clarity [Heaven]; DZ 1396), 7b–8b, notes that the register is based on the esoteric or concealed names (hui 諱 ) of the Nine Sovereign Lords (jiu huangjun 九 皇 君 ), the nine stars of the Big Dipper. See also Shangqing qusu jueci lu 上 清 曲 素 訣 辭 籙 (Highest Clarity register for the instructions on the emanations from the labyrinth;

DZ 1392), 18b–24a. Since the “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” make no mention of the jiao 醮 offering ritual, the Hetu, or the nine stars of the Dipper, it would be sound to conclude that they predate the eighth century. The surviving portraits from the Badi miaojing jing’s “Jiuhuang tu” are from the Ming dynasty edition of the Daoist Canon, but judging by descriptions preserved in the text, they appear to correspond to the original depictions. 77 Boltz, “Cartography in the Daoist Canon,” 42–45. This early history has carried over into the “Jiuhuang tu”; its tutelary Nine Sovereigns are the gods of the Nine Heavens (jiutian 九天 ), the celestial counterpoints to the ninefold abyss. 78 For two later examples of meditations on the Nine Sovereigns, see Shangqing qusu jueci lu, 18b–24a, and Beidou jiuhuang yinhui jing 北 斗 九 皇 隱 諱 經 (Scripture of the concealed names of the Nine Sovereigns of the Big Dipper; DZ 1456; cf. Yunji qiqian, 24.9a­­–14a). 79 Schipper, “The True Form: Reflections on the Liturgical Basis of Taoist Art,” 102, contends that true form charts were used for mystical contemplation and that they were also worshipped. The Shangqing jiudan shanghua taijing zhongji jing 上清九丹上化胎精 中 記 經 (Highest Clarity scripture on the central record of the embryonic essence from

the superior transmutation of the ninefold elixir; DZ 1382), 16b, for instance, instructs

278 ︱ Notes to Pages 104–105 104–105 practitioners to contemplate the successive transformations of the Five Peaks; Robinet, “Metamorphosis and Deliverance from the Corpse in Taoism,” 43. 80 Schipper, “The True Form: Reflections on the Liturgical Basis of Taoist Art,” 103, echoes the sentiment: “What appears beyond doubt, is that we have here a graphic representation of a mountain as seen from above. [. . .] The True Form of a mountain and its shape as seen from the viewpoint of the gods, from above. It is the pattern of ridges and valleys, which is the spontaneous writing, the sign, and the signature, and also the manifestation of the power of the mountain.” See also Wang, Shaping the Lotus Sutra, 217. 81 See Badi miaojing jing, 6b–7a. For the Sanhuang wen’s relation to vacuity, nonbeing, and emptiness, see Yunji qiqian, 6.10b–11a translated, in chapter 2. 82

See chapter 2 for discussion.

83

Badi miaojing jing, 8a­b. Some of the names of precosmic reign periods correspond to historical reigns. For example, the Middle Sovereign of Earth emerges during the Taishi 太 始 reign; Chinese history witnessed five of these: 96–93 BCE, 355–363 CE, 551–552,

and 818. The Middle Sovereign of Humankind rises during the Taiping 太 平 era, which could be any among the following intervals: 256–258 CE, 300–301, 409–430, 485–492, 556–557, and 616–622. Finally, the Middle Sovereign of Heaven is associated with the Pingchu 平 初 reign, which does not have a historical counterpart. There was, however, a Chuping 初平 reign during the Eastern Han (25 CE–220 CE), between 190–193 CE. 84

The appearance of these three Middle Sovereigns brings to mind Gonggong’s 共 工 vassal, Minister Liu (Xiangliu 相 柳 ), whose nine human heads crown a green serpentine body; see Shanhai jing, 8.1b–2a. Gonggong is also depicted with a human face and a reptilian body; Shanhai jing, 16.1ab. The Bu shiji sanhuang benji 補 史 記 三 皇 本 紀 (Supplement to the Records of the Grand Historian’s biographies of the Three Sovereigns), authored by the Tang scholar Sima Zhen 司 馬 貞 (679–732), notes that nine brothers known as the “Nine Heads” (jiutou 九 頭 ) were the Sovereigns of Humankind (renhuang 人 皇 ). Each of these “Nine Sovereigns” (jiuhuang) ruled on one of the Nine Continents (jiuzhou 九 州 ) from a walled city or citadel (chengba 城 邑 ); see Siku quanshu, 244.965; and Granet,

Danses et légendes de la Chine ancienne, 360 and 468. This passage seems to derive from earlier Weft Texts, such as the Chunqiu mingli xu 春 秋 命 曆 序 (Preface to the spring and autumn calendar of fate) or the commentary on the Luoshu (Luo writing); see Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 4b.119–120 and 6.194, respectively. See also note 85. The nineheaded Sovereign of Humankind is also related to the Nine Sovereigns of Humankind (jiu renhuang 九 人 皇 )—the eldest one in particular, whose name is “Sire Nine Heads” (Jiutoushi 九 頭 氏 ). These Nine Sovereigns of Humankind may be at the origin of the

Notes to Pages 105–106 ︱ 279 105–106 (Song dynasty?) Nine Emperor Gods (jiu huangye 九 皇 爺 ) and their popular festival; see Cheu Hock Tong, “The Festival of the Nine Emperor Gods in Malaysia: Myth, Ritual, and Symbol,” 51–52. 85

See for example the citations preserved in the sixth-century Wuxing dayi 五行大義 (Great doctrine of the Five Agents), 5.20.168–169, and Kalinowski, Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne: Le Compendium des cinq agents (Wuxing dayi, VIe siècle), 377– 378. Some of the corresponding passages are found in Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei; see for instance 3.48–50, and 67, 4a.191, 4b.122–125, 137, and especially 6.193.

86

Badi miaojing jing, 9b. The Three Terraces were also featured in alchemical contexts; see Pregadio, Great Clarity, 96–97.

87

From Andersen, “The Practice of Bugang,” 29–30.

88

Shiji, 27.1289 n. 2. Schafer, Pacing the Void, 46. The Great Unity is depicted as an astral deity in the Shiji, the Huainanzi, 3.200, and a number of Weft Texts, such as the Chunqiu yuanming bao 春 秋 元 命 苞 (Bud of original destiny of the spring and autumn annals) and the Chunqiu hecheng tu 春 秋 合 誠 圖 (Diagrams of uniting sincerity of the spring and autumn annals); on the last two, see Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 4.1, 87–88, and 4.2, 14, 19–20, respectively. For the association between the Celestial Pole (tianji), the Northern Asterism (beichen), and the Big Dipper (beidou), see Pankenier, “A Brief History of Beiji 北 極 (Northern Culmen), with an Excursus on the Origins of the Character di 帝 ,” 212 n. 2.

89 See Shiji, 28.1395 n. 1. In one passage, the Wuxing dayi explicitly equates Taiyi with Tianyi. Overall, the two astral gods are closely related, fulfilling complementary functions and assisting the Great Emperor Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang dadi 天 皇 大 帝 ), a unified manifestation of the Three Sovereigns; see Wuxing dayi, 5.20.169; and

Kalinowski, Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne, 378–379; see also note 86. 90

Shiji, 28.1399; the celestial bodies are identified as the Star of Virtue (dexing 德 星 ), the

91

Wushang biyao, 25.1a. In another example, Tao Hongjing explains that the essence of the

Star of Longevity (shouxing 壽星 ), and the Star of Sincerity (xinxing 信星 ). Three Sovereigns is crystallized in the Great Emperor Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang dadi) who, according to another source, is none other than Yaopo bao 耀魄寶, a supreme astral deity and venerable ancestor of the Five Emperors who holds the true form charts of the ten thousand creatures. He is assisted by Taiyi, the Great Unity, and Tianyi, the Celestial Unity; cited in Wuxing dayi, 5.20.169. See also Kalinowski, Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne, 378. In other accounts, the Great Emperor Sovereign of Heaven is identified as the Great Unity; see Kalinowski, Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne, 468 n. 1.

280 ︱ Notes to Pages 106–108 106–108 92

See notes 76 and 77 above for references.

93 On these Daoist and Buddhist meditation manuals, among which the most familiar is undoubtedly the Foshuo beidou qixing yanming jing 佛 說 北 斗 七 星 延 命 經 (Sūtra preached by the Buddha on the Seven Stars of the Northern Dipper for prolonging life; T. 1307), see Mollier, Buddhism and Taoism Face to Face, 134–173. 94

Wuxing dayi, 5.20.168–176, especially 168–169. See Kalinowski, Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne, 104–105 and 377–379, for an overview of the passage and its translation. Elsewhere, Xiao Ji, Wuxing dayi, 3.14.116, cites the Sanhuang jing in relation to the correspondence between deities of the body on one hand—the five cloudsouls (hun) and the six whitesouls (po) identified here as the gods of the Five Viscera (wuzang 五 臟 ) and the gods of the Six Receptacles (liufu 六 腑 )—and cosmic principles, namely

the Five Agents (wuxing) and the Six Breaths (liuqi 六 氣 ), on the other. See Kalinowski, Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne, 303, for a translation into French. These passages reflect Sui dynasty (581–618) understandings of the Sanhuang wen and its corpus, at the time that the Wuxing dayi was compiled. 95 See Arrault and Martzloff, “Calendriers,” 145–147 and 187–189. The authors supply relevant bibliographies on. P.2623 rº and S.1473 rº. 96

For the Nine Heavens as the nine points of celestial space, see, for example, Lüshi chunqiu 呂 氏 春 秋 (Spring and autumn annals of Master Lü), 13.1.276–278; and Huainanzi,

3.178–183 (where they are referred to as the Nine Fields [jiuye 九野 ]). See also Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü Buwei: A Complete Translation and Study, 279, and Major et al., The Huainanzi: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of Government in Early China, 117–118, for English translations of the relevant passages. An earlier translation by Major, in Heaven and Earth in Early Han Thought: Chapters Three, Four, and Five of the Huainanzi, 69–71, includes an informative commentary on the passage. 97

Badi miaojing jing, 4b–6a.

98 Ibid., 4b; these Yang Hymns in Nine Verses are reproduced in a number of sources pertaining to the liturgy for the conferral of the Sanhuang corpus during the late Six Dynasties and early Tang; see chapter 5 for details. Wushang biyao, 38.3b–4a, lists these same hymns in relation to the Sanhuang wen. 99

Wushang biyao, 20.8a–10b, quotes a group of Yin Hymns from the Sanhuang jing. They are addressed to the “imperial monarchs of the Nine Heavens, [who] command the Pure Maidens to harmonize the Yin Hymns in Nine Verses with the Yang Hymns. Students who practice the Dao [should] intone them” 九天帝王命素女陰歌九章，以和陽歌，學 士行道誦詠之 .

Notes to Pages 108–110 ︱ 281 108–110 100 See Schipper, L’empereur Wou des Han dans la légende taoïste, 58–59; see also 54–55. 101 Badi miaojing jing, 9b. 102 A few sources make this explicit; see for instance Taishang zhengyi mengwei falu 太 上 正 一 盟 威 法 籙 (Complete division of the liturgical registers of the covenantal authority of

the Correct Unity; DZ 1209), 34b–36a, possibly from the early Tang, where the Nine Sovereigns are termed the Nonary Unity (jiuyi 九一 ). 103 For a comprehensive overview of the deity the Great Unity in early China, see Li Ling’s chapter on “‘Taiyi’ chongbai de kaogu yanjiu,” in his Zhongguo fangshu kao xu. Donald Harper has translated the chapter into English: Li Ling, “An Archaeological Study of Taiyi 太一 (Grand One) Worship”; see also the overlooked studies by Michel Teboul, “Sur quelques particularités de l’uranographie polaire chinoise,” and Qian Baocong, “Taiyi kao.” 104 See Ge Hong’s explanation, Baopuzi, 18.325: “While guarding the Mysterious Unity, visualize yourself dividing into three people. Once these three are seen, repeat [the meditation] and increase the number. You may reach several dozen people all like yourself, either hidden or manifest. All have their own oral instructions. This is called the ‘way of dividing form’” 守玄一，並思其身，分為三人，三人已見，又轉益之，可至 數十人，皆如己身，隱之顯之，皆自有口訣，此所謂分形之道 .

105 形分則自見其身中之三魂七魄，而天靈地祇，皆可接見，山川之神，皆可使役也 ; Baopuzi, 18.326. 106 Baopuzi, 18.324. 107 守玄一復易於守真一。真一有姓字長短服色目，玄一但此見之 ; Baopuzi, 18.325. 108 Baopuzi, 18.323. 109 A line from Daojiao yishu, 2.12a, confirms the connection between alchemical materials and Great Unity meditations: “That by which the Taiqing supplements the Cavern of Divinity, is that [if ] the Cavern of Divinity summons and controls demons and gods, then the Taiqing [methods] for maintaining the Great Unity and ingesting the Golden Elixir necessarily assist in achieving this Way [of summoning and controlling demons and gods], along with its divine abilities and capacities for elucidation” 所 以 太 清 輔 洞 神者，洞神召制鬼神，必須太清存守太一，服御金丹，助成此道，神用乃申 ; on

Maintaining Unity in relation to the Taiqing tradition, see Pregadio, Great Clarity, 136– 139. One of the earliest descriptions of a Maintaining Unity meditation is supposedly found in the Taiping jing shengjun bizhi 太平經聖君祕旨 (Secret Directions on the Holy Lord on the Scripture of Great Peace; DZ 1102). The earliest layers of the text date from the second or third centuries, but the text only espoused its final shape toward the end of

282 ︱ Notes to Pages 111–112 111–112 the Tang; see Espesset, “Les Directives secrètes du Saint Seigneur du Livre de la Grande paix et la preservation de l’unité.” 110 Hsieh Shu-wei, “Zhongguo daojiao shi zhong de Sanhuang wen chuantong yanjiu,” devotes a large part of his overview of the Badi miaojing jing, 42–46, to the “Sanhuang sanyi jing,” 44–45. 111 Wufu xu, 3.17a–18b. See chapter 1 for more on this passage. This section of the Wufu xu, spanning from 3.17a to 3.23b, is independently preserved in the Daoist Canon under the title Taishang dongxuan lingbao sanyi wuqi zhenjing 太上洞玄靈寳三一五氣真經 (True scripture on the Triple Unity and the Five Breaths; DZ 985). 112 See Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao 109–110. 113 Baopuzi, 18.324. Mount Emei is also the site where Lord Wang of the Western Citadel transmitted the Sanhuang wen to Bo He. For an annotated comparison of the Wufu xu and Baopuzi accounts, see Raz, “Creation of Tradition: The Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure and the Formation of Early Daoism,” 187–199. 114 The narrative from the Wufu xu and the Baopuzi is also found, with a few modifications, in Yunji qiqian, 33.11a–12a; this account lists the name of the manual as the Huangren shouyi jing 皇 人 守 一 經 (Scripture of the Sovereign on Maintaining Unity). Wushang biyao, 5.6b–7a, attributes a few lines to the same specific title; the passage in question briefly describes the internal gods that inhabit the practitioner’s body. It stresses that only after the retinue of gods, officials, and ministers that form the inner pantheon are governed, and once blood is fortified and breath (qi) purified, can the adept successfully meditate on the True Unity (zhen yi). These same lines from the Huangren shouyi jing are repeated with minor differences in Baopuzi, 18.326, and Wufu xu, 3.20ab. In the former they are presented as Zheng Yin’s oral instructions on Maintaining Unity, whereas in the latter they are featured in a discussion on the visualization practice. 115 The “Sanyi jing” passage from Taiping yulan, 661.3a (1952), also corresponds to lines from a section that the Wufu xu, 3.17b–18a, ascribes to the Tianhuang zhenyi jing. 116 See for instance the Shangqing dao leishi xiang 上 清 道 類 事 相 (True appearances of the categories of the Way of Highest Clarity; DZ 1132), 1.3; the seventh-century text reproduces a few sentences from the Wufu xu, 3.18a, on Maintaining Unity and refers to the Huangren shou sanyi jing as its principal source. The seventh-century alchemical treatise Huangdi jiuding shendan jingjue, 7.2a, also lists the Huangren [shou] sanyi jing as the source for its exposition on Maintaining Unity. 117 Other titles for the lost source include Huangren zhenyi jing 皇 人 真 一 經 (Scripture of the Sovereign on the True Unity) or Huangren sanyi jing 皇 人 三 一 經 (Scripture of the

Notes to Pages 112–114 ︱ 283 112–114 Sovereign on the Triple Unity); see Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing, vol. 1, 27, and 29–32; see also Raz, “Creation of Tradition,” 175 and 177. The Daozang quejing mulu 道 藏 闕 經 目 錄 (Catalogue of missing books from the Daoist Canon; DZ 1430) lists a

Huangren shouyi jing (2.3a), a Huangren sanyi tu jue 皇人三一圖訣 (Sovereign’s illustrated instructions on the Triple Unity) (2.5a), and a Huangren shou Huangdi sanyi shengxuan tujue 皇 人 守 黄 帝 三 一 昇 玄 圖 訣 (Illustrated instructions for ascent to the mysterious through the Sovereign’s [method] for Maintaining the Yellow Emperor’s Triple Unity) (2.14b), as lost; Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing, vol. 1, 28 n. 1, believes these works to be fragments of, or elaborations on, the Huangren jing. 118 Compare Badi miaojing jing, 4ab, to Laozi zhongjing 25 in Yunji qiqian, 18.20ab, and to Dongzhen taiyi dijun taidan yinshu dongzhen xuanjing 洞 真 太 一 帝 君 太 丹 隱 書 洞 真 玄 經 (Concealed writing on the great elixir of the lord emperor Great Unity; DZ 1330),

hereafter Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu, 26a–27b. Another text in which the imprint of the the “Sanyi jing” is apparent is the Shangqing Dongzhen taishang suling dongyuan dayou miaojing 洞真太上素靈洞元大有妙經 (Marvelous scripture of the pure numina of Great Existence; DZ 1314), hereafter Suling dayou miaojing. According to Tao Hongjing, this text was the seminal manual on Maintaining Unity techniques; Dengzhen yinjue 登 真 隱 訣 (Concealed instructions for ascent to perfection; DZ 421), 1.3a; compare the

“Sanhuang sanyi jing” to Suling dayou miaojing, 27a–28a and 31b; see also Dengzhen yinjue, 1.2b, 4b, and 7ab, and Robinet, Taoist Meditation, 183–211, especially 191–201. 119 Badi miaojing jing, 4ab. 120 See Steavu, “Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation.” 121 The Dongxuan lingbao ziran jiutian shengshen zhangjing 洞 玄 靈 寳 自 然 九 天 生 神 章 經 (Scripture on the spontaneous stanzas of the life spirits of the Nine Heavens; DZ 318), 1a–2a, which is roughly coterminous with much of the material in the Badi miaojing jing, elaborates how during the nine months of gestation, the Three Primes and the breaths of the Nine Heavens nourish the developing embryo. 122 For an early example of the Great Unity as cosmic singularity, see Lüshi chunqiu (“Dayue” 大 樂 ; Great Music), 5.2.108–109, translated in Knoblock and Riegel, The Annals of Lü

Buwei, 136–137; for a secondary source on the topic see Ge Zhaoguang, “Zhong miao zhi men­–Beiji yu Taiyi, Dao, Taiji.” 123 See Steavu, “Cosmos, Body, and Gestation in Taoist Meditation,” for a discussion of the importance of return (fan 返 ) or cosmogonic reversal in the development of later, more elaborate systems of meditation such as Neidan 內丹 (Internal Alchemy).

