Taishang Dongxuan Lingbao Jiuku Miaojing — Spoken by the Celestial Worthy Who Rescues from Suffering
This is a short Lingbao salvation scripture spoken in the voice of the Celestial Worthy of Great Unity Who Rescues from Suffering (太乙救苦天尊), the Daoist savior-deity most closely associated with the redemption of the dead. It belongs to the same family as the scripture catalogued in the Daoist Canon as DZ 399, the Taishang Dongxuan Lingbao Tianzun Shuo Jiuku Miaojing — its title, wording, and closing appendix are close enough to that scripture that the two should be read as kin, though this witness carries a slightly shorter title and this translation makes no claim about which came first or how the two texts relate textually.
The scripture opens in prose, describing the Celestial Worthy's power to save beings from delusion, then moves into a long sequence of five-character verse in the Celestial Worthy's own voice, naming ten Celestial Worthies of the ten directions, and closing with a hymn sung by a host of flying spirit-kings. Appended to the scripture proper — without a break in the source transcription — is a Song-dynasty tale set in the jiachen year of the Xuanhe era (1124), recorded by one Zhao Ziqiu, an official of Chizhou: a novice monk's mother, questioned in the courts of the dead, tells how reciting this very scripture and the Celestial Worthy's sacred title secured her release into Heaven. Such appended efficacy-tales (靈驗記) were a common way of certifying a scripture's power to its readers, and this translation keeps the tale as part of the complete text.
One term needs a note here: 冥司, rendered "the courts of the dead" or "the underworld," names the bureaucratic afterlife of Chinese popular religion — an otherworldly magistracy that judges, detains, and releases the souls of the deceased much as an earthly court does the living.
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 first complete published English translation of this scripture.
Translation
At that time,
the Celestial Worthy Who Rescues from Suffering pervades the ten directions entirely. Ever using the power of his awesome spirit, he saves and delivers all sentient beings, that they may escape the paths of delusion. Sentient beings, unaware of this, are like the blind before the sun and moon.
I came forth from utmost nothingness,
plucking beings forth and leading them beyond all bound.
Auspicious clouds open the gate of life;
propitious mists seal the door of death.
First I arose from the Mystery, the Origin, the Beginning,
to govern the hinge on which fortune's response turns.
I save all from their crimes,
I deliver all from calamity.
Vast and distant, I transcend the source of the immortals;
boundless and free, spontaneously pure.
All is upheld by the power of the Great Dao,
subduing every spirit of the demons.
What shines so brilliantly within the void?
It is called the Immortal of the Muddy Pellet (Niwan).
Purple clouds cover the Yellow Elder —
this is named the Lord of the Three Treasures.
And with the breath of highest Heaven
he governs the souls of the nine heavens.
The wondrous spirits who rescue from suffering
know well the hour of rescue.
Above Heaven all is merged, undivided;
the breath of Heaven returns into a single body.
All become people of spontaneous nature,
and spontaneous nature still has its distinct forms.
Rooted originally within the empty cavern,
the empty cavern's traces are no traces —
the whole body, entirely void.
First, entrusted breath takes its stand;
second, compliant breath gives birth;
third, the ten thousand methods are completed;
fourth, light and brilliance hold their lordship.
Above Heaven, thirty-six; below the earth, thirty-six;
the Great Mystery is without any bound —
wondrous indeed, this Scripture of the Great Cavern!
I take refuge in the Most High Worthy,
who can dissolve every sin.
The Celestial Worthy Sovereign August of Jade Treasure of the East,
the Celestial Worthy of Mysterious Truth and Ten Thousand Blessings of the South,
the Celestial Worthy of Great Wonder, Utmost and Final, of the West,
the Celestial Worthy of the Mysterious and Supreme Jade Palace of the North,
the Celestial Worthy Most Sage Who Delivers Immortals of the Northeast,
the Celestial Worthy Who Loves Life and Delivers Destiny of the Southeast,
the Celestial Worthy Sovereign of the Void of Great Numen of the Southwest,
the Celestial Worthy of Measureless Great Flowering of the Northwest,
the Celestial Worthy Bright Sovereign of Jade Emptiness of the Zenith,
the Celestial Worthy True Sovereign, Spirit of the Cavern, of the Nadir.
The Dao speaks:
The Celestial Worthies of the ten directions
are as numerous as grains of sand and dust.
They transform their forms through the worlds of the ten directions,
ferrying and delivering gods and men alike.
Entrusted breath gathers up merit and virtue;
with one voice they rescue the souls of sinners.
Truly pitiable are the souls of sinners —
now I speak this wondrous scripture.
Chant it and recite it without ceasing;
give yourself to it without a moment's pause.
In Heaven, enjoy great blessing;
in Hell, let there be no sound of suffering.
The fiery haze becomes a cool, clear place;
the trees of swords turn to soaring branches.
Above, ascend to the Palace of the Vermilion Mound;
below, enter the Gate of Opened Light.
