Society and the Supernatural in Song China

2 Therapeutic Movements in the Song: Texts

2 Therapeutic Movements in the Song: Texts The emergence in the twelfth century of a class of exorcists called “Ritual Masters” ( fashi) coincides more or less with the appearance of a large corpus of textual material, preserved in the Daoist canon, that was the patrimony of a plethora of new Daoist lineages active in South and particularly Southeast China during the twelfth, thirteenth , and fourteenth centuries. The overwhelming concern of these lineages was therapeutic and exorcistic. Each specialized in a particular method (fa), and their practitioners are addressed in the texts as either “Ritual Master” or “Ritual Officer” ( faguan). The most important of these new lineages, or at least the ones we encounter most frequently in the twelfth century, were those that specialized in the “Rectifying Rites of the Celestial Heart” (Tianxin zhengfa) and in the “Rites of the Five Thunder [Gods]” (Wulei fa). Because we will refer to these lineages over and over again, I first provide a summary but detailed account of their histories. The Rites of the Celestial Heart Thanks largely to Poul Andersen, we now have a better understanding of the “Rites of Tianxin” than of any other therapeutic movement of the Song. Andersen’s meticulous analysis of the provenance and transmission of the texts of the Tianxin zhengfa and its derivatives allows us to outline the history of this movement with both confidence and economy.1 21 Although this Daoist lineage would come to center in Jiangxi, the putative and, I believe, probable patriarch of its rites was a tenth-century Daoist priest from Quanzhou (Fujian) named Tan Zixiao. While serving the fourth ruler of the state of Min in Fuzhou (Wang Chang, r. 935–939), Tan was asked to interpret a set of talismans unearthed by Chen Shouyuan, a politically influential spirit-medium at court.2 Based on his understanding of these talismans, Tan announced that he had obtained the Rectifying Rites of Tianxin of Zhang Daoling, the late Han founder of religious Daoism. Lu You (1125–1210) states in his History of the Southern Tang that practitioners of the Tianxin zhengfa in his time all considered Tan Zixiao to have been the founder of their lineage.3 Although we have no idea about the nature of these talismans, what would distinguish this Daoist lineage from others was, in fact, a precise set of talismans, one of which embodied the divinity Heisha, or the Black Killer, of whom Tan was a fervent devotee.4 Tan’s collaboration with a spirit-medium, moreover, is significant because spiritmediums would come to play an important role in the continuing revelation of talismans to, and in the therapeutic rituals of, twelfth-century practitioners of the Rites of Tianxin.5 After the fall of the state of Min in 944, Tan Zixiao fled to Lushan in northern Jiangxi, where he acquired over a hundred students. One of these was Rao Dongtian, a former minor official in Linchuan, Jiangxi, who had retired to Mount Huagai in central Jiangxi.6 One evening in 994, Rao was led by a heavenly light to a particular spot on one of the summits of Huagaishan. There he discovered a bookcase filled with the “Secret Formulas of Tianxin.” At the suggestion of a spiritual being, Rao apprenticed himself to Tan Zixiao, who initiated him in the Rites of Tianxin. Tan also recommended that Rao seek further counsel from the Lord of the Eastern Marchmount (Dongyue jun, i.e., the god of Taishan), who endowed him with an array of spirit-soldiers (yinbing) as protection.7 The Rites of Tianxin passed from Rao Dongtian through four generations of masters to a man named Deng Yougong. Deng lived on or around Mount Huagai during the latter half of the eleventh century. He composed The Rectifying Rites of the Celestial Heart of Highest Purity (Shangqing Tianxin zhengfa, HY 566). Based on internal evidence, Poul Andersen argues that Deng’s preface to this work was written before 1075, but that the seven chapters of the canonical text are an expanded mid-twelfth-century version of a work composed by Deng sometime 2 2 Society and the Supernatural before 1100.8 Deng’s work lays out the fundamental talismans of the therapeutic rituals of Tianxin. These include the Talisman of the Three Luminosities (Sanguang fu), the Talisman of the Black Killer (Heisha fu), the Talisman of the Guideline of Heaven (Tiangang fu),9...