284 ︱ Notes to Pages 114–115 114–115 124 Robinet, “Metamorphosis and Deliverance from the Corpse in Taoism,” 50 n. 58, provides textual examples of adepts visualizing themselves as the Great Unity; see, for instance, Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu (DZ 1330), 29a–30a, 31a–32b, and 38b–43a. 125 See for instance, Shiji, 6.236. The segment explains how the ministers of Qin Shi Huangdi 秦 始 皇 帝 (r. 220–210 BCE) advised him to change his title from King Zheng (Zheng Wang 政 王 ), as he was still known at the time, to taihuang 泰 皇 (supreme luminary). The second term designated the divine pre-eminent ruler of humankind and was synonymous with both renhuang 人 皇 , the Sovereign of Humankind and the Great Unity (Taiyi 泰 一 ; 太 一 ). King Zheng acquiesced but elected to discard tai 泰 and combine huang 皇 with the title of thearch, di 帝 , which was used in antiquity to refer to semidivine sage kings. As a result, he formed the compound huangdi 皇 帝 , “luminary thearch” or “illustrious thearch” (in an isolated case, the term was used to denote a spirit during Western Zhou [ca. 1046–771 BCE], but there is no evidence of an etymological connection; see Cook, “Ancestor Worship During the Eastern Zhou,” 239 n. 7). Before Qin Shi Huangdi’s reign, the logograph huang was most commonly used as an adjective to denote luminosity, brightness, or beauty; in this context, it was sometimes used as an epithet for deceased ancestors. But only after King Zheng/Qin Shi Huangdi’s use of the term in the neological compound huangdi did it acquire the widespread meaning of sovereign. Thus “luminary thearch” became “sovereign thearch” or more generically “emperor.” The original meaning of huang 皇 , which depicts the sun rising on the horizon, was assigned to a new graph, huang 煌 , bearing the “fire” radical huo 火 . See Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 2–19, for a complete treatment of the semantic changes that the graph huang 皇 underwent. They note, 10–12, that the “Lisao” 離 騷 (Encountering sorrow) and the “Jiuge” 九 哥 (Nine elegies) from the third-century

BCE Chuci 楚 辭 (Songs of Chu) contain rare and early uses of huang as a substitute for di, the latter in a title for the Great Unity, Donghuang Taiyi 東 皇 太 一 (Great Unity Sovereign of the East). The substitution occurs in order to differentiate between former deified or divine sovereigns (huang) and living human sovereigns (di). The implied hierarchy, with huang being more “virtuous” (de 德 ) than di, resurfaced in other Warring States materials such as the Lüshi chunqiu or the Guanzi, where wang 王 (monarch) was added as a third and lesser category of rulers; see Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 14–15. 126 Another substitute for the Sovereign of Humankind (Renhuang) was Taihao 太 昊 , one of Fu Xi’s names. Fu Xi is most often identified as the Sovereign of Humankind, but he is sometimes regarded as the Sovereign of Heaven as well. This alternate role derives

Notes to Pages 116–117 ︱ 285 116–117 from the view that the Sovereign of Humankind was a combination of the Sovereign of Heaven with the Sovereign of Earth. Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui have highlighted that in early sources such as the Chuci and the Huainanzi, the Sovereign of Heaven/Great Unity was considered to have developed from the earlier divine figure of Huangtian shangdi 皇 天 上 帝 (Luminary and Celestial Highest Thearch), whereas the Sovereign of Earth derived from Houtu 后 土 (Queen Mother). The unified version of Huangtian shandgi and Houtu was known as the Great Unity and eventually as the Sovereign of Humankind; see Sanhuang kao, 18, 21, and 35. 127 See for example, Shiji, 28.1386 and 12.456. For a synthesis of the topic, see Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 31–32; see also Li Ling’s summary of the main views on the Triple Unity as the Three Sovereigns (including Rao Zongyi’s and Qian Baocong’s positions) in Allan and Crispin, eds., The Guodian Laozi: Proceedings of the International Conference, Dartmouth College, May 1998, 162–168. In his treatment of triadic groups in the Taiping jing (Great peace scripture), Espesset, “À veau l’eau, à rebours ou l’ambivalence de la logique triadique dans l’idéologie du Taiping jing,” 61–64, provides a useful summary of the works of Gauchet, Guénon, and Robinet on the topic of triadic groups in Chinese thought and religions writ large. Espesset also links triadic groups to the notion of return or cosmogonic reversal. 128 Baopuzi, 18.323. 129 齋 直 持 戒，守 一 和 神 ; Badi miaojing jing, 4b; see above for a translation of the entire passage. 130 Badi miaojing jing, 2b. An undated, possibly later (eleventh- or early twelfth-century?) text, the Yinfu jing sanhuang yujue 陰 符 經 三 皇 玉 訣 (Jade instructions of the Three Sovereigns to the Scripture of the Yin tally; DZ 119), 1.2b–3a, echoes a number of elements from this passage—most notably that of the Three Sovereigns as cosmic incarnations of ancestral breath (zuqi 祖 炁 ), which map onto the three Cinnabar Fields (dantian) in the body—but transposes them into a framework most typical of Neidan (Internal Alchemy). 131 可 延 年、可 不 死、可 變 化、可 神 仙 ; the first part of the sentence specifies that only those practitioners who “can know the names of the three gods and rely on the [ritual] days and hours to cultivate them” ( 能 知 三 神 字，依 日 時 修 之 ) will be able to achieve this; see Badi miaojing jing, 4a. 132 An illustration of the Great Unity’s generative properties is found in the “Taiyi sheng shui” 太 一 生 水 (“Great Unity Begets Water”) bamboo slips excavated in 1993 from Guodian 郭 店 tomb 1 (sealed ca. 300 BCE); see Harper, “The Nature of Taiyi in the

286 ︱ Notes to Pages 118–122 118–122 Guodian Manuscript Taiyi sheng shui. Abstract Cosmic Principle or Supreme Cosmic Deity?” 21–22, along with a transcription and translation on 3­–4. For a detailed analysis of the text and its relation to the Guodian Laozi, see Allan, “The Great One, Water, and the Laozi: New Light from Guodian,” which provides a wealth of secondary sources in Chinese on the topic of the “Taiyi sheng shui.” 133 道 生 一，一 生 二、二 生 三，三 生 萬 物 ; Daode jing 道 德 經 (Scripture of the Way and Virtue), chap. 42. 134 夫衡鏡，物也，成於人者也。人自成之，而反求輕重於衡，妍醜於鏡者，何也。衡 無心而平，鏡無心而明也 ; Wunengzi 無能子 (The incapable master), 1.11–12.

135 Using the example of the legendary ruler Yu the Great (Da Yu 大 禹 ) saving the world from relentless floods with the diagrams engraved on his tripods, Robinet, Taoism: Growth of a Religion, 91–92, related that in the overlapping spheres of classical Chinese statecraft and self-cultivation, “One has to know the map of both the world and the body in order to know how to direct the vital forces and let them circulate.” 136 For instance, in reference to the Sanhuang wen, Ge Hong states that “if you obtain its methods, you will be able to initiate transformations”; 得其法，可以變化起工 ; Baopuzi, 19.336; cf. Badi miaojing jing, 4a. 137 知 變 化 之 道 者，其 知 神 之 所 為 乎 ; Xici in Yijing, 9.10. The line is notably cited in the Dongshen badi yuanbian jing 洞 神 八 帝 元 變 經 (Scripture of the primordial transformations of the Eight Emperors; DZ 1202), 1b, on which see chapter 5.

Chapter Four 1

See Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 221.

2

Zhengao (DZ 1016), 20.7b, elaborates on the genealogy of the Xu family, reporting that four daughters of the Ge clan, including Ge Hong’s elder sister, were given in marriage to the forebears of Xu Mi and Xu Hui 許 翽 (ca. 341–370); see also Bokenkamp, “Sources of the Ling-Pao Scriptures,” 445.

3

The original Lingbao jingmu 靈 寶 經 目 (Catalogue of Lingbao scriptures) is lost but considerable information about it survives in Dunhuang manuscripts P.2861vº and P.2256; the preface is preserved in Yunji qiqian, 4.4a–6a. See Bokenkamp, “Lu Xiujing, Buddhism, and the First Daoist Canon.”

4

For more on Lu Xiujing see Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures, 377–398; and, more recently, his “Lu Xiujing, Buddhism, and the First Daoist Canon,” 181–199 passim.

Notes to Pages 123–124 ︱ 287 123–124 5 See Baopuzi, 19.336, where Ge Hong cites the instructions. See also Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 222. 6

Yunji qiqian, 6.12a. The parallel passage in Daojiao yishu (DZ 1129), 2.7b, also suggests this. Both passages cite the Xumu 序 目 (Prefatory catalogue), referring to Bao Jing’s lost Bao nanhai xumu 鮑 南 海 序 目 (Lord Bao of Nanhai’s prefatory catalogue). But a third passage—also from Yunji qiqian, 6.12a—largely paraphrases the other two; it additionally relates that the version obtained by Lu Xiujing and transmitted to his disciples “was that which was obtained within the mountain” 即 山 中 所 傳 者 是 , an expression that usually refers to Bo He’s version of the Sanhuang wen. The line is attributed to the Sanhuang jing xu 三皇經序 (Preface to the scripture of the Three Sovereigns), otherwise unattested. See also note 7 for more.

7

Yunji qiqian, 6.12a and Daojiao yishu, 2.7a. This is echoed in Yunji qiqian, 5b–6a: “The [version] that was obtained in the stone chamber exhibits small differences with today’s Sanhuang wen” 石 室 所 得，與 今 三 皇 文 小 異 . See also Zhengao, 5.4a: “The way of immortals has the Sanhuang neiwen, by means of which one may summon the Celestial Spirits and Earthly Numina” 仙 道 有 三 皇 內 文 以 召 天 地 神 靈 . Echoing the lines from Daojiao yishu, 2.7a, Tao Hongjing adds the following annotation: “The preceding [Bo He’s version] is in the world, but although it exists, it is not the authentic version” 右 世 中，雖有而非真本 . In other words, Bao Jing’s version that Tao Hongjing obtained from

Lu Xiujing was not known in the world because it was the (superior) original revealed text. If Lu Xiujing’s Sanhuang wen was indeed Bo He’s version, as the anomalous passage from Yunji qiqian, 6.12a, related in the previous note claims, then these concerns over difference or inauthenticity recorded in the Zhengao might signal that Tao Hongjing took it upon himself to replace it with Bao Jing’s version. 8 In Baopuzi, 19.336, Ge Hong refers to the Sanhuang wen as a “scripture” (jing 經 ). See Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 272–273. See also appendix 1. 9

The sixth-century Wushang biyao cites the Dongshen jing and Sanhuang jing more or less interchangeably, although it appears that the latter might be reserved for earlier revealed materials. It also quotes the Dongshen sanhuang jing 洞 神 三 皇 經 (Scripture of the Three Sovereigns from the Cavern of Divinity); see Wushang biyao, 43.1a. See also Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 265, for a list of quotations from the Dongshen jing and Sanhuang jing. Yamada, “Dōshinkyō no kisoteki kenkyū,” 19–72, provides an annotated text-centered overview of the Sanhuang wen’s development into the Dongshen jing on the basis of surviving citations.

10

Yunji qiqian, 6.2b.

288 ︱ Notes to Pages 126–127 126–127 11

第 一 洞 真 為 大 乘，第 二 洞 玄 為 中 乘，第 三 洞 神 為 小 乘 ; Yunji qiqian, 3.5a. Cf. the

seventh-century Dongxuan lingbao qian zhen ke 洞 玄 靈 寶 千 真 科 (The thousand true codes of the Numinous Treasure of the Cavern of Mystery; DZ 1410), 11a: “Shangqing is the Great Cavern, this is the Greater Vehicle; the Numinous Treasure of the Cavern of Mystery, this is the Middle Vehicle; the Three Sovereigns of the Cavern of Divinity, this is the Lesser Vehicle”; 上清為大洞，是大乘；洞玄靈寶是中乘；洞神三皇為小乘 . 12

大化始立，人風真淳，故三寶度三品人。洞神名仙寶之道，接三皇之世。洞玄名 靈宗之道，明三才，度五帝之世。洞真名天寶之道，紀清正之方，濟三代之後 ;

Taiping yulan 太 平 御 覽 (Imperial digest of the Taiping Xingguo reign period), 673.8b (3001), citing the lost Taishang taizhen ke 太 上 太 真 科 (Supreme and true codes), dated to the early fifth century. See Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 823–824. 13

Suling dayou miaojing, 44a; title abbreviated from Dongzhen taishang suling dongyuan dayou miaojing 洞 真 太 上 素 靈 洞 元 大 有 妙 經 (Wondrous scripture of the pure numina of Great Existence; DZ 1314). See Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 822–823, for a similar translation and insightful discussion of the passage.

14 See for instance, Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing, vol. 1, 84­–85 and 196. This particular assignment of “high,” “middle,” “low,” or “great/greater,” “middle,” and “lesser,” to the Three Caverns is found in surviving citations from lost Shangqing sources dated to the first half of the fifth century; see Wang Chengwen, Dunhuang gu Lingbao jing yu Jin Tang daojiao, 205–206. 15 Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing, vol. 1, 85. 16 Many of the passages from the Yunji qiqian that elaborate on the order of the Three Caverns can be traced back to Shangqing sources. In its discussion of the Three Caverns, the eleventh-century anthology heavily relies on the Daojiao yishu, compiled around 700 and grounded in the mostly lost seventh-century Xuanmen dayi, a source that describes crucial concepts (such as the proprietary Shangqing idea of the thirty-six sections [sanshiliu bu 三 十 六 ]) behind the formation of the early Daoist Canon. See for example Yunji qiqian scrolls 6 and 7. Later Shangqing sources are also included; the discussion of the Three Caverns in the third scroll of the Yunji qiqian notably draws from the Daomen jingfa xiangcheng cixu 道門經法相承次序 (Transmission sequence of the Daoist scriptures and statutes; DZ 1128) by the early Tang dynasty Shangqing master Pan Shizheng 潘師正 (585–682). 17 See for instance Robinet’s analysis, La révélation du Shangqing, vol. 1, 75–85 and especially 195–197.

Notes to Pages 128–132 ︱ 289 128–132 18

Shangqing taiji yinzhu yujing baojue (DZ 425) from Yongle dadian 永 樂 大 典 (Great canon of [Emperor] Yongle]), 9.8718, cited in Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 815–816. In this source, the term Shangqing from the title is applied to all scriptures from the Three Caverns in reference to the Heaven in which they manifested; it does not specifically denote the Shangqing corpus.

19

I follow Wang Chengwen’s line of argumentation in his “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 814­–819. On page 817, he notes that the Eastern Jin (265–420) Dunhuang manuscript P.2440 Taishang dongxuan lingbao zhenyi wucheng jing 太上洞玄靈寶真一五稱經 describes Laozi in the following terms: “Numinous Treasure is

prior to Dao; it is what the spirits and deities constantly depend on. All heavens, earths, waters, and buddhas revere it as ancestor. The Perfect talismans for communicating with the spirits from the cavern of mystery 洞玄通靈神真符 , the Celestial writs of Sanhuang in great graphs 三皇天文大字 , and the Scripture of the Cavern of Perfection [ 洞真經 ] are together rooted in the Numinous Treasure.” 20

Shangqing taiji yinzhu yujing baojue, 11b–12a; the description of the Three Caverns from this text is echoed in two other early Lingbao scriptures: Taiji zhenren fu lingbao zhaijie weiyi zhujing yaojue 太極真人敷靈寶齋戒威儀諸經要訣 (Essential instructions expounded by the Perfected of the Great Ultimate on the scriptures and majestic protocols of the Numinous Treasure purificatioin rite; DZ 532), 12ab, 19a–20a; and Taishang dongxuan lingbao benxing suyuan jing 太上洞玄靈寶本行宿緣經 (Scripture on original actions and predestined causes; DZ 1114), 10b–11a. See also Raz, Emergence of Daoism, 210–256, especially 224–232.

21

See Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” especially 797–819; Raz, Emergence of Daoism.

22

Yunji qiqian, 6.2b; see the translation of the complete passage above.

23

Dongxuan lingbao ziran jiutian shengshen zhang jing (DZ 318), 1ab.

24

Ibid., 1b–2a.

25

See Wang Chengwen, Dunhuang gu Lingbao jing yu Jin Tang daojiao; his “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures” provides an abridged version of the argument.

26 See Badi miaojing jing, 31a. 27

See Ibid., 8ab and 9b.

28

Yunji qiqian, 3.4b.

29

In the Dongxuan lingbao ziran jiutian shengshen zhang jing, 2a, Heaven and Earth derive from the Three Primes, but humankind is the product of the nine breaths:



Revolving and extending to all extremities, the three breaths began to shine. [Some] breaths purified, and rose as clarity. It accumulated Yang and became Heaven. [Some]

290 ︱ Notes to Pages 132–136 132–136 breaths coalesced and congealed into sediment. It accumulated dregs and became Earth. The nine breaths were arrayed in order and the sun, moon, and stars, Yin Yang and Five Agents, and humans and living beings, all received life together.

運推數極，三炁開光，炁清高澄，積陽成天，炁結凝滓，積滯成地。九炁列 正，日月星宿，陰陽五行，人民品物，並受生成 .

30

Badi miaojing jing, 8a­b and 9b. The passages are discussed in chapter 3.

31

Taishang dongxuan lingbao benxing suyuan jing (DZ 1114), 12a:



As for the Three Treasures, [they are] the most high Treasure of the Dao, the Treasure of Scripture, and the Treasure of the Master. These are the Three Treasures. As for the Three Worthies, [they are] the most high Worthy of the Way, the Worthy of Scripture, and the Worthy of the Master. These are the Three Worthies. Within the body they are called the Worthies [of the] Triple [Unity]. Within the body, there are Three Palaces [where they reside]. Lord Emperor Great Unity, Lordling, and Blossomless. These are the Worthies of the Triple Unity.



言三寶者，道寶太上，經寶，師寶。是為三寶。三尊者，道尊太上，經尊，師 尊。是為三尊也。人身中稱三尊。身中有三宮。太一帝君、公子、无英，是為

三一之尊 . 32 Compare Badi miaojing jing, 4ab, to Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu (DZ 1330), 26a–27b. See

also Xiandao jing 顯道經 (Scripture on the manifest Dao; DZ 862), 12a, a pre-Shangqing third- or early fourth-century Nourishing Life (yangsheng) text that gives similar names as Badi miaojing jing, 3ab, for the Triple Unity in their incarnations as inner gods. See Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing, vol. 1, 80–85, on the Triple Unity as inner gods and their relation to the genesis of the Three Caverns. 33

三 皇 所 受，要 在 三 一：太 一、真 一、玄 一，是 謂 三 一 者 也。號 為 三 元 ; see Badi

miaojing jing, 2b, and chapter 3, where the passage is translated and discussed. 34

此三神者，天神道君，三元貴神，人之先也 ; Badi miaojing jing, 4a.

35

Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu, 14b.

36

Wushang biyao, 6.5ab; see Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 82. Other passages link this set of three lords—the Lord Celestial Treasure, Lord Numinous Treasure, and Lord Divine Treasure—with the Three Caverns without identifying them as the Three Sovereigns; see for instance Wushang biyao, 24.1b, and Yunji qiqian, 6.5ab.

37 See Taiyi dijun taidan yinshu, 14b, translated in note 32; and Dongxuan lingbao ziran jiutian shengshen zhang jing, 1ab. 38 Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 281–283, and especially 325–326, argues that the Three Sovereigns as deities of the Three Caverns was a trope developed to counter criticism of the Sanhuang wen and establish its legitimacy within emerging institutional Daoism. Thus, in Ōfuchi’s view, the association between the Three Sovereigns and the Three Caverns came after the three-tiered organizational framework was already decided.

