Taishang Jiuku Tianzun Shuo Xiaoqian Miezui Jing — Spoken by the Most High Celestial Worthy Who Rescues from Suffering

This is an anonymous Daoist scripture of uncertain date, preserved in the Daoist Canon, spoken in the voice of the Most High Celestial Worthy Who Rescues from Suffering (太上救苦天尊) — an epithet that pairs the same "Rescuer from Suffering" title with 太上, "Most High," rather than the 太一/太乙, "Great Unity," of that deity's more familiar name. The two are probably devotional variants of a single figure, the chief guide of souls in Daoist funerary religion. The scripture belongs to the large family of underworld-salvation liturgies built around the Ten Kings (十王) of the courts of judgment: a sequence of ten memorial observances — weekly through the first forty-nine days, then at the hundredth day and the first and second death-anniversaries — that took its classic shape between the late Tang and Song dynasties and was thoroughly absorbed into Daoist mortuary practice alongside its Buddhist original.

The text moves between prose and verse: a narrative frame in which underworld officials petition the Celestial Worthy on behalf of the dead, a ten-line litany naming the Ten Kings and their Daoist "Perfected Lord" titles across that mourning calendar, and two closing four-line stanzas describing the rite of "refinement by fire" by which the trapped dead are drawn up out of Fengdu, the underworld capital, and given new bodies for rebirth. It reads as a scripture composed for use in Daoist funerary and memorial ritual, meant to be read or chanted on behalf of the newly dead.

One word worth noting: 度 (dù), "to ferry across" — the constant verb of Chinese salvation religion, appearing here as "deliverance" (拔度) and "the shore of the Way" (道岸). The whole scripture turns on the image of souls trapped on the near shore of suffering and ferried, by ritual and divine mercy, to the far one.

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 Celestial Worthy Who Rescues from Suffering set forth great compassion. For the sake of all living beings he eliminated every karmic offense, rescuing and drawing up those sunk and drowned, and thereupon commanded the cultivation of fasts and almsgiving, the wide establishment of merit, and the great raising of fields of blessing. He summoned the heavenly dragons and the spirits of earth, the Four Kings of the Brahma Heavens, the Asura Kings, the sovereign lords of the many heavens, Yama the Son of Heaven, the Lord of Mount Tai, the Director of Fates and the Keeper of Records, the Great Spirit of the Five Paths, and the wardens within the hells. Each of them bowed in reverent worship, touching their heads to the ground in homage, and addressed the Celestial Worthy, saying:

It is because the living beings of the world undergo every manner of karmic retribution, all of it administered under the sin-registers kept by the Great Demon King. If there are, in the human world of Jambudvīpa, those guilty of the ten evils and the five rebellions — who show no reverence to father and mother, who break their fasts and violate the precepts, who slaughter and cook pigs, sheep, cattle, and horses among the six domestic animals, and the flying birds and running beasts, and every kind of sin besides — then all such sinners, once their bodies have perished, enter the hells of the Nine Darknesses, suffering day and night with no way to gain release. Even should there be a wide cultivation of merit, the establishment of fasts, and the giving of alms, still they lie under accumulated kalpas of torture, beaten and shut up in the dungeons, gaining no rebirth in the heavens.

At that time, the Celestial Worthy said: You many beings, listen carefully to my words. Should there be, in the world, men and women whose parents and kin have died, they should establish a place of the Way, keep the fast and perform the rites, give away their wealth in charity, and cultivate merit for the court of shadows.

The first seven days: the Great King Qinguang, Perfected Lord of Primal Simplicity and Wondrous Vastness,
the second seven days: the Great King Chujiang, Perfected Lord of Hidden Virtue and Settled Rest,
the third seven days: the Great King Songdi, Perfected Lord of Penetrating Clarity and Universal Stillness,
the fourth seven days: the Great King of the Five Offices, Perfected Lord of Mysterious Virtue and the Five Numinous Powers,
the fifth seven days: the Great King Yama, Perfected Lord of Supreme Excellence and Radiant Spirit,
the sixth seven days: the Great King of Transformation, Perfected Lord of the Treasured Orchid and Shining Fulfillment,
the seventh seven days: the Lord of Mount Tai, Perfected Lord of Mysterious Virtue and Wondrous Life,
the hundredth day: the Great King of Impartiality, Perfected Lord of Unsurpassed Right Deliverance,
the first anniversary: the Great King of the Metropolis, Perfected Lord Who Flies Beyond Demons, Spreading Blessing,
the second anniversary: the Wheel-Turning Great King, Perfected Lord of the Five Transformations and Awesome Spirit.

At that time, the Celestial Worthy said: After you many beings and people die, you sink down into the hells; but because of this virtuous assembly, you shall all attain rebirth of yourselves. The hells shall stand empty and idle, your karmic offenses extinguished, your suffering and bitterness at an end. The Celestial Worthy then decreed and charged the Left Controller of Yang and the Right Controller of Yin to weigh and measure merit, and ordered the examining officers and clerks of the twenty-four hells of Fengdu, the underworld capital, to release all suffering lonely souls and lingering spirits, causing them all to ascend into the pool of refining fire, each holding a spirit-talisman of the Cinnabar Realm that transforms the body, so that all should gain the cause of renewed life and together return to the shore of the Way.

