The Daoist Ritual Codification 道门定制

Compiled and collated by Lü Yuansu, a Taoist priest of the Southern Song Dynasty.

In ten volumes, it is included in the Zhengyi Section of The Daozang.

The book is divided into two parts: the First Collection and the Second Collection.

The first five volumes were compiled in the Wushen year of the Chunxi reign period (1188 CE); the latter five volumes were compiled in the Xinyou year of the Jiatai reign period (1201 CE).

This work is a comprehensive anthology of ritual norms for Taoist fasting and sacrificial ceremonies (jiao). In his self-preface, the author stated that in ancient times, Taoist fasting and sacrificial rituals only employed talismans and vermilion imperial edicts, whereas written memorials, official statements and documents were added in later generations. Observing that such texts had become either overly elaborate or simplistic in disparate ways and were improperly applied in practice, Lü Yuansu collected ritual models and written texts of fasting ceremonies from the works of predecessors, "revised and collated them separately to render them moderate and appropriate".

The first five volumes compile various memorials, statements, official documents, notices and dispatches used in fasting and sacrificial rituals, as well as divine positions, talismanic edicts and the like. It first expounds on these texts by category, then enumerates exemplary models with appended collation notes by Lü Yuansu. Volumes Six to Eight separately elaborate on the ritual methods of fasting and sacrificial ceremonies for altar consecration, household pacification, tomb pacification, sacrificial offerings, subduing evil spirits, praying for rain and other rites. The last two volumes miscellaneously record various divine plaques, official documents and announcements employed in Taoist fasting and sacrificial rituals.

The Imperial Catalog of the Four Treasuries records an eleven-volume edition of this book printed in the Yuan Dynasty: the first five volumes contain the memorials, statements, official documents and talismans used in fasting and sacrificial ceremonies, compiled by Lü Yuansu; the subsequent six volumes were supplemented by Lü Taihuan, a disciple of Lü Yuansu, which also incorporate contents such as the Jade Voice Rituals of the Zhenghe Reign and the fasting prayers composed by Emperor Huizong of the Northern Song himself.

Its canonical ritual system inherits the complete norms of the Tang and Song Taoist sacrificial rituals, and is affiliated to the disciplinary tradition preserved in The Dongshen Section of the Taoist canon, with its textual pedigree tracing back to the ritual protocols finalized in the flourishing age of the the Tang Dynasty.