Taishang Daojun Shuo Jieyuan Badu Miaojing — Spoken by the Most High Lord of the Dao

This is a short, anonymous scripture of the Daoist Canon, spoken in the voice of the Most High Lord of the Dao (太上道君, Tàishàng Dàojūn) — a figure distinct from the more familiar Most High Lord Lao (太上老君), and identified in the mature Daoist pantheon as one of the Three Purities, its highest gods. The Wikisource transcription notes that the scripture survives under a second title as well, collated against that parallel witness by later editors; its date is unknown. It belongs to the broad and long-lived genre of "untying grievances" (解冤) literature that runs through Daoist funerary and exorcistic ritual from the medieval period onward.

The scripture opens with a vision: the Lord of the Dao, seated in radiant assembly, sends out a light that falls at once on two realms — a Hall of Blessing where the virtuous dead live at ease, and the hells, where the wretched suffer amid fire, molten metal, and blades. A disciple named Guangxin asks why; the Lord answers with the failures that bring a soul to such an end — irreverence toward the sun, moon, and stars, broken loyalty and kindness, the taking of life. Moved to pity, Guangxin begs deliverance for them, and the Lord grants this very scripture as the means: recited in fasting and purity, it is promised to loosen the grievances a soul carries from life to life, and to raise the suffering dead into release. A hymn of praise closes the text.

One term is worth flagging: 冤讎, rendered here "grievances and enmities," names the specific harm this scripture answers — not sin in the abstract, but the resentments and vendettas that Chinese religion imagines as literally binding the dead across their lives, and that the title's own verb, 解, "to untie" a knot, promises to loose. Translated for the Good Works Library directly from the classical Chinese of the Daoist Canon, printed in full below the translation. To our knowledge, this is the scripture's first complete published English translation.

Translation

At that time, the Most High Lord of the Dao, together with the assembled host of sages, was arrayed in solemn dignity beneath the eight Qianlin groves, upon a terrace of the seven treasures, setting forth the essentials of the Way. Serene in spirit, they sat in silence, still as Mount Yujing, the Jade Capital of highest heaven. He sent out a light of nine colors, which shone upon the Hall of Blessing and upon the hells. Within the Hall of Blessing he saw virtuous men and women, joyful and untroubled, carefree and at ease. And within the many hells he saw, besides, hungry ghosts and destitute souls enduring every torment, day following upon night. All had lost the human form; their bodies were broken and rotting in every limb. Hungry, they fed on raging fire; thirsty, they drank molten copper; their feet trod mountains of blades; their bodies bore rods of iron; blood covered them everywhere; their cries of grief pierced heaven.

At that time there was, within the assembly, a Perfected Person named Guangxin, who rose from his seat, bowed his head to the ground, came forward, and addressed the Lord of the Dao, saying: I do not know what wrong this multitude of destitute souls did in their lives, that they suffer such torment.

The Lord of the Dao said: Those who undergo such punishment, while they lived in the world, showed no reverence for the Three Luminaries and defied the order of the spirits. They committed the ten evils and the five rebellions; they were disloyal, inhumane, unkind, and unfilial; they injured and destroyed the lives of creatures, and killed and harmed living beings. When their store of blessing ran out and their span of years came to its end, they were bound to suffer this.

At that time compassion rose in the Perfected Person Guangxin's heart, and he wished to save and deliver them, hoping that, through the Lord's wondrous power and awesome light, deliverance might be granted them. In answer, the Lord of the Dao graciously bestowed his golden words: he set forth broadly the essentials of the rite and expounded this very scripture for the sake of all living beings, naming it Untying Grievances and Delivering from Transgression, that it might circulate in the world and bring benefit to the living and the dead alike. Should there be good men and women who, with single mind and undivided intent, enter into stillness and keep the fast, burn incense and perform the rites, and through the six watches of day and night recite this scripture, I will, according to their wish, protect and bless that person, so that the grievances and enmities carried from former lives shall, borne upon their merit, be delivered beyond, and the suffering shadowed souls shall each attain release and ascent.

The Perfected Person Guangxin, filled with joy, bowed low once more and, [...] recounting the excellent cause of this teaching, composed a hymn of praise, saying:

Great indeed, the Lord of the Great Dao—
his merit constant, boundless, ever universal.
A boat and oar upon the sea of birth and death,
he saves and delivers, bearing all beyond Fengdu.

The reckoning of sin they meet no more;
their blessed reward reaches even to the shades.
How could his working of spirit ever be fathomed?
How could praise of him ever be exhausted?

At that time the Perfected Person Guangxin, together with the assembled host of sages, having heard the teaching to its end, each bowed the head in homage and took refuge, receiving it in faith and upholding it in practice.