Notes to Pages 136–138 ︱ 291 136–138 Nonetheless, this would not preclude the Sanhuang wen from playing an important role in the development of the Three Caverns, as Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 26 n. 1, has noted. 39 See for instance, Kobayashi, Rikuchō dōkyōshi kenkyū, 222–225; he highlights the similarity between the Dongxuan lingbao ziran jiutian shengshen zhang jing and the passage on the Three Caverns from Wushang biyao, 6.5b, attributed to the Sanhuang jing, suggesting an influence of the latter on the former. 40

Bianzheng lun (T. 2110), 498a–c.

41

鮑靖造三皇經被誅。事在晉史。後人諱之。改為三洞 ; Erjiao lun in Guang hongming

ji (T. 2103), 8.141b. What exactly is meant here by hui 諱 is unclear, but it may also be read as a character prohibition. Thus the sentence could read “afterwards, people prohibited it [i.e., the character huang 皇 ], so they changed the [‘Three Sovereigns’] to ‘Three Caverns.’” I have not been able to identify a prohibition for huang during the Six Dynasties, Sui, or Tang periods. The Suishu, 35.1092, lists a Sandong lu 三 洞 籙 (Three Caverns register) as a Daoist initiation document that was transmitted immediately before the Dongxuan lu 洞 玄 籙 (Cavern of Mystery register) and the Shangqing lu 上 清 籙 (Highest Clarity register), in other words, in place of the Sanhuang lu 三 皇 籙 (Three

Sovereigns register) or Dongshen lu 洞神籙 (Cavern of Divinity register). 42

See, for example, Despeux, “La culture lettrée au service d’un plaidoyer pour le bouddhisme. Le ‘Traité des deux doctrines,’ (‘Erjiao lun,’) de Dao’an,” 209; and Kobayashi, Rikuchō dōkyōshi kenkyū, 371–375, where the author draws an equivalence between the Sanhuang jing and the Sandong jing 三 洞 經 (Scripture of the Three Caverns). See also Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” 362. Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 24–26, especially 26 n. 1, is more skeptical about the Erjiao lun’s claims, but he nonetheless upholds that the Three Sovereigns could have played a role in the development of a tripartite classification of Daoist writings. The Erjiao lun is not the only source external to Daoism that maintains that the Three Sovereigns constituted a framework for the Three Caverns; see for example the fourteenth-century Fozu lidai tongdai 佛祖歷代通戴 (Comprehensive registry of the successive ages of the Buddhas and patriarchs; T. 2036), 713c.

43 On the basis of evidence from the writings of Lu Xiujing, Bokenkamp, “Lu Xiujing, Buddhism, and the First Daoist Canon,” argued that the motivations for the systematizer’s development of integrated Daoism were threefold: to identify, categorize, and organize the “true” scriptures among the “chaotic mass of scriptures” available in the fifth century; to remedy the social and political decay of the time through ritual

292 ︱ Notes to Pages 138–141 138–141 codification, thereby contributing to the establishment of peace, stability, and imperial unification; and to counter the perceived threat of the Buddhist “Other” to the Chinese worldview (by incorporating many of its most popular elements and subsequently arguing for the universal comprehensiveness of the Lingbao corpus). 44 For Tianshidao ritual elements in the Lingbao scriptures, see See Bokenkamp, “Lu Xiujing, Buddhism, and the First Daoist Canon,” 188–189; and Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 830–838. Lingbao systematizers also absorbed numerous Buddhist elements, as Bokenkamp has demonstrated in his “The Silkworm and the Bodhi Tree: The Lingbao Attempt to Replace Buddhism in China and our Attempt to Place Lingbao Taoism.” For the Tianshidao understanding of the three breaths, see the Da daojia ling jie 大 道 家 令 戒 (Commands and precepts for the great Daoist family) preserved in the Zhengyi fawen tianshi jiao jie ke jing (DZ 789), 12a–19b. The text is dated to 255 CE. See Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures, 149–185, for a full translation and discussion; see also Kleeman, Celestial Masters, 69–70 and 128–129. 45 Kleeman, Celestial Masters, 63–64; See Kleeman’s analysis of the Hanzhong state, 37–62. 46 See Mather, “K’ou Ch’ien-Chih and the Taoist Theocracy at the Northern Wei Court, 425­–451”; and Ware, “The Wei shu and the Sui shu on Taoism,” 225–238. 47

This is most apparent in Lu Xiujing’s Lu xiansheng daomen kelüe 陸先生道門科略 (Master Lu’s abridged codes for the Daoist community; DZ 1127). See Qing Xitai 卿 希泰 , Zhongguo daojiao shi 中 國 道 教 史 vol. 1, 467–472; and Nickerson, “Abridged Codes of Master Lu for the Taoist Community.” Raz, The Emergence of Daoism, 245–246, dates the Lu xiansheng daomen kelüe prior to 437, when Lu Xiujing presented his Lingbao jing mu (Catalogue of Lingbao scriptures) to the court.

48 See Bokenkamp, “Scriptures New and Old: Lu Xiujing and Mastery,” especially 464­– 467; and his “Lu Xiujing, Buddhism, and the First Daoist Canon.” 49

See Lagerwey’s analysis in “Taoist Ritual from the Second through the Sixth Centuries.”

50

See Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 840.

51

For a survey of rebellions and seditious movements during the fourth and fifth centuries traditionally associated with religion, see Sunayama Minoru, “Ri Kō kara Kō Kenshi e: seireki shi go seiki ni okeru shūkyō teki hanran to kokka shūkyo.”

52

Taishang dongyuan shenzhou jing (DZ 335), 5.4a, 8b.

53

The four supplements are the Taixuan bu 太 玄 部 (Great Mystery section), chiefly made up of the Daode jing and its commentaries; the Taiping bu 太 平 部 (Great Peace section), chiefly made up of the Taiping jing 太 平 經 (Great Peace scripture) and related materials; the Taiqing bu 太 清 部 (Great Clarity section), chiefly made up of Taiqing alchemical

Notes to Pages 142–145 ︱ 293 142–145 scriptures and some Nourishing Life (yangsheng) sources; and the Zhengyi bu 正 一 部 (Correct Unity section), chiefly made up of Tianshidao texts. 54

Sun Youyue’s fragmented vitae are scattered in various sources, including in the Sandong zhunang 三 洞 珠 囊 (Pearl satchel of the Three Caverns; DZ 1139), 1.4a, and 2.7b; and the Shangqing dao leishi xiang (DZ 1132), 1.12a.

55

Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 261.

56

Daojiao yishu, 2.7ab; Yunji qiqian, 6.6a and 6.12a.

57

分析枝流 ; Daojiao yishu, 2.7ab; Yunji qiqian, 6.12a.

58 For more on this text, see Wang Ka, Dunhuang daojiao wenxian yanjiu: zongshu, mulu, suoyin, 140–141; and his “Dunhuang can chaoben Taogong chuanshou yi jiaodu ji.” Wang Ka titles the handful of manuscripts that make up the “*Taogong chuanshou yi” (Lord Tao’s protocols for transmission and reception) as the “*Tao Hongjing wufa chuanshou yi” 陶 弘 景 五 法 傳 授 儀 (Tao Hongjing’s transmission protocols for the Five Methods) instead, emphasizing the centrality of the Five Methods in the manuscripts and their coherence as an interrelated set of practices. See also Ōfuchi, Tonkō dōkyō: mokuroku hen, 331–332. 59 For the Five Methods in the “*Taogong chuanshou yi,” with particular emphasis on the Sanhuang wen and the Wuyue zhenxing tu, see Lü Pengzhi, Tangqian daojiao yishi shigang, 62–70 and 116–118; see also chapter 5; for the Sanhuang wen in the “*Taogong chuanshou yi,” see Hsieh Shu-wei, “Zhongguo daojiao shi zhong de Sanhuang wen chuantong yanjiu,” 37–39. 60 This appears to be a Buddhist loanword referring to canonical teachings, literally, the “great scriptural dharma” (mahā-agradharma) or, alternatively, the “great teachings of the scriptures” (mahā-dharmaśāstra). 61

P.2559, in Ōfuchi, Tonko dōkyō: Zurokuhen, 724 l.99–102; see also Ōfuchi, Tonko dōkyō: Mokurokuhen, 88–89.

62

Wushang biyao, 25.7b–8a. On the Xicheng shixing as another name for Bo He’s Sanhuang wen, see for example, Badi miaojing jing, 29a; see also chapter 1 and appendix 1.

63 See Baopuzi, 19.335, for an early inventory of the ancillary transmission talismans, see also appendix 4. The Qingtai fu 青 胎 符 (Talisman of the green embryo), as it is usually listed, appears in the Baopuzi as the Zhutai fu 朱 胎 符 (Crimson embryo talisman); both refer to the same talisman and are abbreviated titles for the Zhuguan qingtai zhi fu 朱 官 青 胎 之 符 (Talisman of the green embryo of the crimson office), which notably appears

in Wushang biyao, scroll 25. See Baopuzi, 17.300, for a possibly related Zhuguan yin 朱 官 印 (Seal of the crimson office) featured in a passage about summoning deities and

294 ︱ Notes to Pages 146–148 146–148 dispelling demons, immediately following a brief overview of the Sanhuang wen. 64 Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 265–268, discusses P.2559 and arrives at a similar conclusion. 65

P.2559, 724 l.119–120.

66 In Baopuzi, 19.335, they appear under the title Jianqian fu 監 乾 符 (Talisman for controlling Heaven). A Dongshen jianqian jing 洞神監乾經 (Cavern of divinity scripture for controlling Heaven) is cited at length in Wushang biyao, 5.7a–8a and 42.6a–7a. 67 See Yunji qiqian, 6.12a. The other two parallel passages, Yunji qiqian, 6.6a, and Daojiao yishu, 2.7a, relate the restructuring of the Sanhuang wen and its associated materials but do not specify the number of scrolls into which it was reorganized by Tao Hongjing. An annotation from Zhang Wanfu’s 張 萬 福 (fl. 710–713) Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüe shuo 傳授三洞經戒法籙略說 (Short exposition on the transmission of the scriptures, precepts, and liturgical registers of the Three Cavern; DZ 1241), 7a, submits that the Cavern of Divinity, “which Master Tao [Hongjing] transmitted was thirteen scrolls” 陶先 生所傳十三卷 ; to my knowledge, this is the only mention of a thirteen-scroll Sanhuang

corpus during Tao Hongjing’s time. 68

Wushang biyao, 30.3ab. The original source on which this citation from Dong mishen lujing is based is the Xiaoyou jing xiaji 小 有 經 下 記 (Latter record of the classic of Lesser Existence). The same passage is found in Yunji qiqian, 9.9a, under the heading of “Dongshen milu” 洞 神 祕 籙 (Secret registers of the Cavern of Divinity), which is the correct title for the source. Yunji qiqian, 4.10b, translated in chapter 1, elaborates on these same lines. That passage is attributed to the Sanhuang jing. See Yunji qiqian, 6.12a, translated in chapter 1, for a paraphrase of the passage where the source is identified instead as the Mingzhao zhouwen; see also the Buddhist Bianzheng lun, 498c–499b.

69 See Zuozhuan, “Zhaogong shi’er nian” 昭 公 十 二 年 (Duke Zhao, twelfth year), 12.11.1340–1341:

The scribe of the left Yixiang was passing by and the King said: “This is a good historian! Regard him well, as he can read the Three Mounds and Five Standards, the Eight Rules and the Nine Hills.” 左史倚相趨過，王曰，是良史也，子善視之，是能讀三墳五典，八索九丘 . Translation modified from Durrant, Wai-Yee Li, and Schaberg, Zuo Tradition/Zuozhuan: Commentary on the “Spring and Autumn Annals,” 1483. Commentaries on the passage typically describe the Sanfen and Wudian as the “Writing of the Three Sovereigns and the Five Emperors” 三 皇 五 帝 之 書 . Ma Rong’s 馬 融 (79–166) commentary, however, specifies that the “Three Mounds are the three breaths, the breath from when Yin and

Notes to Pages 148–150 ︱ 295 148–150 Yang first generated Heaven, Earth, and Humankind. The Five Standards are the Five Agents” 三墳，三氣，陰陽始生天地人之氣也。五典，五行也 ; cited from Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 194–195. 70 See Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 201–202. A Gu sanfen 古 三 墳 (Ancient Three Mounds) is preserved in Han Wei congshu 漢 魏 叢 書 (Collected writings of the Han and Wei dynasties), 1.3. It presents three different configurations of the Eight Trigrams and sixty-four hexagrams that were used in divination and omen interpretation. Known as the Three Changes (sanyi 三 易 ), each configuration is associated with one of the Three Sovereigns, Fu Xi, Shennong, and the Yellow Emperor. In this manner, the first configuration, known as the “Mountain Mound” (shanfen 山 墳 ), refers to the “connected mountains” (lianshan 連 山 ) changes (yi 易 ) of the Sovereign of Heaven; the second configuration, known as the “Breath Mound” (qifen 氣墳 ), refers to the “returned concealment” (guicang 歸 藏 ) changes of the Sovereign of Earth; the third configuration, known as the “Form Mound” (xingfen 形 墳 ), refers to the “Heaven and Earth” (qiankun 乾坤 ) changes of the Sovereign of Humankind. The configurations are flanked by a short

“commentary” (zhuan 傳 ) and a narrative section on principles of governing (ceci 策 辭 ; zhengdian 政 典 ). Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 196–208, devote a

considerable number of pages to analyzing this source and establishing its status as a late medieval apocryphon. 71 The Daozang quejing mulu (Catalogue of missing books from the Daoist Canon; DZ 1430), 2.12b, lists a lost Sanhuang tai gushu shanfen jing 三 皇 太 古 書 山 墳 (Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on the great ancient documents of the Mountain Mound), a Sanhuang taigu shu qifen jing 三皇太古書氣墳 (Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on the supreme ancient documents of the Breath Mound), and a Sanhuang tai gushu xingfen jing 三 皇 太 古 書 形 墳 (Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on the supreme ancient documents

of the Form Mound), each in one scroll. 72

See for example Yunji qiqian, 4.10b and 6.12a.

73 Ibid., 6.11b. 74 Ibid. 75 Ibid. 76 Most recently, see Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 851–852; see also Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 4. 77

The seven scrolls are evocative of the Seven Sections, but little evidence exists to confirm this. See Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 18–20 and 448–449. Accordingly, in

296 ︱ Notes to Pages 150–159 150–159 the second passage, the authors note, “This hypothesis that the Seven Sections described Wang Yan’s catalogue rather than the Daoist Canon becomes all the more likely when we recall that the catalogue listed a number of works that were not included in the category of the scriptures of the Three Caverns.” 78

Daomen jingfa xiangcheng cixu (DZ 1128), 1.2a and 3.9b; see Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon.

79

Yunji qiqian, 6.12a.

80 See Yunji qiqian, 6.5ab, in which a citation from the Yuwei describes the script of the Cavern of Divinity as having taken form in the Heaven of Lesser Existence prior to having been transmitted by the Perfected of the Western Numina (Xiling zhenren 西 靈 真人 ), another name for Lord Wang of the Western Citadel. See also Yunji qiqian, 6.9b.

81

三皇天文，或云洞神，或云洞仙，或云太上玉策 ; Shangqing taiji yinzhu yujing baojue

82

三乘學行，小乘學洞神，得道成仙 ; Daomen jingfa xiangcheng cixu, 3.4a.

(DZ 425), 12a. 83

See Zhang Wanfu’s characterization of the powers afforded by the Dongshen jing, which he also refers to as the dongxian sanhuang 洞仙三皇 (Cavern of Immortality of the Three Sovereigns); Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüe shuo (DZ 1241), 18b–19a.

Chapter Five 1

See Barrett, Taoism under the T’ang; Lagerwey, “Rituel taoïste et légitimité politique,”

2

Taishang dongshen sanhuang yi, hereafter Sanhuang yi (DZ 803), 5ab. This list is also

99–101; and Benn, “Religious Aspects of Emperor Hsüan-tsung’s Taoist Ideology.” reproduced in Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 73–74. Despite some contradictions and uncertainties in the primary sources, Yamada, “Dōshinkyō no kisoteki kenkyū” 19– 67, laudably attempts to connect all surviving quotations from the Dongshen jing in the Daoist Canon to specific scrolls of the fourteen-scroll corpus. 3

See chapter 4.

4

See the discussion in chapter 4.

5 Compare Yunji qiqian, 6.10b, to Badi miaojing jing (DZ 640), 16a. 6

The citation from the Xuanmen dayi is recorded in the seventh-century Sandong zhunang (DZ 1139), 8.32a



The sixth scroll of the Scripture of the Cavern of Divinity says that there are the likenesses of three Former [Initial] Sovereigns, the Three Middle Sovereigns, and the Three Latter Sovereigns. They resemble Liang dynasty [(502–587 CE)] depictions of

Notes to Pages 159–160 ︱ 297 159–160 [gods from] the Daoist realm of Great Clarity; futhermore, [the reign] was called first year of Great Clarity [547].



洞神經第六云，有前三皇君，有次三皇君，有後三皇君之相似也。似梁朝象道 家太清境，亦稱太清元年也 ; Compare this description to Badi miaojing jing, 6a–10a, discussed in chapter 3. A

passage from the “Jiuhuang tu” is also identified as coming from the Dongshen jing in the seventh-century Bianzheng lun (Treatise on disputing the correct; T. 2110), 498b, although no scroll number is specified. 7

A Tang dynasty “Sanhuang famu” 三 皇 法 目 (Catalogue of Three Sovereigns rituals) listed in the Chuanshou sandong jingjie falu lüeshuo 傳 授 三 洞 經 戒 法 籙 略 說 (Short exposition on the transmission of the scriptures, precepts, and liturgical registers of the Three Caverns; DZ 1241), 1.7a, includes the “Jiuhuang tu” among the documents that constitute the fourteen-scroll Cavern of Divinity and Tao Hongjing’s Sanhuang corpus. The Dongxuan lingbao sandong fengdao kejie yingshi 洞玄靈寳三洞奉道科戒營始 (Regulations for honoring the Dao in accordance with the scriptures of the Three Caverns; DZ 1125), 4.7b, mentions the “Jiuhuang tu” together with the Sanhuang neiwen and Sanhuang tianwen dazi as required texts for attaining the position of “unsurpassed ritual master of the Cavern of Divinity” (wushang dongshen fashi 無 上 洞 神 法師 ). The charts are also presented as transmission materials in the Sanhuang yi (Protocols

of the Three Sovereigns), 7b, and the Dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi 洞 神 三 皇 傳 授 儀 (Transmission protocols of the Three Sovereigns from the Cavern of Divinity; DZ 1284), 13a. For more on these sources and their inventories of Sanhuang materials, see the second section of the present chapter. 8

See the discussion in chapter 4.

9

See Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 74; and Andersen, “Dongshen badi yuanbian jing,” 502–503.

10 Gu Zuyu’s 顧 祖 禹 seventeenth-century Dushi fangyu jiyao 讀 史 方 輿 紀 要 (Essentials of geography for reading history), 11.483, cited in Boltz, “Cartography in the Daoist Canon,” 44 n. 226, gives the dates 588 and 769 as the terminus post quem and terminus ante quem on the basis of the place name Yingzhou Gu’an 幽 州 固 安 , which appears in Badi yuanbian jing (DZ 1202), 24b. For more on the scripture, see Boltz, “Cartography in the Daoist Canon,” 70–72. 11

Badi yuanbian jing, 2a, 14b, and especially 37a.

12

On this text in particular and summoning techniques related to the Eight Archivists in general, see Raz, “Time Manipulation: The East Well Chart and the Eight Archivists.”

