Zhou Ziliang周子良

Style & Daoist names

Yuanhe

Period

Liang

Dates

497 — 516

School

Shangqing (Highest Clarity) School

Role

Shangqing Daoist PriestMedium of Revelation

Birthplace

Runan (resided on Mount Mao)

Places of activity

Mount Mao (Maoshan)

Life

Zhou Ziliang, style name Yuanhe, was a Daoist priest of Maoshan under the Liang and a disciple of Tao Hongjing. He entered the mountain in his youth to attend upon Tao Hongjing; beginning in the fourteenth year of Tianjian (515) he claimed that Perfected beings had descended to him and transmitted scriptures and instructions, which he recorded as they occurred; the following year (516) he took poison and died by 'liberation from the corpse,' at the age of twenty. After his death, Tao Hongjing organized his records of these revelations into the four-juan Zhoushi Mingtong Ji (Master Zhou's Records of Communication with the Hidden) and wrote a commentary on it, recording the details of Zhou Ziliang's exchanges with the Perfected, his methods of practice, and his psychological development; it is a precious first-hand historical source for studying Six Dynasties Shangqing spirit-communication practice, the daily religious life of Daoist priests, and the Daoist concept of 'liberation from the corpse.' Zhou Ziliang's death deeply shook Tao Hongjing and also prompted him to reconsider the credibility and dangers of spirit-descent practices.

Contributions & Influence

• His record of spirit revelations, the Zhoushi Mingtong Ji, is an important document of Shangqing spirit-communication practice

Works

• Zhoushi Mingtong Ji (Master Zhou's Records of Communications with the Unseen, compiled by Tao Hongjing)

Legends

The descent of Perfected beings and the voluntary liberation from the corpse and ascension to immortality recorded in the Mingtong Ji belong to religious narrative.