Supreme Canon for Removing the Three Corpses 太上除三尸九虫保生经

The author is unknown. The text mentions the third year of the Guanghua reign in the Tang Dynasty (900 AD), so it was presumably compiled in the late Tang Dynasty and the Five Dynasties period. Consisting of one scroll, it is included in the Method category of the The Dongshen Section within The Daozang.

Supreme Canon for Removing the Three Corpses

The content of this scripture is divided into three parts. First, it lists the diagrams of the Three Souls and Seven Po, and elaborates on the method of "refining the yang souls to subdue the yin po", which mainly consists of reciting incantations. Second, it presents the diagram of the corpse-guarding ghosts, and recounts a story from the late Tang Dynasty about two brothers who took Golden Elixir to eliminate the corpse-guarding ghosts and attain immortality. Third, it enumerates the diagrams of the Three Corpses and Nine Worms, and describes their names, the symptoms of the harm they inflict on humans, as well as the methods to eliminate and cure their infestation. It is stated that these diagrams and the worm-eliminating methods were passed down by the Immortal Sun (Sun Simiao).

At the end of the text, more than ten methods for eliminating the Three Corpses and Nine Worms are copied and recorded, such as the Supreme Lord’s Prescriptions for Eliminating Corpse Worms, the Inner Biography of Immortal Su’s Methods for Eliminating the Three Corpse Worms, the Method of Observing the Gengshen Day, the Oral Instructions of the Supreme True Lord, Master Zhao’s Method of Eliminating the Three Corpses and Nine Worms, and Master Jiang’s Method of Eliminating the Three Corpses. Most of these methods are based on taking medicinal herbs, supplemented by the practice of talismans and incantations.