Nie Shidao聂师道

Style & Daoist names

Zongwei, Master Wenzheng

Period

Late Tang and Five Dynasties

Dates

c. 844 — c. 926

Role

Daoshi (Daoist Priest)

Birthplace

Shezhou (present-day Shexian, Anhui)

Life

Nie Shidao, courtesy name Zongwei, was a Daoist priest of the late Tang and Five Dynasties, a native of Shezhou. He entered the Daoist life as a young man and received scriptures and registers from the Daoists of Mount Wenzheng; at the end of the Tang he lived in reclusion on Mount Wenzheng. After Yang Xingmi took control of Huainan he summoned Nie Shidao to Guangling and honored him, bestowing on him the title "Master Wenzheng"; Nie Shidao became the leader of court Daoism under the Yang Wu regime, with more than five hundred disciples. He built the Xuanyuan Palace and the Ziji Palace, among others, for the Southern Tang (Wu), and transmitted ordinations and conducted rites of retreat and offering. Tradition holds that he once encountered immortals on Mount Siming. He died around the Shunyi era of Wu (921–927), at over eighty years of age. Nie Shidao is a representative figure of Daoism in the Jianghuai region during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period, and was included in hagiographical compilations from the Song onward (he has a biography in the Comprehensive Mirror of Immortals Who Embodied the Dao through the Ages, and is also recorded in Shen Fen's Southern Tang-era Supplementary Biographies of Immortals). Many of his disciples later served in office under the Southern Tang, and the scriptures, registers, and rites of retreat and offering he transmitted laid a foundation for the shape of Daoism under the Southern Tang.

Contributions & Influence

• Leader of court Daoism under the Yang Wu regime in the Five Dynasties, who widely transmitted scriptures and registers throughout the Jianghuai region

Legends

According to legend, he once encountered immortals on Mount Siming and obtained the art of abstaining from grains, and was able to foreknow good and ill fortune.