Page 102 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

62 THB ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM VOL . r

(*FU) and secret rites originated with him, but does not mention his cult. By
the time the *Shangqing texts appear in the middle of the fourth century,
however, titles such as Laojun (Lord Lao) and Daojun jQ!g (Lord of the Dao)
point to a deification of Laozi and the Dao. One of the main deities then was
Huanglao jun Ji::t;;g (Yellow Old Lord, a name formed by the combination
of the names of *Huangdi and Laozi). Meditating upon this deity and making
it manifest within one's *niwan (the upper *dantian or Cinnabar Field) was a
way to attain immortality. The highest development in the deification of the
Dao is Yuanshi tianzun jIJ~ 7( 1¥ (Celestial Worthy of Original Commence-
ment; see *sanqing). This deity, who appears in the *Lingbao texts of the fifth
century, is the supreme god who is the "beginning of everything," that is, the
Dao. By comparison, the Northern Celestial Masters of *Kou Qianzhi (365?-448)
considered Laojun (i.e., the deified Laozi) to be the founder of Taoism. There
were thus some differences in how the pantheon developed in northern and
southern China.

Tao Hongjing's pantheon. It was *Tao Hongjing (456-536) who first constructed
a single pantheon synthesizing the various lineages of divinities from a Shang-
qing viewpoint. This pantheon is contained in the *Zhenling weiye tu (Chart
of the Ranks and Functions of the Real Numinous Beings), which served as
the basis for later systematizations. In this work, the deities are divided into
seven ranks, with Yuanshi tianzun at the summit. Each rank is further divided
into three classes, middle, left and right, of which the middle is of the highest
standing and the right is of the lowest. Yuanshi tianzun is ranked as the god
of the middle class of the first rank and stands at the head of all the deities,
residing in the Great Canopy Heaven (*Daluo tian) above the Three Clarities
(*sanqing), i.e., the celestial domains of Highest Clarity (shangqing), ]ade Clarity
(yuqing), and Great Clarity (taiqing).
Special features of the Zhenling weiye tu are that Laojun is placed in the
fourth rank; that Confucian sages such as Yao ~, Shun f,f , and Confucius
himself are ranked above him; and that emperors and well-known historical
persons who have embraced Taoism are listed as deities. The lowest, seventh
rank is occupied by deities of the underworld and by "demon-officials" (gui-
guan * '§) who serve the bureaucracy of hell. Placing Laojun in the fourth
rank indicates not only the ideological standpoint of the Shangqing school,
but also the fact that Taoism was no longer merely a belief in Laozi but had
come to embrace a more complex "Dao."

Later developments. The appearance of such works as the *Yebao yinyuan jing
(Scripture on the Causes of Karmic Retribution), which mentions the belief
in the Celestial Worthy Who Relieves Suffering (*]iuku tianzun) and its ten
manifestations, indicates that Taoism continued to create new deities as new