Page 543 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

HUANG SHUNSHEN 503

ID Cahill 1990, 33-34; Kirkland 1991 ; Kirkland 1992-93, 156-60; Schafer 1977b

* WOMEN IN TAOISM

Huang Shunshen

jtjfo/

1224-after 1286; haD: Leiyuan zhenren ~iJmJtA
(Perfected of the Thunderous Abyss)

As the earliest and most important codifier of the *Qingwei (Pure Tenuity)
movement's teachings, Huang Shunshen helped to establish this important
late-Song Taoist synthesis of ritual, scripture, and contemplation among literati
groups in southern and central China.
Huang's earliest hagiography comes from his disciple Chen Cai ~* at
the end of Chen's *Qingwei xianpu (Register of Pure Tenuity Transcendents,
14b-15a), which has a preface dated 1293. This source places Huang's birth in
Jianning 9t$ (Fujian), the same area, it should be noted, where *Bai Yuchan
(II94-1229?) established himself from 1215 onward. Reported to have read widely
in his youth, at the age of sixteen Huang accompanied his father who had just
been appointed to serve as a transport official in Guangzhou (Canton). Shortly
after arriving there, Huang became ill and a man named Nan Bidao ~ ~Jl!
(II96-?)-a patriarch of the Qingwei tradition- healed him with talismans
(*FU) as thunder struck in the courtyard. After curing the boy, Nan saw that
Huang had the right spiritual capacity, and transmitted to him the manuscripts
of his Qingwei teachings. During the Baoyou reign period (1253- 58), Huang
seems to have codified and transmitted these works with great vigor to many
aristocrats, from Zhao Mengduan JIi.£Yffil in the Song imperial family up to
emperor Lizong (r. 1224-64), who invited him to court and gave him the title
Perfected of the Thunderous Abyss (Leiyuan zhenren). Later, in 1282, after
the fall of the Song dynasty, Khubilai khan (r. 1260-94) also summoned Huang
to his court.
Although Huang is reported to have taught hundreds of disciples by the end
of his life, one hagiography states that the front of a stele recorded the names
of thirty disciples, each of whom received one of the five component ritual
traditions of Qingwei- associated, in descending order, with Yuanshi shangdi
:7C ~f:i ...t * (Highest Emperor of Original Commencement), *Shangqing,
*Lingbao, Daode Jl!i-m (i.e., Laozi), and *Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity)-while the
five disciples inscribed on the back had received the full Qingwei transmission.
Huang and his disciples distributed Qingwei teachings among literati groups