Here ends the Scripture of Untying Grievances and Deliverance, Spoken by the Most High Lord of the Dao.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Lingbao Salvation Scriptures shelf of the Good Works Library. The English was translated independently from the classical Chinese text printed below. The scripture is prose narrative throughout except for its closing hymn, which is kept as two four-line stanzas of five-character verse, one English line per source clause, matching the source's own stanza break.

Before the claim below was written, a genuine translation-status check was performed: Komjathy's bibliography of Daoist texts in Western translation and the 2023 Purple Cloud update to it were both searched under the scripture's Chinese title, its pinyin, its alternate title 太上說通真高皇解冤經 named in the source's own collation notes, and their component terms, and neither bibliography lists this text, its alternate title, or any translation of either. Three general web searches were run under the Chinese title, the pinyin title, and the alternate title; they turned up the Chinese source text itself, on Chinese Wikisource and the Chinese Text Project, and brief Chinese-language secondary discussion of the text, but no English translation. No Daozang catalogue number for this scripture could be confirmed from these searches, so none is claimed here. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of the Taishang Daojun Shuo Jieyuan Badu Miaojing. We state this as the limit of our knowledge, not as a certainty.

A few notes on the text. The Wikisource transcription carries five collation notes comparing this witness against the parallel text named above; where that comparison yields a clearer reading — 九色, "nine colors," for what the base text corrupts to 山寶; 男女, "men and women," for a miscopied 男玄; 身負, "bore," for 身贊; 真人, "Perfected Person," for 真合 — this translation follows the corrected reading, as the collation itself recommends. One character in the source is unencodable and appears as ▢; it is rendered [...] in the translation, where it leaves the verb governing "recounting the excellent cause" uncertain, though the surrounding sense is clear. 羅酆, the citadel of the dead named in the closing hymn, is translated as Fengdu, its more familiar name for the same underworld capital; 八騫林, the grove named in the opening scene, resisted confident translation and is kept transliterated as Qianlin.

Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation and editorial work.

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Source Text: 太上道君說解冤拔度妙經

Classical Chinese text of the Daoist Canon, in the Chinese Wikisource transcription. Presented complete for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

爾時，太上道君與諸聖眾，在八騫林下，七寶臺中，羅列威儀，敷陳道要。怡神默坐，如玉京山。放山寶 (注)1 光明，照福堂地獄。見福堂之內，男玄 (注)2 善人，快樂無為，逍遙自在。復見諸地獄之中，餓鬼窮魂，以日繼夜，受種種苦惱。悉無人形，五體壞爛，飢食猛火，渴飲鎔銅，足履刀山，身贊 (注)3 鐵杖，徧體流血，悲號徹天。是時，會中有一真合 (注)4 ，名曰廣信，從座而起，稽首前進 (注)5 ，上白道君曰：不審此輩窮魂，生有何咎，而受玆苦？道君日：受諸罪者，在世之時，不敬三光，欺負神理，十惡五逆，不忠不仁，不慈不孝，毀傷物命，殺害眾生，福盡壽終，當受斯苦。是時，廣信真人心生哀憫，欲其濟拔，幸望妙力威光，許令開度。伏蒙道君垂賜金言，廣設法要，為諸眾生演說是經，名曰《解冤拔罪》，流布於世，利益存亡。若有善男子善女人，一心專志，入靜持齋，焚香行道，六時轉念是經，吾當隨願保佑其人，使宿世冤讎，乘福超度，幽魂苦爽，各獲超升。真人廣信歡喜再拜， ▢ 縷勝因，而作頌曰：

偉哉大道君，常普無量功。舟楫生死海，濟度超羅酆。

罪對不復遇，福報與冥通。用神安可測，讚之焉能窮。

　　是時，廣信真人與諸聖眾，聞法將畢，各各稽首歸依，信受奉行。

太上道君說解冤拔度妙經竟

(注)1 此經與《太上說通真高皇解冤經》同書異名，現兩相互校。據《太上說通真高皇解冤經》，『山寶』當作『九色』。
(注)2 據《太上說通真高皇解冤經》，『男玄』當作『男女』。
(注)3 據《太上說通真高皇解冤經》，『身贊』當為『身負』。
(注)4 據《太上說通真高皇解冤經》，『真合』當作『真人』。
(注)5 據《太上說通真高皇解冤經》，『前進』當作『進前』。

Source Colophon

The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon edition of this text (article 太上道君說解冤拔度妙經, revision of 14 October 2018), inspected from a witness copy captured on 8 August 2026. Chinese Wikisource transcriptions are published under CC BY-SA 4.0 and the GFDL; the text itself is ancient and in the public domain. The wiki header and license templates have been removed; the text is otherwise complete and unaltered.

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