Cross over and transcend the hardships of the Three Realms,
and go straight up to the Heaven of Primordial Beginning.
Thereupon the Flying Celestial Spirit-Kings, together with a host beyond number, gazed up in reverence at the Worthy's countenance, and made this hymn, saying:
The Celestial Worthy speaks the scripture's teaching,
guiding and gathering in the transient-born.
Diligently cultivate the learning of non-action;
awaken to the real, and the Way completes itself.
Neither deluded nor wasted,
without self and without name.
Chant aloud these verses of sin and blessing —
ten thousand times over, the heart's defilement is made clear.
At that time, when the Flying Celestial Spirit-Kings and the host of immortals had finished singing this hymn, they bowed their heads to the Celestial Worthy, took their leave, and withdrew.
Here ends the Wondrous Scripture of the Most High, of Cavern Mystery and Numinous Treasure, on Rescue from Suffering.
In the autumn of the jiachen year of the Xuanhe era, at the Jingde Chan Monastery below the walls of Chizhou, there was a novice monk named Mo Daozu. It happened that his mother had died, and in ceaseless grief and longing he recited the scriptures of his own teaching daily, to raise and deliver her spirit, in payment of a debt of kindness beyond all measure.
By the end of that autumn, a Registrar named Tian, a Proclaimer of Teaching from Taiping Prefecture, came to lodge at the monastery. Daozu often observed that this Registrar habitually used the rites of the Celestial Pivot to relieve people of their sufferings — he was able to summon and seize the souls of the dead, and to question them about their rising or sinking in the world beyond.
Seeing these numinous wonders, Daozu drew up a petition and presented it, begging that his mother be rescued and delivered. The official received the petition, endorsed it, and burned it to send the spirit-generals forth. At once they summoned and seized the soul of Daozu's mother and brought her before the altar.
They asked her: "Your son Daozu recites scriptures morning and night to raise and deliver you — yet you remain detained in the courts of the dead. Why is this?" The mother answered: "Though my son Daozu has recited scriptures on my behalf, to repay and deliver me, his sincerity has not yet been sufficient to move the powers above. If the Six-and-Six merit-work were performed, all the shades of the underworld would receive its grace, and I myself would attain rebirth." At that time several hundred souls, men and women alike, were all suffering torment there together.
The Registrar asked again: "What is meant by 'Six-and-Six'?" She answered: "The Yellow Register Water-and-Land Retreat."
Daozu wept and said: "Since I was a child I left my beloved mother and took refuge in this monastery. My own affairs are not yet established — how could I have the means to perform so great a work of merit?"
His mother said: "It is not so. Only recite with a sincere heart. Among the Daoist teachings there is the Scripture of the Most High on Rescue from Suffering, and also the holding and chanting of the sacred title of the Celestial Worthy of Great Unity Who Rescues from Suffering. The offices of the underworld will report and memorialize this to Heaven above, and the merit will arrive as swiftly as an echo answers its sound."
She said further: "The courts of the dead allow but little time; I dare not remain long." Then she made her bows of thanks, and departed.
Daozu then asked the Registrar to give him the Scripture on Rescue from Suffering and the Celestial Worthy's title. Day and night, with devout sincerity, he recited them both together, until he had accumulated a thousand recitations of each, and drew up a memorial petition, which he burned as an offering.
That very night his mother appeared to Daozu in a dream and said: "You have not failed the debt of rearing and nurture. By reciting the scripture and holding the title, your sincerity has moved the High Perfected Ones. I have received the mandate of the Sovereign on High — I have already attained birth in Heaven. From now on I will not appear to you again. You should exert yourself, and never forget the true teaching." Having spoken, she mounted the clouds and slowly departed.
Recorded by Zhao Ziqiu, Loyal Support Gentleman, Supernumerary Prison Warden of Chizhou.
Colophon
This Good Works Translation was prepared for the Lingbao Salvation Scriptures shelf of the Good Works Library. It was translated independently from the classical Chinese text printed below. The scripture proper alternates prose and five-character verse; the verse is kept as verse, line for line, and the two closing sections — the hymn of the flying spirit-kings and the appended Song-dynasty efficacy-tale — are rendered as hymn and narrative prose respectively, following the source's own divisions. The catalogue headnote and the modern Wikisource editor's note that accompany the transcription are bibliographic apparatus, not scripture, and are not translated into the body; they are kept in the Source Text section below.
Before the claim below was written, a bounded translation-status check was performed: the two local bibliographies of Daoist texts in Western-language translation (Komjathy's Daoist Texts in Translation and the 2023 Purple Cloud update) were grepped for this title, its pinyin, and related terms, and returned no match; two web searches were run, for the Chinese title and for a romanized form of the title. Those searches turned up the Chinese text on Wikisource and Chinese Text Project, confirmed that a closely related scripture is catalogued as DZ 399 (太上洞玄靈寶天尊說救苦妙經) in the Daoist Canon, and found discussion of the cult of the Celestial Worthy of Great Unity Who Rescues from Suffering, but no published English translation of this scripture or its close DZ 399 kin. To our knowledge, this is the first complete published English translation of this scripture. We state this as the limit of our search, not as a certainty.
