Liturgies of the Yellow Register Retreat太上黄箓斋仪

Also known as

Liturgies of the Yellow Register Retreat

Author / transmission

Du Guangting

Period

Late Tang and Five Dynasties · Edited by Du Guangting, compiled around the late 9th to early 10th century.

Canon division

Dongxuan Section, Dignified Observances Category

Collected in

Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era, Dongxuan Section, Ritual Observance (Weiyi) category

Category

Ritual Protocol (Keyi)

Fascicles

58 scrolls

Synopsis

The Liturgies of the Yellow Register Retreat is the master compilation of Yellow Register Retreat ritual, edited by Du Guangting on the basis of the earlier liturgies of Lu Xiujing and Zhang Wanfu, in 58 juan. The Yellow Register Retreat is the most important rite of the Lingbao ritual tradition for salvaging the souls of the dead and saving both the hidden and the visible; this work records in detail the ritual texts, incantations, visualizations, and Pacing the Void hymns for every stage of the rite — the preliminary announcement, the Thrice-Daily Practice of the Way, worship of the Ten Directions, repentance, the making of vows, chanting and reciting the scriptures, dismantling the altar, and reporting merit — together with the ranks of the deities of the heavens and the duties of the ritual officiants. The work is rigorously structured and elegantly written, and was revered by later generations as the standard model for the Yellow Register Retreat; the Song-dynasty Great Rites of Shangqing Lingbao and Golden Book of Salvation, and the Ming–Qing Liturgies of the Yellow Register, all derive from it. With this work, together with the Complete Collection of Daoist Ritual Protocols and the Rites for Reading the Registers of Orthodox Unity, Du Guangting established the norms of ritual at the end of the Tang and during the Five Dynasties, earning him the title "great synthesizer of ritual."

Key Ideas

• The complete procedure of the Yellow Register Retreat for salvaging the dead
• The stages of preliminary announcement, practice of the Way, repentance, and reporting merit
• Pacing the Void hymns and visualization incantations
• The standard model for later Yellow Register Retreat ritual

Structure

58 juan, divided by the schedule of the retreat and its ritual stages.

Editions

• Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era edition
• Zhonghua Daozang, vol. 43

Full Text & Online Resources

• Wikipedia: Du Guangting
• CTEXT search

Related scriptures

Related figures