Li Hanguang李含光

Style & Daoist names

Hong Hanguang, Master Xuanjing (Xuanjing Xiansheng)

Period

Tang

Dates

683 — 769

School

Shangqing (Highest Clarity) School

Role

Shangqing Patriarch

Birthplace

Jiangdu, Guangling (present-day Yangzhou, Jiangsu)

Places of activity

Mount Mao (Maoshan), Mount Wangwu

Life

Li Hanguang, originally surnamed Hong, changed his surname to Li to avoid the taboo name of the filial and pious Crown Prince Li Hong; he was the thirteenth-generation patriarch of the Maoshan Shangqing School in the Tang dynasty. He was ordained a Daoist priest in the early Shenlong era (705), and in the seventeenth year of Kaiyuan (729) went to Mount Wangwu to receive the Shangqing scriptures and methods from Sima Chengzhen, who called him "a true guest of Yuqing"; after Sima Chengzhen's death he resided at Yangtai Temple by imperial order of Xuanzong. In the fourth year of Tianbao (745) Xuanzong summoned him to the capital and asked him to serve as the master for the conferral of registers, ordering the restoration of Ziyang Temple on Maoshan for him to reside in, and bestowing on him the title "Master of Mysterious Serenity"; Xuanzong also once sent Wang Min and others to Maoshan to ask him to supply the missing portions of the Shangqing scriptures. At Maoshan he revived the ancestral altar and ordained many disciples, including Wei Jingzhao, Meng Zhanran and Yin Shu; Yan Zhenqing composed for him the Stele Inscription for Master Xuanjing, Mr. Li of Guangling, of Maoshan. He died in the fourth year of Dali (769) at the age of eighty-seven. He wrote the Concise Meaning of the Book of Changes, Notes on the Learning of Laozi and Zhuangzi, Treatise on the Similarities and Differences of the Three Mysteries, and Phonetic and Semantic Glosses on the Materia Medica, most of which are now lost.

Contributions & Influence

• Received the methods of Sima Chengzhen and revived the ancestral altar of Maoshan
• Was granted honor by Emperor Xuanzong as master for the conferral of registers, and was patriarch during the height of the Maoshan School in the Tang

Works

• Concise Meaning of the Zhouyi (lost)
• Records of the Study of Laozi and Zhuangzi (lost)
• Treatise on the Similarities and Differences of the Three Mysteries (lost)
• Pronunciation and Meaning of the Materia Medica (lost)