Page 747 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

LONGMEN 705

the beginning of a new era in which the Longmen school could supervise the
education of the entire Taoist clergy, as had been the case with its mother-
school Quanzhen during the Yuan dynasty. Indeed, Longmen was regarded as
the Qing "renaissance" of the Quanzhen school which, after its great success
during the Yuan dynasty, had been eclipsed during the Ming. Beginning with
Wang Changyue, the abbotship of the Baiyun guan, the seat of the Quanzhen
patriarchy under the Yuan (and the *Zhengyi administration under the Ming),
returned to the Quanzhen legacy through Longmen masters. In this manner,
the Longmen tradition became influential.

Origins and branches. The foundation legend of the Longmen school starts with
the direct transmission from the patriarch Qiu Chuji to his disciple Zhao Xujing
m1 J1R.~ (lineage name Daojian illl:~, n63-1221). Zhao, after having received
the three-stage ordination, became the first Longmen patriarch. Since then,
the three-stage ordination is said to have been conferred along with a lineage
name composed of two characters (the first of which stems from a Longmen
twenty-character poem; see Yoshioka Yoshitoyo 1979, 231). This marked the
entry of a Taoist adept into the ancestral line of Longmen masters.
After Zhao, the correct line of Longmen patriarchs was established and
portrayed as continuous from the Yuan dynasty until the present. The list of
the first seven generations of Longmen patriarchs until Wang Changyue, how-
ever-a line that was officially accepted and promulgated in the Taoist public
abbeys during the Qing dynasty (Oyanagi Shigeta 1934, 32-35, and Igarashi
Kenryii 1938, 64-65)-was created ex post-facto in order to link the relatively
new movement of Longmen to the ancient vestige of the powerful Quanzhen
order and to the important figure of Qiu Chuji. TheJingai xindeng ~rfuA:,'~1l
(Transmission of the Heart-Lamp from Mount Jingai; 1821), a fundamental
source for the history of the Longmen lineage by *Min Yide (1748-1836), testifies
to this official view. A closer reading, though, reveals many discrepancies that
suggest another side of the Longmen history (Esposito 1993; Esposito 2001;
Esposito 2004C; Mori Yuria 1994). One can then detect the existence of other
previous lines of masters who claimed to belong to the Longmen lineage
without having any link with the ideal correct lineage of seven patriarchs
culminating with Wang Changyue (Wang Zhizhong 1995). A good example is
the Longmen lineage of Wu Chongxu Hi. lip r$:, better known under his lineage
name, Shouyang ~ ~ (1574-1644; see Mori Yuria 1994 and Esposito 2004C; see
also the entry *Wu Shouyang).
Originally, the Longmen was a product of hermits who, influenced by
ancient Quanzhen ideals and by the fame of its saint, Qiu Chuji, devoted them-
selves to ascetic training without necessarily being affiliated with the Quanzhen
order. During the Ming period, different ascetic movements arose around
famous centers, such as those of Mount Hua (*Huashan, Shaanxi), Mount