- The sutra has a number of variant texts, but all of them are in a moxture of verse and prose [174]
- The eponymous "five lords" are human incarnations of Five major buddhisatvas, viz"
- Maitreya 彌勒 (incarnated as Lord Tang or Tanggong 唐公),
- Samantabhadra or Puxian 普賢 (incarnated as Lord Lang or Langgong 朗公),
- the Great Saint of Sizhou 泗州 (incarnated as Lord Bao or Baogong 寶公),
- Akshayamati or Inexhaustible Intention 無盡意 (incarnated as Lord Hua or Huagong 化公),
- Avalokiteśvara or Guanyin 觀音 (incarnated as Lord Zhi or Zhigong 誌公).
- Some time in the future- there will be a complete degeneration of the social order; disaster after disaster will strike the land. heaven will send a "Dark wind to inspect the cities and suburbs", which will judge the wicked and destroy them. Evil people will be destroyed mercilessly
- All these disasters can be avoided if by possessing the sutra, and the amulets the Five Lords have revealed, carrying the amulets about the body and pasting them on the house [175]
"You make ready a yellow banner and one bushel of millet (shu 黍).You write the two characters for Peace (ping’an 平安) with cinnabar on the yellow banner. The yellow banner must be stuck in the middle [of the bushel] to press down the house, after which you install[another] four [flags] and hang them in the four corners in the East, West, South and North.You burn incense and worship, reciting this Sutra for seven days and seven nights again and again. If you do this, then you can eliminate all disasters and annihilate one’s crimes. Whenthe heavenly deities inspect all households, the demon kings that spread diseases will not passby your gate. Evil winds and violent rains will not dare to intrude or to harm you. One mayescape the catastrophes of the final age. 若有置造黃幡一首，黍一斗. 黃幡上用硃書「平安」二字. 黃幡插在中央鎮宅. 后[sic]置四首, 懸掛四角, 以東西南北, 焚香供養. 七日七夜, 轉誦此經, 可以消災滅罪. 天神家家糾察. 行病鬼王, 不過其門. 惡風暴雨, 不敢侵害 可逃末劫之災" (Te haars translation, 175)
- After all these disasters, in the year of the Tiger or Rabbit, the Luminous King 明王 will appear, and rescue everyone that has a copy of the book. Everyone else will die. The new cosmic order will be characterised by an absence of poverty; this heavenly kingdom will be called Luoping"羅平", or "All-encompassing peace"
The sutra existed in some form or another since the Tang dynasty. It was clandestinely circulated through China across the ages; this secrecy was paramount, as it was the inspiration for more than one rebel movement. Interest in the sutra peaked whenever there was political instability in china.
In recent years, the situation has cooled down somewhat, and old copies of the sutra are available on the great 2nd hand book market place called Kongfuzi. indeed, the text has also been placed on the baidu webpage-- but alas, without the all-important talismans.
***
This present book is the author's copy of the work. he got it off taobao, a Chinese online retailer. If his memory serves him correctly, this particular book was purchased form a retailer based in Sichuan, but it was also available from many other sellers. The seller offered many more of these small chapbooks on occult subjects like fengshui and horoscopy. Alas, owing to what seems to be a crackdown on all forms of religious books in taobao, such books are now hard to come by. The whole pamphlet is scanned here, including the all-important talismans. the author hopes someone can translate the text from Chinese to English; this would doubtless increase our knowledge of Chinese folk customs, as well, perhaps, of saving us from the impending apocalypse.
***
Note, the book can also be found on internet archive: https://archive.org/details/wugongjing_images/page/n2/mode/2up
Readers should note that this book reads Right-to-left, like all old Chinese books.
p. 3: A mantra to stabilize the earth 安土地咒.
It should be noted, that reciting such mantras before reciting the scripture proper is a common practice in Chinese buddhism.
It seems The sutra starts on the 3rd line of page 4:
