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Rites for Leaving the Family and Transmission of Ordination太上出家传度仪

Also known as
Rites for Leaving the Family and Transmission of Ordination
Author / transmission
Jia Shanxiang
Period
Northern Song · Written by Jia Shanxiang (active in the late 11th century), composed around the reigns of Emperors Zhezong and Huizong.
Canon division
Zhengyi Section
Collected in
Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era, Zhengyi Section
Category
Ritual Protocol (Keyi)
Fascicles
One Fascicle (Juan)

Synopsis

The Rites for Leaving the Family and Transmission of Ordination is a ritual manual for the ordination of Daoist priests written by the Northern Song Daoist Jia Shanxiang, recording the complete rite by which a layperson leaves the family to become a Daoist priest: presided over by three masters — the Ordaining Master, the Sponsoring Master, and the Supervising Master — the candidate first enters the altar to burn incense and address the Three Pure Ones, then bows and confesses, after which comes the tonsure (in Daoism, leaving the family does not involve shaving the head, but refers here to donning the cap and kerchief), the bestowal of ritual vestments (cap, cape, and skirt), the transmission of scriptures and precepts (the Ten Precepts, the Daodejing, and so on), and the bestowal of a religious name, and finally the master's admonitions and the giving of thanks. The ritual text includes the incantations and hymns recited at each stage, and explains the duties of the "three masters" and the religious significance of leaving the family. This work is the most direct text for the study of the Song-dynasty institution of Daoist ordination, the cap-and-kerchief rite, and the bestowal of ritual vestments, and its framework was inherited by the later Quanzhen "cap-and-kerchief" rite and the Zhengyi "transmission of ordination" rite.

Key Ideas

  • The system of the three masters: Ordaining, Sponsoring, and Supervising Master
  • The procedure for bestowing the cap and kerchief, vestments, scriptures and precepts, and religious name
  • The religious significance of leaving the family to join the Dao
  • The standard text for Song-dynasty ordination ritual

Structure

One juan, arranged according to ritual procedure.

Editions

  • Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era edition
  • Zhonghua Daozang, vol. 42

Full Text & Online Resources

Related scriptures

Regulations for the Practice of Daoism in Accordance with the Scriptures of the Three Caverns, Precepts of Initial Perfection, Scripture of the Dignified Observances of Orthodox Unity

Related figures

Jia Shanxiang
References
  1. 任继愈主编《道藏提要》
  2. Kristofer Schipper & Franciscus Verellen eds., The Taoist Canon, 2004