Scripture Spoken by Lord Lao on Requiting the Profound Kindness of Parents太上老君说报父母恩重经

Also known as

Scripture on Requiting the Profound Kindness of Parents

Author / transmission

author unknown (attributed to the Supreme Venerable Sovereign)

Period

Tang–Song · Author unknown; the scripture probably dates from the late Tang to the Song dynasty (a Daoist scripture of the same title is already found among the Dunhuang manuscripts). One scroll. It is a Daoist classic of filial piety modeled on the Buddhist Scripture on the Kindness of Parents.

Canon division

Dongxuan Section, Benwen Category

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Original Texts category, Dongxuan Section

Category

Morality Books (Shanshu)

Fascicles

One Fascicle (Juan)

Synopsis

The Scripture Spoken by Lord Lao on Requiting the Profound Kindness of Parents is attributed to Lord Lao (Laojun) and proclaims the debt owed to parents for their care: the suffering of ten months' pregnancy, the labor of three years' nursing, the parents' willingness to lie in the wet place so the child could lie dry, and to swallow the bitter so the child could taste the sweet. It states that even if children were to cut their own flesh and draw their own blood, and support their parents for a lifetime, they could still not repay a ten-thousandth part of this debt, and so it urges people to be filial while their parents are alive, and after their death to hold retreats and offerings, recite scriptures, and cultivate merit on their behalf to deliver their souls. This scripture is clearly modeled on the Buddhist Scripture on the Profound Kindness of Parents (of which many Dunhuang manuscripts survive), and is a typical example of the mutual absorption of Buddhism and Daoism around the Tang–Song period; its methods of deliverance, however, are purely Daoist — holding the Yellow Register Retreat, submitting petitions, reciting scriptures, making images, and giving alms. Filial piety had been incorporated into the core of Daoist doctrine since the Six Dynasties Jingming (Pure and Bright) Daoism (Xu Xun's teaching of "loyalty and filial piety as the root"), and this scripture, together with the Scripture of the Supreme Lord of Perfect Unity on Requiting the Profound Kindness of Parents and the Classic of Filial Piety of Lord Wenchang, jointly constitutes the corpus of Daoist filial-piety literature. It is an important text for understanding how Daoism responded to Confucian ethics and sought to win popular believers, and it is also frequently chanted in retreat-and-offering rites for the deliverance of the dead.

Key Ideas

• A detailed account of the ten kindnesses of parental upbringing
• Equal emphasis on filial devotion in life and deliverance of the soul after death
• Modeled on the Buddhist Scripture on the Kindness of Parents but Daoicized
• Filial piety incorporated into the core of Daoist doctrine
• A scripture commonly chanted in rites for the deliverance of the dead

Structure

One scroll, in the form of a sermon spoken by Lord Lao, alternating prose and verse.

Editions

• Zhengtong Daozang edition
• Dunhuang manuscripts (a related Daoist scripture of the same title)
• Zhonghua Daozang edition

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT search
• Wikipedia: Scripture on the Kindness of Parents

Related scriptures

Related figures