The Female Green Demon Statutes
The original text does not record its author.
Judging from its content, it should be a set of precepts of Celestial Master Taoism dating from the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.
This text had already been quoted in early Taoist works such as The Calendar of Master Chisong’s Memorials and The Scripture of Divine Spirits and Ghostly Beings Essential to the Dao.
The original version consisted of eight scrolls; Bibliographical Survey of Literature in Comprehensive Records of the Dynasties listed it as ten scrolls. The surviving version in the Daoist Canon has six scrolls and is included in the category of Precept Texts in the Dongshen Section (the Section of Cave Spirits).
The text claims that since the first year of the Later Heavenly Sovereign’s reign, countless evil ghosts had plagued the mortal world and harmed the people.
Unable to bear seeing their sufferings, the Supreme Lord issued these Eight Scrolls of Demon Statutes on the seventh day of the seventh lunar month in the second year of the Later Heavenly Sovereign’s reign. The text recorded the names of ghosts and gods across the world, as well as techniques for divining good and ill fortune, and was delivered to Heavenly Master Zhang Daoling, charging him to command the ghosts and gods not to wander arbitrarily across the four directions (east, west, south and north).
The book documents the names of various ghosts and gods, and purportedly in the voices of the Supreme Lord and Heavenly Master Zhang, it exhorts Taoist believers to observe the precepts and recite the names of ghosts. By doing so, believers can draw good fortune and ward off misfortune, achieving the state where “ten thousand ghosts dare not intrude, and a thousand deities submit in homage”.
The text also contains the so-called “Three-Five-Seven-Nine Way of Longevity” and the “Art of Yellow and Red Union”, which were also esoteric practices of early Celestial Master Taoism.
Featured Products
Handpicked recommendations just for you
