太上感應篇 — attributed to the Most Exalted One
The Treatise on Response and Retribution (Taishang Ganying Pian, 太上感應篇) is the most widely circulated religious text in Chinese history. No other scripture — Daoist, Buddhist, or Confucian — has been printed, copied, distributed, and recited by more hands. From the Song dynasty onward, it was reprinted in the hundreds of millions: carved on stone, inscribed on wood, given freely at temples and shops, memorized by children, chanted by emperors. Its theology is simple and absolute: fortune and misfortune have no gate — people summon them upon themselves.
The text belongs to no single school. It is Daoist in its cosmology — celestial spirits record every deed, and the allotted lifespan is shortened or extended accordingly — yet its moral content is broadly Confucian (filial piety, loyalty, propriety) and its language of karma and retribution echoes Buddhist thought. This syncretism is not accidental. The Ganying Pian emerged from the world of Chinese popular religion, where the boundaries between traditions are porous and the gods of all three teachings share a single heaven. Its authorship is unknown. Tradition attributes it to the Most Exalted Lord Laozi (太上老君), but the text likely took shape during the late Song dynasty (twelfth century CE), drawing on much older moral-retribution literature including the Baopuzi and the Register of Merits and Demerits.
At approximately 1,200 characters, the Ganying Pian is a text of extraordinary compression. Its structure is deceptively simple: an opening declaration on moral causation, a description of the celestial surveillance system, a catalogue of virtues to cultivate, an enormous litany of evils to avoid, and a closing promise that transformation is always possible. The litany of evils — which constitutes the bulk of the text — reads like a moral inventory of an entire civilization: every species of cruelty, dishonesty, arrogance, and petty spite that human beings inflict upon one another is named, one by one, without commentary. The text does not explain why these things are wrong. It simply names them. The naming is the teaching.
This is a Good Works Translation from Classical Chinese, sourced from the Chinese Text Project (ctext.org) transcription, verified during this session.
The Most Exalted One said:
Fortune and misfortune have no gate —
people summon them upon themselves.
The requital of good and evil
follows like a shadow follows the body.
For this reason, heaven and earth have spirits who preside over transgressions. According to the severity of what each person has done, they deduct from that person's allotted life. When the reckoning is diminished, poverty and loss come, and troubles multiply. All people shun such a one. Punishment and misfortune pursue them. Good fortune avoids them. Malign stars afflict them. When the reckoning is spent, they die.
Furthermore, the spirit lords of the Three Platforms and the Northern Dipper stand above every person's head, recording their sins and offenses and deducting from their allotted years. Furthermore, the Three Worm spirits dwell within every person's body. On each gēngshēn day, they ascend to the Celestial Court and report that person's transgressions. On the last day of each month, the Hearth God does the same.
Whenever a person transgresses — if the offense is great, twelve years are taken; if small, one hundred days. Transgressions great and small number in the hundreds. Those who seek long life must first avoid them all.
Walk the Way and advance. Depart from the Way and retreat.
Do not tread crooked paths. Do not deceive in the dark of your own room. Accumulate virtue. Build up merit. Let your heart be kind toward all living things. Be loyal and filial, be a true friend and a faithful sibling. Set yourself right, and so transform others. Pity the orphaned. Relieve the widowed. Honor the aged. Cherish the young. Even insects and grasses and trees should not be harmed without cause.
You should grieve for others' misfortunes and delight in others' good deeds. Come to the aid of those in need. Rescue those in danger. When you see another's gain, treat it as your own gain. When you see another's loss, treat it as your own loss.
Do not expose others' shortcomings. Do not boast of your own strengths. Halt what is evil. Promote what is good. Give much and take little. Accept insult without resentment. Accept favor as though startled. Give kindness without seeking repayment. Give to others without regret.
This is what it means to be a good person. All people respect such a one. The Way of Heaven protects them. Fortune and blessings follow them. All evil keeps far from them. Spirits and gods guard them. Whatever they undertake succeeds. They may aspire to the immortals.
Those who seek to become celestial immortals must establish thirteen hundred good deeds. Those who seek to become earthly immortals must establish three hundred good deeds.
