Lin Lingzhen林灵真

Style & Daoist names

Personal name Weifu, Courtesy name Junzhao, Sobriquet Lingzhen, Patriarch of the Donghua School

Period

Late Southern Song–Yuan

Dates

1239 — 1302

School

Donghua (Eastern Florescence) School, Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) School

Role

Daoshi (Daoist Priest)Ritual MasterFounder of the Donghua School

Birthplace

Pingyang, Wenzhou (present-day Pingyang, Zhejiang)

Life

Lin Lingzhen, personal name Weifu, courtesy name Junzhao, sobriquet Lingzhen, was a native of Pingyang in Wenzhou. In his youth he studied for the civil examinations, but later abandoned Confucian scholarship for Daoism, donating his residence to become a temple (later named Xuanzhen Temple); he studied the Donghua Lingbao (Numinous Treasure) teachings transmitted through the lineage of Ning Quanzhen, and is honored as the effective founder and first-generation patriarch of the Lingbao Donghua school. From the Zhiyuan era of Emperor Shizu of the Yuan onward, he administered Daoist affairs in Wenzhou, holding the post of Daoist Registrar of Wenzhou Circuit, and during the Yuanzhen and Dade eras he was appointed to the office of "Master of the Three Caverns," his reputation extending across the Jiangsu–Zhejiang region. Lin Lingzhen's most important contribution was the compilation of the 320-fascicle Golden Book of Salvation according to the Lingbao Tradition (later supplemented by Yuan-dynasty scholars), the single largest work in the Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era; it gathers together the altar diagrams, division of ritual offices, memorials and talismanic mandates, refinement-and-salvation rites, and musical sequences of liturgical retreats and offerings, providing an unprecedentedly systematic organization of the Lingbao retreat rites transmitted since the Southern Song, and became the model for Daoist liturgy in the Jiangnan region from the Yuan and Ming onward — it remains today a core text for the study of Chinese religious ritual. The Donghua school takes "salvation through liturgical rites" as its central tenet, while also incorporating internal cultivation and thunder rites; in the Yuan it existed alongside Zhengyi, Qingwei and other traditions, and from the Ming onward it was gradually absorbed into Zhengyi.

Contributions & Influence

• Founded and systematized the Lingbao Donghua school, becoming its first-generation patriarch
• Compiled the 320-fascicle Golden Book of Salvation according to the Lingbao Tradition, the culmination of Southern Song Lingbao retreat ritual
• Established the ritual procedures of refinement-and-salvation and deliverance of the dead, influencing the ritual traditions of Jiangnan Daoism from the Yuan and Ming onward
• Served as Daoist Registrar of Wenzhou Circuit, advancing the local organization of Daoism

Works

• Golden Book of Salvation according to the Lingbao Tradition
• Book of Salvation and Deliverance (compiler)