early buddhism in china: daoist reactions 229
authors then surely the owners of the original scripture were given silk
as present, the material on which further scriptures could be written.
From this incident Ge Hong derived the general rule that whenever
scriptures are found—besides revering them—the place has to be
cleaned. We may infer from this example that this meant to sprinkle
and sweep the ground if it was a cave and to put the scripture on a
special repository, an altar. If it was found in the open, special measures
were to be taken as the following example, taken from a fragment of
the Daoxue zhuan (Biographies of Students of the Dao), which
is attributed to Ma Shu (522–581) during the last quarter of the
sixth century AD, shows:
[.. .] At the beginning of the Liang [dynasty] (502 AD), in the [vast]
plain desert [around] the islet of the Kunlun mountains, there were three
old lacquered boxes, inside [which] there was the Taiping jing
(“Scripture of the great peace”) in three parts written [on] yellow plain
[silk] and [hand-]written by Gan Jun. The villagers held [them] in awe,
extended the site [where] the scripture [was found], erected a meditation
[hut] and made offerings [to it]. [.. .]^134In order to shelter the scripture it was no longer considered suf cient
just to sweep the place, but it was felt necessary to erect a special build-
ing for it, a “meditation hut” or small shrine.
The scripture as a holy object renders the place where it exists sacred
as well, the “quiet room” erected on their behalf is a dwelling place
for gods. What we see in the villagers’ behaviour towards the found
scripture, in the just quoted passage, is nothing other than a cult, a
cult in which a book, the Taiping jing (Scripture of the Great
Peace), is worshipped. The villagers who found it treated it as one would
treat a god or powerful spirit: on behalf of it they erected a shrine (a
“meditation chamber”), where they could pray to it and sacri ce to it
just as they would if it were a supernatural being. This passage may
even be the rst evidence of any Chinese Daoist book cult. Since Daoist
scriptures—thanks to their origin as emanations from the primordial
energy—were considered holy and since they were, at least in the
Shangqing and Lingbao movements from the fourth century
on, known to be surrounded and protected by supernatural beings,
they had to be treated like holy persons such as gods or immortals.
The villagers who were almost certainly unable to read the text surely
(^134) Daoxue zhuan fragment 156, Bumbacher 2000, p. 270.