A note on the harder lines. "初發玄元始，以統祥感機" is compressed even by the standards of Daoist liturgical verse, naming three qualities — Mystery, Origin, Beginning — in a single breath; the translation unpacks it as "the Mystery, the Origin, the Beginning" rather than choosing one. "劍樹化為騫" (the hell-tree of swords "turns to 騫") uses 騫 in its sense of soaring or flourishing growth, rendered here as "soaring branches," an image of the instruments of torment turned to living wood. In the tale's dialogue, the questioner's address to the mother's spirit — "你兄道祖" — literally names Daozu with a term that elsewhere means "elder brother"; taken in context as the vernacular idiom of a Song-dynasty tale addressing a kinsman, it is rendered simply "your son Daozu."
Prepared for the Good Work Library by the Tianmu Anglican Church with AI-assisted translation and editorial work.
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Source Text: 太上洞玄靈寶救苦妙經
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，
救苦天尊，徧滿十方界，常以威神力，救拔諸眾生，得離於迷途，眾生不知覺，如盲見日月。
我本太無中，拔領無邊際。
慶雲開生門，祥煙塞死戶。
初發玄元始，以統祥感機。
救一切罪，度一切厄。
渺渺超仙源，蕩蕩自然清。
皆承大道力，以伏諸魔精。
空中何灼灼，名曰泥丸仙。
紫雲覆黃老，是名三寶君。
還將上天氣，以制九天魂。
救苦諸妙神，善見救苦時。
天上混無分，天氣歸一身。
皆成自然人，自然有別體。
本在空洞中，空洞跡非跡，徧體皆虛空。
第一委氣立，第二順氣生，第三成萬法，第四主光明。
天上三十六，地下三十六，太玄無邊際，妙哉大洞經。
歸命太上尊，能消一切罪。
東方玉寶皇上天尊，
南方玄真萬福天尊，
西方太妙至極天尊，
北方玄上玉宸天尊，
東北方度仙上聖天尊，
東南方好生度命天尊，
西南方太靈虛皇天尊，
西北方無量太華天尊，
上方玉虛明皇天尊，
下方真皇洞神天尊。
道言：
十方諸天尊，其數如沙塵。
化形十方界，普濟度天人。
委氣聚功德，同聲救罪魂。
罪魂實可哀，我今說妙經。
念誦無休息，歸身不暫停。
天堂享大福，地獄無苦聲。
火翳成清署，劍樹化為騫。
上登朱陵府，下入開光門。
超度三界難，徑上元始天。
於是飛天神王、無鞅數眾，瞻仰尊顏，而作頌曰：
天尊說經教，引接於浮生。勤修學無為，悟真道自成。
不迷亦不荒，無我亦無名。朗詠罪福句，萬徧心垢清。
爾時，飛天神王及諸仙眾說是頌畢，稽首天尊，奉辭而退。
太上洞玄靈寶救苦妙經竟
宣和甲辰秋，池州城下景德禪院，有僧童莫道祖，偶緣母親傾逝，追慕不已，日誦本教經，薦擢用酬罔極之恩。
至秋末，有太平州田功曹宣教，到院安下。每見功曹常以天樞法，救人疾苦，能追攝死魂，以詰升沈。
道祖見其靈異，遂具狀申陳，乞行拯拔。其官人受狀，判押燒令神將去，即時追攝道祖母氏到壇前，
問曰：你兄道祖，日夕誦經追擢，尚羈冥司，如何。母對曰：雖得吾兒道祖念經報薦，其誠志未孚。
若作六六功德，幽冥普獲霑恩，妾即得超生。是時若男若女，數百餘人，咸罹痛苦。
功曹復問曰：何謂六六。答云：黃籙水陸。
道祖泣告曰：自幼捨慈親，依棲梵剎，身計未成，何緣有力，為大功果。
母曰：不然。但志心轉誦，道教有《太上救苦經》，及持念太乙救苦天尊御號。
冥司簡奏上天，功即應聲至矣。
又曰：冥司限促，不敢久留。乃作禮謝而去。
道祖即告功曹，求受《太上救苦經》及天尊號，日夜虔誠，兼而誦之，各積千徧，具疏焚化。
是夜母親見夢於道祖曰：汝今不負鞠育之恩，誦經持號，誠格高真，蒙上帝符命，我已得生天矣。
自後無復見汝，汝宜自勉力，勿忘正教。言訖，乘雲冉冉而去。忠翊郎添差池州監押趙子俅述。
Source Colophon
The Chinese text follows the Chinese Wikisource transcription of the Daoist Canon edition of this text (article 太上洞玄靈寶救苦妙經, revision of 16 May 2024), 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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