Southern Celestial Masters南天师道

Also known as

Southern Celestial Masters, Lu Xiujing's Way of the Celestial Masters

Type

Sect

Period

Northern and Southern Dynasties

Founded

During the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties, marked by the systematization carried out by Lu Xiujing (406–477) of the Liu Song

Founder

Lu Xiujing

Derived from

Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi Dao)

Region

Jiangnan (Jiankang, Mount Lu, Mount Tiantai and other places)

Ancestral seat

Jianji Temple Site, Mount Mao (Maoshan)

Status

Absorbed into Other Lineages — After the Southern Dynasties it merged into the Daoist mainstream organized around the scriptures and registers of the Three Caverns; its Zhengyi registers were later absorbed into Zhengyi Daoism, while its retreat liturgies became the foundation of Daoist ritual protocols in the Tang and Song.

Overview

The Southern Celestial Masters refers to the branch of the Way of the Celestial Masters that developed in Jiangnan during the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties, usually represented by the reforms of the Liu Song Daoist priest Lu Xiujing. The Celestial Masters spread southward with the migrations after the Three Kingdoms period, becoming widespread among both the great clans and the common people of Jiangnan by the Eastern Jin; at the same time the new Shangqing and Lingbao scriptural traditions were emerging in Jiangnan, while the organization of the faith remained loose, its scriptures a mixture of authentic and spurious texts, and its ritual protocols disordered. Lu Xiujing came from a great clan of Wuxing, traveled widely among the famous mountains, and in his later years lived at Jianji Temple on Mount Lu; Emperor Ming of Liu Song summoned him to the Chongxu Institute in Jiankang. He "transmitted the teaching of the three Zhangs while broadly expanding that of the two Ges": on the one hand he reorganized the Celestial Masters, writing the Lu xiansheng daomen kelüe (陆先生道门科略, Master Lu's Abbreviated Codes for the Daoist Community), criticizing the abuses of his time — the excessive conferral of "parish offices" and the failure of the Daoist populace to observe the codes and statutes — and reaffirming institutions such as household registers, life-registers, the Three Assembly Days, and court audience rites; on the other hand he gathered Daoist scriptures broadly, and in the seventh year of Taishi (471) compiled the Catalogue of the Scriptures of the Three Caverns, originating the threefold classification into the Cavern of Perfection (Dongzhen, i.e., Shangqing), the Cavern of Mystery (Dongxuan, i.e., Lingbao), and the Cavern of Divinity (Dongshen, i.e., Sanhuang), which laid the foundation for the organizational scheme of the later Daoist Canon; he also established the ritual protocols of the Nine Retreats and Twelve Methods, and wrote works such as the Lingbao zhaishuo guangzhu jiefa deng zhuyuan yi (灵宝斋说光烛戒罚灯祝愿仪, Lingbao Retreat Liturgy of Lighted Candles, Precepts, Punishments, Lamps, and Prayers). The Southern Celestial Masters was thus in effect a reform that fused the organizational institutions of the Celestial Masters with the scriptural teachings of Shangqing and Lingbao, and is regarded as the key link in Daoism's transition from a popular faith community to a scripture-based, ritually formalized religion. After Lu Xiujing, his disciple Sun Youyue transmitted the teaching to Tao Hongjing, and thereafter Daoism in the Southern Dynasties continued to develop with Maoshan Shangqing at its core.

Core Doctrine

It continued the Celestial Masters' faith centered on Laozi and grounded in the Register of Orthodox Unity and the Covenant of Awesome Power, while also accepting the scriptural teachings and pantheon of Lingbao and Shangqing, forming a hierarchical conception in which all Three Caverns were honored with Zhengyi as their foundation; it emphasized codes and statutes, retreat and fasting, merit and virtue, and repentance, and stressed order among the Daoist populace through "honoring the Dao, observing the precepts, and maintaining household registers and life-registers." Lu Xiujing proposed the view that the Three Caverns, though ranked in a hierarchy, all issue from the same scriptural teaching of the Dao, providing later generations with a theoretical framework for unifying the various schools.

Practice & Ritual

Lu Xiujing reconstructed the system of the "Three Assembly Days" (the seventh day of the first month, the seventh day of the seventh month, and the fifth day of the tenth month) for court audiences of the Daoist populace, along with household registers and life-registers; he standardized the rites of submitting petitions and audience with the Perfected; and he established the Nine Retreats and Twelve Methods — including the Golden Register Retreat, the Yellow Register Retreat, the Mingzhen Retreat, the Sanyuan Retreat, the Bajie Retreat, the Ziran Retreat, the Sanhuang Retreat, the Taiyi Retreat, the Zhijiao Retreat, and the Tutan Retreat, among others. Rites such as scripture recitation, ritual repentance, incense-burning, and lamp-lighting became the standard forms of Daoist retreats and offerings.

Transmission

The libationer clans and gentry households of the Celestial Masters in Jiangnan → Lu Xiujing, who organized the codes, statutes, and scripture catalogue → Sun Youyue → Tao Hongjing (Maoshan Shangqing); Lu Xiujing's retreat liturgies were inherited and developed by Zhang Wanfu and Du Guangting in the Tang; his threefold classification of the Caverns became the basic framework for the compilation of the Daoist Canon. Compared with the Northern Celestial Masters, the Southern Celestial Masters was never closely bound to the court, but instead influenced later Daoism through the organization of scriptures and the standardization of ritual.

Key Scriptures

Key Figures

Principal Temples