Xizhu Xinzong (Western India Mind Lineage) of Longmen龙门西竺心宗

Also known as

Xizhu Xinzong (Western India Mind Lineage), Xizhu Branch, Longmen Branch of Mount Jizu, Doumu Mind Lineage

Type

Branch Lineages

Period

Qing

Founded

Founded at Mount Jizu, Yunnan, by the Daoist Huang Shouzhong of Mount Jizu after he received the precepts from Wang Changyue in Beijing, in the sixteenth year of Shunzhi of the Qing (1659)

Founder

Min Yide

Derived from

Longmen (Dragon Gate) Lineage of Quanzhen

Region

Mount Jizu, Yunnan; Mount Jingai, Huzhou, Zhejiang

Status

Vanished — No clear line of transmission survives after the Republican era; only texts such as the Jingai xindeng and the Gushu yinlou cangshu remain. The cult of Doumu itself remains widespread within Daoism.

Overview

The Xizhu Xinzong (Western India Mind Lineage) of Longmen is a branch of the Longmen lineage that emerged in the early Qing, named for its founding patriarch, the 'Jizu Daozhe' ('the Daoist of Mount Jizu'), who claimed to have come from Xizhu (India); the principal records of this lineage appear in Min Yide's Jingai xindeng and Gushu yinlou cangshu. According to these accounts, the Jizu Daozhe, originally named Yedaposhe, was a native of the Yuezhi kingdom (in the Western Regions); at the end of the Ming he lived in seclusion cultivating the Dao on Mount Jizu in Yunnan, practicing both Tantric Buddhism and Daoist methods. In the sixteenth year of the Shunzhi era (1659) he traveled to the White Cloud Temple in Beijing to receive the precepts from Wang Changyue, was ranked as the eighth generation of the Longmen lineage, and was given the name Huang Shouzhong; upon returning to Mount Jizu, he took Doumu (in her form as the Primordial Sovereign of the Pre-celestial Doumu) as the principal deity, fusing Daoist internal alchemy, the veneration of Doumu, and Buddhist Tantric methods (mantra recitation and mudra formation), transmitting the 'Mind Method of the Great Brahma Pre-celestial Doumu' — hence the name Xizhu Xinzong. His teaching passed to Guan Tianxian, Dajiao Xian (Wang Taiyuan), and others, reaching, by the eleventh generation, Min Yide (1758–1836) of Mount Jingai, Huzhou, Zhejiang. Min Yide was a great authority on Longmen internal-alchemy theory in the Qing: he compiled the Jingai xindeng, recording the origins and transmission of Longmen precept-conferral, and wrote the Gushu yinlou cangshu, propounding the idea of 'healing the world' (cultivating the Dao to relieve the world, and using the merit of internal alchemy to pray for national peace and prosperity), and combined the Xizhu Xinzong with the Longmen tradition of Mount Jingai, spreading the Doumu Mind Lineage throughout the Jiangnan region. The Xizhu Xinzong illustrates the Qing-dynasty Longmen lineage's absorption of Buddhist Tantrism and popular Doumu worship, and is also an important chapter in the religious history of Yunnan Daoism. After Min Yide, the Xizhu Xinzong was transmitted for several more generations centered on Mount Jingai, declining after the Republican era; its textual legacy survives mainly in the Gushu yinlou cangshu and the Daoist Texts outside the Canon. Today no transmitted lineage of this school remains on Mount Jizu in Yunnan, and only vestiges survive at Mount Jingai in Jiangsu-Zhejiang.

Core Doctrine

The lineage takes the Pre-celestial Doumu Yuanjun as its principal deity, with the Three Pure Ones and Patriarch Lü also venerated; it fuses Longmen precepts with internal alchemy and Buddhist Tantric mantra-and-mudra methods together with Doumu worship, holding that one should 'recite the Doumu mind-mantra in order to merge with the pre-celestial single qi.' Min Yide advocated 'healing the world,' holding that practitioners of the Dao should use their merit to repair the fortunes of the age. Min Yide also used the Xizhu Xinzong to stress that 'Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism form a single continuum,' holding that the Doumu mind method and the practice of internal alchemy were mutually the substance and expression of one another, and his writings largely expound alchemical teaching using the vocabulary of all Three Teachings.

Practice & Ritual

Receiving the Longmen precepts; reciting the Doumu mind-mantra (the Great Brahma Doumu Mind Method), forming mudras, and visualizing Doumu; sitting in internal-alchemy meditation; venerating the Dipper (worship of the Northern Dipper); Min Yide's systematized 'world-healing practice' and repentance rites; spirit-writing and the descent of the perfected are also seen in the Mount Jingai tradition. This lineage also places emphasis on precepts and their transmission — Min Yide's compiled Jingai xindeng gives a detailed account of the transmission of the Longmen precepts, and his 'world-healing practice' is itself a form of prayer-based internal-alchemy practice.

Transmission

Wang Changyue (seventh generation of Longmen) → Huang Shouzhong (the Jizu Daozhe, eighth generation) → Guan Tianxian, Dajiao Xian Wang Taiyuan, and others → several generations down to Min Yide (eleventh generation) → disciples at Mount Jingai (Xue Yanggui and others) → decline after the Republican era. Min Yide also used the Yunchao hermitage on Mount Jingai as his place of practice, combining the Xizhu Xinzong with the Longmen tradition of Mount Jingai; the lineage was transmitted for several further generations before gradually declining toward the end of the Qing and the early Republic.

Key Figures

Principal Temples