298 ︱ Notes to Pages 160–162 160–162 Andersen, Talking to the Gods,” 17–24, has soundly established the Dongshen badi yuanbian jing’s debt to the Bashi shengwen zhenxing tu on the basis of correspondences in the names of the gods of the Eight Trigrams and homogeneity in the form, organization, and application of their talismans; see also Hsieh Shu-wei, “Zhongguo daojiao shi zhong de Sanhuang wen chuantong yanjiu,” 46–50; and Andersen’s entries for both texts in Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 502–503 and 261–265, respectively. 13 I follow Andersen in translating shi 史 as “archivist”; as he explains in “Talking to the Gods,” 19–20, his translation derives from zhushi 柱 史 , literally “pillar archivist” or “pillar scribe.” The term describes Laozi’s office at court under the Zhou (1046 BCE–256 BCE); the related term “below the pillar” 住 下 is used in the Badi yuanbian jing, 17a, in association with the trigram Kun 坤 ☷. 14 Compare Bashi shengwen zhenxing tu (DZ 767), 4a–5a, to Badi yuanbian jing, 11b–16a; and Bashi shengwen zhenxing tu, 5b–9a, to Badi yuanbian jing, 2b–7a. 15

For the Eight Archivists as protectors or hypostases of the Taiyi, see for instance Wushang biyao, 9.4a–11b; Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 88–89. Chen, “Who Are the Eight Kings in the Samādhi-Sūtra of Liberation through Purification?” draws an equivalence between the Eight Archivists and the Eight Kings of early medieval Chinese Buddhism.

16

Wushang biyao, 30.3ab, and chapter 4.

17 See chapter 3. On the cosmological significance of pairing Three and Eight, Schipper, The Taoist Body, 61–62, writes, “The One energy gave rise to the Three Heavens, the three spheres of the universe, and the three divisions of the body. [. . .] The three levels of the body were oriented in space according to the eight points of the compass and the placement of the Eight Trigrams.” Reproducing these eight points on each of the three spheres or levels gives the number twenty-four, perfectly corresponding to the twentyfour energies of the annual solar cycle. Schipper continues, “Each of the subdivisions, each of the categories, which could be multiplied infinitely, had its essence, expressed in a spontaneous sign as a fu [ 符 ], tessera, symbol, and ‘true image’; a somatic structure or skeleton.” 18

Baopuzi, 15.272–273; see chapter 1.

19

八史者，八卦之精也，亦足以預識未形矣 ; Baopuzi, 15.273.

20

Baopuzi, 19.333.

21

See Andersen, “Talking to the Gods,” 17–18; and his “Taishang tongling bashi shengwen

22

On the Wucheng fu and its dating, see Bokenkamp, “Sources of the Ling-p’ao Scriptures,”

zhenxing tu,” 261–262. 480; and Raz, “Time Manipulation in Early Daoist Ritual,” 29–31. The canonical

Notes to Pages 162–163 ︱ 299 162–163 version, DZ 671, appears to be of a later date than the version preserved in Dunhuang manuscript P.2440, “*Lingbao zhenyi wucheng jing” 靈寶真一五稱經 (Scripture on the true unity of the five ascendants) dated to the Eastern Jin (265–420). The manuscript version presents a number of significant variants. See Raz, “Ritual and Cosmology: Transformations of the Ritual for the Eight Archivists,” for a study and comparison of the two versions. 23

The canonical Bashi shengwen zhenxing tu refers to the talismans of the Eight Archivists in the same way as the Wucheng fu. As Andersen, “Talking to the Gods,” 17–19, has demonstrated, the Wucheng fu gleans much from the earlier Bashi shengwen zhenxing tu. Compare Wucheng fu (DZ 671), 2.1a and 11b, to Bashi shengwen zhenxing tu, 5b–9a.

24 The Bashen tu 八 神 圖 (Charts of the eight gods), for instance, is a known variant title for the Bashi tu (Charts of the Eight Archivists). Article 114 of a Celestial Masters code of conduct that is believed to predate the Baopuzi, the Laojun shuo yibai bashi jie 老 君 說 一 百 八 十 戒 (The Hundred and eighty precepts spoken by Lord Lao; Dunhuang

ms. P.4562 and P.4731), notably stipulates, “Do not collect vulgar manuals on prognostication, including the Charts of the Eight Gods. They should not be practiced.” Translation modified from Hendrischke and Penny, “The 180 Precepts Spoken by Lord Lao: A Translation and Textual Study,” 25. 25

Wucheng fu, 2.13b.

26

The earlier edition of the text preserved in Dunhuang ms P.2440 consistently uses sheng 勝 instead of cheng 稱 . I have not identified imperial avoidances on either character. On

the composite nature of the Talismans of the Eight Majesties and Five Ascendants (bawei wucheng fu), see Andersen, “Talking to the Gods,” 19. These combined talismans or the Eight Talismans for Communicating with Numina (tongling bafu) alone are ostensibly related to the Spirit Tablet of the Eight Authorities (bawei shence 八 威 神 策 ). Worn at the hip, this talisman, which was split into two and offered control over miscellaneous entities, eventually became a common regalia of the Lingbao master together with the staff (zhang 杖 ) during the Six Dynasties. See Bokenkamp, “The Early Lingbao Scriptures and the Origins of Daoist Monasticism,” 106. 27

Wucheng fu, 2.11ab:



The Divine Perfected Talismans of the Mysterious Cavern for Communicating with Numina, the Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns, and the Scripture of the Cavern of Perfection were originally the same as Lingbao. Therefore, those that were composed first are the Talismans of the Five Ascendants, and the rest entered the celestial breath. This is why they are called “Characters in Celestial Script” and why they are also the Talismans of the Sovereigns.

300 ︱ Notes to Pages 163–166 163–166

玄洞通靈神真符，三皇天文大字，洞真經本同於靈寳。故先撰為五稱符，餘者 入天氣。故曰天文字及為皇符也。

28

Wucheng fu, 2.13b.

29

Baopuzi, 15.272–273.

30 See, for instance Sandong fengdao kejie yishi (DZ 1125), 4.7b, Sanhuang yi, 10b–11a; and Dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi (DZ 1284), 13a. These sources date from the Sui or early Tang but are grounded in earlier Six Dynasties materials. Other documents associated with the transmission of the Sanhuang wen that pertain to the Eight Archivists include the Bagua fu 八 卦 符 (Talismans of the Eight Trigrams), recorded in Baopuzi, 19.335, and the Bashi lu 八 史 籙 (Register of the Eight Archivists), from Fengdao kejie yingshi, 4.7b. 31

Although I have generally elected not to translate prefixes such as taishang 太上 (Highest) and dongshen 洞 神 (Cavern of Divinity) that indicate the text’s liturgical class or other bibliographic features, in the case of the Taishang dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi (Transmission protocols of the Three Sovereigns from the Cavern of Divinity; DZ 1284), I include a translation for dongshen in order to differentiate from the title of scroll 14 of the Cavern of Divinity, the Sanhuang chuanshou yi (Transmission protocols of the Three Sovereigns).

32

Yunji qiqian, 6.10ab, corresponds to Sanhuang yi (DZ 803), 12b–13a. The Yunji qiqian edits out a few lines from the text as it appears in the Sanhuang yi.

33

The rite for the opening of the incense burner starts on Sanhuang yi, 1a; the one for the closing of the burner begins on Dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi, 14a.

34

Compare for example Dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi, 13a, to Sanhuang yi, 8a–12b.

35 The full ritual sequence in these two texts is of the Zhengyi/Tianshidao variety. See Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 506–507. According to Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 74, the Taishang chuanshou dongshen sanhuang yi 太 上 傳 授 洞 神 三 皇 儀 (Protocols for the transmission of the Three Sovereigns Cavern of Divinity) listed in the fifteenth-century Daozang quejing mulu (Catalogue of missing books from the Daoist Canon; DZ 1430), 1.15b, is an alternate name for the Sanhuang chuanshou yi. 36 See Sanhuang yi, 5b, translated above. 37 Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 250. Other quotations from the fourteenth scroll of the Dongshen jing that are found in Yunji qiqian, 11a, and Sandong zhunang, 2.8a and 4.9a, do not correspond to known passages from the Sanhuang yi or the Sanhuang chuanshou yi. This suggests that over time, between the fifth century and the eleventh century— when the latest of the two anthologies was compiled—the content of the liturgical materials had changed.

Notes to Pages 166–167 ︱ 301 166–167 38 Save for a passage on 4b, Wushang biyao, 38.1a–5a, corresponds to Xingdao shoudu yi (DZ 1283), 10a–13a. Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 130–132, provides a useful line-by-line comparison. 39

For example, a short segment from Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi, 3a, constitutes the standard formula related to the ritual opening and closing of the incense burner or, more generally, offerings of incense. See the reproduction in Wushang biyao, 38.2a, which identifies the formula as coming from the Lingbao zhaijing. Aside from the aforementioned occurrence, the formula is also found on 2b, 5a, 6b, 7a, 9b, 10b–11a, 13a, 13b, and 15a, in sections explicitly identified with the Sanhuang purification rite.

40 Cf. Wushang biyao, 38.3b–4a, to Badi miaojing jing, 5ab. The first hymn of the series also appears in Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi, 2b, 6b, 13b, and 15b; an incomplete set of three hymns is found on 12ab; the complete set of nine is included on 4b–5b. 41

Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi, 15b.

42 This Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi reproduces a considerable amount of content— formulaic phrases and invocations, but also hymns—in its various sections and sometimes in the same section as well. For example, a passage first encountered on 1ab is found once more on 1b–2b, 5a–6, 12b–13a, and 14b–15a. An invocation addressed to the Sovereign of Heaven from 3ab recurs on 7b, 8a, 9a, 11a, and 13ab, while one for the Sovereign of Earth appears on 3b–4a, 7b, 8b, 9ab, 11a, and 14ab. Likewise, an equivalent supplication aimed at the Sovereign of Humankind surfaces on 4a, 7b–8a, 8b–9a, 9b, and 11b. Thus, it appears that the compilers of the text were filling in gaps with the materials that were available to them. By contrast, the “Xingdao shoudu yi” section that also occurs in Wushang biyao, 38, does not duplicate passages, suggesting that the root source was kept intact. The same applies to the section titled “Dongshen sanhuang jiaoji yi” 洞 神 三 皇 醮 祭 儀 (Three Sovereigns protocols for the offering service), 6b–9a, consisting of a minor Sanhuang offering ritual that, to my knowledge, does not appear in any other source. Accordingly, the content of the Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi may be divided into the following five categories: (a) recurring boilerplate ritual phrases; (b) Yang hymns found in the Badi miaojing jing; (c) segments found in Wushang biyao, 38; (d) the jiao or offering ritual; (e) the colophon. 43

See Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 4. For the Lingbao version of the rite, see chapter 48 of the Wushang biyao. Aside from a handful of minor variations, both rituals are largely the same.

44

Daozang quejing mulu, 1.15b; Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 74.

45

Daozang quejing mulu, 1.15b; Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 74.

302 ︱ Notes to Pages 167–169 167–169 46

The “Dongshen xingdao yi” section is found on 3a–6b of the Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi.

47 Maspero, Le Taoïsme et les religions chinoises, 417, briefly discusses the rite as it appears in chapter 49 of the Wushang biyao. Lagerwey, Taoist Ritual in Chinese Society and History, 26–30, examines it in more detail. He further provides a synoptic overview and close structural analysis of the purification ritual in an unpublished paper, “The Fast of the Three Sovereigns” (Sanhuang zhai 三 皇 齋 ); see also Yamada, “Dōshinkyō no kisoteki kenkyū,” 134–135. For the reference to the Sanhuang zhai licheng yi, see Wushang biyao, 49.19a. 48 Dunhuang manuscript P.2559 may be cited in this respect, although its dating is unclear; compare for instance the use of the phrase “facing the Perfect Lords of the Three Sovereigns” 三皇真君前 on 724 l.115 to its occurrences in Wushang biyao, 49.3a, 7b, 8a, and 16b. 49 Compare Wushang biyao, 49.1a, to Wushang biyao, 38.1a, and Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi, 10a; see Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 152–156. 50 See Wushang biyao, 49.2ab, and Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi, 1a–2b; compare to the ritual of nocturnal announcement in Taishang dongshen sanhuang chuanshou yi, 14a. Other passages from chapter 49 of the Wushang biyao use the exact same wording as the Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi: the libation to the Three Sovereigns, during which adepts request that their perfected breath (zhenqi 真氣 ) descend, is a case in point. Wushang biyao, 49.8b–10a, roughly corresponds to Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi, 3a–4a. 51

Dongxuan lingbao wugan wen (DZ 1278), 6b–7a. The passage notably contains instructions on incense and lamp oils, topics that appear in a number of texts linked to the lost Sanhuang zhaiyi.

52 Compare Dongxuan lingbao wugan wen, 6b–7a, to Wushang biyao, 49.1b–2a. 53 For a close analysis of the similarities between the Sanhuang zhai passages from the Wuganwen’s description of the “Dongsheng sanhuang zhi zhai” and the Wushang biyao’s chapter on the “Sanhuang zhai licheng yi,” see Suzuki, “‘Sankō sai rissei gi’ no seiritsu ni tsuite,” 86–89. Suzuki also examines the parallels between these two sources and the Taishang sanhuang baozhai shenxian shanglu jing 太上三皇寳齋神仙上籙經 (Scripture on registration as a divine immortal [through the performance of ] the precious purification rite of the Three Sovereigns; DZ 854), on which see below. She does not, however, include the Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi (Protocols for practicing the Dao and conferring ordination) nor chapter 38 of the Wushang biyao in her analysis.

Notes to Pages 169–174 ︱ 303 169–174 54

See for example Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 253–254.

55 The Taishang sanhuang baozhai shenxian shanglu jing (DZ 854) is usually dated to the Tang, but it is cited under the title Yuhuang bao zhai shanglu 玉皇寶齋上籙 (Registration Scripture of the Jade Emperor’s Precious Purification Rite) in the “Sanhuang zhai licheng yi” chapter from Wushang biyao, 49.14a, dated to the late sixth century. Therefore, we may presume that the text or a version thereof existed prior to the Tang and even the Sui. See Suzuki, “‘Sankō sai rissei gi’ no seiritsu ni tsuite,” 86. 56

Taishang sanhuang baozhai shenxian shanglu jing (DZ 854), 1a–6b. See Wushang biyao, 66.4b, 8ab, and 8b–9a; compare Sanhuang baozhai shenxian shanglu jing, 2b, to Wushang biyao, 49.1b–2a; see also Lagerwey, Wu-shang pi-yao, 175–176 and 265.

57

Daozang quejing mulu 1.15b; see note 36.

58

Suzuki, “‘Sankō sai rissei gi’ no seiritsu ni tsuite,” 85, 89, and 95, believes that the source text for the Sanhuang zhai licheng yi that appears in the Wushang biyao 49 and the “Dongshen Sanhuang zhai zhi yi” mentioned in the Wugan wen were compiled between 433 and 453 CE.

59

Taishang dongshen xingdao shoudu yi, 13b–15b. Some formulas from this section are reproduced in the “Shou dongshen sanhuang yi pin” from chapter 38 of the Wushang biyao. A single line from a Sanhuang chaoyi survives in the seventh-century Shangqing dao leishi xiang (DZ 1132), 4.5b–6a; the text also quotes the Sanhuang zhaiyi on 4.5a and the Sanhuang jing on 4.6b and 4.11a.

60 The presence of Tianshidao elements (including the names of deities or the falu 發 鑪 / 爐 or “opening the burner” rite mentioned at the outset of this section) has led some scholars to conclude that Sanhuang ritual sources were circulated among Celestial Masters communities and even compiled by them. See, for example, Suzuki, “Sankō sai rissei gi,” 93–96, on the basis of Kobayashi, Chūgoku no dōkyō. The evidence, however, remains circumstantial. 61 Ōfuchi Ninji first suggested that certain Cavern of Divinity materials pertaining to purification rites (zhai) in particular were extracted from the earlier eleven-scroll corpus and lumped together in liturgical works; see Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 254. 62

Sandong zhunang (DZ 1139), 6.13b–14a.

63

Badi miaojing jing, 1b–2a.

64

Badi miaojing jing, 2ab; cf. Sandong zhunang, 6.13b–14a.

65

Sandong zhunang, 6.13b, 14a.

66

Fayuan zhulin (T. 2122), 55.708a. See introduction.

67

具銜臣陸脩靖上啓 ; Sandong zhunang, 6.13b.

304 ︱ Notes to Pages 175–178 175–178 68

劉宋朝陸先生脩靜上啓 ; Yunji qiqian, 40.15a. Yunji qiqian, 40.15a–16a (“Shouchi bajie

zhaiwen”) roughly corresponds to Sandong zhunang, 6.13b–14a (“Shouchi bajie zhai pin”). 69

On Lu Xiujing and the eight precepts, see Wu Chengquan, Hanmo Wei Jin Nanbei chao daojiao jielü guifan yanjiu, 131–134 and 241. As noted above, Lu Xiujing already outlines a crude Cavern of Divinity purification rite (zhai) in his Dongxuan lingbao wugan wen, 6b–7a.

70

See the discussion on blood covenants in chapter 1.

71 For the role of disciplinary rules in ordination (and transmission rites), see Schipper, “Taoist Ordination Ranks in Tunhuang Manuscripts,” passim, esp. 129. 72 For external influences on the eight precepts, see Wu Chengquan, Han mo Wei Jin Nanbei chao daojiao jielü guifan yanjiu, 240–242; see also Kobayashi, Dōkyō no saihō girei no shisō shiteki kenkyū, 335–393, where he addresses, albeit in a later historical context, the interchange between Buddhists and Daoists on the topic. 73

Badi miaojing jing, 13ab. The thirteen interdictions are also found in Zhang Wanfu’s 張 萬 福 (fl. 710–713) Sandong zhongjie wen 三 洞 眾 戒 文 (Comprehensive prescriptions for

the Three Caverns; DZ 178), 2.6b–7a, with minor variations. The preface to the text, 1.5b–6a, preserves the “eight failures” (babai 八 敗 ) from Badi miaojing jing, 1b–2a; see Wu Chengquan, Hanmo Wei Jin Nanbei chao daojiao jielü guifan yanjiu, 275–276. Zhang Wanfu’s Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüe shuo, 1.2a, also mentions a set of “thirteen precepts” (shisan jie 十三戒 ), which appear to refer to the thirteen interdictions. 74

Wushang biyao, 49.7a; see Wu Chengquan, Hanmo Wei Jin Nanbei chao daojiao jielü guifan yanjiu, 275 and 278. Jin (interdiction) is always proscriptive whereas jie can be either proscriptive or prescriptive.

75 The absence of a Buddhist fingerprint on this second set of interdictions and their inclusion in the “Xicheng yaojue” hint at an earlier date of development. 76

Wushang biyao, 49.5a–7a. They are attributed to the aforementioned Sanhuang zhai licheng yi (Protocols for Establishing the Purification Rite of the Three Sovereigns).

77

Wu Chengquan, Hanmo Wei Jin Nanbei chao daojiao jielü guifan yanjiu, 277–278.

78

Yangxing yanming lu (DZ 838) 1.5b–6a. See also Yunji qiqian, 32.6ab; and Pfister, “Gendering Sexual Pleasures in Early and Medieval China,” 57–58, for a slightly different translation of the same passage.

