Wang Qizhen王契真

Period

Southern Song

Dates

? — ?

School

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

Role

Ritual MasterCompiler

Birthplace

Unknown

Life

Wang Qizhen, a Southern Song Lingbao Donghua School Daoist priest and disciple of Ning Quanzhen, dates of birth and death unknown, active roughly from the late twelfth to early thirteenth century. His compiled Great Rites of Shangqing Lingbao in sixty-six chapters is a summa of Southern Song Lingbao ritual, comprehensively recording the altar rites, talismans and registers, memorials, visualizations and retreat-and-offering procedures of the Donghua School, with particular detail on the Yellow Register Retreat rite, and appended with numerous diagrams of Daoist methods. This work circulated alongside the identically titled Great Rites of Shangqing Lingbao by Jin Yunzhong; the two differ in the lineages and views on which they draw, and Jin once criticized Wang's methods as "much mixed with internal refinement," reflecting internal debate within Southern Song Lingbao ritual. Wang Qizhen's book preserves a large body of early Lingbao scriptural instructions and newly emerged Song talismanic methods, making it one of the most important documents for the study of the history of Daoist ritual.

Contributions & Influence

• Compiled the sixty-six-chapter Great Rites of Shangqing Lingbao, systematically organizing Donghua School ritual
• Integrated internal refinement into retreat-and-offering ritual, representing the "inward-turning" line of Southern Song Lingbao ritual
• Preserved a large body of early Lingbao scriptural instructions and newly emerged Song talismanic methods

Works

• Great Rites of Shangqing Lingbao (sixty-six-scroll recension)