Taishang Lingbao Tianzun Shuo Yanshou Miaojing — Spoken by the Most High Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure

This is a short, anonymous revelation scripture of the Numinous Treasure (Lingbao) tradition, preserved in the Daoist Canon. Some catalogs give its fuller title as 太上洞玄靈寶天尊說延壽妙經, which places it in the Canon's Dongxuan division, the section historically reserved for Lingbao scripture. No date of composition survives in the source consulted here, and none is asserted; its genre — a heavenly assembly summoned by radiance, a single questioner drawing out the teaching, and a promise of longer life through incense, almsgiving, and the sponsorship of ritual — belongs to the wide family of medieval Lingbao salvation literature that also produced the much longer Scripture on Limitless Salvation (度人經).

The Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure, named here for the scripture he is about to speak as "the Celestial Worthy Who Extends Life," sits beneath the trees of a heavenly grove and teaches ten thousand disciples until his own radiance draws every rank of the unseen world — sages, ghost-kings, dragon-spirits — to kneel before him. None of them awakens, until a young attendant named Shan Da asks the plain question that opens the true teaching: that reality is neither born nor destroyed, that even this formula can become a new cage, and that ordinary men and women extend their years and dissolve calamity not through metaphysics but through incense, alms, the freeing of captive animals, and the recitation of scripture — acts which four named officials of the unseen bureaucracy record, tally, and carry upward as a household's plea for continued life. A closing verse turns the teaching toward filial devotion and the copying of scripture and images.

The text moves easily between Daoist and Buddhist idiom — the Three Realms and Ten Directions, a Dharma-assembly, "the golden mouth," "inconceivable," a vow made "life after life" — the ordinary bilingual texture of popular scripture after the Tang, kept here as the source has it rather than resolved into one vocabulary or the other.

Translated for the Good Works Library directly from the classical Chinese of the Daoist Canon, which is printed in full below the translation. To our knowledge, this is the scripture's first complete published English translation.

Translation

At that time, the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure Who Extends Life was within the Heaven of the Southern Culmen, on Mount Golden Light, beneath the trees of the Treasure Grove. Gathering his spirit and holding the Way in mind, together with a following of ten thousand disciples, he was expounding the Wondrous Scripture on Extending Life, discoursing on the great Way of emptiness and non-being. His whole body was radiant with light, shining through Heaven and Earth, the Three Realms, and the Ten Directions, and in an instant the cosmos shook and resounded. Then the sages of every heaven, every king of ghosts, and the ten hosts of heavenly dragon-spirits followed the light to its source and came before the Celestial Worthy, begging for release from birth and death. Prostrating themselves in the fivefold submission, they paid homage to the Celestial Worthy, and stood each in their place.

At that time there were present the Perfected of Prolonged Life, the Perfected of Ample Blessing, the Perfected of Golden Flower, the Perfected of Wondrous Joy, the Perfected of the Purple Canopy, the Page of the Yellow Register, the Page of the Azure Heavens, the Page of Verdant Flower, and the Page of White Grace, together with the whole assembly of sages. Each presented precious flowers and fragrant herbs of a hundred flavors; each held in hand numinous banners of sun and moon, sacred tallies of purple light, spirit-pennants of the Ten Absolutes, and the precious canopy of Prolonged Life. Advancing in procession, one after another, they burned incense and scattered flowers, chanting together the name of the Celestial Worthy Who Extends Life, and all of them thereby attained deliverance from the world.

Then the Celestial Worthy, smiling, towering in majesty, sent forth ten rays of divine light from the crown of his head, illuminating the bodies and minds of the whole Dharma-assembly — yet none among them awakened. Then, within the ritual precinct, there was a page named Shan Da ("Skillful Attainment"), who came forward, made obeisance, and addressed the Celestial Worthy, saying: I see that all who sit in this assembly are transformed immortals and spirits — how is it that they have not yet awakened? I humbly pray that your worthy countenance might explain this for your servant.

The Celestial Worthy said: This host of immortals, though they possess spiritual powers, truly lack the real Way.

The Page said: I do not understand — what is called the real Way?

The Celestial Worthy said: Not born and not extinguished — this is called the real Way. Without going and without coming — this too is called the real Way. Yet even within "not born and not extinguished" and "without going and without coming," one may still be in the dark about the real Way. All characteristics of phenomena are but empty and illusory.

If the men and women of this world wish to prolong their life and lengthen their years, to dissolve calamity and gather blessing, let them only, with a focused and sincere mind, burn incense and walk the Way, give alms and set captive creatures free, build up meritorious works, recite the scriptures and make offerings — and further invite Daoist priests and ritual masters to lecture and read the revered scriptures, and perform the fasts and offerings of their natal destiny. Then the Spirit King Who Registers the Reckoning, the Spirit King Who Records the Name, the Spirit King Who Strikes Off Death, and the Spirit King Who Raises to Life will protect the one who recites the scripture, record their meritorious deeds, and carry them upward as a memorial to all the heavens, so that gold and silk will be abundant and sufficient, and peace will be preserved forever.

