Tract on Hidden Merit of Lord Wenchang文昌帝君阴骘文

Also known as

Tract on Hidden Merit, Register of the Cinnamon of Cinnabar (related)

Author / transmission

Attributed to a spirit-writing revelation from Lord Wenchang

Period

Ming · Attributed to a planchette revelation by Lord Wenchang, the text probably dates from the Ming dynasty (16th–17th century); the earliest known printed edition appeared in the late Ming. The main text runs to a little over 500 characters.

Canon division

Outside the Canon (Ming–Qing morality book)

Collected in

Outside the Canon (included in the Essentials of the Daoist Canon and various morality-book collections)

Category

Morality Books (Shanshu)

Fascicles

One Fascicle (Juan)

Synopsis

The Tract on Hidden Merit of Lord Wenchang, together with the Treatise of the Most High on Action and Response and the True Scripture of Awakening the World by Lord Guan, is one of the three most revered morality books (the "Three Sage Scriptures") of the Ming and Qing periods. "Yinzhi" (hidden merit) derives from the phrase in the "Hongfan" ("Great Plan") chapter of the Book of Documents (Shangshu), "Heaven silently determines the fate of the people below," referring to virtuous deeds performed in secret and unknown to others. In the text, Lord Wenchang recounts in the first person, "For seventeen generations I was born as a scholar-official, and I never oppressed the people or acted as a cruel official," and urges people to "seize every occasion to render convenience to others, and to perform every kind of hidden merit." It enumerates specific good deeds — rescuing people from danger, dispensing medicine and free tea, repairing bridges and roads, printing and distributing scriptures, showing reverence for written paper, not scheming for others' property, and not inciting others to litigation — and concludes with the line, "The near reward falls on oneself; the distant reward falls on one's sons and grandsons." Lord Wenchang was originally Zhang Yazi, the local god of Zitong in Sichuan; in the Yuan dynasty he was canonized as "Fuyuan Kaihua Wenchang Silu Hongren Dijun" (辅元开化文昌司禄宏仁帝君, "Emperor who Assists the Basis, Opens Enlightenment, Governs the Emolument of Letters, and is Vastly Benevolent"), becoming the god who presided over literary fortune and the civil service examinations. For this reason the text was especially influential among the scholar-official class; academies and Wenchang temples of the Ming and Qing periods frequently printed and distributed it, and it gave rise to a large body of commentaries and story collections such as the Extended Meaning of the Tract on Hidden Merit and the Register of the Cinnamon of Cinnabar.

Key Ideas

• Yinzhi: hidden virtue unknown to others
• "Seize every occasion to render convenience, perform every kind of hidden merit"
• Reverence for written paper and scholar-official ethics
• The near reward falls on oneself, the distant reward on one's descendants
• The cult of Wenchang and examination culture

Structure

One scroll, alternating verse and prose, a little over 500 characters.

Editions

• Essentials of the Daoist Canon edition
• Zhou Mengyan's (Qing dynasty) Abridged Extended Meaning of the Tract on Hidden Merit
• Various morality-book collection editions

Commentaries

• Zhou Mengyan, Abridged Extended Meaning of the Tract on Hidden Merit of Lord Wenchang
• Huang Zhengyuan, Illustrated Explanation of the Tract on Hidden Merit

Translations

• James Legge, The Texts of Taoism (Sacred Books of the East 40, 1891), English translation

Full Text & Online Resources

• Wikisource: Tract on Hidden Merit of Lord Wenchang
• CTEXT search

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