Scroll One: The Origin of the Heavenly Worm
Now, the character for "silkworm" is formed of "heaven" above and "worm" below, its origin lying beyond the heavens themselves. The Silkworm Mother arose at the dawn of the Great Void, spinning silk, weaving her cocoon, and breaking free from it, following the course of heavenly principle, transcendent beyond all worldly things.
A thousand years ago, divine might first descended upon the lands east of the river, and the ancients were fortunate enough to glimpse this sacred trace. In the customs of high antiquity, the dead were often wrapped in layer upon layer of silk cloth before burial, in the hope that their departed souls might emulate the Silkworm Mother, attain the Way, and ascend on wings.
Scroll Two: Traces of the Divine, Still to Be Found
In the thousand years since, the true form of the Silkworm Mother has long vanished from the mortal world. Yet though her divine traces lie hidden, faint echoes still remain. Let three proofs be offered to illuminate this truth.
The first is the breadth of sericulture itself. Across the vastness of the Nine Provinces, though separated by ten thousand li, sericulture and mulberry cultivation flourished alike in many lands, and vessels for honoring the silkworm were cast in common. This stands as clear proof that all living creatures beneath heaven and earth were bathed alike in the Silkworm Mother's divine magic.
The second is the method of seclusion. In later ages, both the schools of Buddhism and Daoism speak of "seclusion for quiet cultivation"—abstaining from water and grain, purifying the six senses, in hope of transcending the mundane and attaining sagehood. Whence came this method? It was born of the ancients, who, having witnessed with their own eyes the heavenly worm neither eating nor moving, dissolving into liquid within its cocoon, then breaking free to take flight, sought to emulate it with their own bodies. What is called seclusion is but a cocoon that man weaves for himself.
The third is the Emperor's silkworm rite. Throughout the ages, emperors have not begrudged bending their ten-thousand-chariot dignity to personally offer sacrifice to the First Silkworm, year upon year. The world believes this merely a prayer for bountiful harvests of grain and mulberry—yet when has an emperor's sacrifice ever truly been for rice and millet? The true essence of the First Silkworm Rite is a ceremony wherein the Emperor, on behalf of all his people, beseeches the Silkworm Mother for the secret of transformation.
Scroll Three: Shedding the Mortal Frame
Thus we know: the essence of honoring the Silkworm Mother lies in shedding the mortal frame and remaking the bones.
The body of flesh and blood must in the end know birth, age, sickness, and death. The soul, trapped within it, is as the silkworm trapped within its cocoon—though it harbors ambitions to pierce the very heavens, in the end it cannot take flight.
Yet the Silkworm Mother has shown us the Way through the heavenly worm: if even so small a creature can achieve metamorphosis and ascend on wings, how much more so may man?
Those who follow this path must understand: only by shedding the common flesh and inferior bone entirely can one break free from the prison of the mortal husk, and let the soul ascend in broad daylight. To molt is not to lose, but to gain.
What one becomes is no longer human—it is something that transcends humanity itself.
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