At this, the great sages of every heaven and every king of ghosts bowed their heads to the ground, took refuge, and were all filled with great joy. Through kalpas upon kalpas of studying the Way, they had never heard this scripture — words that were truly from the golden mouth. Then the ghosts and spirits made a vast vow, wishing that life after life, age after age, they might see the true immortals with their own eyes and hear the correct Dharma with their own ears, that they might pay homage on the Ten Fast Days, and forever practice the utmost Way. The Celestial Worthy then left them a further verse, saying:

While alive, showing neither kindness nor filial devotion,
after death, what kindness is there to repay?

Weeping and wailing within the hells,
who is there to speak the word that urges good?

Cultivate good, and of itself you return to good;
do evil, and you return to evil's own source.

With utmost heart, make constant offering,
and life prolonged, you shall meet with the immortals.

Copy out the scriptures and fashion sacred images,
and blessing and reward will of themselves extend your years.

At that time, all the True Immortals in the assembly, having heard the scripture, all proclaimed it inconceivable and, bowing twice, 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 narrative frame and teaching dialogue are rendered as prose, in the paragraph divisions of the source; its closing verse — five sentences of five-character couplets — is kept as five two-line stanzas, one English stanza to each source sentence.

Before the claim below was written, a genuine translation-status check was performed. Komjathy's Daoist Texts in Translation and the 2023 Purple Cloud survey of Daoist texts in Western languages were both searched under the scripture's Chinese title, its romanization, and its English gloss; neither lists this text or any translation of it. The nearest entries in either bibliography are unrelated life-extension scriptures — the Northern Dipper's Beidou Benming Yansheng Zhenjing and the Three Primes' blessing-and-pardon scripture — which this text is not. A live web search for the Chinese title and for the romanized title returned no English translation of this scripture, though it did surface the fuller canonical title 太上洞玄靈寶天尊說延壽妙經, confirming the text's place in the Daoist Canon's Dongxuan division. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of the Yanshou Miaojing. We state this as the limit of our search, not as a certainty.

A note on terms and on two uncertain phrases. The source names the speaking deity twice — once as 天尊 ("Celestial Worthy") and once as 神尊 ("Divine Worthy") — clearly the same figure under ordinary literary variation, and both are rendered uniformly here as "the Celestial Worthy." Two phrases resist full confidence: 十絕靈旛, translated literally as "spirit-pennants of the Ten Absolutes," names a ritual banner this translation could not identify beyond its plain sense; and 天龍十部, "the ten hosts of heavenly dragon-spirits," echoes but does not exactly match the standard Buddhist eightfold host (天龍八部) — the source's "ten" is kept as written rather than silently corrected. Kalpa (劫) is kept as the loanword the Chinese text itself already uses.

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

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Source Text: 太上靈寶天尊說延壽妙經

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，靈寶延壽天尊在南極天中金光山內寶林樹下，凝神念道，共十千徒眾，解說《延壽妙經》，論虛無大道。徧體光明，洞照天地三界十方，一時震響，復有諸天上聖、一切鬼王、天龍十部，尋光而至，上詣天尊。乞無生死，五體投地作禮神尊，依位而立。時有延命真人、廣福真人、金華真人、妙喜真人、紫蓋真人、黃籙童子、碧霄童子、青華童子、白惠童子，及以一切聖眾，皆獻寶花，百味香藥，手執日月靈幢、紫光神節、十絕靈旛、延命寶蓋，次第行道，燒香散花，齊唱延壽天尊，咸得度世。爾時神尊含笑巍巍，從大頂門放十道神光，普照法眾身心無有悟者。於是道場中有一童子名曰善達，前進作禮，上白天尊：見在座中皆是變化神仙，何得未悟。伏願尊顏，為臣解說。

　　天尊言曰：此之仙眾雖有神通，實無真道。童子曰：不審何名真道。

　　天尊言曰：不生不滅，名為真道。無去無來，亦名真道。於不生不滅、無去無來，亦昧真道。一切法相，皆為虛妄。世間男女，若欲延命長年，消灾集福，但自精心燒香行道，布施放生，建造功德，念經供養，兼請道士法師，講讀尊經、本命齋醮，即有注筭神王、記名神王、落死神王、上生神王，保護念經之人，錄其功德，奏上諸天，金帛豐足，永保安寧。於是諸天大聖、一切鬼王，稽首歸依，皆大歡喜。累劫學道，未聞此經，並是金口之言，於是鬼神發弘誓，願生生世世眼見真仙，耳聞正法，禮拜十齋，常行至道。天尊再留偈曰：

　　生前不慈孝，死後報何恩。悲啼在地獄，誰明勸善言。修善自歸善，作惡歸惡源。至心常供養，延壽遇神仙。寫經及造像，福祿自延年。

　　是時，座中一切真仙聞經，皆稱不可思議，再拜而退。

Source Colophon

The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of this scripture from the Daoist Canon (article 太上靈寶天尊說延壽妙經, revision of 18 July 2009), 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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