But if you act against righteousness and move against reason — if you consider evil a kind of strength, if you bear to inflict cruelty and harm; if you secretly wound the good and honest, if you covertly insult your rulers and parents; if you slight your teachers, if you betray those you serve; if you deceive the ignorant, if you slander your fellow students; if you falsely accuse and defraud, if you attack and expose your own kin; if you are harsh and merciless, if you are stubborn and self-willed; if your judgments of right and wrong are unjust, if your loyalties and oppositions are misplaced; if you oppress those below to claim credit, if you flatter those above to win favor; if you receive kindness without gratitude, if you nurse resentments without end; if you hold the common people in contempt, if you disturb the government of the state; if you reward the undeserving, if you punish the innocent; if you kill others for their wealth, if you topple others for their position; if you execute those who have surrendered, if you demote the upright and exclude the worthy; if you bully the orphaned and press the widowed, if you abandon the law for bribes; if you make the straight crooked, if you make the crooked straight; if you make the light offense heavy, if you add rage at the sight of killing; if you know your faults and do not change, if you know what is good and do not act; if you blame others for your own crimes, if you obstruct the arts of the Way; if you slander the sages and worthies, if you encroach upon the path of virtue —
If you shoot birds in flight and chase beasts on the run, if you dig out hibernating creatures and startle nesting birds; if you fill up burrows and overturn nests, if you injure the unborn and smash the egg —
If you wish others failure, if you destroy others' success; if you endanger others to keep yourself safe, if you diminish others to profit yourself; if you exchange the good for the bad, if you sacrifice the public for the private; if you steal others' abilities, if you conceal others' goodness; if you expose others' ugliness, if you reveal others' secrets; if you waste others' goods and wealth, if you divide others from their flesh and blood; if you trespass upon what others love, if you aid others in wrongdoing; if you indulge your will and exercise your power, if you humiliate others to claim victory; if you ruin others' crops and harvests, if you destroy others' marriages —
If you are rich and therefore arrogant, if you escape punishment and feel no shame; if you claim credit for others' kindness and shift blame for your own faults, if you pass your calamities to others and sell your own misdeeds; if you buy empty praise, if you harbor a treacherous heart; if you crush others' strengths and shield your own weaknesses; if you use your authority to coerce and threaten, if you give free rein to violence and killing; if you cut and tailor without cause, if you butcher and slaughter without propriety; if you scatter and waste the five grains, if you trouble and disturb all living beings; if you break apart others' households and seize their treasures; if you start fires or loose floods to harm where people dwell; if you disrupt others' plans and defeat their work; if you damage others' tools and instruments to deprive them of their use —
If you see others honored and wish them cast down; if you see others wealthy and wish them ruined; if you see others beautiful and let desire stir privately; if you owe others goods and wish them dead; if your requests are refused and you respond with curses and hatred; if you see others' misfortune and speak of their faults; if you see others' bodies imperfect and laugh at them, if you see others' talents praiseworthy and suppress them —
If you bury poisons to hex others, if you use drugs to kill trees; if you rage against your teachers, if you clash with your parents and elders; if you take by force and seize by demand, if you delight in invasion and plunder; if you grow rich through captives and pillage, if you seek advancement through cunning and fraud; if your punishments and rewards are unjust, if your indulgence and pleasure exceed all measure; if you oppress and abuse those beneath you, if you menace and terrify others; if you blame heaven and accuse other people, if you curse the wind and scold the rain; if you incite quarrels and lawsuits, if you recklessly follow factions and cliques —
If you heed the words of wives and concubines over the teaching of your parents; if you forget the old when the new arrives; if your mouth says one thing while your heart holds another; if you covet wealth and deceive your superiors; if you invent evil words and slander the innocent; if you destroy others and call it honesty, if you revile the spirits and call it righteousness; if you abandon the natural order and follow perversity, if you turn from kin and toward strangers; if you point to heaven and earth to justify base desires, if you invoke the spirits to witness vulgar affairs; if you give and then regret it, if you borrow and do not return; if you pursue gain beyond your station, if you exert yourself beyond your strength; if your lusts are excessive, if your face is kind but your heart is poisonous; if you feed others filthy food, if you lead the masses astray with deviant ways; if your measures and scales cheat short, if your weights and volumes run small; if you mix the false with the true to take dishonest profit; if you press the good into servitude, if you deceive and swindle the simple; if your greed knows no limit, if you call down curses to enforce your claims; if you are addicted to drink and given to disorder, if your own flesh and blood quarrel in anger —
