Prologue to the Jueshijing

This is a rough draft of my translation of the prologue to the 覺世經 Jueshijing, the World Awakening Scripture, revealed by 關帝 Guandi probably in the late Ming or early Qing. The Chinese text which I have provided is from my critical edition, sans the apparatus, which I synthesized from several different manuscripts and inscriptions. There are no major textual variants to speak of — most are insertions or deletions of relatively minor characters.

Chinese Text

1	帝君曰：
2	人生在世
3	貴盡忠孝節義等事
4	方於人道無愧
5	可立身於天地之間
6	若不盡忠孝節義等事
7	身雖在世
8	其心已死
9	是謂偷生
10	凡人心即神
11	神即心
12	無愧心
13	無愧神
14	若是欺心
15	便是欺神
16	故君子三畏四知
17	以慎其獨
18	勿謂暗室可欺
19	屋漏可愧
20	一動一靜
21	神明鑒察
22	十目十手
23	理所必至
24	況報應昭昭
25	不爽毫髮
26	淫為諸惡首
27	孝為百善行原
28	f有逆理
29	於心有愧者
30	勿謂有利而行之
31	凡有合理
32	於心無愧者
33	勿謂無利而不行
34	若負吾教
35	請試吾刀

Free translation

The Supreme Emperor says:

In life, one should value undying loyalty, piety, moral integrity, and so on. Where a man’s actions are blameless, he can stand under heaven and earth. If one is disloyal, pious, immoral, and so on, then — though his body is yet alive — his heart¹ is dead. Indeed, he lives on in disgrace.²

A mortal’s heart is divine, the heart is the abode of gods: shameless heart, shameless gods. If one decieves his heart, indeed how easily he deceives the gods! Thus, the noble one takes note of the Three Fears and Four Knowledges.³ Therefore, he is cautious in his solitude, never thinking he can cheat in dark rooms — indeed, the bowels of the house can shame one. The gods closely examine all movement, all stillness — ten eyes, ten hands.⁴ Inevitably they exact the proper revenge: not even a single hair is unnoticed.

Lewdness is the origin of ten thousand evils, piety is the origin of the one hundred virtues. If one acts contrary to these teachings, he is with a shamed heart. If it is not virtuous, then do not undertake it — one who is without a shamed heart does not do that which is not virtuous.

If one burdens my teaching, he asks for my blade.

1. 心 xīn translates literally to “heart”, as in, the actual organ pumping blood throughout the body. However, it is often glossed as “mind” or “heart-mind” as it occupies a different semantic field than the Western metaphorical “heart.” ↩︎
2. Literally “he steals his life.” ↩︎
3. Three Fears and Four Knowledges: Heed fate, heed elders, and heed the gods. I know, heaven knows, the gods know, and my descendants know. ↩︎
4. A proverbial way of referring to the innumerable spirits that judge mortals. ↩︎