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Early Daoist Scriptures

University of California Press

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The texts chosen for translation here represent three major traditions in the early development of the Daoist religion: the Celestial Masters, the Shangqing (Upper Clarity), and the Lingbao (Numinous Gem).1 A brief account of these traditions, and of the texts chosen to represent them here, follows.

The Way of the Celestial Masters (also known as Zhengyi [Correct Unity] Daoism or, often pejoratively, as the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice) is the first Daoist organization for which we have substantial documentation. The official date for the founding of Celestial Master

Daoism is 142 C.E. , when Laozi, in his incarnation as a deity, appeared to the first Celestial Master, Zhang Daoling, on a mountaintop in what is now Sichuan province. By the end of the second century, Zhang's grandson, Zhang Lu, had succeeded to the title, and the community, due to the turmoil attending the fall of the Han, had taken sanctuary in the Hanzhong Valley, just north of the Sichuan Basin and over two hundred kilometers southwest of the Han capital of Chang'an. In 215 C.E. , Zhang Lu surrendered to Cao Cao, the Wei general whose son was to inaugurate the Wei dynasty of the Three Kingdoms period. As a result of this act of fealty, a large portion of the Celestial Master community, perhaps a quarter of the estimated four hundred thousand who occupied the valley, was moved from Hanzhong and scattered throughout the realm, while many of its leaders were enfeoffed or otherwise ennobled.2 Although followers from the early period doubtless remained in Sichuan, the spread of Daoism throughout China as a whole began with this diaspora of the original Celestial Master community.

The aspects of Celestial Master Daoism that most caught the attention of contemporary historians were its organization, its codes of benevolent morality, and its practice of confession and petitioning ritualsthe latter being means of invoking divine powers for curing disease. The Celestial Masters introduced converts to the faith through recitations of the Laozi , which was interpreted in startling new ways to support the main tenets of their faith. Through such practices, the group was said to have won the allegiance of both Chinese and "barbarians" (in this case, partially sinicized members of various ethnic groups resident in Sichuan).

There is still considerable controversy over which of the surviving Celestial Master scriptures can be dated to the early years of the sect. Of the four texts chosen for inclusion here, three can be firmly dated; the fourth represents an aspect of the religion we know to have been present from the beginning.

1. The Xiang'er commentary to the Laozi

Although the Laozi text (also known as the Daode jing ) was important to the Celestial Masters from the very beginning, this commentary most likely dates from the time when the Celestial Master

community occupied the Hanzhong Valley, roughly from 190 to 215 C.E. In early sources, authorship of the commentary is ascribed to Zhang Lu, the third Celestial Master and grandson of Zhang Daoling.

The commentary provides unique insights into the beliefs and practices of the early Celestial Masters. It also attests to the uses to which they put the Laozi text, which was reinterpreted in ways that would inform the subsequent development of the Daoist religion. Among the more significant of these reinterpretations is that the intended audience of the Laozi , originally the potential sage or sage-ruler, is widened to include all humanity. Moral codes, derided as humanly contrived and counterproductive in the Laozi , are reinstituted, and, in fact, warrant is found for them in the text. The common people are no longer to be kept in a state of natural ignorance. Instead they are urged, under the watchful eye of the spiritual bureaucracy emanating from the Dao, to enter the ranks of the blessed through moral action. In addition, as I try to show in the introduction to my translation, the commentary contains substantial clues concerning the physiological beliefs, meditation practices, and rituals of the early Celestial Masters.

2. Commands and Admonitions for the Families of the Great Dao

This treatise, found in a collection of early Celestial Master documents, was composed for promulgation to a scattered Celestial Master community after the dispersal of the Hanzhong community. Dated precisely to 1 February 255 C.E. , the text seems to be put into the mouth of Zhang Lu but is most likely the work of someone else (perhaps one of Zhang's sons), who received it as a spirit communication.

In this text, we get our first glimpse of the cosmology of Celestial Master religion and a specific account of how the Dao incarnated itself to aid suffering humanity throughout history. We are also introduced to the concept of "seed people," those fortunate mortals selected to survive the cataclysms brought on by the end of a world age and to populate the new era of Great Peace. Although the moral world is much the same as that revealed in the Xiang'er commentary,

there are further accommodations to Confucian morality, particularly the importance of hierarchies based on the family.

Written when the Wei kingdom was on the verge of collapse, the Admonitions testifies to the further disruptions this event caused the Celestial Master sect and to internal struggles among its leaders brought about by official recognition. Though it pretends to address the Celestial Master sect as a whole, we do not in fact know how large this "saving remnant" may have been. What is clear from this text is that the fragmentation of the sect, begun with the diaspora of the Hanzhong community, was exacerbated not only by the collapse of its Wei patrons, but also by internal dissension brought on by imperial patronage itself.

3. Scripture of the Inner Explanations of the Three Heavens

After the fall of the Wei kingdom in 266 C.E. , historical documentation on the Celestial Masters is sparse for a period of some 150 years. Then, with the rise to prominence of the general Liu Yu, the most successful of the southern generals who tried to retake northern China after its capture by the Huns in 317, and his dynastic line, we encounter several Daoist texts written to support the throne. These range from demonographies to more sober treatises urging a return to ideological unity as a prerequisite for reunifying China.3 The Inner Explanations , composed between 417, when Liu Yu distinguished himself by briefly recapturing Chang'an, the old capital, and the early 420s, after Liu had proclaimed himself emperor of the new Song dynasty, is of the latter type.

A Celestial Master treatise announcing that it should be treated as scripture, this text details the concern of the Dao for the Han ruling house, now thought to be renascent in its descendant, Liu Yu. Although the history of the Celestial Masters given in this text has been to some extent rewritten to demonstrate this thesis, the Inner Explanations still provides us with a unique account of the survival of Celestial Master beliefs and...