If men are not loyal and true; if women are not gentle and yielding; if you do not keep peace in your household, if you do not respect your husband; if you are always boasting and showing off, if you are always acting from jealousy; if you show no proper conduct toward your wife and children, if you fail in courtesy toward your parents-in-law; if you treat the spirits of your ancestors with contempt, if you defy the commands of your superiors; if your actions serve no good, if your heart harbors divided loyalties; if you curse yourself and curse others, if you love and hate without fairness; if you step over the well and step over the hearth, if you leap over food and leap over people; if you harm your children or destroy the unborn, if you act often in secret and concealment; if you sing and dance on the days of mourning, if you weep and rage on the first day of the month; if you spit and urinate facing north, if you chant and laugh facing the hearth; and if you burn incense over the hearth-fire, if you cook food with filthy wood; if you rise naked in the night, if you carry out punishments on the eight seasonal nodes; if you spit at shooting stars, if you point at rainbows; if you point recklessly at the sun, moon, and stars, if you stare long at the sun and moon; if you hunt with fire in the spring, if you curse while facing north; if you kill turtles and beat snakes without cause —
For crimes such as these, the Director of Fates deducts from the allotted years according to their weight. When the reckoning is spent, they die. If there is guilt remaining after death, the calamity extends to their children and grandchildren.
Furthermore, all those who seize others' wealth by force — the reckoning falls upon their wives, children, and households in proportion. Gradually it leads to death and ruin. If not death and ruin, then floods, fires, thieves, loss of possessions, illness, quarrels, and other afflictions come to match the value of what was wrongly taken.
Those who kill others unjustly are trading swords and spears — they will be killed in turn. Those who take wealth by unrighteous means are like one who eats tainted meat to stave off hunger, or drinks poisoned wine to quench thirst — the belly may be briefly full, but death follows close behind.
Now: when a thought of goodness arises in the heart, even though the good deed has not yet been done, the spirits of good fortune are already following. When a thought of evil arises in the heart, even though the evil deed has not yet been done, the spirits of misfortune are already following.
If you have done evil in the past but later repent of your own accord — commit no evil, practice all good — then in time you will surely attain good fortune. This is what is called turning misfortune into blessing.
Therefore: the fortunate person speaks good, sees good, and does good. In a single day there are three goods; in three years heaven will surely send down blessings. The unfortunate person speaks evil, sees evil, and does evil. In a single day there are three evils; in three years heaven will surely send down calamity.
Why not strive, then, and walk this path?
Notes
Allotted life (算, suàn) — The unit of lifespan accounting in Chinese moral-retribution cosmology. One suàn equals one hundred days. A larger unit, the jì (紀), equals twelve years. The celestial spirits add or subtract these units according to one's deeds. The system presupposes that every person is born with a fixed allotment that can be shortened by evil or extended by virtue.
Three Platforms and the Northern Dipper (三臺北斗) — Celestial deities associated with the star formations of the Three Platforms (three pairs of stars near the Big Dipper) and the Northern Dipper (Beidou, the Big Dipper itself). In Daoist cosmology, these star-gods oversee human fate and record moral conduct. The Northern Dipper in particular governs death and lifespan — hence the Daoist practice of "pacing the Dipper" (bugang 步罡) in ritual.
Three Worm spirits (三尸神, Sānshī shén) — Three parasitic spirits believed to dwell in the upper, middle, and lower sections of the human body. They desire the host's death, because when the host dies they are freed. On each gēngshēn day (庚申, one of the sixty days in the sexagenary cycle), they ascend to heaven and report the host's sins to hasten this end. The practice of "guarding the gēngshēn" (shǒu gēngshēn 守庚申) — staying awake all night on gēngshēn days to prevent the Worms from ascending — was widespread in medieval China and was transmitted to Japan as kōshin (庚申) practice.
Hearth God (灶神, Zàoshén) — The domestic deity who presides over the kitchen hearth and reports each household's deeds to heaven on the last day of every month. On the twenty-third or twenty-fourth day of the twelfth month, the Hearth God makes an annual report to the Jade Emperor. Families traditionally smear honey on his paper image before burning it, hoping he will speak only sweetly of them in heaven. The Hearth God is one of the most ancient and most universally worshipped deities in Chinese popular religion.
