Secret Essentials of the Assembled Perfected for Aiding the State and Saving the People太上助国救民总真秘要
- Also known as
- Secret Essentials of the Assembled Perfected
- Author / transmission
- Yuan Miaozong
- Period
- Northern Song · Compiled by Yuan Miaozong, presented to Emperor Huizong in the sixth year of the Zhenghe era (1116).
- Canon division
- Zhengyi Section
- Collected in
- Zhengtong Daozang, Zhengyi Section
- Category
- Talismans and Registers
- Fascicles
- 10 juan
Synopsis
The Taishang Zhuguo Jiumin Zongzhen Biyao (Secret Essentials of the Assembled Perfected for Aiding the State and Saving the People) is a Tianxin Zhengfa ritual manual compiled by Yuan Miaozong at the end of the Northern Song, presented to Emperor Huizong of Song in the sixth year of the Zhenghe era, and is the earliest and most complete surviving systematic text of the Tianxin Zhengfa tradition. The work runs to ten fascicles, describing the transmission of the Tianxin Zhengfa (Rao Dongtian's reception of the method on Mount Huagai), ritual offices, the arrangement of the altar and shrine, ritual seals and talismans (the Talisman of the Three Luminaries, the Talisman of the Celestial Net, the Talisman of the Black Baleful Star, and various healing talismans), incantations and visualization, the interrogation and summoning of ghosts and spirits, the treatment of demonic afflictions, the eradication of epidemics, and methods for subduing malevolent spirits, with an appended "Essentials for the Practice and Application of the Tianxin Zhengfa" and its taboos. The text emphasizes that the practitioner must be pure and observe the precepts, subduing evil through correct qi, reflecting the process by which Northern Song Daoism institutionalized popular exorcistic methods under the official banner of "aiding the state and saving the people." This work, together with Deng Yougong's Shangqing Tianxin Zhengfa, forms the two fundamental texts for the study of the Tianxin Zhengfa tradition.
Key Ideas
- The complete system of the Tianxin Zhengfa
- The Talisman of the Three Luminaries, the Talisman of the Celestial Net, and the Talisman of the Black Baleful Star
- Interrogation and summoning for healing, expelling epidemics, and subduing evil
- The institutionalization of ritual methods under the banner of aiding the state and saving the people
Structure
Ten fascicles, divided into sections on transmission, ritual offices, talismans, incantations, healing, and taboos.
Editions
- Zhengtong Daozang edition
- Zhonghua Daozang, vol. 30
Full Text & Online Resources
Related scriptures
Correct Rites of the Celestial Heart of Shangqing, Corpus of Daoist Ritual (Daofa huiyuan)Related figures
Yuan Miaozong, Rao Dongtian, Emperor Huizong of Song- Judith Boltz, A Survey of Taoist Literature, 1987
- 任继愈主编《道藏提要》
- Edward Davis, Society and the Supernatural in Song China, 2001