Page 590 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

JIJI RU LiiL ING 549

jiji ru liiling

"Promptly, promptly, in accordance with the
statutes and ordinances!"

The expression jiji TU lii.ling is related to ru lii.ling ~D ~ ~ , "in accordance with
the statutes and ordinances," and TU zhaoshu ~D ~fl 11, "in accordance with
the imperial decree," standard phrases that appear at the end of official Han
dynasty documents. Mirroring its use in those documents, the phrase TU lii.ling
is found in Han dynasty tomb texts, first appearing on an ordinance jar dated
to 92 CE and in a tomb contract of I6I CE. These funerary texts, directed to
otherworldly officials, acted both as passports introducing the dead to the
post-mortem bureaucracy and as commands ordering the dead to stay away
from and not harm the living. One of these documents reads:
The subject deceased on the yisi z:, B day [the forty-second of the sexagesimal
cycle; see table 10] has the demon name "Heavenly Brightness." The Divine
Master of the Heavenly Thearch has already been informed as to your name.
Promptly remove yourself three thousand leagues away! Should you not go
away; then the [lacuna] of Southern Mountain will be ordered to come and
devour you. Promptly, in accordance with the statutes and ordinances! (Trans.
SeideII987c,229)

As it did with other elements of state bureaucracy, Taoism adopted the
phrase (jiji) TU lii.ling in its codebooks and in its ritual petitions to otherworldly
officials. One of the earli~st examples of these codes, the *Nuqingguilii. (Demon
Statutes of Niiqing), protects one from illness-producing demons, the same
role seen in earlier tomb documents.
Amy Lynn MILLER

ID Maeda Ry6ichi I989; Miyazawa Masayori I984C; Seidel I987e, 39- 42

;:;::: OTHERWORLDLY BU REAUC RACY