Director of Fates (司命, Sīmìng) — The celestial official who oversees human destiny and lifespan. In the Daoist celestial bureaucracy, the Director of Fates maintains the registers of life and death and adjusts each person's allotted years according to their moral record. The office appears in texts as early as the Zhuangzi and the Chuci (Songs of the South).
Five grains (五穀, wǔgǔ) — The five staple grains of traditional Chinese agriculture, variously identified as rice, wheat, millet, sorghum, and beans. Wasting grain is considered a grave offense against both heaven and earth, because grain sustains human life and its cultivation represents the cooperation between heaven, earth, and humanity.
Eight seasonal nodes (八節, bājié) — The eight key divisions of the Chinese solar calendar: the two solstices, the two equinoxes, and the four cross-quarter days (Start of Spring, Start of Summer, Start of Autumn, Start of Winter). These are considered cosmologically sensitive moments when the boundary between the human and spiritual worlds is thin. Carrying out punishments or executions on these days disrupts the cosmic harmony.
Three Lights (三光, sānguāng) — The sun, moon, and stars. Pointing at these luminaries is considered disrespectful because they are the visible manifestations of celestial deities. The prohibition reflects the broader cosmological principle that the heavenly bodies are not mere objects but living presences deserving of reverence.
Colophon
The Treatise on Response and Retribution (太上感應篇) is the most widely circulated religious moral text in Chinese history. Its origins lie in the Song dynasty (960–1279), though it draws on centuries of moral-retribution literature reaching back to Ge Hong's Baopuzi (fourth century CE) and the ledgers of merit and demerit that circulated in medieval Daoist communities. The text achieved its extraordinary reach because it was embraced simultaneously by Daoists, Buddhists, and Confucians — each tradition finding its own teachings reflected in its pages. From the Song dynasty onward, emperors and philanthropists funded mass printings; the Qing emperor Kangxi himself wrote a preface for an annotated edition in 1706.
The Ganying Pian's moral vision is both severe and hopeful. The litany of evils is encyclopedic — there is no cruelty so petty, no dishonesty so small, that the celestial accountants do not record it. Yet the text closes with an unequivocal promise of transformation: repent, do no evil, practice all good, and fortune will come. The theology of moral causation is automatic and impersonal — not punishment by an angry god, but the natural response of the cosmos to human action, as reliable and as indifferent as a shadow following a body.
