Daoshu Yuanshen Qi (The Daoist Text: A Covenant Linking to Divinities) 道书援神契

Composed by an anonymous Daoist priest during the Yuan Dynasty.

Consisting of one volume, it is included in the Zhengyi Section (Orthodox Unity Section) of the Daozang (Daoist Canon).

This text investigates and verifies the origins of Daoist terms, rituals, and objects.

At the beginning of the volume, there is a preface written by the author in the 9th year of the Dade era (1305 CE). In the preface, the author states: "The norms for Daoist headwear, robes, and rituals originally align with the ancient ritual systems recorded in the Confucian Six Classics. I have specially written this book to examine their origins, aiming to prove that Laozi’s teaching is not a heresy—its original form was consistent with that of Confucianism."

The text cites the Confucian Six Classics as evidence to investigate and verify 32 categories of Daoist elements, including: Daoist temples, ritual altars (jiao altars), bells and chimes, incense and lamps, deities, pastries and fruits, canopies and curtains, ritual robes, hats and garments, jade tablets, memorial tablets, talismans and slips, buxu (ritual recitation while pacing), memorials to deities, kowtows and prostrations, ritual rulers, ritual swords, ritual steps, incantations for prohibition, talismanic scripts, lamp arrangements, spirit possession, hand censers, imperial bells, qijue (breath techniques), command tokens, banners and canopies, yun’ao (a stringed ritual instrument), prayers for healing, prayers for sunshine/rain (with supplementary rituals for disaster expulsion), grain abstinence, and Daoist priests.

The author claims that all the above 32 categories of Daoist terms and objects are rooted in ancient Confucian ritual systems. Although the text’s investigations and verifications are inevitably strained and far-fetched in some parts, they still reveal that Confucian and Daoist cultures indeed share the same origin and root.