79 Among a host of other sources (see the following note), the translated passage on the twelve lessenings also appears, with some variations, in the Baopuzi yangsheng lun 抱朴子 養 生 論 (The Master Who Embraces Simplicity’s treatise on nourishing life; DZ 842), 1b–

2a, a Nourishing Life manual attributed to Ge Hong that probably dates from the Tang

Notes to Pages 178–179 ︱ 305 178–179 dynasty. The text opens with a citation from the Baopuzi, 18.326, on the inner gods. The citation, along with the elements of praxis it describes, relate to Zheng Yin’s technique for Maintaining Unity (shouyi), which, as Baopuzi, 18.324, explains, was originally taught on Mount Emei by Tianzhen Huangren 天 真 皇 人 , the Celestial Perfected Sovereign. As outlined in chapter 3, this technique was recorded in the Huangren [sanyi] jing 皇 人 [ 三 一 ] 經 (Scripture of the sovereign on the Triple Unity), the original locus classicus for Sanhuang meditations on Unity. The textual proximity between the Baopuzi citation and the twelve lessenings reinforces the claim of parenthood between Sanhuang sources and the duodenary proscriptions. 80 Although attributed to Tao Hongjing, the Yangxing yanming lu is a Tang dynasty work most likely compiled by Sun Simiao 孫 思 邈 (581–682). In addition to the Yangxing yanming lu and the Baopuzi yangsheng lun, the passage also appears in Yunji qiqian, 32.5b, and a variety of other Tang period sources such as the Taishang laojun yangsheng jue 太 上 老 君 養 生 訣 (Lord Lao’s instructions on nourishing life; DZ 821), 3b–4a, the Zhenzhong ji 枕 中 計 (Notes kept within a pillow; DZ 837, attributed to Sun Simiao), 2b–3a, and in chapter 81 (on Nourishing Life) of Sun Simiao’s Beiji qianjin yaofang 備 急 千 金 要 方 (Essential recipes for urgent use worth a thousand cash), 735.831ab (or

DZ 1163; 81.10ab in the Daozang edition). It is also reproduced in the Nourishing Life chapter of Tanba Yasuyori’s 丹 波 康 頼 (912–995) Ishinpō 醫 心 方 (Methods from the heart of medicine; 984), 27.1, a Japanese medical treatise that relied heavily on Chinese medieval treatises and “medico-religious” sources, among them texts by Sun Simiao. On the Yangxing yanming lu and its authorship, see Michael Stanley-Baker’s exhaustive, “Cultivating Body, Cultivating Self: A Critical Translation and History of the Tang dynasty Yangxing yanming lu 養性延命錄 (Records of Cultivating Nature and Extending Life).” 81

The section extends from Wushang biyao, 46.14a to 16b.

82 Wu Chengquan, Hanmo Wei Jin Nanbei chao daojiao jielü guifan yanjiu, 131–134 and 196–201; also see Kusuyama’s “Dōkyō to jukyō,” 51–93, and especially 73–81, from which Wu Chengquan’s examination of the precepts draws inspiration. 83

Wushang biyao, 46.14a.

84 Ibid., 46.14b. 85

口不貪五味，習胎息，絶惡言 ; Wushang biyao, 46.15a.

86 Aside from Five Precepts of the Cavern of Divinity, the Wushang biyao contains two other Daoist proscriptive quintets that demand the fettering of sensory enjoyment: the Lingbao’s Five Precepts for Ascending to the Mysterious (shengxuan wujie 昇玄五戒 ) and the Tianshidao’s Five Precepts of Correct Unity (zhengyi wujie 正 一 五 戒 ); see Wushang

306 ︱ Notes to Pages 179–181 179–181 biyao, 46.1a and 16b; see also Kusuyama, “Dōkyō to jukyō,” 73–78, for the five precepts in Daoism. 87

Shang shu (Hallowed documents), 7.1a.56–7.8b.60; see Legge, The Shoo King: The Chinese Classics, vol. 3, 324, for an example of the overlap between these precepts and the “Hong Fan,” and vol. 3, 320–244, for a translation of the “Hong Fan.”

88 89

明識五紀與氣同存 ; Wushang biyao, 46.15b.

Wushang biyao, chapter 35, passim. The transmission rites for the Daode jing are contained in chapter 37, whereas those for the Sanhuang, Lingbao, and Shangqing corpora make up chapters 38, 39, and 40, respectively. The Wushang biyao was not alone in recommending the Daode jing as the first substantial document to be transmitted to novitiates; see for example, Bokenkamp, “Lu Xiujing, Buddhism, and the First Daoist Canon,” 189.

90 See chapter 4, 244 and 254–256 for the Four Supplements. Benn, The Cavern-Mystery Transmission, 87–92, provides an overview of materials transmitted during the Cavern of Divinity ordination drawn on the basis of the Sanhuang yi and the Sandong fengdao kejie yingshi as well as the Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüe shuo. See also Ren Jiyu et al., Zhongguo daojiao shi, 363–368, for a comparable list of Sanhuang liturgical registers (falu). 91

Yoshioka, “Sandō hōdō kakai gihan no kenkyū,” 39–45, proposes a date of composition around 550, which would correspond to Jinming Qizhen’s traditional dates of activity. On the other hand, Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 451–452, argue for the early Tang, whereas Kohn, in her “The Date and Compilation of the Fengdao kejie, the First Handbook of Monastic Taoism” and her The Daoist Monastic Manual, 23–48, suggests the 620s as an approximate date of compilation.

92

Some of the documents can be positively identified as part of the first four scrolls of the mature corpus since they appear in sources such as the Badi miaojing jing or the “Sanhuang yaoyong pin” from the Wushang biyao. We may cite, for example, the “Jiutian fabing neifu” 九天發兵內符 (Esoteric talisman for issuing the troops of the Nine Heavens), the “Tianshui feiteng neifu” 天 水 飛 騰 內 符 (Esoteric talisman for soaring in the azure), and the “Bajie wen” 八戒文 (Writ of the eight precepts). See appendix 4 for correspondences.

93

The three scrolls of the Sanhuang wen are listed under extended titles: Tianhuang neixue wen 天 皇 內 學 文 (Writ of the esoteric learning of the Sovereign of Heaven), Dihuang jishu wen 地 皇 記 書 文 (Writ of the recorded writing of the Sovereign of Earth), and Renhuang neiwen 人 皇 內 文 (Esoteric writ of the Sovereign of Humankind). The “Shengtian fu” 昇 天 符 (Talisman for ascending to Heaven) and the “Jiuhuang tu” 九 皇 圖 (Charts of the Nine Sovereigns) notably figure in the Badi miaojing jing and the

“Sanhuang yaoyong pin”; see appendix 4.

Notes to Pages 181–184 ︱ 307 181–184 94

Sandong fengdao kejie yingshi, 4.7b; see also the related section in Dunhuang ms. P.2337 “Sandong fengdao kejie yifan” 三 洞 奉 道 科 戒 儀 範 (Ceremonial and regulations for honoring the Dao in accordance with the scriptures of the Three Caverns); see Liu Tsunyan, “Sandong fengdao kejie yifan juan diwu: P. 2337 zhong Jinming Qizhen yice zhi tuice”; and Ōfuchi, Tonkō dōkyō: Mokurokuhen, 116–121; Zurokuhen, 223–242.

95

The litany of transmission gages ends with the following line: “Cavern of Divinity corpus,

96

Ibid., 4.6b and 7a, respectively.

97

Ibid., 4.8a–9b and 4.9b–10a, respectively.

in fourteen scrolls” 洞神經十四卷 . See Sandong fengdao kejie yingshi, 4.7b.

98 Ibid., 4.9b. 99

For a survey of ordination grades as they stabilized around the mid-Tang dynasty, see Ren Jiyu et al., Zhongguo daojiao shi, 297–331.

100 On Zhang Wanfu’s Chuanshou sandong jing jie falu lüeshuo and early eighth-century Daoist ordination rituals in general, see Benn, The Cavern-Mystery Transmission. For a complete treatment of Daoist ordination grades in the medieval period, see Kobayashi, Rikuchō dōkyōshi kenkyū, 66–168; for a synopsis in tabular form, see Hsieh Shu-wei, “Zhongguo daojiao shi zhong de Sanhuang wen chuantong yanjiu,” 41–42. 101 The elaborate section on the Five Methods spreads from Chuanshou sandong jingjie falu lüesho (DZ 1241), 1.12b to 1.19a. It extends into the second scroll, 2.1a–5a, for the Shangqing text; see also appendix 4 for mentions of the Xiyue gong dongxi jinwen as an ancillary talisman tied to the transmission of the Sanhuang wen. 102 In another text, Zhang lists the sources from his Chuanshou sandong jingjie falu lüesho under the rubric of “Five Methods,” substituting the Shangqing’s Santian zhengfa chu liutian yuwen with the Liujia fu; see Dongxuan lingbao daoshi shou sandong jingjie falu zeri li 洞玄靈寶道士受三洞經誡法籙擇日曆 (Calendar for selecting the days on which Daoist priests should receive the scriptures, precepts, and liturgical registers of the Three Caverns; DZ 1240), 5ab. 103 See chapter 4. 104 Compare Chuanshou sandong jingjie falu lüesho, 1.12b–2.5a, in which the Five Methods are handed down as part of a single intermediary ordination grade between the Lingbao and Shangqing transmissions, to Dongxuan lingbao daoshi shou sandong jingjie falu zeri li, 5ab, where they are divided across two grades. Both texts are written by Zhang Wanfu. 105 Zhang Wanfu is credited with more than half a dozen treatises on liturgy, ordination, and transmission rites. See Benn, The Cavern-Mystery Transmission, 137–151, for a synopsis of his works.

308 ︱ Notes to Pages 185–191 185–191 106 See Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 866–867. 107 Ibid., 861. 108 Daomen jingfa xiangcheng cixu 道門經法相承次序 (Transmission sequence of the Daoist scriptures and statutes; DZ 1128), 2.22a. The six tiers of initiation reflect the Three Caverns and three of the Four Supplements; only Taiping (Great Peace) materials are omitted. Curiously, Pan Shizheng lists all Four Supplements by name elsewhere in the text; see 1.2a and 3.9b. 109 See the introduction. 110 See chapter 1 and chapter 4. 111 求仙保國之法 ; Bianzheng lun, 497a. 112 Wuxing dayi, 5.20.168–169. See Kalinowski’s French translation in Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne, 377–379. See also his synoptic assessment of the section in his introduction, ibid., 104–105. 113 Wushang biyao, 49.3a. 114 Xingdao shoudu yi, 10b. 115 Ibid., 15b. 116 洞神三皇之書，傳下世，鎮化佐國，扶濟兆民 ; Wushang biyao, 32.1a. 117 Wushang biyao, 6.5b. 118 See the discussion relevant to Madam Wang’s declarations in the first section of the introduction. 119 See introduction for the relevant passages from the Erjiao lun (Treatise on the two teachings) and the Xiaodao lun (Essays to ridicule the Dao). As for later texts that disseminated the account of the proscription, we may consider the Fayuan zhulin (T. 2122), 55.708a, as well as Daoxuan’s 道 宣 (596–667) Ji gujin fodao lunheng 集 古 今 佛 道 論 衡 (Collectanea of former and current weighted debates between Buddhism and

Daoism; T. 2104), 3.386ab. 120 This expression, which could also be rendered “clarified and rectified Daoism,” is typically used to denote Celestial Master Daoism during the Northern Wei (386–534), but it also denotes reform Daoism in general. I borrow the translation from Gil Raz, in Wang Chengwen, “The Revelation and Classification of Daoist Scriptures,” 885. 121 欲為天子欲為皇后者可讀此經 ; Ji gujin fodao lunheng (T. 2104), 3.386ab. 122 See Barrett, Taoism under the T’ang, 29–32.

Notes to Pages 194–195 ︱ 309 194–195

Conclusion 1

Songshi, 205.21.

2

Chongwen zongmu, 4.100, in the Zhibuzuzhai congshu edition. The attribution of the Sanhuang jing to Yin Changsheng does not appear in the Siku quanshu edition of the text (cf. Chongwen zongmu, 9.18). Tongzhi lüe, 67.29a. See also Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 78.

3

Tongzhi lüe, 67.22b–23a; Chen Guofu, Daozang yuanliu kao, 78.

4

Du Guangting is known to have edited Sanhuang liturgical works such as the Dongshen sanhuang qishier jun zhai fangchan yi 洞 神 三 皇 七 十 二 君 齋 方 讖 儀 (Protocols of repentance to the [four] directions during the purification rite of the seventy-two Lords of the Three Sovereigns; DZ 804) and the Taishang dongshen taiyuan hetu sanyuan yangxie yi 太上洞神太元河圖三元仰謝儀 (Protocols of atonement of the River Chart of the great

origin dedicated to the Three Primes; DZ 805), although the latter’s attribution to the prelate is sometimes challenged. 5

On the Yuan cult to the three sovereigns (Fu Xi, Shennong, and Huangdi), see Zhang Shiqing, “Yuandai yisi Sanhuang kao.” Both physicians and patients made offerings at the shrines of the three sovereigns (sanhuang miao 三 皇 廟 ), which were often built in proximity to “blessing the people pharmacies” (huimin yaoju 惠 民 藥 局 ). These were important cogs in the Yuan administration’s management of public hygiene, which espoused the features of a universal health care system. For instance, the “blessing the people pharmacies” were established by the state and staffed by physicians and pharmacists (usually one of the former and two of the latter). They functioned as neighborhood clinics, with dispensing medical care to the sick at discounted or no cost.

6

For an overview of these sources, see Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 975–981. The liturgical sources include the two works attributed to Du Guangting listed in note 4, and the Dongxuan lingbao hetu yangxie sanshiliu tian[di] tuhuang zhaiyi 洞玄靈寶河圖 仰 謝 三 十 六 天 [ 帝 ] 土 皇 齋 儀 (Purification protocols of the River Chart for atonement

dedicated to the thirty-six Heavenly [Emperors] and Earthly Sovereigns; DZ 515–516), a text that is tentatively dated to the late Tang but may be a considerably later source. The two texts on the gods of the Five Planets are the Taishang dongshen wuxing zan 太上洞神五星讚 (Hymns to the divine Five Planets; DZ 976) and the Taishang dongshen

wuxing zhusu riyue hun chang jing 太 上 洞 神 五 星 諸 宿 日 月 混 常 經 (Scripture on the divine Five Planets, the solar mansions, the sun and moon, and chaos and the Constant; DZ 657); these two texts are hard to date, but Schipper proposes the late Tang and Song as approximate periods of composition. Two of the eight revelations could be more

310 ︱ Notes to Pages 195–196 195–196 recent, potentially dating to the fourteenth century, roughly a hundred years before the compilation of the Ming dynasty Daoist Canon still in use today: the first is the Taishang dongshen sanyuan miaoben fushou zhenjing 太上洞神三元妙本福壽真經 (Perfect scripture of blessings and longevity on the wondrous origins of the three breaths; DZ 651), and the second is the Sanhuang neiwen yibi 三皇內文遺祕 (Bequeathed secrets of the esoteric Writ of the Three Sovereigns; DZ 856). 7

For references to the original source for both texts, see Xuanmiao boyuan zhenjing (DZ 858), 13b, and Liuren mingjian jing (DZ 861), 3.25b and 4.16b.

8 See Liuren mingjian fuyin jing, 3.28a and 1.1b, for the self-referential Yuanshu; see also 1.1ab for an account of its transmission. 9

Both texts use the terms “diagram” (shi) and “talisman” (fu) interchangeably. A recipe for the Refined Great Elixir of the Eight Minerals (bashi lian da dan 八 石 鍊 大 丹 ) notably appears in Xuanmiao boyuan zhenjing, 3b–10b.

10

Invisibility is referred to as “concealing one’s form” (dunxing 遁 形 , alt. bixing 避 形 ). A

11

Liuren mingjian fuyin jing, 4.31a–36b.

12

See Xiao Ji’s Wuxing dayi (Great doctrine of the Five Agents), 5.20, 168–176, where the

quintessential passage on concealment is found in Liuren mingjian jing, 4.2a.

Three Sovereigns are discussed immediately before broaching the topic of divinations revolving around the Great Unity and other gods. See Kalinowski, Cosmologie et divination dans la Chine ancienne, 377­–388. The ritual area in the Hidden Stem (dunjia) technique from the Liuren mingjian jing is a large-scale reproduction of the cosmograph (shi 式 ) used in divination methods dating back to the Warring States period. The grid-pattern projected onto the floor mimics the static Earth plate (dipan 地 盤 ) of the cosmograph while the officiant embodies the mobile Heaven plate (tianpan 天 盤 ). Thus, the use of the term shi 式 in reference to fu 符 in the Xuanmiao boyuan zhenjing and Liuren mingjian jing appears to signal that the latter implements were used in the context of a Hidden Stem practice. 13

See for instance court astronomer Yang Weide’s 楊維德 Jingyou dunjia fuyingjing 景祐遁 甲 符 應 經 (Scripture of the resonant talismans of the Hidden Stem from the Jingyou era

[1034–1038]), 3.9a–11b. The rite of the “Jade Maiden Shutting [the Gates] Behind Her” (yunü fanbi) described in this source is almost identical to that of the Liuren mingjian jing, 4.31a–36b. Both texts display significant overlap with Li Quan’s 李 筌 (fl. 713–760) Taibo yinjing 太 白 陰 經 (The Hidden scripture of Venus) of 768 CE and its eleventhcentury (1044) recension, the Wujing zongyao 武 經 總 要 (Complete essentials of the Classic of Warfare). For a comparison between the Jade Maiden methods in these four

Notes to Pages 196–198 ︱ 311 196–198 sources, see Ōno Yūji, “Gyokujo henbai kyokuhō ni tsuite.” 14

Xuanmiao boyuan zhenjing, 11a–14a.

15

Chiwen dongshen lu (DZ 589), 10a–11a.

16 Compare Chiwen dongshen lu, 3a–6a, and Badi yuanbian jing (DZ 1202), 5b–10a. 17

Chiwen dongshen lu, 1a.

18 In one example from outside the Cavern of Divinity, Lü Yuansu’s 呂 元 素 (fl. 1188– 1201) late twelfth-century Daomen dingzhi 道 門 定 制 (Prescribed rules for the Daoist community; DZ 1224), 4.1a–7b, purports to reproduce the authentic “Esoteric and secret concealed writ of the Three Sovereigns” (“Sanhuang neibi yinwen” 三 皇 內 祕 隱 文 ); see Ōfuchi, Dōkyō to sono kyōten, 271; and Pregadio, Great Clarity, 283 n. 8. See

also Yamada, “Dōshinkyō no kisoteki kenkyū,” 141–153, where the author duplicates the celestial characters from the Daomen dingzhi in comparison to similar versions of the same divine graphs from a handful of contemporaneous sources. He also transcribes them into conventional graphs and juxtaposes them with other antiquarian passages from the Song or later that claim to reproduce the original Sanhuang wen. More germanely, Yamada, ibid., 70–72, notes a pronounced return to the basics of summoning and exorcizing for post-Song Dongshen jing texts or accounts thereof. 19 The entirety of the second scroll of the Taiqing jinque yuhua xianshu baji shenzhang sanhuang neibi wen (DZ 855) deals with mountain living. For the method of the Five Simulations (wujia fa), see ibid., 3.7b–8a and 11b–13a; for sources from beyond the Cavern of Divinity that discuss this method, see Yuanyangzi wujia lun 元 陽 子 五 假 論 (Essay on the Five Simulations by Master Primordial Yang; DZ 864), 1a–5b; and the Guiguzi tiansui lingwen 鬼 谷 子 天 髓 靈 文 (The Master of the Demon Valley’s numinous writ on the essence of Heaven; DZ 867), 1.8b–11b. 20 See the chapter on “Xianyao” 仙 藥 (“Medicines of immortality”) in Baopuzi, 11.196– 202. See also Lingbao wufu xu (DZ 388), 2.1a–2b. 21

Instructions for achieving similar effects also appear in the Taishang tongxuan lingyin jing 太 上 通 玄 靈 印 經 (Book of efficacious seals for penetrating mystery; DZ 859), a post-

Tang addition to the Cavern of Divinity centered around the talismans of the Eight Archivists (bashi 八 史 ). The text reproduces a number of highly specific technical terms from earlier Sanhuang works containing identical techniques, such as the Six Dynasties Taishang wuji dadao ziran zhenyi wucheng fu shangjing (Supreme scripture of the boundless great Way and the spontaneous true unity talismans of the Five Ascendants; DZ 671), discussed in chapter 5.

