Northern Celestial Masters北天师道
- Also known as
- New Way of the Celestial Masters (Xin Tianshi Dao), Kou Qianzhi's Way of the Celestial Masters, Northern Celestial Masters
- Type
- Sect
- Period
- Northern and Southern Dynasties
- Founded
- In the second year of the Shenrui era of the Northern Wei (415), Kou Qianzhi claimed to have received a revelation from Lord Lao; in the first year of the Shiguang era (424) he gained the support of Emperor Taiwu
- Founder
- Kou Qianzhi
- Derived from
- Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi Dao)
- Region
- North China under Northern Wei rule, centered at Pingcheng (present-day Datong) and Mount Song
- Ancestral seat
- Mount Song (Songshan)
- Status
- Vanished — As an independent school it had already declined by the end of the Northern Wei, with no clear successor organization; its precepts, retreat rituals, and model of a state-sponsored Daoism were absorbed into Sui and Tang Daoism and later into Zhengyi Daoism.
Overview
The Northern Celestial Masters is the school that took shape after the Daoist priest Kou Qianzhi reformed the Way of the Celestial Masters under the Northern Wei. Kou Qianzhi cultivated the Dao in his early years on Mount Song; according to the "Treatise on Buddhism and Daoism" (Shilao zhi) in the History of Wei, in the second year of Shenrui (415) he claimed that the Supreme Venerable Sovereign (Laojun) had descended to Mount Song and bestowed on him the office of "Celestial Master" along with the twenty-scroll Yunzhong yinsong xinke zhi jie (云中音诵新科之诫, New Code of Chanted Precepts amid the Clouds), commanding him to "purify and reorganize the Daoist teaching, eliminating the false methods of the three Zhangs, the rice-and-cash levies, and the technique of the union of yin and qi," taking "ritual propriety" as the foundation, supplemented by the ingestion of medicines and secluded refinement. In the eighth year of Taichang (423) he further claimed that Li Puwen, said to be a remote descendant of Laojun, descended and bestowed on him the Luotu zhenjing (录图真经, True Scripture of the Chart Register). In the first year of Shiguang (424) Kou Qianzhi went to Pingcheng, where he was recommended by the Minister of Works, Cui Hao; Emperor Taiwu, Tuoba Tao, then took up his teaching, established a Celestial Masters ritual precinct at Pingcheng, changed the reign title to "Taiping Zhenjun" ("Perfected Lord of Great Peace") in 440, and personally received a ritual register, setting the precedent of an emperor receiving Daoist registers. The persecution of Buddhism carried out by Emperor Taiwu in 446 (one of the "Three Wu" persecutions) was also connected to Cui Hao and Kou Qianzhi. The Northern Celestial Masters eliminated the rice levies, the union of yin and qi, and the hereditary succession of libationers found in the early Way of the Five Pecks of Rice, introducing Confucian ritual propriety and Buddhist precepts and the concept of rebirth, establishing standardized rites of retreat and offering and chanted scriptures and precepts, and transforming the Celestial Masters into a state religion in the service of the dynasty. Kou Qianzhi died in 448, and after Cui Hao was executed in 450 the power of the Northern Celestial Masters gradually declined; but successive emperors from the Northern Wei to the Northern Zhou largely continued the tradition of the emperor receiving registers and honoring Daoism, and Kou Qianzhi's ritual reforms laid the foundation for the official establishment of Daoism under the Tang.
Core Doctrine
They venerated the Supreme Venerable Sovereign (Laojun) as the highest deity, and held Kou Qianzhi to be the Celestial Master personally appointed by Laojun; they advocated taking "ritual propriety" as the foundation, and opposed "false methods" such as the rice-and-cash levies and the union of yin and qi; they absorbed Confucian ethics of loyalty and filial piety along with the Buddhist concepts of karmic causation and kalpa-cycles, proclaiming the mission of assisting the "Perfected Lord of Great Peace of the North" in bringing about an age of great peace; they emphasized chanting the precepts and observing the rules, ingesting medicines and secluded refinement, and the accumulation of merit and virtue.
Practice & Ritual
Chanting the New Code of Precepts (through chanted liturgical pieces); rites of worship, incense-burning, and standardized retreats and offerings; ingestion of medicines, secluded refinement, and daoyin techniques for nourishing life; abolition of the hereditary succession of libationers and of the rice levies and excessive rites of the old system of the three Zhangs; the establishment of a Celestial Masters ritual precinct, the conferral of registers upon emperors, and the performance of rites of sacrifice to Heaven; an emphasis on talismans and registers and on cultivation in a chamber of quietude. Kou Qianzhi also drew on Buddhist and Confucian ritual to establish standards for Daoist priests' vestments, ritual altars, and deportment, incorporating Daoist ritual into the ceremonial system of the court.
Transmission
Kou Qianzhi claimed to have received his teaching directly from the Supreme Venerable Sovereign and from Li Puwen; thereafter successive Northern Wei emperors mostly received registers, with the ritual precinct located at Pingcheng and, after the move of the capital, altars established at Luoyang; Daoism under the Northern Qi and Northern Zhou continued in this vein. The specific line of transmission became obscure after Kou Qianzhi's death, and his influence entered Tang Daoism mainly through ritual protocols and precepts. The Tongdao Guan established by Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou, and the state systems for administering Daoism under the Sui and Tang, may be regarded as an indirect continuation of his legacy.