Page 425 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

386 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

Du Guangting stayed with the imperial court when it fled the capital again
the following year, but departed for Sichuan in 887 and remained there for
the rest of his life. For the next twenty-eight years he traveled throughout
the province searching for books and writings. After the fall of the Tang a
new dynasty, the Shu, seized control of the province. In 913 its emperor ap-
pointed Du to posts as Grand Master of Remonstrance (jianyi dafu ~~*
:J:() and Grand Preceptor of the Heir Apparent (taizi taishi je( je gffi). In 917
the throne installed him a Vice Director of the Ministry of Households (hubu
shilang re; fifj f~ ~fj). In 923 the court chose him to be Grand Academician of
a literary institute. Du's official career came to an end when the Later Tang
conquered Shu in 925. He died in 933 after declaring to his disciples that he
had had an audience with the supreme deity of Heaven who appointed him
administrator of the underworld beneath a mountain range in Sichuan.

Works. Du Guangting was the single most prolific writer and compiler of
Taoist texts before the year IOOO. The largest portion of his writings consisted
of liturgies for Taoist *zhai (Retreats). He composed one for the conferral of
a talisman at ordinations for transmitting the Daode jing (CT 808), one for a
Celestial Master rite (CT 796), four for rituals connected with the *Dongyuan
shenzhou jing (CT 525 to CT 527, and CT 805), one for a zhai involving the
*Sanhuang wen (CT 804), and six for *Lingbao audiences (CT 519 to CT 521, and
CT 483, 488, and 507). The largest of them, in fifty-eight juan, is the Huanglu
zhaiyi lljJJ ~H~ (Liturgies for the Yellow Register Retreat; CT 507) that Du
worked on for years and completed in 901. After presenting a basic three-day
liturgy for executing the zhai at morning, noon, and night, Du supplies variant
forms of the ritual for performance on the birth of an heir to the throne; to
dispel calamities for the state, officials, and commoners; to save souls in hell;
and to cure the ill among other things. He also provides protocols for Casting
Dragon Tablets (*tou longjian), chanting scriptures, and the installation of the
Authentic Scripts (zhenwen J,{ 50 on altars.
Du Guangting also devoted attention to Taoist scriptures. Aside from
his collected works and the Huanglu zhaiyi, the longest text-in fifty juan
(originally thirty juan)-that he compiled was the Daode zhenjing guangsheng
yi J1! 1!~.C~~Jtjt~R ft (Extended Interpretation of the Emperor's Exegesis of
the Authentic Scripture of the Dao and Its Virtue; CT 725; 80ltz J. M. 1987a,
131-36), completed in 901. As the title indicates this is copious commentary
on an annotation (CT 677) and commentary (CT 678) that Tang Xuanzong (r.
712-56) purportedly wrote and promulgated as the official versions of the Daode
jingo Du's preface lists sixty exegetical works on the Daode jing dating from the
Han to the end of the Tang, but cites few of them in his commentary. The
first five juan of the work contain a brief biography of Xuanzong (allegedly
a descendant of Laozi in the thirty-seventh generation), an account of Laozi