Zhang Daoling

Zhang Daoling as pictured in Myths and Legends of China by
E. T. C. Werner.

Zhang Daoling (ca. 35-150 C.E.)(张道陵; pinyin Zhāng Dàolíng, Wade-Giles Chang Tao-ling), also commonly called Zhang Ling, was a Daoist hermit who lived during the Eastern Han dynasty. Contrary to the antinomian/apolitical bent of many such renunciants, Zhang had a certain organizational genius, which was manifested in his founding of the theocratic and millennial Zhengyi Mengwei Tianshi Dao ("Tradition of the Celestial Master of the Mighty Commonwealth of Orthodox Oneness") sect (also known as the "Tianshi Dao" ("Way of the Celestial Masters") or the "Wudou Mi Dao" ("Five Pecks of Rice Movement"))—one of the earliest and most influential schools of institutional Daoism.

While few of the specifics of Zhang Daoling's life are definitively known, he remains a frequent player in Daoist and popular Chinese folklore, with tales describing both his earthly encounters with the divinized Laozi and his posthumous adventures as an immortal.

Biographical Sketch

See also: Celestial Masters, Laozi, Yellow Turban Rebellion

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Zhang Daoling went on to found the first regular Daoist church/community as noted above. A major change instituted by the new Covenant was the rejection of food and animal sacrifices. Also, the teachings of Lao Zi as transmitted by Zhang Daoling included the first true Taoist religious pantheon as distinguished from the prior ancient religion of China.

At the end of the Han dynasty in the late 2nd century C.E., the Five Pecks of Rice Sect founded by the Taoist Master Chang Taoling required its adepts to stay in a quiet room to repent for their wrong doings if they were caught by sickness. Yet this seemingly moral element in the early Taoist religion was not connected with the way to immortality. One of the earliest Taoist scriptures the T'ai P'ing Ching contains various moral advice to its readers, yet only rarely did these have to do with immortality.

Though not directly tied to the pursuit of immortality, a major development pioneered by Zhang Daoling was the equation between guilt and sin (on one hand) and corporeal health and good fortune (on the other).

Zhang was a faith healer, visionary, and religious innovator who founded a Daoist church-the Way of the Celestial Masters-in western China during the waning years of the Han dynasty, following a religious vision he experienced in 142 C.E. The church functioned as a genuine theocracy, filling the void created by the fall of the Han and enrolling hundreds of thousands of members over several decades.

Church founder Zhang Daoling's original vision was of Laozi, depicted in Daoist texts of the Han and Six Dynasties periods as a god who descends, messiah-like, at various critical points in China's history, generally to assist a sage-king to found a new dynasty. The crisis of the Han decline was

described as a fall from a past golden age ("high antiquity") to the current disheartening state ("low antiquity"), an era when the "stale emanations of the six heavens" had supplanted the originally pure heavenly breaths. Celestial Masters adepts were characterized as "seed people," a Daoist elect saved through the good works of the Celestial Masters church, who would in turn repopulate a new world purged by the disasters of the "stale breaths." If the primary emphasis among early Celestial Masters was on church building and religious practice, it is nonetheless obvious that the elements of discourse were in place to permit an evolution toward a more stridently apocalyptic stance.

Some also say he was the grandfather of later Daoist and Yellow Turban leader Zhang Jue.

Mythological and Religious Accounts

According to tradition, in 142 C.E., Laozi himself appeared to Zhang Daoling on Mount Heming, and informed the hermit that the world was coming to an end, to be followed by an era of Great Peace. Lao Zi explained that those following him would go on to another life, part of the "Orthodox One Covenant with the Powers" ("Zhengyi meng wei"). Through this covenant, Zhang Daoling and his followers would have access to the assistance of celestial powers who control the fate of mankind.

It is said that Zhang Daoling did not die; he ascended to heaven with his wife Yong and two disciples. One of the Immortals, he is now also known as the "Ancestral Celestial Master" or "Celestial Master Zhang."

Their T'ai-shang Lao-chun [the apotheosized Laozi) was a celestial god who installed Chang Tao-ling as his terrestrial representative, a religious function which, as far as the secular reign is concerned, was merely intended to secure the interregnum until a new virtuous dynasty, worthy of the god's approval, would have succeeded to the Han and assumed political authority over the Taoist parishes of Szechwan.

Zhang Daoling in Religious Practice

The Daoist adepts in Taiwan still trace their instruction lineages back to Zhang Daoling.

Healing the sick and fabricating charms

See also

• Five Pecks of Rice Rebellion
• Way of the Celestial Master

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Fowler, Jeaneane. An Introduction to the Philosophy and Religion of Taoism. Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2005.
• Goodrich, Anne S. Peking Paper Gods: A Look at Home Worship. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series XXIII. Nettetal: Steyler-Verlag, 1991. ISBN 3-8050-0284-X.
• Ownby, David. "Chinese Millenarian Traditions: The Formative Age." The American Historical Review 104:5 (December 1999). 1513-1530.
• Poo, Mu-chou. "The Images of Immortals and Eminent Monks: Religious Mentality in Early Medieval China (4-6 c. A.D.)." Numen 42:2 (May 1995). 172-196.
• Robinet, Isabelle. Taoism: Growth of a Religion. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997 [original French 1992]. ISBN 0804728399.
• Schipper, Kristopher. The Taoist Body. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993 [original French version 1982]. ISBN 0520082249.
• Shuhmacher, Stephan and Gert Woerner (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Eastern Philosophy and Religion: Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen. Boston: Shambala, 1994. ISBN 0877739803.
• Werner, E.T.C. "Jade Emperor" in A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology. Wakefield, NH: Longwood Academic, 1990. 341-352. ISBN 0-89341-034-9.

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