Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) Daoism正一道

Also known as

Zhengyi School, Zhengyi Teaching, Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi Dao), Longhu Lineage, Comprehensive Union of the Talisman-and-Register Schools

Type

Sects

Period

Yuan dynasty to the present

Founded

Founded on Zhang Ling (Zhang Daoling) of the Eastern Han as patriarch; formally established when Zhang Yucai was conferred the title "Master of the Zhengyi Teaching" in the eighth year of Dade of the Yuan (1304) and given authority over the talismans and registers of the Three Mountains

Founder

Zhang Daoling, Zhang Yucai

Derived from

Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi Dao)

Region

Mount Longhu, Jiangxi, is its ancestral court; it spread across Jiangnan, South China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia

Ancestral seat

Mount Longhu (Dragon and Tiger Mountain)

Status

Extant — One of the two great branches of Daoism in China today, the overarching tradition uniting the various talismanic schools; on the mainland the Mansion of the Celestial Masters, Continuing the Han, at Longhushan serves as the ancestral court, and register conferral resumed in 1991; Zhengyi priests are found throughout Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, Guangdong, Hunan and elsewhere. The great majority of Taiwanese Daoism belongs to Zhengyi (including Lingbao, Lüshan and other local altar systems), and Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and Malaysia are likewise dominated by 'fire-dwelling' Zhengyi priests; the Celestial Master succession itself remains disputed in Taiwan.

Overview

Zhengyi Daoism takes the Celestial Masters of Longhushan as its patriarchal line and is characterized by talismans, registers, and rites of retreat and offering; together with Quanzhen Daoism it forms one of the two great branches of Daoism today, and since the Tang and Song it has served as the umbrella tradition uniting Shangqing, Lingbao, Tianshi (Zhengyi proper) and the various talismanic schools such as Shenxiao, Qingwei, Tianxin and Jingming. Its origin lies in the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice — the Way of the Celestial Masters — founded by Zhang Daoling in the Eastern Han; during the Tang and Song, the Zhang family of Longhushan claimed hereditary descent from Zhang Daoling as Celestial Masters, and were repeatedly enfeoffed by Emperor Zhenzong and Emperor Huizong of Song, with Longhushan, Maoshan and Gezaoshan together known as the 'Three Mountains of Registers.' In the thirteenth year of the Zhiyuan era of Yuan Shizu, Kublai Khan (1276), the thirty-sixth-generation Celestial Master Zhang Zongyan came to court and was commanded to take charge of Daoism in the Jiangnan region; in the eighth year of Dade (1304), Emperor Chengzong granted the thirty-eighth-generation Celestial Master Zhang Yucai the title 'Lord of the Zhengyi Teaching,' placing him in charge of the talismanic registers of the Three Mountains, from which Zhengyi Daoism took its name and became the overarching Daoist tradition of the south. The Hongwu Emperor of Ming abolished the title 'Celestial Master' and renamed it 'Perfected Person,' while still ordering the Zhang family to administer Daoist affairs throughout the empire; the forty-third-generation Celestial Master Zhang Yuchu wrote the Ten Rules of the Daoist Community to reform Daoist discipline. In the Ming, Zhengyi held a higher standing than Quanzhen, and Zhengyi priests such as Shao Yuanjie and Tao Zhongwen won the favour of the Jiajing Emperor. In the Qing, the standing of the Celestial Master declined, being demoted to the fifth rank under the Qianlong Emperor; after 1911 the Mansion of the Celestial Masters at Longhushan lost its official standing; in 1949 the sixty-third-generation Celestial Master Zhang Enpu relocated to Taiwan, after which Taiwan developed its own 'Mansion of the Celestial Masters, Continuing the Han' lineage, while the Mansion of the Celestial Masters at Longhushan on the mainland resumed religious activity in the 1980s and became the ancestral court of the Zhengyi tradition. Zhengyi Daoist priests may remain unordained from monastic life and may marry, most being 'fire-dwelling' (married, non-monastic) priests who serve society through rites of retreat and offering, talismans and registers, and ritual services; they are scattered throughout Jiangnan, Fujian, Guangdong, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Southeast Asia in large numbers, and are the main bearers of popular Daoist activity.

Core Doctrine

Zhengyi honours the Most High Lord Lao as founder of the teaching and Zhang Daoling as the Ancestral Celestial Master, venerating the Three Pure Ones, the Four Sovereigns and the various celestial spirits; it takes the Zhengyi Jing, the Duren Jing and the scriptures and registers of the Three Caverns as its basis, holding that talismanic registers and ritual seals can 'communicate with the divine Perfected above and command the ghosts and spirits below,' saving the world and delivering the people. Zhang Yuchu's Ten Rules of the Daoist Community required Zhengyi priests likewise to cultivate perfection and observe precepts, purify the mind and reduce desire, also drawing on Quanzhen internal cultivation teachings; the doctrine is inclusive, blending the Lingbao, Shangqing and thunder-rite traditions.

Practice & Ritual

The system of Conferral of Registers (the Dugong Register, the Mengwei Register, the Wulei or Five Thunders Register, the Sandong Wulei Register, the Shangqing Dadong Register, and others) marks a priest's attainment of ritual office; retreats and offerings (offerings for blessing, retreats for salvation of the dead, the Great Offering to All Heavens, and Water-and-Land Retreats); talismans, ritual seals, tallies, thunder rites, invoking deities, exorcism, protecting the household, and date selection; 'fire-dwelling' priests transmit their office hereditarily, may marry and eat meat (except during retreats); their temples are mostly hereditary temples.

Transmission

Zhang Daoling → Zhang Heng → Zhang Lu → (the genealogy of the Zhang family of Longhushan between the Tang and Song, mostly reconstructed retrospectively by later generations) → thirtieth-generation Zhang Jixian (under Emperor Huizong of Song) → thirty-fifth-generation Zhang Keda → thirty-sixth-generation Zhang Zongyan → thirty-eighth-generation Zhang Yucai (Lord of the Zhengyi Teaching) → forty-second-generation Zhang Zhengchang and forty-third-generation Zhang Yuchu (early Ming) → successive Celestial Masters of the Qing → sixty-second-generation Zhang Yuanxu → sixty-third-generation Zhang Enpu (relocated to Taiwan in 1949) → in Taiwan, Zhang Yuanxian and Zhang Daozhen (succession disputed); on the mainland the Mansion of the Celestial Masters at Longhushan is administered by figures such as Zhang Jintao (a maternal grandson of Zhang Enpu), and the China Taoist Association recognizes Longhushan as the ancestral court of Zhengyi.

Key Scriptures

Key Figures

Principal Temples