Xia Wenyong夏文泳

Style & Daoist names

courtesy name Mingyuan, Grand Master of Xuanjiao

Period

Yuan

Dates

1277 — 1349

School

Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) Daoism, Xuanjiao (Mysterious Teaching)

Role

Grand Master of Xuanjiao

Birthplace

Linchuan, Fuzhou (present-day Fuzhou, Jiangxi)

Places of activity

Mount Longhu (Dragon and Tiger Mountain)

Life

Xia Wenyong, a native of Linchuan, Jiangxi, was the third Grand Master of Xuanjiao in the Yuan. In his early years he studied the Dao under Zhang Liusun and accompanied him to the capital, serving through several reigns. He first held the post of Successor Master (sishi) of Xuanjiao, and after Wu Quanjie's death in 1346 succeeded him as Grand Master of Xuanjiao, presiding over the Chongzhen Wanshou Gong in Dadu; he died in 1349. Thereafter Xuanjiao was carried on by Zhang Delong, Yu Youxing, and others, and came to an end with the fall of the Yuan. During Xia Wenyong's tenure, Xuanjiao had already begun to decline from the prosperity of the early Yuan, but it remained the court's official institution for administering Daoism in Jiangnan. His life is recorded in the "Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism" (Shi Lao zhuan) of the Yuan shi (History of the Yuan) and in stele inscriptions by Yu Ji and others. During his tenure as head, the Zhengyi Daoism of Jiangnan and Xuanjiao gradually converged, and the history of Xuanjiao as an independent system was drawing to a close; after the fall of the Yuan, Xuanjiao disappeared along with it, its priests mostly absorbed into the Zhengyi Daoism of Mount Longhu.

Contributions & Influence

• Headed Xuanjiao after Wu Quanjie
• Maintained the organization of Xuanjiao at the end of the Yuan
• A representative figure of Xuanjiao's final phase