Xiao Baozhen萧抱珍

Style & Daoist names

Perfected Taiyi Wanshou (posthumous title)

Period

Jin

Dates

? — 1166

School

Taiyi (Supreme Unity) Daoism

Role

FounderPatriarch of Taiyi (Supreme Unity) DaoismMaster of Talismanic Ritual (Fulu Daofa)

Birthplace

Weizhou (present-day Ji County, Henan)

Life

Xiao Baozhen, a native of Weizhou in Henan, was the founder of Taiyi Daoism in the Jin dynasty. According to stele biographies, during the Tianjuan era (1138–1140) he claimed to have received the "Register of the Three Primes of Taiyi" from a divine being, and preached mainly by using talismans and registers to cure illness and expel evil, building the Taiyi Hall (later renamed the Taiyi Guangfu Wanshou Palace) at Weizhou, where his following grew daily. In the eighth year of the Huangtong era of Emperor Xizong of Jin (1148), he was summoned to an audience at the palace and granted the temple title "Taiyi Wanshou Temple." Taiyi Daoism was distinguished by its "Register of the Three Primes," while also incorporating Confucian ethics; it stipulated that the head of the order must change his surname to Xiao, forming a tradition of seven generations of succession, and is known, together with Quanzhen and Zhen Dadao, as one of the three schools of the "New Daoism" of the Jin and Yuan. Xiao Baozhen died in the sixth year of the Dading era (1166), and was posthumously granted the title "Perfected Who Awakened to the One and Transmitted the Teaching of Taiyi" in the Yuan dynasty. Taiyi Daoism gradually declined after the middle Yuan and was absorbed into Zhengyi Daoism.

Contributions & Influence

• Founded Taiyi Daoism and transmitted the "Register of the Three Primes of Taiyi"
• Established the institution requiring successive heads of the order to change their surname to Xiao
• Established the Taiyi Wanshou Palace in Henan as the center of the order

Legends

The account of "receiving the register from a divine being" is found in the Stele of the Taiyi Guangfu Wanshou Palace and other sources, and is legendary material.