The Celestial Worthy said: You many suffering sinners among the beings, having received this deliverance, shall all attain rebirth. You many beings, listen carefully, each of you: I shall now speak a verse for you, saying:

In Fengdu's night ravine,
suddenly a radiance.
It lights the shadowed souls,
who come to feast on fragrant gruel.

By talisman and refining fire
the hundred bones take flight themselves.
Granted sight of the dharma-assembly,
they know the way home, the immortals' road.

And chanted further, saying:

Ten thousand kalpas, rarely met —
the causes of merit are to be honored.
To break open the shadowed realms of rebirth
depends wholly on the true wind.

A ladder and a ferry to the farther shore,
its saving grace is without end.
Thought after thought, it generates the cause of rebirth,
and one mounts the light, flying through the sky.

At that time, when the assembly heard these verses spoken, they were all set free. Each one bowed in homage, and, taking their leave, withdrew.

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's prose frame is rendered as prose; the ten-line litany of the Ten Kings is kept as a ten-line list matching the source's own lineation; and the two closing verses — each two quatrains of four-character couplets — are broken into English lines on the same one-phrase-per-line convention, with the stanza break the source itself marks.

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, and its component terms, and neither lists this text or any translation of it. Three general web searches were run under the Chinese title, the pinyin title, and the scripture's likely Daozang classification, turning up only the Chinese source text itself — on Chinese Wikisource, the Chinese Text Project, and Daoist devotional sites — and no English rendering. 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 Jiuku Tianzun Shuo Xiaoqian Miezui Jing. We state this as the limit of our knowledge, not as a certainty.

A note on a few terms. The Ten Kings' own names — Qinguang, Chujiang, Songdi, and the rest — are kept as the proper names they function as within this tradition; their attached Daoist honorific titles (真君, "Perfected Lord") are translated from their component vocabulary, though a few of these compressed four-character titles admit more than one reading. 太上 is rendered "the Most High" throughout, following the library's convention for Lord Lao's own epithet; other Good Works translations render the related epithet 太一/太乙, attached to this same class of deity, as "the Great Unity." 酆都 (Fengdu), the proper name of the Daoist underworld capital, is kept as encountered and glossed on first use.

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

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Source Text: 太上救苦天尊說消愆滅罪經

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，救苦天尊設大慈悲，為諸眾生滅除一切罪業，救拔沈淪，即令修齋布施，廣建功德，大起福田，召請天龍地祇，四梵天王，阿修羅王，諸天帝主，閻羅天子，泰山府君，司命司錄，五道大神，獄中典者，各恭敬禮拜，稽首叩顙，上白天尊曰：緣以世間眾生，受諸果報，並是大魔王管攝罪簿。若有閻浮國土十惡五逆，不敬父母，破齋犯戒，烹宰猪羊牛馬六畜，飛禽走獸之屬，種種之罪，一切罪人，身歿之後，皆入九幽地獄，日夜受苦，無由解脫。若以廣修功德，設齋布施，積劫拷掠，擊閉牢獄，無獲生天。

爾時，天尊曰：汝等眾生，諦聽吾言。或有世間男子女人，父母眷屬歿亡之後，宜建道場，修齋行道，散施資財，修功幽府。

一七秦廣大王太素妙廣真君，
二七初江大王陰德定休真君，
三七宋帝大王洞明普靜真君，
四七五官大王玄德五靈真君，
五七閻羅大王最勝耀靈真君，
六七變成大王寶蘭昭成真君，
七七泰山府君玄德妙生真君，
百日平等大王無上正度真君，
小祥都市大王飛魔演慶真君，
大祥轉輪大王五化威靈真君。

爾時，天尊曰：汝等眾生人民死亡之後，沈淪地獄，因斯善會，皆得超生自然，地獄虛閑，滅除罪業，苦惱辛酸。天尊乃詔命左司陽官、右司陰官，較量功德，勒酆都二十四獄考官典吏，放出受苦一切孤魂滯魄，咸令登火鍊之池，各執化形丹界靈符，盡獲更生之因，俱歸道岸。

天尊言：汝等眾生受苦罪人，得斯拔度，皆獲超生。汝等眾生，各各諦聽，吾當為汝說偈誦曰：

酆都夜壑，忽以光輝。照出幽魂，來飴香糜。

靈符火鍊，百骸自飛。得見法會，仙岐知歸。

又誦曰：

萬劫難遇，功緣可崇。開闢幽趣，全假真風。

梯航彼岸，濟惠無窮。念念生因，駕景飛空。

是時，眾等聞說偈言，咸皆解脫，各各稽首，奉辭而退。

Source Colophon

The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon edition of this text (article 太上救苦天尊說消愆滅罪經, revision of 6 March 2011), 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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