Source text: 太上感應篇, from the Chinese Text Project (ctext.org), transcription of the received text. Accessed and verified on March 8, 2026.
Good Works Translation from Classical Chinese by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: 太上感應篇
Chinese source text from the Chinese Text Project (ctext.org). The received text of the Taishang Ganying Pian, without the Qing-dynasty preface or later annotations. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.
太上曰：禍福無門，惟人自召。善惡之報，如影隨形。是以天地有司過之神。依人所犯輕重，以奪人算。算減則貧耗，多逢憂患。人皆惡之，刑禍隨之，吉慶避之，惡星災之。算盡則死。又有三臺北斗神君，在人頭上，錄人罪惡，奪其紀算。又有三尸神，在人身中，每到庚申日，輒上詣天曹，言人罪過。月晦之日，灶神亦然。凡人有過，大則奪紀，小則奪算。其過大小，有數百事。欲求長生者，先須避之。
是道則進，非道則退；不履邪徑，不欺暗室；積德累功，慈心於物；忠孝友悌，正己化人；矜孤恤寡，敬老懷幼；昆蟲草木，猶不可傷；宜憫人之兇，樂人之善；濟人之急，救人之危；見人之得，如己之得；見人之失，如己之失；不彰人短，不玄己長；遏惡揚善，推多取少；受辱不怨，受寵若驚；施恩不求報，與人不追悔。所謂善人，人皆敬之，天道佑之，福祿隨之，眾邪遠之，神靈衛之，所作必成，神仙可冀。欲求天仙者，當立一千三百善。欲求地仙者，當立三百善。
茍或非義而動，背理而行；以惡為能，忍作殘害；陰賊良善，暗侮君親；慢其先生，叛其所事；誑諸無識，謗諸同學；虛誣詐偽，攻訐宗親；剛強不仁，很戾自用；是非不當，向背乖宜；虐下取功，諂上希旨；受恩不感，念怨不休；輕蔑天民，擾亂國政；賞及非義，刑及無辜；殺人取財，傾人取位；誅降戮服，貶正排賢；陵孤逼寡，棄法受賂；以直為曲，以曲為直；入輕為重，見殺加怒；知過不改，知善不為；自罪引他，壅塞方術；訕謗聖賢，侵陵道德；射飛逐走，發蟄驚棲；塡穴覆巢，傷胎破卵；願人有失，毀人成功；危人自安，減人自益；以惡易好，以私廢公；竊人之能，蔽人之善；形人之醜，訐人之私；耗人貨財，離人骨肉；侵人所愛，助人為非；逞志作威，辱人求勝；敗人苗稼，破人婚姻；茍富而驕，茍免無恥；認恩推過，嫁禍賣惡；沽買虛譽，包貯險心；挫人所長，護己所短；乘威迫脅，縱暴殺傷；無故剪裁，非禮烹宰；散棄五穀，勞擾眾生；破人之家，取其財寶；決火放水，以害民居；紊亂規模，以敗人功；損人器物，以窮人用。
見他榮貴，願他流貶；見他富有，願他破散；見他色美，起心私之；負他貨財，願他身死；乾求不遂，便生咒恨；見他失便，便說他過；見他體相不具而笑之，見他才能可稱而抑之；埋蠱厭人，用藥殺樹；恚怒師傅，抵觸父兄；強取強求，好侵好奪；虜掠致富，巧詐求遷；賞罰不平，逸樂過節；苛虐其下，恐嚇於他；怨天尤人，訶風罵雨；斗合爭訟，妄逐朋黨；用妻妾語，違父母訓；得新忘故，口是心非；貪冒於財，欺罔其上；造作惡語，讒毀平人；毀人稱直，罵神稱正；棄順效逆，背親向疏；指天地以證鄙懷，引神明而鑒猥事；施與後悔，假借不還；分外營求，力上施設；淫慾過度，心毒貌慈；穢食餧人，左道惑眾；短尺狹度，輕秤小升；以偽雜真，採取姦利；壓良為賤，謾驀愚人；貪婪無厭，咒詛求直；嗜酒悖亂，骨肉忿爭；男不忠良，女不柔順；不和其室，不敬其夫；每好矜誇，常行妒忌；無行於妻子，失禮於舅姑；輕嫚先靈，違逆上命；作為無益，懷挾外心；自咒咒他，偏憎偏愛；越井越灶，跳食跳人；損子墮胎，多行隱僻；晦臘歌舞，朔旦號怒；對北涕唾及溺，對灶吟詠及笑；又以灶火燒香，穢柴作食；夜起裸露，八節行刑；唾流星，指虹霓；輒指三光，久視日月；春日燎獵，對北惡罵；無故殺龜打蛇。
如是等罪，司命隨其輕重，奪其紀算，算盡則死。死有餘責，乃殃及子孫。
又諸橫取人財者，乃計其妻子家口以當之，漸至死喪。若不死喪，則有水火、盜賊、遺亡器物、疾病、口舌諸事，以當妄取之直。又枉殺人者，是易刀兵而相殺也。取非義之財者，譬如漏脯救饑，鴆酒止渴。非不暫飽，死亦及之。
夫心起於善，善雖未為，而吉神已隨之。或心起於惡，惡雖未為，而凶神已隨之。其有曾行惡事，後自改悔，諸惡莫作，眾善奉行。久久必獲吉慶，所謂轉禍為福也。
故吉人語善、視善、行善，一日有三善，三年天必降之福；凶人語惡、視惡、行惡，一日有三惡，三年天必降之禍，胡不勉而行之。
Source Colophon
Chinese source text from the Chinese Text Project (ctext.org), received text of the Taishang Ganying Pian (太上感應篇). Accessed and verified via browser on March 8, 2026.
The Taishang Ganying Pian exists in numerous recensions and annotated editions. The text presented here follows the received version as transcribed on ctext.org, which preserves the standard Song-dynasty form without the Qing-dynasty preface (太上感應篇集註序) by Chen Tingjing (陳廷敬, Kangxi 45 / 1706) or later interlinear commentary. One modern annotation by Sun Shouzhen (孫守真) embedded in the ctext.org transcription has been removed from the source text presented here; the original text is otherwise unaltered.
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