Daoism

Daoism grew out of the thought of ancient China in the age of the Warring States. Two books stand at its source. The DaodejingDaodejing The classic of the Way and its power, attributed to Laozi, the foundational text of Daoism. Glossary, attributed to the sage Laozi, speaks in short, riddling verses of the Dao, the Way that cannot be named. The Zhuangzi, named after the thinker Zhuang Zhou, uses stories and humour to free the mind from fixed ideas. Both date from around the 4th–3rd centuries BCE.

As an organised religion, Daoism began in 142 CE in Sichuan. Zhang Daoling, Daoists believe, received a revelation from Laozi, now worshipped as a god, and founded the community of the Celestial Masters, with priests, registers of members and rituals for healing.

In the following centuries new revelations gave rise to further traditions, a vast canon of scriptures and a network of temples and monasteries on sacred mountains. Emperors of the Tang dynasty claimed Laozi as their ancestor. In the 12th century the Quanzhen order of celibate monks arose in the north. Suppressed during the Cultural Revolution, Daoism has revived in China since the 1980s and flourishes in Taiwan, Hong Kong and among Chinese communities worldwide.

Daoism’s long history began in the Han dynasty, when Laozi was transformed from a sage into a god. Emperors offered him sacrifices in the 160s CE, and in 142, Daoists believe, he appeared to Zhang Daoling in Sichuan. The Celestial Masters who followed built an organised community, and under Zhang Daoling’s grandson Zhang Lu they governed a small state in the Hanzhong valley until he submitted to the warlord Cao Cao in 215. Around the same time, in 184, the Yellow Turban rebellion, led by a movement that preached a coming age of Great Peace, shook the dynasty; it was crushed, but it left Chinese rulers wary of religious movements with mass followings.

The centuries of division after the fall of the Han were the great age of revelation. In the 4th century the scholar Ge Hong wrote on alchemy and the quest for immortality, and between 364 and 370 a medium named Yang Xi received visits from celestial beings on Mount Mao, near modern Nanjing. His texts became the core of the Shangqing tradition, later edited by the scholar Tao Hongjing (456–536). The Lingbao scriptures, which drew on Buddhist ideas of universal salvation, appeared around 400. In 471 the priest Lu Xiujing catalogued the scriptures in “three caverns”, the framework of every later Daoist canon. In the north, the reformer Kou Qianzhi won the favour of the Northern Wei court, and in the 440s Daoism briefly became its official religion.

Under the Tang dynasty (618–907) Daoism reached the height of imperial favour. The ruling Li family claimed descent from Laozi, whose surname was traditionally Li. Emperor Xuanzong wrote a commentary on the Daodejing, ordered every household to own a copy and added Daoist texts to the state examinations. Princesses were ordained as Daoist priestesses. Throughout these centuries Daoists competed with Buddhists for court patronage, sometimes in formal debates before the throne.

The Song emperors were also generous patrons, none more than Huizong (r. 1100–1126), who had the first printed Daoist canon produced and styled himself a Daoist ruler. New ritual traditions, such as the Thunder Rites for expelling demons, spread among priests serving local communities. In the north, conquered by the Jurchen, Wang Chongyang founded the monastic Quanzhen order. His disciple Qiu Chuji travelled to meet Genghis Khan in 1222 and returned with privileges that let Quanzhen flourish under Mongol rule. Its fortunes turned when Buddhist monks won court debates, and in 1281 Kublai Khan ordered Daoist books other than the Daodejing to be burned.

The Ming emperors restored Daoist prestige. They recognised the Celestial Masters of Longhushan as heads of Daoism in the south, and the Yongle emperor built a vast complex of temples on Mount Wudang from 1412 in honour of the warrior god Zhenwu. The canon was printed again in 1445, with a supplement in 1607. The Manchu rulers of the Qing dynasty (1644–1912) preferred Tibetan Buddhism and Confucian orthodoxy, and court support faded, though the Longmen branch of Quanzhen revived monastic life from the White Cloud Temple in Beijing in the 17th century.

The 20th century brought upheaval. Reformers of the Republic attacked temples as superstition, and after the communist victory of 1949 the 63rd Celestial Master, Zhang Enpu, moved to Taiwan, where the lineage continued. The Chinese Taoist Association was founded in 1957, but during the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) temples were closed or destroyed and priests sent to labour. Since the reforms of the late 1970s and early 1980s many temples have been rebuilt, monastic ordinations have resumed, and Daoism has again become a visible part of Chinese religious life, alongside lively traditions in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Southeast Asia.

The Dao is the source of all things and the way they unfold: “The Dao that can be told is not the eternal Dao,” begins the Daodejing. It works through the interplay of yin and yang, dark and light, yielding and firm, which constantly turn into each other.

Daoists seek to live in harmony with this flow. The ideal is wu weiwu wei Effortless action: acting in harmony with the Dao, without forcing. Glossary, effortless action that does not force things, like water that takes the lowest place yet overcomes the hardest. Simplicity, humility, compassion and contentment are its virtues.

Daoism as a religion adds a rich world of gods, immortals and spirits, and a vision of the body as a small universe, animated by qiqi Vital energy or breath that flows through the body and the universe. Glossary, the breath of life. Through ritual, ethics and self-cultivation one can achieve health, long life and, ultimately, union with the Dao.

Daoist practice ranges from the inner to the communal. Meditation, breathing exercises, diet and movement arts such as qigong and taiji cultivate the body’s energy; inner alchemy seeks to refine it into an immortal spirit.

Daoist priests perform rituals for communities and families: offerings of incense, chanting of scriptures, funerals and the great jiao ceremonies that renew a community’s bond with the gods. Many temples welcome worshippers who come to burn incense, seek blessings or consult oracles.

Pilgrims climb sacred mountains such as Wudang, the cradle of Daoist martial arts, and Longhushan, the seat of the Celestial Masters for centuries.

The Daodejing and the Zhuangzi are the best-known Daoist texts, read far beyond the religion. The Daodejing is among the most translated books in the world.

The Daoist canon, the Daozang, is far larger: about 1,500 works on ritual, meditation, cosmology, alchemy and medicine, gathered over many centuries and printed in its present form in 1445. Most of it was rarely read outside Daoist circles until the 20th century.