Page 530 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

490 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

tions are lower than those of the heitou, the transmission of their methods is
carefully regulated in order not to inflate their profession. They are organized
into groups, and offer support to each other.

Fabrizio PREGADIO

rn Cohen I992; Liu Zhiwan I983C, 151-6I; Schipper 1993, 49-55
* daoshi;fashi; tang-ki

housheng

Saint of the Latter Age

Housheng designates a category in the transcendent hierarchy of the *Shangqing
movement, as well as an eminent divinity of its pantheon. The term hou 1&
refers to the state "subsequent to Heaven" (*houtian), the world as we know
it as opposed to the state "prior to Heaven" (*xiantian), which represents the
primal or original stages before the formation of the present cosmos. The
houshengwere divine figures higher than the *zhenren or Perfected. Also called
dijun $':i1 or Imperial Lords, these saints were thought to have obtained
transcendence by practicing the Oao, whereas other celestial figures had been
granted their divine nature since the origin of the world.
Within the Shangqing scriptures, the appellation Saint of the Latter Age was
also given to *Li Hong, that is, the divinized Laozi, the messiah common to
the various medieval Taoist movements. The *Housheng daojun lieji (Chronicle
of the Lord of the Oao, Saint of the Latter Age), a text revealed to *Yang Xi
during the second half of the fourth century, contains a biography of this
messianic saint who governs the world and transmits methods of salvation
to humanity. He is supposed to appear on earth in a renchen -f: IIX year (the
twenty-ninth of the sexagesimal cycle; see table IQ), after the destruction of
the universe and the annihilation of the unfaithful. He will then inaugurate
the reign of the Great Peace (*taiping) and assign positions in the celestial
bureaucracy to each of the immortal "seed-people" (*zhongmin).

Christine MOLLIER
m Robinet 1984, I: 138 and 2: IQ7

* Jinque dijun; Li Hong; Housheng daojun lieji; Shangqing; APOCALYPTIC
ESCHATOLOGY; MESSIANISM AND MILLENARIANISM