312 ︱ Notes to Pages 198–203 198–203 22

Taiqing jinque yuhua xianshu baji shenzhang sanhuang neibi wen, 1.7a.

23 On Bruno Petzold, see Rosenfield and Cranston, “The Bruno Petzold Collection of Buddhist and Shinto Scrolls.” 24

Wumen guan (T. 2005), 297a; the Sino-Japanese (kanbun 漢 文 ) reading for the line is “kai ga mei-un, ryō ga toku-nyū.” Both 皆 and 開 are read as kai, which explains the substitution.

25 See Dongshen badi miaojing jing (Scripture of the wondrous essence of the Eight Emperors from the Cavern of Divinity; DZ 640), 7ab. 26 See “Tianzun Laojun minghao lijie jinglüe,” in Yunji qiqian (Seven Writing-Slips from the Bookcase of the Clouds; DZ 1032), 3.13b–14a; see Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 99–103, for Pangu in relation to the Three Sovereigns. In contrast to medieval texts, Pangu is sometimes identified as the Sovereign of Heaven in later sources. See for instance the mid-fifteenth-century encyclopedic Tianhuang zhi dao taiqing yu ce 天皇至道太清玉冊 (Great Clarity tome on the supreme way of the Sovereign of Heaven;

DZ 1483), 23a; the identification appears in the context of a passage that discusses the Nine Sovereigns (jiuhuang) and the origins of Daoism (22a­–25a). The Taishang laojun kaitian jing 太 上 老 君 開 天 經 (Scripture on Lord Lao opening Heaven; DZ 1437), 4a– 5b, from the Six Dynasties presents an analogous yet significantly different chronology of mythical rulers. See Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 111–117. 27

Yunji qiqian, 3.13b–19b. See Yamada, “Dōshinkyō no kisoteki kenkyū,” 28, for a brief analysis of the “Tianzun Laojun minghao lijie jinglüe” and a diagram similar to the one above. Despite its title, the Sankō Gotei emaki (Illustrated scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors) does not portray the Five Emperors. Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 111–117, analyze the “Tianzun Laojun minghao lijie jinglüe” in more detail. They additionally display a chronological diagram that additionally incorporates some details from the Taishang laojun kaitian jing (DZ 1437).

28

See Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 111–130, for an overview drawn from a number of key sources. The Baihu tongyi 白 虎 通 義 (Comprehensive meaning of the White Tiger [hall discussions]) and Fu Sheng’s 伏 勝 (268–178 BCE) Shangshu dazhuan 尚 書 大 專 (Great commentary to the Hallowed documents) are notable examples; see Lu

Simian, “Sanhuang wudi kao,” 338­, 343, and especially 348–350. For an overview of the various identities of the Three Sovereigns, see Gu Jiegang and Yang Xianggui, Sanhuang kao, 71–83. Essentially, the Sankō Gotei emaki is combining three variant sets of the Three Sovereigns: (a) Fu Xi, Nü Wa, and Shennong; (b) Fu Xi, Shennong, and Suiren; and (c) Fu Xi, Shennong, and Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor.

Notes to Pages 206–209 ︱ 313 206–209 29

I am grateful to Iyanaga Nobumi for sharing his insights on the Sankō Gotei emaki with me.

30

On the ritual traditions represented in the Baopuzi and their ties to fangshi culture, see Lü Pengzhi, Tangqian daojiao yishi shigang, 38–49.

31 The principal extant source on fangshi remains the Hou Hanshu 漢 書 (History of the Later Han dynasty), 82ab.2703–2754, on which see Ngo Van Xuyet, Divination, magie et politique dans la Chine ancienne; DeWoskin, Doctors, Diviners, and Magicians of Ancient China: Biographies of “Fang-shih”; and Li Ling, Zhongguo fangshu kao and Zhongguo fangshu xukao. See also Campany, Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China, 33 n. 107, 46–47, and 118–125. 32

See the discussion of this figure in chapter 3.

33 Cf. Longyu hetu 龍 魚 河 圖 (River chart of the dragon fish) in Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 6.91–92, to Badi miaojing jing, 17a­–28b passim, and Wushang biyao, 25 passim. 34 The “weft” (wei 緯 ) of Weft Texts (weishu) refers to the commentaries’ function as complements to jing 經 , a term used for the Confucian “classics” that also denotes the warp of fabric. Just as in weaving the warp is the guiding thread over and under which the weft is passed, so too the classics are the mainstays around which the esoteric commentaries are composed. 35 All the features of a Han cult devoted to the “Celestial Thearch” (Tiandi 天 帝 ) that Seidel identifies were adopted by later Daoists. In this respect we may cite (a) the centrality of a supreme celestial monarch, (b) in charge of a supernatural administration populated by divine officials, (c) whose stations reflect the lower bureaucratic stations of the Han government, and (d) who communicate with each other and with the living through written documents, regulations, contracts, and commands; see Seidel, “Traces of Han Religion in Funeral Texts Found in Tombs,” 46–48. 36

On the parallel topic of Daoism’s roots in Han imperial religion, with particular focus on the ritual space and the altar (tan 壇 ), see Lagerwey, “Taoist Ritual Space and Dynastic Legitimacy.”

37 See Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” 325–326, 327, 339–340, and 362. See also Espesset, “Epiphanies of Sovereignty and the Rite of the Jade Disc Immersion in Weft Narratives,” in which the author examines the Weft Text antecedents to the early medieval Daoist casting (tou 投 ) rituals for establishing contact with the divine. 38

Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments,” 308–310, 370.

39

We may cite a number of rulers of the Northern Wei dynasty (386–534), namely Taiwu

314 ︱ Notes to Pages 209–211 209–211 太 武 (423–452), Wencheng 文 成 (452–465), Xianwen 獻 文 (r. 465–471), and those of

the Northern Zhou (557–581); see Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” 356–358. 40

Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments: Taoist Roots in the Apocrypha,” 349– 352.

41

For a survey of the three sovereigns in Weft Texts, see Lu Simian, “Sanhuang wudi kao,” 345–348.

42 Compare “Jiuhuang tu,” in Badi miaojing jing, 6a–10a, to Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 4b.119–120, and 6.193; see also chapter 3. Other Weft Texts mention the Three Sovereigns without describing them; see for instance Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 3.48–50, 66, and 4a.191. 43

See, for example, Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 1a.20, 2.69, 4a.33, 4b.99, 4b.134, 5.32, and 5.66. See also the “Sacrifices: third part” (“Jisi xia” 祭 祀 下 ) chapter in the “Records” (“Zhi 志”) of the Hou Hanshu, 99.3205, for a similar assessment of the Three Sovereigns.

44

The sentence could also be read, “The Initial Sovereigns edified without speech.”

45

Badi miaojing jing, 9b–10a.

46

Yasui and Nakamura, Isho shūsei, 4a.87–88, and 4b.14, 19–20. Hsieh Shu-wei, “Zhongguo daojiao shi Zhong de Sanhuang wen chuantong yanjiu,” 52–55, identifies other elements connecting Sanhuang sources to fangshi lore.

47 Paraphrasing Shiji, 28.1386: 古者天子三年壹用太牢祠神三一：天一、地一、太一 ; as noted in chapter 3, this line also appears in Shiji, 12.456, but with the variant characters Taiyi 泰 一 (Supreme Unity) replacing the more common Taiyi 太 一 . See Raz, “Imperial Efficacy: Debates on Imperial Ritual in Early Medieval China and the Emergence of Daoist Ritual Schemata,” especially 92–97. Raz translates the complete passage from the Shiji, 28, on 92–93. 48 Cook, “Ancestor Worship During the Easters Zhou,” 239–240, suggests a connection between the Three Sovereigns of the Han and the Western Zhou (ca. 1046­–­771 BCE) creation gods known as the Three Long Lived Ones (Sanshou 三壽 ). 49

On this topic, see Lévi, Les Fonctionnaires divins: politique, despotisme et mystique en Chine ancienne, 203–269.

50

On the fangshi ritual system and its rival model, see Puett, To Become a God: Cosmology, Sacrifice, and Self-Divinization in Early China, 287–315.

51 See Barrett, “Religious Change under Eastern Han and its Successors: Some Current Perspectives and Problems,” especially 436–440; see also Anna Seidel, “Taoism: the Unofficial High Religion of China,” particularly 49–52.

Notes to Pages 211–218 ︱ 315 211–218 52

See Seidel, La Divinisation de Lao Tseu dans le taoïsme des Han, especially 20, 53–56.

53

See Strickmann, “The Consecration Sūtra: A Buddhist Book of Spells,” 102–103.

54

Seidel, “Imperial Treasures and Taoist Sacraments,” 326.

55 See for instance Kenneth Dean and Zheng Zhenman, Ritual Alliances of the Putian Plains; Tsuchiya and Goossaert, eds., Dōkyō no seichi to chihōshin; and Goossaert, “The Heavenly Master, Canonization, and the Daoist Construction of Local Religion in Late Imperial Jiangnan.” 56 See, for example, the landmark study by Boltz, “Not by the Seal of Office Alone: New Weapons in Battles with the Supernatural.” 57 Dean, “The Daoist Difference: Alternatives to Imperial Power and Visions of a Unified Civilization.”

Appendix 1 1

This, to my knowledge, is the only occurrence of Sanhuang tianwen 三 皇 天 文 used in reference to Bao Jing’s version of the Sanhuang wen.

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Index

alchemy, 7, 11, 13, 26–27, 33, 76, 83–94, 118, 190, 195–196, 207, 220­–222, 248n62, 253n92, 269n8, 271n23, 273nn43–44, 279n86, 282n116. See also elixir; Taiqing Anqi sheng, 93, 273n42 ape. See Monkey Book apotropaia, 9, 12, 18–21, 33, 47, 54, 83–84, 95–98, 102, 109, 143–144, 190, 195, 197, 198, 269n3, 270n10 appended/ancillary materials (floating talismans), 66­–67, 73–74, 81, 88, 95, 123, 136, 145–146, 149, 152, 159, 163, 181, 197, 220, 224, 266n82, 293n63, 307n101 aristocracy, southern. See local gentry Array of the Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao wufu xu), 111– 112, 163, 182, 215, 221, 263n51, 282n111, 282nn113–116, 311n20 arts of the bedchamber (fangzhong shu), 36, 109 asterism, astral. See stars avoidance of grains (bigu), 109 bagua. See Eight Trigrams Baize tu. See Diagrams of White Marsh ban of 648, 1–5, 15, 41, 49, 151, 156, 174,

184–186, 189–191, 193–194, 213, 237n3, 308n119 bandits, 8, 18, 19, 196 Bao Jing, 5–6, 12, 31–32, 38–40, 64, 90–93, 122, 137, 189, 193–194, 197, 206–207, 238nn16–17, 239n19, 248nn57–62, 253n92, 254n93–94, 272n39, 274n49 Bao Jing’s version of the Writ, 10, 12, 13, 17, 23, 32, 38–41, 48, 50, 65–81, 90–93, 123, 145, 146, 150–151, 159, 184, 215–218, 221–224, 225–230, 254n102, 255nn104–105, 263n53, 265n72, 268n97, 268n100, 271n31, 287nn6–7, 315n1. See also cave transmission; Scripture of Great Existence “Baopu miyan.” See “Secret Words of [the Master who] Embraces Simplicity” Baopuzi neipian. See The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: The Inner Chapters bashi tu. See Charts of the Eight Archivists Bawei wucheng fu. See Talismans of the Eight Majesties and Five Ascendants Big Dipper (beidou), 105–106, 277n76, 279n88 Black Killer (heisha), 197 blood sacrifices, covenants, or oaths, 9, 22,

356 ︱ Index 24, 29, 32, 34, 36, 110, 151, 175, 193, 249n72 Bo He, 9–12, 17, 22–32, 37–40, 86, 92–93, 176, 193, 244nn20–21, 246n36, 246n39, 247n51, 253n92, 255n105, 272n33, 282n113 Bo He’s version of the Writ, 10, 12, 13, 22–23, 38–41, 48, 64–72, 74–81, 90, 104, 123, 145–146, 149–151, 159, 176–177, 215–218, 221–224, 225–230, 244n25, 254nn101–102, 255n104–105, 263n54, 265n65, 268n97, 268n100, 274n49, 287nn6– 7, 293n62. See also Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns; mountain transmission; Scripture of Lesser Existence Bo jia dao. See Way of the Bo Clan Bo Zhongli. See Bo He body: bodily gods, 101, 102–104, 110, 112–114, 132­–134, 176, 178, 179, 280n94, 282n114, 290nn31–32, 304n79; inner body, 95, 105, 107, 109­­–110, 119–120, 132­–134, 161, 219–220; practices centering on, 26, 27, 86, 109, 119–120, 172, 176–178, 248n62, 269n8, 270n13, 272n39, 286n135 Book of the Master of Huainan (Huainanzi), 58, 261n34, 262n38, 279n88, 280n96, 285n126 breath (qi), 27, 57, 63, 80, 99, 101,107, 109, 113, 117, 124, 133, 176, 178, 179, 180, 276n71, 280n94, 282n114, 283n121, 295n70, 299n27; ancestral breath (zuqi), 135, 285n130; demonic breath (guiqi), 99; perfected breath (zhenqi), 302n50; primordial breath (yuanqi), 59, 107, 113, 117; unitary breath (yiqi), 128–129. See also Three Breaths; Three Primes

Buddhism: Buddho-Daoist interchange, 34, 35, 37, 54, 98, 106, 122, 137–138, 160, 175–177, 178–179, 197, 198–206, 238n9, 238n15, 250n80, 257n1, 259nn17–18, 263n50, 280n93, 292n44, 293n60, 298n15; figures, 3, 4, 5–6, 140, 160, 186, 190, 199; polemics 2–6, 45, 136–137, 155, 184–185, 189–190, 250n74, 291nn42–43; precepts, 175–177, 304n72; Three Vehicles (triyāna), 125–126, 137, 178–179 bureaucracy (spiritual), bureaucratic, 12, 20–21, 35, 44, 46, 50–51, 55, 59, 80, 100, 137–138, 156, 211–214, 243n12, 313n35 burner, opening (falu) and closing (fulu) rites, 165, 300n33, 301n39, 303n60 Cang Jie, 58–59 cannabis, 242n5 Catalogue of Lingbao Scriptures (Lingbao jing mu), 122, 140, 286n3, 292n47 Catalogue of Scriptures and Writings of the Three Caverns (Sandong jingshu mulu), 7, 122–126, 127–129, 140, 142 cave transmission, 9, 23, 31, 38, 40–41, 90, 123, 150, 240n31, 248n58, 287n7. See also Bao Jing’s version of the Writ; Scripture of Great Existence Cavern of Divinity (dongshen), 7, 10, 14, 122–126, 129, 135, 137, 141–143, 144–147, 181–182, 186–191, 193–199, 208, 281n109. See also Three Caverns Cavern of Divinity corpus (dongshen jing) (eleven and fourteen scrolls), 14, 57, 136, 147–153, 155–171, 184–185, 210, 268n100, 287n9 Cavern of Mystery (dongxuan), 7, 122, 124–129, 135, 137, 182, 184, 188, 291n41. See also Three Caverns

Index ︱ 357 Cavern of Perfection (dongzhen), 7, 122, 124–129, 135, 137, 182, 188, 291n41. See also Three Caverns celestial bodies. See stars Celestial Masters. See Way of Celestial Masters Celestial Pole (tianji), 105–106, 279n88 celestial script (tianwen), 20, 52–54, 59, 60–61, 83, 87, 106, 128–129, 162– 163, 223, 241n35, 254n101, 258n14, 260n24. See also Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns Celestial Unity (Tianyi), 106, 115­–116, 210–211, 279n89, 280n91 Celestial Worthy of Primordial Commencement (Yuanshi tianzun), 128 Central Scripture of Great Clarity (Taiqing zhongjing), 24, 28, 91, 92, 274n50. See also Scripture of Great Clarity; Taiqing charming spells (jinzhou), charming methods (jinfang). See travel magic charts, diagrams, images (tu): 61–62, 80, 81, 84, 94–101, 102, 104, 107, 118–120, 144, 160, 163, 207, 208, 212, 275n62, 277n79, 279n91; and text (wen)/writing (shu) 94–101. See also image Charts of the Eight Archivists (bashi tu), 160– 164, 297n12, 299n23–24, 300n30, 311n21. See also Eight Archivists; Eight Emperors; Eight Trigrams “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” (Jiuhuang tu), 13, 84, 102–108, 113, 114, 116, 118, 119, 120, 130, 134, 137, 159, 203–206, 209, 220, 277nn76–77, 297n7, 306n93. See also Nine Heavens; Triple Unity Cheng Xuanying, 3–5 chenwei. See Weft Texts

Chongxuan. See Double Mystery chronotope, 99–100, 107, 119, 161 Chuci. See Songs of Chu cinnabar (dan): 32, 86, 94, 221, 248n63, 270n13, 273n44; ink/writing, 76–77, 79; palace, 127 cinnabar fields (dantian), 104, 110–113, 219–220, 285n130 cloud water (yunshui), 169 cloudsouls (hun) and whitesouls (po): 109, 113, 176, 280n94; method for detaining, 26, 27–28, 76, 86, 221 concealed names (hui). See esoteric sounds/ names Confucianism, Confucian (ru), 34, 45, 155, 179–180, 195, 207, 208, 245n31, 313n34 contemplation. See meditation corpse liberation (shijie), 32, 248n62, 254n94, 272n39 cosmogony, 57, 63, 101, 102, 107–108, 113, 117, 129, 210, 261n30, 284n123, 285n127 cosmograph (shi), 207, 310n12. See also diagrams cosmology: Buddhist, 199; cosmic singularity, 210; Daoist, 33, 101, 108, 130–132, 148, 207, 221, 251n82, 298n17; Five Agents, 179, 208, 276n75 Daode jing. See Scripture of the Way and Virtue Daoist Canon (Daozang), 2, 4, 5–6, 7, 10, 14, 52, 85, 49, 121, 122, 127, 129–130, 136–137, 141–142, 149– 151, 212, 238n15, 239n20, 269n7, 288n16. See also Four Supplements; Three Caverns Daojiao yishu. See Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way

358 ︱ Index Dayou jing. See Scripture of Great Existence demons (gui): illicit congress with, 34, 249n72; manes, 27, 28, 59, 89, 245n31; protection against 8, 18, 21, 27, 70, 99, 105, 242n10, 269n8; summoning or subjugating (together with gods), 19, 26, 43–44, 85, 118, 147, 187, 198, 275n57, 281n109, 293n63; true names (zhenming) and true forms (zhenxing) of, 58–60, 80, 98, 100, 208, 261n34, 275n62 diagrams (shi), 195–196. See also charts Diagrams of White Marsh (Baize tu), 98 Director of Destinies (Siming), 8, 18, 61, 134, 226–228, 230, 246n43, 264n60, 265n72 divination (reckoning, prognostication, augury): 4–9, 12, 18–20, 33, 87, 101, 106, 109, 144, 161, 195–196, 207, 208, 212, 295n70, 299n24, 310n12; visionary divination, 11, 104, 109, 152, 161–163, 188, 196. See also Hidden Stem divine person (shenren), 89, 202 divinization of the ruler, 43–44, 100, 206, 210–212, 256n110 Dongshen. See Cavern of Divinity Dongxuan. See Cavern of Mystery Dongyuan shenzhou jing. See Scripture of the Divine Spells of the Cavernous Abyss Dongzhen. See Cavern of Perfection Double Mystery (Chongxuan), 4, 149–150 Du Guangting, 194–195, 309n4, 309n6 Dunhuang manuscripts, 98, 106, 144–147, 216, 231, 235, 241n35, 263n52, 268n99, 286n3, 289n19, 293n58, 298n22, 299n24, 299n26, 302n48, 307n94 dunjia. See Hidden Stem egalitarianism: and Confucianism, 45; and the Way of the Celestial Masters,

