Emperor Huan of Han汉桓帝

Style & Daoist names

Liu Zhi

Period

Eastern Han

Dates

132 — 168

School

Huang–Lao Daoism

Role

Daoism-Venerating Emperors

Birthplace

Liwu (present-day Hebei)

Life

The sacrifices to Laozi conducted during the reign of Emperor Huan of Han (Liu Zhi, r. 146–168) are a key marker of Laozi's transformation from a philosopher into a venerated deity of religion. The "Annals of Emperor Huan" and the "Treatise on Sacrifices" in the Book of the Later Han record: in the first month of the eighth year of the Yanxi era (165), Emperor Huan sent the palace attendant Zuo Guan to Ku county (present-day Luyi, Henan) to sacrifice to Laozi; in the eleventh month of that same year he again sent the palace attendant Guan Ba to Ku county to offer sacrifice; in the seventh month of the ninth year of the Yanxi era (166), Emperor Huan personally set up a canopied seat at the Zhuolong Palace and, using the ritual music of the suburban sacrifice to Heaven, sacrificed to Huangdi and Laozi (also sacrificing to the Buddha at the same time). This sacrifice, conducted with the ritual protocol befitting an emperor, honored Laozi and marked the official recognition of Laozi's divine status. That same year, Bian Shao, by imperial order, composed the Inscription for Laozi (a rubbing of the stele survives today), in which Laozi is described as one who "perfected the Dao and transformed his body, sloughing off like a cicada to pass through the world," and as one who "goes in and out of the cinnabar chamber, ascends and descends within the Yellow Court" — language already entirely immortalized and centered on inner cultivation, one of the earliest surviving official documents to describe Laozi in religious terms. The reign of Emperor Huan coincided precisely with the incubation of the Way of Great Peace and the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice; Xiang Kai's presentation to Emperor Huan of the Taiping qingling shu (Book of Great Peace and Pure Guidance, the forerunner of the Scripture of Great Peace) also took place in the ninth year of the Yanxi era, so that official Huang-Lao worship and the popular Daoist movement converged at this moment, forming the immediate background to the establishment of Eastern Han Daoism.

Contributions & Influence

• Sent envoys to sacrifice to Laozi at Ku county twice, in the eighth and ninth years of the Yanxi era, inaugurating the imperial institution of sacrificing to Laozi
• Personally sacrificed to Huangdi and Laozi at the Zhuolong Palace in the ninth year of the Yanxi era, using the ritual music of the suburban sacrifice to Heaven, formally conferring divine status on Laozi
• Bian Shao's contemporary Inscription for Laozi described Laozi in the language of immortality, a key document in Laozi's deification
• Xiang Kai's presentation of the Taiping qingling shu took place during his reign, where official Huang-Lao belief and the popular Daoist movement converged