Page 355 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

316 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

the early Song *Yunji qiqian (Seven Lots from the Bookbag of the Clouds).
The compilation of so many similar digests-for one case of thematic overlap
between the Daodian lun and another Tang compendium see Stein R. A. 1979,
67-has raised questions as to their function. It is unlikely that a work like this
would have served as an aide-memoire to a trained Taoist priest, but it could
have acquainted educated laypersons, especially serving officials, with non-
arcane knowledge of a religion which had started to win imperial support,
but which hitherto had been seen as too occult for all but the most erudite to
explore. Whether the wealth of knowledge of Taoism that appears in literature
from the mid-Tang onward was due to direct reading of the original scriptures
or consultation of ready reference works such as the Daodian lun must also
await future research. It is not even clear that its own citations were at first
hand; if so, then it is more likely to be prior to ca. 756, since it cites (2-7a) the
Xuanshi jing £ IJ~ *~ (Scripture of Mysterious Manifestations), a work whose
direct transmission had evidently ended thereafter (Barrett 1982, 41).
T. H. BARRETT

ID Ofuchi Ninji 1978-79, 1: 348-49 (crit. notes on the Dunhuang mss.) and
2: 797-800 (reproductions of Dunhuang mss.); Ofuchi Ninji and Ishii Masako
1988, 165-69 (list of texts cited); Ozaki Masaharu 1983C, 192--93

Daofa huiyuan

iJt~!-if ;G

Corpus of Taoist Ritual

By far the most voluminous text in the Taoist Canon of 1445, the Daofa
huiyuan (CT 1220) is a collection of ritual manuals and subsidiary writings
drawn from various schools of Taoist practice that flourished throughout
south China during the Song and Yuan. The history of this massive 268-juan
compilation remains a mystery. No copy of the text is known beyond that in
the Taoist Canon, where it appears without any indication of provenance. The
only preliminary matter accompanying the anthology is a table of contents.
Many headings listed in it vary with those in the text proper, revealing a lack
of coordination in the anonymous editorship of the text.
Clues to the textual history of individual units of writings can in some
cases be derived from prefaces and colophons scattered throughout the Daofa
hUiyuan. The latest internal date recorded in these supporting documents is
1356. The latest identified contributor is the renowned syncretist *Zhao Yizhen