Bai Yunji白云霁

Style & Daoist names

Style name Mingzhi, Styled Zaixu Zi

Period

Ming

Dates

? — ?

School

Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) Daoism

Role

Daoshi (Daoist Priest)Bibliographer

Birthplace

Shangyuan (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu)

Life

Bai Yunji, courtesy name Mingzhi, sobriquet Zaixuzi, was a native of Nanjing and a late-Ming Daoist priest whose dates of birth and death are unknown. In the sixth year of the Tianqi reign (1626), he completed the four-fascicle Annotated Catalogue of the Daoist Canon (Daozang mulu xiangzhu), a descriptive catalogue of every scripture in the Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era and its Supplementary Canon of the Wanli Era, arranged according to the Three Caverns and Four Supplements and Twelve Categories, with the number of fascicles and a summary of contents noted for each text — the first complete descriptive catalogue of the Daoist Canon. It was included in the Siku Quanshu, in the Daoist section of the Masters category, and served as the principal reference by which scholars before the Qing came to know the contents of the Canon; it also remains one of the foundational texts of modern scholarship on the Daoist Canon. Though its scholarship contains some errors, it preserves the original state of the Ming Canon and is of very great value. His residence, Chaotian Palace in Nanjing, was one of the centers of Daoism in the Ming, and in compiling his catalogue he was able to draw on the entire Canon held there; his descriptive notes remain today an important reference for locating texts in the Ming Canon.

Contributions & Influence

• Wrote the Annotated Catalogue of the Daoist Canon, the first descriptive catalogue of the entire Daoist Canon
• Provided the basis for the Siku Quanshu's cataloguing of the Daoist Canon
• Preserved the original state of the Ming Canon, foundational to modern scholarship on the Daoist Canon

Works

• Detailed Annotated Catalogue of the Daoist Canon