The Ling Bao Wei Yi Jing Jue 灵宝威仪经诀

Full name: The Scripture and Instructions on the Natural True Unity of the Cave Mysterious, Expounding the Ritual Etiquette of the Supreme Numinous Treasure by the Supreme True Person of the Supreme Ultimate and Great Void; also referred to in abbreviation as The Scripture and Instructions of Natural True Unity.

It is one of the ancient Numinous Treasure Scriptures of Taoism, probably compiled in the late Eastern Jin Dynasty.

Lu Xiujing’s Catalogue of Numinous Treasure Scriptures already recorded this text as a one-scroll work.

The original version was not included in the Zhengtong Daoist Canon.

According to the records in Ōfuchi Ninji’s A Catalogue of Dunhuang Taoist Scriptures, there are three fragmentary manuscript copies of this scripture among the Dunhuang manuscripts (P2356, P2403, P2452). In addition, a large number of lost texts from this scripture are preserved in Taoist works of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, Tang, and Song dynasties.

The scripture is pseudonymously attributed to the Supreme Ultimate True Person Xu Laile and Immortal Lord Ge (Ge Xuan) expounding its teachings. It mainly extols the prestige and virtue of the Numinous Treasure Scriptures and elaborates on the rituals and ceremonies for transmitting the Numinous Treasure Scriptures. It claims that "the Heavenly Scripts of the Supreme Numinous Treasure of the Cave Mysterious are the ultimate truth of the Dao, supreme and unparalleled". To transmit the Numinous Treasure Scriptures, one must prepare tokens of faith; after swearing an oath to receive the scriptures, there are rituals such as declaration, praise, and revering the master.

At the end of the scripture, it is stated that on the first day of the first lunar month in the jǐmǎo year (199 CE), the Supreme Ultimate True Person Xu Laile transmitted the Numinous Treasure Scriptures to Immortal Lord Ge at Mount Shangyu in Kuaiji. Later, during the Chìwū reign period of the Wu state, Ge Xuan further passed the scriptures to his disciples Zheng Siyuan, the monk Zhu Falan, the monk Daowei, and Sun Quan, the ruler of Wu, at Mount Tiantai. Zheng Siyuan then transmitted the scriptures to Ge Hong (Baopuzi), the grandnephew of Immortal Lord Ge, at Mount Maji. In the third lunar month of the sixth year of the Jiànyuán reign period (around 344 CE), Ge Hong passed them down to the world at Mount Luofu.

From this, it can be inferred that this book was actually compiled by Ge Chaofu, a Taoist priest at the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty. Lu Xiujing of the Southern Dynasties, when compiling The Ritual for Transmitting and Conferring the Supreme Cave Mysterious Numinous Treasure, was greatly influenced by this scripture.