英文摘要 |
Many of the early Heavenly Masters' system of ideas and religious practices were not new creations but agreed largely with Han-period popular beliefs that are known from the pre-Han/Han funerary cult, apocryphal texts, funerary texts from Han tombs, and also the Taiping jing. In this religious system of the Han people, one's misconduct or evil deeds were morally regarded as sins; illness, misfortune and death were seen as a punishment for such sins meted out by heavenly officials. Not only were subject to the living punishment. The sins of the dead also visited their descendants by afflicting them with suffering and diseases, on the basis of detailed records of misdeeds that were kept and examined by heavenly officials. It is of paramount importance that in this religious system punishment for transgressions was enacted and controlled by the heavenly officials. The idea of a heavenly legal administration essentially provides a religious basis for the attribution of diseases and misfortune to sins. Although the religious ideas of morality and illness held in the Way of the Heavenly Master were shared by Han popular religion, this 'new' religious movement went beyond the thoughts documented in the popular religious texts of the Han. Among many distinctive features of the Way of the Heavenly Master, the belief in the 'Three Officials of Heaven, Earth and Water' (tiandishui sanguan) can be regarded as the core of its religious thought. It acted as a link, or a model, integrating all their ideas of morality, judgment, illness, law, precepts, and salvation into an organic whole. The biography of Zhang Lu in the Dianlüe, an early commentary on the Sanguo zhi, represents the earliest extant historical evidence that mentions the Way of the Heavenly Master's ritual of prayer in the form of so-called 'Personal Writs to the Three Officials'. Although similar ideas of reflection upon transgressions and heavenly judgment can be seen in the Taiping jing as well as in Han mortuary texts, there is no doubt that the belief in the Three Officials and the ritual of sending written petitions to the Three Officials are specific to the Way of the Heavenly Master. This paper aims to show the belief of the Three Officials of Heaven, Earth and Water and its deeply theological meaning within the religious context of the Way of the 'Heavenly Master. Further, this paper contends that when the ritual of sending 'Personal Writs to the Three Officials' was adopted and performed by the Way of the Heavenly Master during the time of Zhang Lu, it was based upon an already established system of theological belief. It is argued that this belief was always transmitted among the adepts of the Heavenly Masters community. In addition, we will see that the idea of the Three Officials is interrelated with the Heavenly Masters' cosmology of 'Three Heavens'. Established upon the basic paradigm of the 'Three Officials of Heaven, Earth and Water,' the Heavenly Masters' distinctive concept of sin and judgment was uninterruptedly transmitted into Six Dynasties Taoism and led to the later development of the sanyuan fasts and festivals. |