Qi Hui岐晖

Style & Daoist names

Qi Pingding, Pingding

Period

Sui–Tang

Dates

558 — 630

School

Louguan School

Role

Patriarch of the Louguan School

Birthplace

Jingzhao (present-day Shaanxi)

Places of activity

Louguantai (Louguan Terrace)

Life

Qi Hui, also named Pingding, was the leader of the Louguan School at the Sui–Tang juncture. At the end of the Daye era of Sui, when Li Yuan raised an army against the Sui, Qi Hui foretold that 'the Mandate of Heaven is about to change,' devoted the grain and resources of the Louguan School to aid the Tang army, and led Daoist priests to welcome Li Yuan's forces at Puzhou Ford; after the founding of the Tang, in the third year of Wude (620), Emperor Gaozu personally visited Louguan and ordered it renamed the 'Zongsheng Guan' (Abbey for Honoring the Sage), granting it a thousand qing of land; Qi Hui became one of the Daoist priests most honoured by the court in the early Tang, and the key figure in the bond between the Tang imperial house and Laozi and the Louguan School. He died in the fourth year of Zhenguan (630). Louguan thereafter entered its period of greatest flourishing, becoming the centre of northern Daoism in the early Tang. Works such as the Hunyuan Shengji (Sacred Chronicle of Hunyuan) and the Stele Records of Perfected Immortals through the Ages cite this episode as evidence that Laozi secretly protected the house of Tang, and Qi Hui thereby became the most politically influential figure in the history of the Louguan School.

Contributions & Influence

• Funded and welcomed Li Yuan's uprising, bringing about the Tang dynasty's veneration of the Louguan School and Laozi
• Brought about the renaming of Louguan as the Zongsheng Guan, entering the Tang dynasty's period of flourishing

Legends

Tradition holds that Qi Hui could foreknow the Mandate of Heaven, and that auspicious omens appeared when Emperor Gaozu of Tang visited Louguan.