139, 140; and the Writ of the Three Sovereigns 11, 15, 45, 187–188 eggs, 273n44 Eight Archivists (bashi), 14, 19, 160–164, 297n12, 298n15, 299nn23–24, 300n30, 311n21; Eight Gods (bashen), 163, 299n23. See also Charts of the Eight Archivists; Eight Emperors; Eight Trigrams Eight Emperors (badi), 14, 147, 161, 164; scriptures/scrolls of the, 148, 156, 157–164 eight failures (babai), 172, 174, 219, 304n74 Eight Gods (bashen). See Eight Archivists eight precepts (bajie) See precepts Eight Rules (basuo), 147, 148, 161, 294n69. See also Three Mounds Eight Talismans for Communicating with Numina (tongling bafu), 162–163, 299n26. See also Charts of the Eight Archivists; Talismans of the Eight Majesties and Five Ascendants Eight Trigrams (bagua), 14, 19, 161–163, 197, 295n70, 297n12, 298n17, 300n30. See also Charts of the Eight Archivists; Eight Archivists elixir: Golden Elixir (jindan), 89, 91, 281n109; medicine of immortality, 4, 7, 83, 85–90, 94, 118, 190, 195–196, 198, 207;poisoning, 190; recipe, 27–28, 75–76, 86–87, 88, 89, 92, 94, 180, 221, 270n13, 273n44, 310n9; Taiqing, 24, 28, 85, 87, 88–92, 94, 253n92, 274n50, 281n109; as talisman, 84–87, 94–95, 118­–119, 242n1. See also alchemy; medicine embryo: embryological imagery, 113–115, 283n121; embryonic breathing, 179; Green Embryo (talisman), 144–146, 293n63 emperor. See under ruler

Index ︱ 359 Emperor Gaozong of the Tang. See Tang Gaozong Emperor of the North (Beidi). See Lord of the North Emperor Taiwu. See Tuoba Tao Emperor Taizong of the Tang. See Tang Taizong Emperor Wu of the Han. See Han Wudi Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang. See Tang Xuanzong empress (hou), 2, 47, 189, 190 Empress Wu of the Tang. See Wu Zetian Erjiao lun. See Treatise on the Two Teachings esoteric sounds/names (neiyin), 67, 73, 80, 98, 194, 224, 235, 236, 266n83; concealed names (hui), 232–234, 277n76. See also form-name; true name Esoteric Talisman for Issuing the Troops of the Nine Heavens (Jiutian fabing neifu), 73, 235, 266n84, 306n92. See also Nine Heavens Essays to Ridicule the Dao (Xiaodao lun), 6. See also Treatise on the Two Teachings excessive cults (yinsi), 12, 29–31, 34, 38­–39, 42, 151, 249n73. See also Way of the Bo clan exorcism. See apotropaia Explanations of Graphs and Analysis of Characters (Shuowen jiezi), 54–55 falu (liturgical register). See registers fangshi (masters of methods), 15, 31, 33, 88– 89, 94, 193, 207–212, 213, 272n42, 313n31, 314n46, 314n50 First Emperor of the Qin. See Qin Shi Huangdi Five Agents (wuxing), 196, 208, 276n75, 280n94, 289n29, 294n69. See also cosmology Five Dragons (wulong), 202

Five Emperors (wudi): 67, 100–101, 126, 161, 163, 202, 229, 279n91, 294n69, 312n27; five gods (wushen), 101; shrine to the three sovereigns and five emperors, 194–195. See also Five Peaks Five Methods (wufa), 144, 183–184, 293n58, 307nn101–102, 307n104 five offices (wu guan), 179 Five Peaks (wuyue): as famous mountains (mingshan), 22, 95, 100, 127, 240n32, 248n57, 266n87, 274n51, 277n79; gods of the, 8, 67, 73, 84, 100, 229, 235, 265n72, 269n2; lords of the, 18, 246n43. See also five gods under Five Emperors; True Form Charts of the Five Peaks Five Planets (wuxing), 195, 309n6 Five Simulations (wujia), 196, 198, 311n19 Five Standards (wudian), 148, 294n69. See also Eight Rules; Three Mounds Five Viscera (wuzang), 280n94 Flaming Emperor (Yandi), 271n23 forgery of the Writ of the Three Sovereigns, 2, 5–6, 151, 189, 193. See also ban of 648 form-name (xingming), 59–60. See also true form; true name Four Auxiliaries. See Four Supplements Four Supplements (sifu), 142, 150, 181–182, 186, 293n53, 308n108. See also Seven Sections; Three Caverns fragrant pearls (xiangzhu), 169 Fu Xi, 42, 93, 101, 105, 148, 202–203, 207, 256n107, 284n126, 295n70, 309n5, 312n28 Ge Chaofu, 122, 128. See also Ge Hong; Ge Xuan Ge Hong, 7, 9, 12, 17–19, 21, 22–24, 27–28, 29, 31, 35, 39–40, 44–46, 56, 63–66, 71, 85, 89–94, 109–111,

360 ︱ Index 120–122, 144–146, 161, 206, 222, 243n15, 245n29, 248n57, 255nn104–105, 256n115, 264n56, 264n58, 272n35, 272n39, 286n2, 304n79; and The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: The Outer Chapters (Baopuzi waipian), 35. See also Ge Chaofu; Ge Xuan; The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: The Inner Chapters Ge Xuan, 31, 38, 89–93, 248n60. See also Ge Chaofu; Ge Hong Goguryeo, 190 gold (jin), 21, 32, 88, 92, 248n63, 269n8. See also alchemy; elixir golden age myth, 42, 148, 242n33. See also three sovereigns Golden Elixir (jindan). See under elixir Golden Liquor (jinye), 28, 242n1, 274n50. See also alchemy; elixir Gonggong, 278n84 Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang tianwen dazi), 24–25, 28, 40, 50, 60, 61, 62–66, 67–74, 75–79, 127, 146, 159, 163, 181, 220–222, 223–224, 225–230, 244n25, 254nn100–101, 255nn104–105, 263n51, 264n57, 265n72, 267n89, 297n7, 299n27, 315n1. See also Bo He’s version of the Writ; Scripture of Lesser Existence Great Clarity. See Taiqing Great Doctrine of the Five Agents (Wuxing dayi), 106, 186, 279n85, 279n89, 279n91, 280n94, 310n12 Great Emperor Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang dadi): 279n89, 279n91; as imperial title, 191. See also Great Unity; Yaopo bao Great Meaning of the Gate of Mysteries (Xuanmen dayi), 123, 147, 150, 159, 247n56. See also Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way

great medicine (dayao). See elixir great peace (taiping), 42; Great Peace Scripture (Taiping jing), 251n85, 285n127, 293n53; reign period, 278n83; Taiping (liturgical category), 293n53, 308n108 Great Unity (Taiyi): as astral deity, 105–106, 279nn88–89; as corporeal god/self, 44, 110, 112–117, 120, 132–133, 219– 220, 284n124, 285n132, 290n31; as cosmic singularity, 114, 116, 117, 119, 120, 283n122; and the Eight Archivists, 161, 298n15; and imperial unity, 210­–211, 284nn125–126; meditations on, 109–118, 132–133, 219–220, 281n109 and the Nine Sovereigns, 108, 110–111, 220; ; as supreme deity, 14, 44, 108, 111, 114, 115, 210; talismans of, 67, 85, 89, 226, 227, 230, 265nn72–73, 269n5; as (one of ) the Three Sovereigns, 89, 111, 134, 210, 271n25, 279n91, 284nn125–126, 290n36, 310n12, 314n47; and Triple Unity, 112, 115–116. See also Maintaining Unity; Triple Unity Green Embryo (Qingtai). See embryo Han Wudi (Emperor Wu of the Han), 44­ –45, 88­–89, 97, 207, 210, 271n25 hand seal (qianyin; shouyin), mudra, 197 Hanzhong state, 138–139. See also Way of the Celestial Masters heads, multiple, 103–105, 201, 202, 203, 209, 278n84 Heaven and Earth (tiandi): cosmological principles, transformations of, 100, 116, 130, 289n29, 294n69, 295n70; establishing, 201; gods of, 7, 43–44, 68, 100, 109, 287n7 heavens. See spelunk heavens

Index ︱ 361 hemerology, 33, 107, 273n44 Hetu. See River Chart Hidden Stem (dunjia), 196, 310n12–13. See also divination; Jade Maiden under maidens High Above (Gaoshang), 77–79, 226, 230 Highest Clarity. See Shangqing Huainanzi. See Book of the Master of Huainan Huangdi. See Yellow Emperor hun and po. See cloudsouls and whitesouls hymns (ge), 155, 301n40, 301n42; Yang hymns, 107–108, 220, 280n98; Yin hymns, 108, 280n99 identity of the Three Sovereigns, 42, 105, 148, 202–203, 207, 256n107, 284n126, 295n70, 312n28. See also three sovereigns Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors (Sankō Gotei emaki), 15, 198–206, 312nn27–28 image (xiang), 61–63, 80, 83, 84, 94, 100, 116, 298n17. See also charts (tu); imaginal imaginal, 94–95 immortals (spiritual class), 22, 23, 24, 25, 37, 45, 59, 88, 111, 117, 127, 152, 172, 252n88, 274n53; immortality, 4, 26, 27, 45, 61, 85, 86, 88, 89, 94, 104, 118, 124, 152, 186, 187, 188, 190, 198, 212, 242n10, 248n62, 256n115; (Sanhuang) Cavern of Immortals, 151–152, 186, 187–188, 287n7, 296n83 incense burner. See burner initiation, esoteric (non-clerical), 9, 20, 30, 33, 56, 108, 153, 209–210, 222, 250n81. See also blood sacrifices; maidens; registers instructions. See oral instructions

integrated/unified (institutional) Daoism, 5–7, 35, 42–43, 46, 47, 48, 81, 122, 126, 137–138, 140–143, 151–152, 156, 170–171, 175, 180, 186, 189–190, 209n38, 212–213, 250n81, 251n80, 291n43; Way of the Celestial Masters as institutional Daoism, 32–33, 137–140 Interdictions, 14, 176–177, 180; thirteen interdictions (shisan jin), 176–180, 221, 304nn73–75. See also precepts Internal Alchemy. See Neidan Ishinpō. See Methods from the Heart of Medicine isles of the immortals, 274n53 Jade Apocryphon (Meng fashi yuwei qibu jing shumu). See Master Meng Japan: Sanhuang elements in, 15, 54, 198–206; sources from, 305n80 jiao. See offering ritual Jinming Qizhen, 181–182, 306n91 Jinye jing. See Scripture of the Golden Liquor Jiudan jing. See Scripture of the Nine Elixirs “Jiuhuang tu.” See “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” King of Asuras (Axiuluo wang), 202 Kou Qianzhi, 139–141. See also Tuoba Tao Kuang Heng, 211 Laojun. See Lord Lao Laozi, 3, 4, 155–156, 289n19, 298n13. See also Laojun; Scripture of the Way and Virtue Laozi zhongjing. See Laozi’s Central Scripture Laozi’s Central Scripture (Laozi zhongjing), 112, 219–220, 221, 275. See also Lord Lao Li Daochun, 62 Li Shaojun, 88–89, 93, 207, 220, 271n22, 272n42

362 ︱ Index Li Shaoweng, 89, 271n25 libationers (jijiu), 29–30, 33–35, 138–139, 247n53. See also Way of the Celestial Masters Lingbao (liturgical category), 7, 201–202, 250n80, 299n26; in ordination rites, 180– 184; revelations, 30–31, 35–37, 42, 48, 263n49, 291n43, 292n44; in the Three Caverns, 121­–122, 124–125, 128– 132, 134, 136, 140–141, 289n20, 306n89, 307n104; and the Writ, 162–163, 166, 168, 251n82, 299n27, 305n86. See also Cavern of Mystery; Three Caverns Lingbao jing mu. See Catalogue of Lingbao Scriptures Lingbao wufu xu. See Array of the Five Talismans of the Numinous Treasure lingzhi (numinous mushroom), 198. See also alchemy; medicine liturgical register (falu). See registers liu jia. See Six Jia local gentry (Jiangnan), 11–12, 33–37, 44– 46, 47, 121–122, 137–139, 211–212, 256n115 Lord Emperor (dijun), Lord Emperor Great Unity (Taiyi dijun), 112–115, 132, 133–134, 290n31, 290n36; Five Elder Lord Emperors (wulao dijun), 179. See also Great Unity Lord Lao (Laojun), 21, 113, 155, 201, 210, 211, 226, 242n5, 264n60, 267n89, 289n19. See also Laozi; Laozi’s Central Scripture Lord of the North (Beijun), Emperor of the North (Beidi), 67, 70–71, 79, 265n73 “Lord Tao’s Transmission Protocols” (*Taogong chuanshou yi), 143–147, 160, 184, 216, 235, 268n99, 293nn58–59

Lord Wang of the Western Citadel (Xicheng Wangjun): and the Practices of Lord Wang (Wangjun shixing), 77, 144–146, 265n65, 268n99; in Shangqing scriptures, 37–38, 251n86, 252nn88– 89, 272n42; and (Taiqing) alchemy, 91–94, 272n34, 272n44; and the Writ, 24–29, 31, 63, 75, 76, 86, 176, 177, 221–222, 244n23, 245n28, 246n39, 296n80. See also Bo He’s (via Lord Wang) under oral instructions; Wang Yuan; Western Citadel Lu Xiujing: and Lingbao scriptures, 120, 122, 140, 168; as systematizer/and the Three Caverns, 7, 14, 77–78, 121– 126, 127–128, 140–143, 175–176, 179, 180, 291n43; and the Way of Celestial Masters, 137–138, 140–142; and the (four-scroll) Writ/Cavern of Divinity, 65–66, 93, 121–126, 142–143, 144–146, 168, 174–175, 194, 255n105, 287nn6–7 Luminary and Celestial Highest Thearch (Huangtian shangdi), 284n126 Luo Writing (Luoshu), 98­–100, 208. See also River Chart Luoshu. See Luo Writing Madam Wang, 1–2, 5, 11, 47, 189, 191 maidens: divine maidens (shennü), 87; hierogamy, 108; Jade Maiden, 19, 85, 87, 108, 113, 228, 230; Jade Maiden Shutting[the Gates] Behind Her (yunnü fanbi), 196, 310n13; Mysterious Maiden (xuannü), 107, 108; Pure Maiden, (sunü), 280n99; various talismans related to, 67, 68, 227, 228–229, 232–234, 236 Maintaining Unity (shouyi), 28, 42, 109–118, 281n109, 282n114, 292n116, 304n79; Maintaining the

Index ︱ 363 Mysterious Unity (shou xuanyi), 109, 114; Maintaining the Triple Unity (shou sanyi), 111–118, 133–134, 219–220, 282n114, 282n116, 283nn117–118; Maintaining the True Unity (shou zhenyi), 110, 112, 114, 282n114, 283n117. See also Great Unity; meditation; “Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on the Triple Unity” Maming sheng. See Master Horseneigh mandate gages (fuming), 50–51, 262n42. See also omens manes (gui). See under demons martial liberation. See corpse liberation Master Horseneigh (Maming sheng), 92, 253n92 Master Meng (Meng xiansheng), 149–151. See also Meng Anpai; Meng Zhizhou Master of the Purple Residence (Zifu xiansheng), 93, 263n51 masters of methods. See fangshi material culture. See materiality materiality (of talismans), objecthood, 12, 13, 15, 20–21, 46–48, 49, 50–55, 56, 58, 59, 62, 80–81, 83, 94, 99, 101, 118–119, 152, 186, 190–191, 207–208, 212–213, 258n9, 259n17. See also omens Mazu (Horse Ancestor). See Master Horseneigh medicine, 4, 33, 51, 86–87, 90, 94, 118, 198, 207, 305n80. See also elixirs; Nourishing Life; Methods from the Heart of Medicine meditation (contemplation, visualization), 7, 11, 13, 20, 27–28, 33, 76, 84, 89, 102–103, 106, 109–118, 120, 125, 132, 142, 161, 172–173, 179–180, 210, 219–220, 221, 277nn78–79, 280n93, 283n123. See also Maintaining Unity; method

for detaining under cloudsouls (hun) and whitesouls (po) Meng Anpai, 150–151 Meng Zhizhou, 149–150 mercury, 94, 273n44. See also alchemy; gold meritocracy. See egalitarianism metaphors (political, imperial), 12, 42–43, 47–48, 55, 97–100, 196, 197, 198, 214. See also order methods and techniques (fangji), 207 Methods from the Heart of Medicine (Ishinpō), 305n80. See also medicine methods of Yue (Yue fang), 242n10. See also travel magic mobile kitchens (xingchu), 85 monarch. See under ruler monkey. See Monkey Book Monkey Book (Yuanshu), 195–196, 197 morality, moral requirements. See precepts mountains: entering (including talismans for), 19, 21, 22, 47, 71, 90, 144, 198, 270n10, 311n19; famous mountains (mingshan), 21, 22, 61, 95, 104, 248n57, 252n88; gods of (various), 9, 19, 21, 22, 75, 92, 95, 99, 109, 119, 275n57, 275n62, 278n80. See also Five Peaks; spelunk heavens; travel magic mountain transmission, 22, 23, 24, 38, 41, 90, 91, 149, 150, 244n23, 246n39, 287n6. See also Bo He’s version of the Writ; Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns; Scripture of Lesser Existence mudra. See hand seal mushrooms. See lingzhi myriad creatures. See ten thousand creatures Neidan (Internal Alchemy), 283n123, 285n130 Nine Agents (jiuxing), 77, 268n99

