Astral Deities and Disease in Dūnhuáng: Death, Malevolent Spirits, and Ritual Control

This paper explores the link between Dūnhuáng’s astral deities and disease, death, and malevolent spirits via Dūnhuáng manuscript P.2713, which contains the Incantation of the Twenty-Eight Lunar Mansions (廿八宿神咒), as well as the transmitted Procedures for Distinguishing the Movements of the Stars According to the Seven Planets (七曜星辰別行法). By examining these texts alongside transmitted Buddhist scriptures and visual materials, the paper investigates the relationships between astral deities and disease-spreading ghosts, including their hierarchical associations and the ritual methods used to identify and subdue these ghosts. The Book of Onset of Illnesses (發病書) in P.2856, the Dhāraṇī Sūtra of the Mother of All Stars (諸星母陀羅尼經) in P.2282, the Method for Calculating Calamities and Misfortunes in the Annual Cycle of the Nine-Planet Deities (推九曜行年災厄法) in P.3779, and other manuscripts and scriptures further reveal the varied ways in which astral deities were associated with human misfortune and the supernatural forces that were believed to shape human fate. Multiple explanations underlie the connections between astral deities, disease, death, and malevolent spirits: some illnesses and threats to human life associated with astral deities are addressed through rituals and incantations; other calamities are triggered by stellar movements and conjunctions between one’s astrological year (xíngnián 行年) and celestial bodies; meanwhile, at the doctrinal level, calamities are reinterpreted either as the fruits of karmic retribution or as manifestations of disciplinary order.