Belongs To Tradition

This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.

Taoism Mantras gathers two invocations that its own descriptions identify as a deliberately paired morning and evening set, drawn from the same standard liturgical text rather than as unrelated formulas that happen to share a category.

Namo Taiyi Jiuku Tianzun is recited in the evening portion of the Xuanmen Zaowan Tan Gongke Jing, the standard Taoist morning and evening recitation, addressed to the Heavenly Worthy who descends into the underworld to release suffering, and chanted for the dying, the dead and those in distress. Its opening word, namo, is a Sanskrit loan taken from Buddhist usage, a visible trace of the exchange between the two traditions in medieval China; it functions as a name-recitation in much the way the Buddhist nembutsu does. Jiutian Yingyuan Leisheng Puhua Tianzun, the invocation of the Thunder Patriarch, is recited in the morning portion of the same text and is oriented toward the practitioner's own purification rather than toward compassion for others, the reverse orientation of its evening counterpart.

Read together the two formulas trace one daily cycle: purification directed inward at the day's opening, and compassion directed outward at its close, both spoken from the same liturgical source.