364 ︱ Index Nine Heavens (jiutian): gods of the (various), 61, 67, 68, 75, 78, 265n72; Nine sovereigns as gods of, 107–108, 116–117, 277n77, 281n99; registers of, 127; in sacred geography, 113, 127, 188, 280n96, 283n121; script of, 68; scripture of, 64; talismans or charts of, 61, 78; true names of, 68, 79, 265n66. See also “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns”; Esoteric Talisman for Issuing the Troops of the Nine Heavens Nine Hills (jiuqiu), 148, 294n69. See also Eight Rules; Three Mounds Nine Sovereigns. See “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns” nine tripods (jiuding), 98, 275n60 nobility. See local gentry Nonary Unity (jiuyi), 281n102. See also “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns”; Triple Unity Northern Asterism (beichen), 105–106, 279n88. See also Big Dipper; stars Northern exodus (fourth century), 12, 32–35 Nourishing Life (yangsheng), 27–28, 33, 109, 177–178, 180, 290n32, 293n53, 305nn79–80 Nü Wa, 105, 203, 256n107, 312n28. See also Fu Xi numinous mushrooms. See lingzhi Numinous Treasure. See Lingbao objectivity, 62 objects, objecthood. See materiality offering ritual (jiao), 277n76, 301n42 omens, portents, regalia, sacraments, 13, 46, 50–52, 98, 100–102, 119, 140, 191, 207–210, 258n8, 295n70, 299n26 oral instructions (koujue), 24–25, 97–98, 101, 127, 152; to alchemical (Taiqing)

sources, 90–91, 94; Bao Jing’s (via Ge Xuan or Zuo Ci), 31, 66, 69, 71, 77, 78, 90–92, 248n60, 254n102; Bao Jing’s and Bo He’s in comparison, 41, 66, 70, 72, 77–79, 265n72, 267n89, 268n97; Bo He’s (via Lord Wang), 24­ –26, 27, 29, 63, 66–69, 74–79, 159, 176, 177, 219–224, 245n28, 263n53; Maintaining Unity, 111, 281n104, 282n114; Yellow Emperor’s, 60–61 order (political and social), 4–5, 20, 34, 40, 43, 47, 61, 80, 98, 138, 139, 186, 250n81 ordination: as investiture/for rulers, 14, 155–156, 209; rites of, 62, 108, 138, 140, 153, 156, 164–171, 174, 175, 181–185, 222, 307n104, 308n108; Writ/Cavern of Divinity used in, 2­–6, 14–15, 27, 46, 74, 125, 152, 156, 164, 171, 174, 175, 180–185, 187, 188, 190, 209. See also initiation; purification rite; Scripture of the Way and Virtue Pan Shizeng, 152, 185, 288n16, 308n108 Perfected (zhenren), 37, 111, 127, 172, 178, 244n23, 273n43, 296n80, 304n79 Perfected Warrior (zhenwu), 197, 198 Petzold, Bruno, 199 Pivot of Meaning of the Teaching of the Way (Daojiao yishu), 31, 32, 91, 141, 150, 159–160, 244n23, 247n56, 288n16. See also Great Meaning of the Gate of Mysteries precepts: Buddhist, 2, 4, 175–176, 304n72; “Cavern of Divinity precepts” (Dongshen jie pin), 178– 180; in institutional Daoism, 2, 4 171, 175, 180, 183; light precepts (bajie) (Sanhuang), 171–176, 177, 178, 179, 219, 222, 304n72, 306n92; Lingbao,

Index ︱ 365 130, 305n86; Tianshidao, 268n99, 299n24, 305n86; upholding, 107, 116, 130. See also interdictions; twelve lessenings primordial breath. See breath prognostication. See divination Prognosticatory Weft [Texts] (chenwei). See Weft Texts prophecies. See omens purification rite (zhai), 8, 20, 25, 28, 31, 79, 107, 116, 164–170, 172–173, 174, 175–176, 186, 219, 222, 301n39, 303n61, 304n69 Purple Residence (Zifu). See Master of the Purple Residence qi. See breath Qin Shi Huangdi (First Emperor of the Qin), 44–45, 256n110, 284n125 Queen Mother of the West (Xiwang Mu), 97, 228, 264n60 realgar (xionghuang), 85–86, 221, 269n8, 270n10 rebellion. See sedition reckoning arts (shushu), 207. See also divination Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), 105–106, 210, 256n110, 276n72, 278n84, 284n125 Register of Death (siji), 61; fate roster (mingji), 140 registers (lu), 2, 42, 50, 51, 74, 98, 180, 182, 196–197, 206, 209, 213, 291n41, 306n90; demon registers, 19; family registers (lu), 139, 140; liturgical registers (falu), 152, 156; of the Nine Heavens, 127; prophetic registers, 206, 208; reception of the registers (shoulu), 209. See also bureaucracy; Register of Death (siji)

response gages/portents (fuying; ruiying). See omens return (fan), reversion (huan), 108, 114–118, 283n123, 285n127 ritual of nocturnal announcement (suqi fa), 167–168, 302n50 River Chart (Hetu), 98–100, 102, 208, 277n76. See also Luo Writing River Earl (Hebo), 75, 226 ruler (jun), 10, 12, 15, 22, 23, 44–47, 98, 100–102, 108, 137, 143, 148, 153, 186, 189, 207–212, 284n125, 286n134, 313n35; emperor (huangdi), 5, 44–46, 100, 156, 187, 189–191, 284n125, 313n35; monarch (wang), 2, 11, 13, 46, 48, 99–101, 187–189, 207, 209, 276n75, 284n125, 313n35. See also divinization of the ruler; unification sacraments. See omens sage (sheng): Daoist, 23, 26–27, 172; Confucian, 45, 99, 118, 284n125 samādhi (sanmei), 141. See also meditation sandong. See Three Caverns Sandong jingshu mulu. See Catalogue of Scriptures and Writings of the Three Caverns sanhuang. See Three Yellows Sanhuang (liturgical category), 7, 63, 106, 110; after its proscription, 193–198, 309n4, 311n21; in Japan, 198–199, 202–203, 206; in ordination rites, 152, 156, 167–170, 175, 180–185, 231–236, 301n39, 301n42, 303n60, 306nn89–90; mature structure, 157–171, 294n68, 297n7; revelations/ transmission of, 93, 147–151, 231– 236, 280n98; and the state, 185–190; in the Three Caverns, 121–126, 130–137. See also Cavern of Divinity; Cavern of Divinity corpus

366 ︱ Index Sanhuang jing. See Scripture/Corpus of the Three Sovereigns “Sanhuang sanyi jing.” See “Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on the Triple Unity” Sanhuang tianwen dazi. See Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns Sankō Gotei emaki. See Illustrated Scroll of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors sanqi. See Three Breaths Sanyi. See Triple Unity scholar-officials (ru). See Confucianism script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions (sanyuan bahui zhi shu), 63–66, 68, 80, 129–130, 263n50. See also Three Primes Scripture/Corpus of the Three Sovereigns (Sanhuang jing), 2–3, 5–6, 43, 122–124, 136, 194, 255nn104–105, 260n28, 268n100, 280n94, 280n99, 287n6, 287n9, 291n39, 291n42, 294n68, 303n59, 309n2 Scripture of Great Clarity (Taiqing jing), 244n24, 272n34, 274n50. See also Central Scripture of Great Clarity; Taiqing Scripture of Great Existence (Dayou jing), 38– 40, 64–66, 157, 159, 221, 268n100, 254n102, 255nn105–106, 268n100. See also Bao Jing’s version of the Writ; cave transmission; of Great Existence under spelunk heavens Scripture of Lesser Existence (Xiaoyou jing), 38–40, 64–66, 149, 151, 159, 177, 178, 221, 254n102, 255n105, 263n54, 264n57, 268n100, 294n68. See also Bo He’s version of the Writ; of Lesser Existence under spelunk heavens; mountain transmission; Scripture of Mountains and Waterways (Sanhai jing), 97­–98, 275n61 Scripture of the Divine Spells of the Cavernous

Abyss (Dongyuan shenzhou jing), 141–142, 182 Scripture of the Golden Liquor (Jinye jing), 91. See also Taiqing Scripture of the Nine Elixirs (Jiudan jing), 91. See also Taiqing “Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on the Triple Unity” (Sanhuang sanyi jing), 111–118, 120, 133–134; and the Scripture of the Sovereign of Heaven on the True Unity, 111–112, 283n117 Scripture of the Way and Virtue (Daode jing), 1, 3–4, 6, 155, 180–181, 182, 183, 184, 185­–186, 237n7, 286n133, 293n53, 306n89 secret names. See esoteric sounds/names “Secret Words of [the Master who] Embraces Simplicity” (Baopu miyan), 29, 63–66, 222, 246n46, 264n58. See also Ge Hong sedition, rebellion, 4, 6, 141, 189, 242n42, 292n51 Seven Sections (qibu), 142, 149–150, 295n77. See also Four Supplements; Three Caverns Shangqing (liturgical category), 7, 61, 252n90; in ordination rites, 180–184; revelations, 30–32, 35, 36–37, 42, 48, 121–126, 138, 255n106; in the Three Caverns, 122, 124–128, 130, 132, 134, 136, 142, 288n14, 288n16, 288n18, 307n104; and the Writ, 36–41, 170–171, 251n85, 251n86, 252n88, 272n42. See also Cavern of Perfection; Three Caverns Shanhai jing. See Scripture of Mountains and Waterways Shennong, 42, 93, 101, 105, 148, 202, 203, 207, 256, 295n70, 309n5, 312n28 Shenzhou jing. See Scripture of the Divine Spells of the Cavernous Abyss

Index ︱ 367 Shiji. See Records of the Grand Historian Shouyi. See Maintaining Unity shrine of three sovereigns (sanhuang miao; alt. sanhuang wudi miao), 194–195, 309n5 Shuowen jiezi. See Explanations of Graphs and Analysis of Characters signature, 59–60, 262n40, 278n80. See also true name signifier and/or signified, 51–53, 59–60, 80, 262n40 silk: as material support for talismans, 20, 69, 71, 76–77, 79,83, 268n103; offerings, 9, 22, 31–32, 69, 248n63. See also blood sacrifices Sima Qian, 211. See also Records of the Grand Historian Six Jia (liu jia), 87, 144, 183–184, 228, 270n17 social equality. See egalitarianism Songs of Chu (Chuci), 284nn125–126 spelunk heavens (dongtian), 38, 245n31, 253n91; of the Divine Empyrean, 198; of Great Existence, 38, 64–65, 66, 127, 135, 252n90, 253n91; of Lesser Existence, 38, 64, 66, 252n90, 253n91, 263n54, 296n80 spirit mediums, 29, 30, 35, 133, 247n53, 262n43 stars, asterisms, 95, 98, 105–107, 277n76, 279n88, 279n90, 280n93, 289n29; astral essences, 221; astral gods/deities, 119, 186–187, 210, 253n9, 279nn88–89, 279n91 stone chamber (shishi). See cave transmission Stove God (Zaoshen), 88, 271n23 Suiren, 203, 312n28 Sun Bin, 195 Sun En, 141 Sun Simiao, 305n80 Sun Youyue, 93, 143–144, 145, 157, 293n54

Tai Hao. See Fu Xi taiping. See great peace Taiping jing. See under great peace Taiqing (Great Clarity): alchemical tradition, 24, 42, 83–84, 85, 88, 92, 95, 110, 118, 245n27, 270n19, 273n44; heaven, 37, 127, 133, 296n6; liturgical category/sources, 13, 24, 28, 37, 84–87, 89, 91, 92, 109, 118, 142, 197, 245n27, 281n109, 293n53­ ; transmission, 13, 88–94, 248n60, 272n34, 272n38, 272n42, 273n43. See also alchemy Taiqing jing. See Scripture of Great Clarity Taiqing zhongjing. See Central Scripture of Great Clarity under Scripture of Great Clarity Taiyi. See Great Unity talismanic script (fuwen). See celestial script Talismans of the Eight Majesties and Five Ascendants (bawei wucheng fu), 162–163, 299nn26–27 Tang Gaozong (Emperor Gaozong of the Tang), 191 Tang Taizong (Emperor Taizong of the Tang), 3–4, 6, 155, 189–191, 196, 238n9 Tang Xuanzong (Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang), 155, 185 Tao Hongjing, 14, 30, 93, 121, 143–147, 155, 157, 163, 184, 194, 197, 247n50, 255n105, 279n91, 283n118, 287n7, 294n67, 297n7, 305n80. See also “Lord Tao’s Transmission Protocols” “Taogong chuanshou yi.” See “Lord Tao’s Transmission Protocols” ten thousand creatures (wanwu), 63, 117, 118, 130, 131, 201, 279n91. See also Heaven and Earth tessera (jie), 46, 50­–52, 97, 298n17

368 ︱ Index The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: The Inner Chapters (Baopuzi neipian), 7–9, 12, 15, 17–24, 27–28, 32, 39–40, 44–46, 57, 71–72, 74, 85, 87, 89, 91–92, 94, 109–111, 116, 120, 145, 146, 161, 163, 175, 198, 206, 215­–216, 221, 235, 236, 257n115, 282nn113–114, 299n24, 313n30. See also Ge Hong thirteen interdictions (shisan jin). See interdictions Three Breaths (sanqi), 104, 128–131, 133– 134, 138, 179, 283n121, 289n29, 292n44. See also Three Primes Three Caverns (sandong): Buddhist three vehicles and, 125, 288n14; Cavern of Divinity in, 123, 151–152, 156, 171, 175, 180–182, 184–185, 187; hierarchy/structure of, 124–125, 151–152, 180–181, 250n81, 269n7, 288n16, 295n77, 308n108; Lingbao origins of, 128–130, 289n20; Lu Xiujing and the origins of, 7, 122, 124, 137–143; Shangqing origins of, 126–127; Three Sovereigns and the origins of, 131–137, 290n32, 290n36, 290n38, 291nn41–42; Tianshidao sources and, 137–142. See also Daoist Canon; Four Supplements; Seven Sections Three Changes (sanyi), 295n70 Three Mounds (sanfen), 42–44, 101, 147– 148, 294n69; Ancient Three Mounds (Gu sanfen), 295nn70–71. See also Eight Rules Three Powers (sancai), 57–58, 131, 261n29 Three Primes (sanyuan), 57­–58, 63, 104, 105, 117, 125–135, 261n30, 283n121, 289n29. See also script of the Three Primes and Eight Conjunctions Three Sovereigns. See Sanhuang

three sovereigns (pseudo-historical), 42, 46, 100–101, 102, 105, 148, 195, 198–199, 207, 256n107, 309n5, 314n41 Three Terraces (santai), 105–106, 279n86 Three Treasures (sanbao), 129–135, 290n31, 290n36. See also Three Primes; Three Worthies three vehicles (sancheng; Skt. triyāna), 125–126, 152 Three Worthies (sanzun), 132–134, 290n31 Three Yellows (sanhuang), 268n8 Tianhuang dadi. See Great Emperor Sovereign of Heaven Tianshidao (liturgical category), 42, 122, 137–142, 181–183, 292n44, 293n53, 300n35, 303n60, 305n86. See also Kou Qianzhi; libationers; Way of the Celestial Masters tianwen. See celestial script Tianwen dazi. See Great Characters in Celestial Script of the Three Sovereigns Tianyi. See Celestial Unity tongling bafu. See Eight Talismans for Communicating with Numina tortoise, divine, 242n5 transmission. See cave transmission; mountain transmission travel magic, 20, 242n10, 249n68 Treatise on the Two Teachings (Erjiao lun), 5–6, 137, 189, 238n16, 291n42. See also Essays to Ridicule the Dao Triple Unity (Sanyi): meditation on, 111–118, 120, 132–133, 219–220, 305n79; and the Three Sovereigns, 113–116, 132, 210, 285n127; and the Three Treasures, 132–134; and the Three Worthies, 132–135, 290nn31– 32. See also Maintaining Unity; “Scripture of the Three Sovereigns on the Triple Unity”

Index ︱ 369 true form (zhenxing), 13, 49, 52–53, 59–62, 63, 74, 80, 83, 95, 99, 102, 104, 114, 119–120, 196, 208, 259n16, 262n42, 275n62. See also form-name; true name True Form Charts of the Five Peaks (Wuyue zhenxing tu): and the Charts of the Eight Archivists, 161–163; as complements to text, 97–100, 102–104, 119, 278n80; as Jiangnan lore, 28, 243n15, 248n57, 274n53, 275n57; and Lingbao transmission, 182–184, 194; and meditation, 84, 109, 119–120, 277n79; as part of the Five Methods, 144, 183–184, 293n59; talismans of, 73–74, 229, 235, 266n87; and the Writ, 19, 22–24, 28, 84, 90–91, 94–101, 118–119, 194, 239n25, 272n38, 274n48–50. See also “Charts of the Nine Sovereigns”; true form true name (zhenming), divine name, 20–21, 42, 49, 52–53, 58–61, 63, 74, 80–81, 83, 98–99, 107, 208, 224, 259n16, 261n34, 266n83. See also esoteric sounds/names; form-name; true form Tuoba Tao, 139–140, 141, 313n39. See also Kou Qianzhi turtle. See tortoise twelve lessenings (shi’er shao), 177–178, 304n79. See also interdictions; precepts unification (political, imperial), centralization, 7, 23, 42, 44, 47–48, 80, 98, 138–140, 156, 187, 207, 210, 212–214, 291n43. See also metaphors; orderunified Daoism. See integrated Daoism visionary divination. See divination visualization. See meditation

Wang Yuan, 29, 37–38, 251n86, 252n89. See also Lord Wang of the Western Citadel; Western Citadel wanwu. See ten thousand creatures Way of the Bo Clan (Bo jia dao), 29­–31, 39, 48, 247n50, 247n53. See also Bo He; excessive cults Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshidao), 30, 32–35, 37, 45, 138–142, 171, 209, 211, 246n49, 249nn65–66, 249n72, 251n81, 264n56, 268n99, 299n24, 303n60, 308n120. See also Kou Qianzhi; Tianshidao (liturgical category) Way of the Li Clan (Li jia dao), 264n56 Weft Texts (weishu), 15, 90, 99, 100, 105, 208–212, 245n31, 278n84, 279n88, 313n34, 313n37, 314nn41–42 Wei Shuqing, 88, 220 weishu. See Weft Texts Western Citadel, 37–38, 244n23, 252n88, 282n113. See also Lord Wang of the Western Citadel White Marsh. See Diagrams of White Marsh White Monkey. See Monkey Book whitesouls. See cloudsouls and whitesouls Writ of Sovereigns (huangwen), 57–58 Writ of the Sovereign of Earth (Dihuang wen), 8–9, 66, 69–70, 72, 223, 265n68, 265n72, 267n94 Writ of the Sovereign of Heaven (Tianhuang wen), 9, 66, 69–72, 106, 194, 223, 265n67, 265nn72–73, 267n94 Writ of the Sovereign of Humankind (Renhuang wen), 9, 60–61, 67, 69–70, 223–224, 260n28, 265n69, 265n72, 267n94, 306n93 writing. See text (wen)/writing (shu) under charts Wu, state of, 33–34, 89, 94, 207. See also Yue

370 ︱ Index Wu Zetian, Empress, 150, 275n60 wudi. See Five Emperors Wuxing dayi. See Great Doctrine of the Five Agents Wuyue zhenxing tu. See True Form Charts of the Five Peaks xiang. See image Xiaodao lun. See Essays to Ridicule the Dao Xiaoyou jing. See Scripture of Lesser Existence Xicheng Wangjun. See Lord Wang of the Western Citadel xingming. See form-name Xiongnu, 32–33 Xu family, 30, 32, 35, 36, 122, 138, 247n53, 252n88, 286n2 Xuanmen dayi. See Great Meaning of the Gate of Mysteries Xuanzang, 4, 238n9 Yandi. See Flaming Emperor Yang Hymns in Nine Verses (yangge jiuzhang). See under hymns Yang Xi, 35, 133, 252n89, 255n105 yangsheng. See Nourishing Life Yaopo bao, 279n91 Yellow Emperor, Huangdi, 18, 42, 60­–61, 84, 93, 98, 101, 105, 111, 135, 148, 179, 202–203, 207, 256n107, 263n51, 273n43, 295n70, 309n5, 312n28 Yin Changsheng, 31–32, 38–39, 92–93, 194, 248n62, 253n92, 254n93, 272n39, 272n42, 309n2 Yu the Great (Da Yu), 98, 275n58, 275nn60–61, 286n135 Yuanshi tianzun. See Celestial Worthy of Primordial Commencement Yue, state of, 33, 229, 242n10. See also Wu Zhang Daoling, 32–33

Zhang Huiyuan, 3–5 Zhang Lu, 138–139 Zhang Wanfu, 183–184, 294n67, 296n83, 307nn104–105 Zheng Yin, 22, 29, 31, 39–40, 90–93, 245n29, 255nn104–105, 272n35, 272n42, 274n49, 282n114, 304n79 zhenren. See Perfected Zhenwu. See Perfected Warrior Zhou Ziliang, 30, 247n53 Zuo Ci, 38, 89–93, 248n60, 271n31, 272n42 Zuo Yuanfang. See Zuo Ci