Treatise of the Most High on Action and Response太上感应篇

Also known as

Treatise on Action and Response, Collected Commentaries on the Treatise of the Most High on Action and Response

Author / transmission

Author unknown, attributed to Li Changling of the Song, with an encomium by Zheng Qingzhi (Daozang edition)

Period

Northern Song · Composed around the end of the Northern Song or the beginning of the Southern Song (11th–12th century), author unknown; the main text runs to a little over 1,200 characters. The Daozang edition of the Taishang ganying pian, in thirty juan, is attributed to a commentary by Li Changling and an appended eulogy by Zheng Qingzhi.

Canon division

Taiqing Section

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Taiqing Section.

Category

Morality Books (Shanshu)

Fascicles

30 juan (main text 1 juan)

Synopsis

The Taishang ganying pian (Treatise of the Most High on Action and Response) is the most widely circulated Daoist morality book in China; its opening lines, 'Fortune and misfortune have no gate of their own — they are summoned only by man himself; the recompense of good and evil follows as surely as a shadow follows its form,' state its guiding principle. The full text, presented under the name of the Supreme Venerable Sovereign (Laojun), sets out the standard of conduct 'advance if it is the Dao, withdraw if it is not the Dao': it first sets forth virtuous acts (accumulating virtue and merit, showing compassion to all beings, loyalty, filial piety, friendliness among siblings, pity for orphans and widows, and so on), then lists in detail over a hundred kinds of evil acts (wanton waste of natural things, slandering the innocent, defying one's father or elder brother, using short measures and narrow scales, and so on), and explains how retribution operates through the mechanisms of the Director of Allotted Lifespans, the Three Corpses, and the Kitchen God, who deduct days and reduce the register of one's allotted years. Its thought fuses the Daoist doctrine of chengfu (inherited burden), the Buddhist view of cause and effect, and Confucian ethics, shifting the threshold for attaining immortality from magical techniques to everyday moral practice. Emperor Lizong of the Song is said to have bestowed the eight characters 'Do no evil of any kind; practise every good you can' at the head of the text, and from the Ming and Qing onward officials and gentry printed and distributed it as a matter of common practice; commentaries, illustrated editions, and records of miraculous efficacy number in the dozens, and it also spread to Japan, Korea and Vietnam, making it a core text of China's morality-book culture.

Key Ideas

• Fortune and misfortune have no gate of their own — they are summoned only by man himself
• The recompense of good and evil follows as surely as a shadow
• The Director of Allotted Lifespans, the Three Corpses, and the Kitchen God deducting days and reducing the register
• A fusion of Daoist chengfu doctrine with Confucian and Buddhist ethics
• Everyday moral practice replacing magical technique as the path to immortality

Structure

The main text is one juan of a little over 1,200 characters; the Daozang edition, with Li Changling's commentary and Zheng Qingzhi's eulogy appended, runs to thirty juan in all.

Editions

• Zhengtong Daozang edition (thirty juan)
• Daozang jiyao edition
• Hui Dong's Taishang Ganying Pian Zhu (Qing)
• Yu Yue's Taishang Ganying Pian Zuanyi

Commentaries

• Li Changling's commentary
• Hui Dong's commentary
• Yu Yue's Zuanyi
• Ganying Pian Huibian

Translations

• James Legge, The Texts of Taoism (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 40, 1891), English translation
• Various Japanese, Korean and French translations

Full Text & Online Resources

• Wikisource: Taishang ganying pian
• CTEXT: Taishang ganying pian

Related scriptures

Related figures