Diverging Conceptions of Apotheosis in Fourth-Century CE Upper Purity Daoism

Abstract

This article examines evidence from hagiographies that emerged from the Upper Purity (Shangqing) Daoist lineage in the late fourth century CE to investigate the attitudes of early medieval writers towards human beings gaining status as gods and goddesses. Whereas previous scholars tend to treat these texts as part of a single movement, this article demonstrates that there are complex and conflicting accounts of how humans attain divine status. Most notably, these authors hold different views concerning whether Daoist adepts acquire celestial titles when they are initiated or if they must first finish their cultivation. By comparing and contrasting the hagiographies of three Daoist saints (Pei Xuanren 裴玄仁, Wang Zideng 王子登, Wei Huacun 魏華存), this article asks how such stories might have informed and influenced the mental worlds of the readers who encountered and perhaps even lived out these narratives.

Keywords:

• Daoism
• hagiography
• godhood
• apotheosis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Henri Maspero, Taoism and Chinese Religion, trans. Frank A. Kierman Jr. (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1981), 364–65; Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 吉岡義豐, Dōkyō kyōten shiron 道教経典史論 (Tokyo: Dōkyō kankōkai, 1955), 61–63.

2 Jurong was a town halfway between Mt. Mao and the Eastern Jin 東晉 (318–420) capital Jiankang 建康 (present-day Nanjing).

3 The texts of this tradition are also called the Upper Clarity or Shangqing texts. See Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 275–302.

4 Matthew Wells, “The Revelation of Hagiographies in Early Daoism: A Case Study of the Traditions of Lord Pei,” Asia Major 33.2 (2020): 1–24.

5 Michel Strickmann, “Saintly Fools and Chinese Masters,” Asia Major 7.1 (1994): 42.

6 Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Ancestors and Anxiety (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 144.

7 Chao-jan Chang 張超然, “Chuanshou yu jiaocai: Qingling zhenren Peijun zhuan” 傳授與教材: 清靈真人裴君傳中的五靈法, Huaren zongjiao yanjiu 華人宗教研究 1 (2013): 113–15.

8 Robert F. Campany, Making Transcendents: Ascetics and Social Memory in Early Medieval China (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2009), 223.

9 John Kieschnick, Buddhist Historiography in China (New York: Columbia University Press, 2022), 10.

10 White Water (Baishui 白水) is a mythical river flowing from the Kunlun Mountains. According to Wang Yi’s 王逸 (fl. 2nd c.) commentary to the Li sao 離騷, the Huainanzi 淮南子 states that drinking from Whitewater will impart immortality. See Qu Yuan ji jiao zhu 屈原集校注, ed. Jin Kaicheng 金開誠 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1999), 201. Zhengtong daozang 正統道藏 1016, 1.3b. Hereafter texts from Zhengtong daozang will be cited as DZ according to their number in Kristofer Schipper and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 1393–440. Thomas E. Smith, Declarations of the Perfected, Part One: Setting Scripts and Images into Motion (St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press, 2013), 33.

11 While Jincheng 金城 (“metal fortress”) may refer to lands around the capital, here the author uses it more in the sense of a strategic and impregnable location.

12 DZ 1032, 105.9b. This scripture appears throughout early medieval scriptures, and is often paired together with the Perfected Scripture of the Eight Simplicities (Basu zhenjing 八素真經). DZ 1016, 5.3a; DZ 1138, 23.10a; Stephen R. Bokenkamp, Early Daoist Scriptures (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 371n36; Thomas E. Smith, Declarations of the Perfected, Part Two: Instructions on Shaping Destiny (St. Petersburg, FL: Three Pines Press, 2020), 35n13. It is also mentioned in DZ 1314 as a guide for the protocol for scriptural transmission. See J. E. E. Pettit and Chao-jan Chang, Library of Clouds: Scripture of the Immaculate Numen and the Rewriting of Daoist Texts (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press), 160, 245.

13 In Upper Purity texts, the Three Primal Lords (sanyuan jun 三元君) are three goddesses linked to the Three Immaculate (sansu 三素), three-colored qi of the heavens. They are seen as the mothers of the three gods in a person’s Grotto-Room (dongfang 洞房). See Paul W. Kroll, “The Divine Songs of the Lady of Purple Tenuity,” in Studies in Early Medieval Chinese Literature and Cultural History: In Honor of Richard B. Mather & Donald Holzman, ed. Paul W. Kroll and David R. Knechtges (Provo, Utah: T’ang Studies Society, 2003), 203n127.

