Page 588 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

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Buddhist prohibitions against killing, stealing, having illicit sex, lying, and drink-
ing alcohol. This direct influence is common among the sets of ten or fewer
precepts. Attached to the precepts for the "disciples of unsullied belief" are
twelve admonitions which themselves echo the Buddhist bodhisattva vows.
Three early, and fundamental, large sets of precepts are the *Laojun shuo
yibai bashi jie (The Hundred and Eighty Precepts Spoken by Lord Lao), the
Shangqing dongzhen zhihui guanshen dajie wen ..l~g1f<iJ~~ .~IDI.~*ftl(;)(
(Great Precepts of Wisdom and Self-Observation of the Cavern of Perfection
of Highest Clarity; CT 1364), and the Lingbao sanyuan pinjie gongde qingzhong
jing ilff = 5G &b ftl(;:9rfj~lU~ (Scripture on Weighing Merit based on the
Precepts of the Three Primes of the Numinous Treasure; CT 456). This area
of Taoism is rather underresearched and as yet clear and unequivocal state-
ments of how these text are related, exactly how they were used, or what
doctrinal affiliations they had cannot be made with certainty.
The first set was probably completed in the fourth century and, as its name
implies, has ISO rules that were supposedly granted to *Gan Ji by Lord Lao
(*Laojun) in the third century BeE. Of these ISO, 140 are negative injunctions
ordering the ordained priest, among other things, not to collect taxes, not
to kill or cause others to kill, not to catch hibernating animals or raid birds'
nests, and not to travel alone. Forty of them encourage right behavior such as
accepting slander and abuse without retaliation, burning incense and praying
for the ten thousand families, the attainment of Great Peace (*taiping) in the
empire, ingesting *qi, and avoiding cereals.
The second set, usually abbreviated to the Dajie wen, is found (among other
places) in the *Wushang biyao (Supreme Secret Essentials; Lagerwey 19S1b,
144-45) so must predate 574. In all likelihood it was composed sometime in
the previous century. This text is an object lesson in the necessity to examine
affiliations closely- as Stephen Eskildsen has pointed out, despite its proclama-
tion *Shangqing in the title, it was thought of highly by *Lingbao adherents
(Eskildsen 1995, 106). This set has a total of 302 precepts divided into three
groups. The first group of ISO are those of the Lower Prime (xiayuan T5G),
the next thirty six are those of the Middle Prime (zhongyuan t:p 5G), and the
final eighty four are those of the Higher Prime (shangyuan ..l5G). The Precepts
of the Lower Prime bear some similarities with the Hundred and Eighty Precepts
Spoken by Lord Lao- many precepts are shared- but were clearly produced
with more sense of organization, showing signs of conscious grouping of
certain related precepts together. For instance, many of them are formed of
pairs, in turn prohibiting an action, then prohibiting the causing of others to
perform that action:
3. Students of the Dao, do not drink wine.
4. Students of the Dao, do not cause others to drink wine.