Digest of the Scripture of Great Peace太平经钞

Author / transmission

Lüqiu Fangyuan

Period

Late Tang · Excerpted by Lüqiu Fangyuan (d. 902) of the late Tang, in ten fascicles. The received 'jia' section was supplemented by later hands with material such as the Lingshu Ziwen.

Canon division

Taiping Section

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Taiping Section

Category

Early Daoist Scriptures

Fascicles

10 juan

Synopsis

The Taiping Jing Chao (Excerpts from the Scripture of Great Peace) is an abridgment compiled by the late-Tang Tiantai Daoist priest Lüqiu Fangyuan, excerpting one fascicle from each of the ten sections of the Taiping Jing, ten fascicles in all, arranged under the ten Heavenly Stems from jia to gui. Because the original Taiping Jing survives in the Daoist Canon with more than half its text lost, this abridgment preserves a good deal of content from the lost portions and is a crucial source for reconstructing the Taiping Jing; Wang Ming's Taiping Jing Hejiao uses the text of the Chao to fill in the gaps of the fragmentary scripture. Scholars have determined that the content of the received 'jia' section does not match the form of the rest of the Taiping Jing, and conclude it was interpolated by later hands from Shangqing texts such as the Lingshu Ziwen, and is not part of Lüqiu's original excerpt. Lüqiu Fangyuan was a renowned Daoist priest contemporary with Du Guangting, granted the title 'Great Master of Wondrous Existence, Master of Mysterious Unity' by Emperor Zhaozong of Tang.

Key Ideas

• Preserves lost text of the Taiping Jing
• An abridgment arranged in ten sections
• Tang-dynasty compilation of Han-dynasty Daoist scriptures

Structure

Ten fascicles, each excerpting one section under the ten Heavenly Stems jia, yi, bing, ding, wu, ji, geng, xin, ren, gui.

Editions

• The Zhengtong Daozang edition
• Included in Wang Ming's Taiping Jing Hejiao

Full Text & Online Resources

• Wikipedia: Taiping Jing
• CTEXT search

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