14 This text likely has overlapping passages with DZ 394. Robinet argues that the latter is a Tang-era apocryphal text of the Upper Purity school inspired by Lord Pei’s hagiography. See her overview of this text in Schipper and Verellen, Index to Taoist Canon, 613.

15 According to Yang Xi, Lord Lao wears a “Divine Tiger” (shenhu 神虎) talisman and Xu Mi copied this talisman (DZ 1016, 8.13b). See Smith, Declarations of the Perfected, Part Two, 2.34n10, 281n213. It is likely that it corresponds to the perfected talisman featured in DZ 1333 (1a) or DZ 1334 where it is mentioned in the title. Robinet argues that DZ 1333 is probably more closely related to the talisman. See Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du Taoïsme (Paris: Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984), 2.251. Fire bells (huoling 火鈴) are a common accoutrement of Daoist deities who use this ritual implement to ward off demons and other evil forces. See DZ 1016, 5.4a; DZ 421, 1.7; Pettit and Chang, Library of Clouds, 167.

16 Read qing 青 as qing 清.

17 DZ 1032, 105.10a.

18 DZ 1032, 106.3a. In Upper Purity practice, it is common to see references to the Eight Phosphors (bajing 八景), which sometimes refer to the sun, moon, five planets, and the Big Dipper, but at other times are the counterparts of the eight “congenital germs of death” that an adept must revert in their practice of meditation. Four Phosphors (sijing 四景) is a less common term. It appears in DZ 1389 (12b) where an adept travels in chariots of one phosphor, two phosphors, and so on into the eight directions. In that text, the four phosphors are paired with azure clouds of five su 素 (the yin counterpart of phosphors). See Isabelle Robinet, “Le Ta-tung chen-ching: Son authenticité et sa place dans les textes du Shang-ch’ing ching,” in Tantric and Taoist Studies in Honour of Rolf A. Stein Vol. 2, ed. Michel Strickmann (Bruxelles: Institut Belge des Hautes Études Chinoises, 1983), 416; Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 140. This passage is repeated in various scriptures in the Daoist Canon, but none seems to resonate with this particular passage.

19 DZ 1032, 106.3a–b.

20 DZ 1032, 106.3b.

21 DZ 1032, 106.3b.

22 Triple Heater (sanjiao 三焦) refers to the thorax and other spaces in the upper torso associated with breathing. Chen Feilong 陳飛龍, Baopuzi neipian jinzhu jinyi 抱樸子内篇今注今譯 (Taipei: Taiwan shangwu yinshuguan, 2001), 621.

23 Easy rice (xunfan 䭀飯) was an esoteric recipe prepared by adepts working towards arts of longevity. It is not a common term outside of Upper Purity texts. See Michael Stanley-Baker, “Daoists and Doctors: The Role of Medicine in Six Dynasties Shangqing Daoism,” PhD diss., University College of London, 2013), 193–94. Danqing 丹青 typically refers to the cinnabar and malachite pigments used in painting canvases and buildings, and thus can mean “painting” in a more general sense. Here, however, the term is likely used as a synonym for dance 丹冊 or danshu 丹書, which are auspicious writings, sometimes given to humans by miraculous animals. It is most likely an alternative way to refer to the scriptures about inner meditation.

24 DZ 1032, 106.4a.

25 1,000 zhang is equal to 10,000 chi, i.e., about 3,300 meters.

26 DZ 1032, 106.4b.

27 Elder Most High (Taishang zhangren 太上丈人) appears in dozens of early Daoist scriptures. He often listed alongside Taishang laojun 太上老君, which has cause some commentators to see them as alternative names for the same high god. In an early sixth-century treatise, however, Tao Hongjing 陶宏景 (456–536) (DZ 167, 7a) wrote that the Elder Most High was a separate god who ruled over the Mystic Continent (Xuanzhou 玄洲). He does not appear elsewhere in other Upper Purity hagiographies.

28 In Upper Purity literature, there are nine palaces in the human brain where nine perfected beings live. Adepts could open portals in this part of their brain to access these beings. Pettit and Chang, Library of Clouds, 81. As these practices developed, the Nine Perfected (jiuzhen 九眞) were associated with the nine months of gestation when an adept creates a divine embryo in their body through inner alchemical methods. See James Miller, The Way of Highest Clarity: Nature, Vision and Revelation in Medieval China (Magdalena, NM: Three Pines Press, 2008), 27.

