Page 53 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

OVERVI EW I3

ing how previously separate chains were actually part of elaborate webs of
spiritual authority originating in the purest emanations of the Way itself. Thus,
for example, what began as two separate local traditions, the *Bai Yuchan
(II94- 1229?) *neidan tradition and *Wang Zhe's (III3- 70) Quanzhen legacy,
became known by early Ming times as the Southern and Northern Lineages
( anbei zong l¥i ~t * ; see under *Nanzong), a unity that by the late nineteenth
century had become embedded in the larger penta-directional set of traditions
that also included *Li Daochun's (fl. 1288-92) Central Branch (Zhongpai r:p
~), *Lu Xixing's (1520-1601 or 1606) Eastern Branch (Dongpai *~) , and *Li
Xiyue's (1806- 56) Western Branch (Xipai [9~) .

Lowel! SKAR
W Bokenkamp 1997, 10-20; Keightley 1990

Transmission

The simplest form of transmission in China was pedagogical. A teacher such
a Confucius orally passed on his learning to his pupils who recorded his
wisdom for later posterity. An erudite might also personally present a text
containing his wisdom to a deserving recipient. Another type of transmission
appeared in the "weft texts" (weishu ~. ; see *TAOISM AND THE APOCRYPHA)
that were popular during the reign of Wang Mang (r. 9-23). Those texts were
the repositories of myths, and each was associated with one of the Confucian
classics. A "dragon-horse" bearing the eight trigrams (*bagua) of the *Yijing
on its back emerged from the Yellow River to convey them to Fu Xi 1* ii who
copied them. A yellow dragon bearing the Chart of the [Yellow] River (Hetu) on
its back crawled out of the river and presented it to *Huangdi. A giant, black
tortoise carrying a talisman in its beak came forth from the water, placed it
on an altar before Huangdi and departed. A numinous turtle with the Writ
of the Luo [River] (Luoshu) imprinted on its cinnabar red shell in azure script
emerged from the Luo River and transmitted it to Cangjie ~ ~Ji, a divinity
known as the inventor of writing. (On these two charts, see the entry *Hetu
and Luoshu.) The trigrams, chart, talismans (*FU), and texts were tokens that
confirmed Heaven's conferral of the mandate on the ancient sage kings, and
they became essential elements of Taoist rituals and ordinations.
On June II of 142, the Most High Lord Lao (Taishang Laojun :;ti:-.t.*!t),
i.e., Laozi deified (*Laojun), descended to Mount Heming (*Heming shan,
Sichuan) and bestowed the Dao of the Covenant with the Powers of Orthodox
Unity (zhengyi mengwei .LE - MllIlt) on *Zhang Daoling. This tradition, perhaps
a later fabrication, was another sort of transmission, a personal revelation to