Zhang Jiyu张继禹

Style & Daoist names

Sixty-fifth generation of the Celestial Masters' lineage, Daoist name Jiyu

Period

Modern

Dates

1962 — ?

School

Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) Daoism

Role

Vice President of the Chinese Taoist AssociationDaoist ScholarsDescendant of the Celestial Masters

Birthplace

Guixi (present-day Guixi, Jiangxi)

Places of activity

Mount Longhu (Dragon and Tiger Mountain), White Cloud Temple (Baiyun Guan), Beijing

Life

Zhang Jiyu, a native of Guixi in Jiangxi, is a sixty-fifth-generation descendant of the Zhang Celestial Master house of Longhushan (as reckoned on the mainland). In the 1980s he studied at the China Taoist College, after which he remained to work at the Chinese Taoist Association, serving successively as deputy secretary-general and vice-president, while also serving as deputy head of the China Taoist College and as a member of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. He long directed Daoist cultural research, the compilation of the Zhonghua Daozang (Chinese Daoist Canon), for which he was executive deputy editor-in-chief (published 2004), and the journal Chinese Daoism; he wrote A Short History of the Way of the Celestial Masters, and took part in promoting Zhengyi ordination and the restoration of the Mansion of the Celestial Masters at Longhushan. In 2015 he resigned his position as a deputy to the National People's Congress and ceased to serve as vice-president of the Chinese Taoist Association. He is the most important scholar-leader of contemporary Zhengyi Daoism and a representative figure of the Celestial Master house on the mainland.

Contributions & Influence

• Served as executive deputy editor-in-chief of the Zhonghua Daozang, the largest project of Daoist canon compilation of the contemporary era
• Wrote A Short History of the Way of the Celestial Masters, advancing the study of Zhengyi Daoism
• Long directed the cultural and religious affairs work of the Chinese Taoist Association

Works

• Tianshidao shilüe (天师道史略, A Brief History of the Way of the Celestial Masters)
• Zhonghua Daozang (Executive Deputy Chief Editor)
• "The Dao Follows What Is Natural" and Environmental Protection