29 Wu 無 must be a scribal error here because it does not rhyme with the rest of the verse. It is possible the character was once yao 遙 (distant) or xiao 霄 (empyrean).

30 DZ 1032, 106.4b–5a. The Western Consort (Xifei 西妃) appears in early Upper Purity scriptures (DZ 56, 2a) as a goddess who performed music along with celestial maidens (tiannü 天女) in primordial times when the texts first emerged in the heavens.

31 In Zhuangzi, ning 凝 is used to describe a focused state. See Chen Guying 陳鼓應, annot., Zhuangzi jinzhu jinyi 莊子今注今譯 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 1994), 21.

32 “Round dawn” (yuanchen 圓晨) or Absolute Dawn is not a term common in early Upper Purity texts. From the context, however, it would appear as a close synonym to “round blossoms” (yuanhua 圓華) or “round light” (yuanguang 圓光), which are halos of light that appears behind people that have become a god (Daoism) or attained enlightenment (Buddhism). Six phosphors (liujing 六景) is likely related to the sequence of eight phosphor chariots mentioned above.

33 DZ 1032, 106.5a. Read wei 未 as a scribal error for fu 夫.

34 The three female attendants (Fan Yunhua 范運華, Zhao Junzhu 趙峻珠, Wang Baotai 王抱臺) are grouped together in many Daoist scriptures. In DZ 167 (9b), a text compiled in the early sixth century by Tao Hongjing, Wang is identified as Wang Baoyi 王抱一, which suggests that the original text might have read Wang Baoyi 王抱壹, as tai and yi are graphically close variants. The title of this scripture is also mentioned in DZ 184 (2.4a) but is described as two oral instructions (erjue 二訣) rather than a scripture (jing). According to this codebook, this scripture was possessed by a vast array of deities including the Queen Mother of the West and the Azure Lad.

35 DZ 1032, 106.6a.

36 Treasure Grotto’s Golden Stanzas on Flying into the Empyrean’s Farthest Mystery (Lingdong feixiao juexuan jinzhang 寶洞飛霄絶玄金章) is mentioned in DZ 1138 (38.11a–b) as a text used for a 27-day zhai fast. It is possible that the Hidden Book of Grand Ultimate (Taiji yinshu 太極隱書) is an abbreviated name for DZ 425, though the version in the Zhengtong Daozang is understood by scholars as a Numinous Treasure rather than an Upper Purity text (Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 234).

37 DZ 1032, 106.7a. Seven Sparklers (qiyao 七曜) usually refer to the sun, moon, and five planets, but some Daoist texts also use the term to refer to the seven stars of the Big Dipper. It is unclear which meaning the author of this text has in mind.

38 All four titles appear in medieval Upper Purity literature as names of talismans (Pettit and Chang, Library of Clouds, 246). At some point in the fifth century or later, the talismans were grouped together as one scripture: DZ 1378 (see Schipper and Verellen, The Taoist Canon, 141), and the talismans of the Seven Primes of Unobstructed Descent, devoted to the sun, moon, and five planets, also appear independently in the Daoist Canon as DZ 392. Isabelle Robinet, La révélation du Shangqing dans l’histoire du Taoïsme (Paris: Ecole Française d’Extrême-Orient, 1984), 2.430.

39 Both Xi Linzao 西林藻 and Zhong Feiji 仲飛姬 are mentioned in an early sixth-century catalog of the Daoist pantheon, DZ 167 (6b and 8b respectively). Guo Linggai 郭靈盖 also appears there as the Lady of Purple Vacuity’s Left Palace (Zixu zuogong Guo furen 紫虛左宫郭夫人) (DZ 167, 8a). Her elevated position might make sense as later vignettes of Wang claim that Guo alone conferred Wang’s perfected status and gave him scriptures; Xi and Zhong are not featured there. Guo’s name is also written with the slight variant gai 蓋 for gai 盖. See DZ 1248, 9.15b.

40 DZ 1032, 106.7b–8a.

41 DZ 1032, 4.7b–8a.

42 DZ 1032, 4.9b–10a.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

J. E. E. Pettit

J. E. E. Pettit is Associate Professor of Daoism at University of Hawai‘i-Mānoa. He specializes in the Buddhist and Daoist traditions of medieval China, and is the author of Library of Clouds: Scripture of the Immaculate Numen and the Rewriting of Daoist Texts (2020).