Jiang Shuyu蒋叔舆

Style & Daoist names

given name Shuyu, courtesy name Yuanfu (also written 元父), sobriquet Shiquan

Period

Southern Song

Dates

1156 — 1217

School

Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) School

Role

Ritual MasterCompiler

Birthplace

Yongjia (present-day Wenzhou, Zhejiang)

Life

Jiang Shuyu, courtesy name Yuanfu, a native of Yongjia, Zhejiang, was a noted Southern Song Lingbao ritualist. He once held a minor local office, then retired into Daoist practice, studying under Liu Yongguang, a fellow disciple of Wang Qizhen. Taking as his basis the Lingbao Yellow Register Retreat methods transmitted by Liu Yongguang, and drawing on the retreat-ritual tradition descending from Lu Xiujing, Zhang Wanfu and Du Guangting, he compiled the fifty-seven-chapter Established Procedures for the Great Yellow Register Retreat, completed during the Jiading era. The work is rigorously organized, laying out one by one the altar diagrams, ritual texts, memorials and talismanic instructions for each stage of the Yellow Register Retreat, and appends extensive quotations from pre-Song ritual documents; it is the most complete surviving record of the Song-dynasty Yellow Register Retreat rite and a core source for the study of the evolution of Lingbao retreat methods. Jiang Shuyu himself emphasized the standardization of ritual and documentary grounding, a stance close to that of Jin Yunzhong.

Contributions & Influence

• Compiled the Established Procedures for the Great Yellow Register Retreat, systematically preserving Southern Song Yellow Register Retreat methods
• Organized and assembled Tang and Song ritual documents
• Standardized the procedures of the Yellow Register Retreat with a rigorous format

Works

• Established Liturgies of the Supreme Yellow Register Retreat