Li Yuanxing黎元兴

Style & Daoist names

Li Xing

Period

Tang

Dates

? — ?

Role

Daoshi (Daoist Priest)Participant in Buddhist–Daoist Debates

Birthplace

Yizhou (present-day Chengdu, Sichuan)

Life

Li Yuanxing was a Daoist priest of Yizhou active under Emperor Gaozong of Tang, one of the figures, along with Li Rong and Fang Huichang, in the tradition of Daoist doctrinal scholarship in Sichuan. In the third year of the Xianqing era (658), Gaozong summoned Buddhist monks and Daoist priests to the inner palace to debate doctrine; Li Yuanxing debated the monks Huili and Shentai and others on the meaning of “the Dao generates the myriad things,” with Li Rong responding at the same session — episodes recorded in Daoxuan's Ji Gujin Fodao Lunheng and in the Xu Gaoseng Zhuan (续高僧传, Continued Biographies of Eminent Monks). Together with Li Rong and Fang Huichang, he also took part in editing and fixing the text of the Scripture of Laozi's Conversion of the Barbarians, contributing to the compilation of Daoist scriptures and to the mutual doctrinal differentiation of Buddhism and Daoism in the early Tang. Very little is recorded of Li Yuanxing's own dates or writings; he appears in Buddhist sources chiefly as a representative early Tang Sichuanese Daoist active in court debate. This series of debates during the Xianqing era was a concentrated expression of the contest for status between Buddhism and Daoism before the Tang court, and the prominence of Sichuanese Daoists such as Li Yuanxing, Li Rong, and Fang Huichang also reflects the leading position of Sichuan Daoism in early Tang doctrinal scholarship.

Contributions & Influence

• Took part in the court debates between Buddhism and Daoism during the Xianqing era
• Took part in editing and fixing the text of early Tang Daoist scriptures such as the Scripture of Conversion of the Barbarians