Page 672 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

630 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

ened them with force. Among the most potent methods of dealing with these
(and other) local deities were those associated with the new Taoist revelatory
movements emerging and consolidating in lands south of the Yangzi River.
Although these spirits became increasingly subject to the emerging protocols of
a divine administrative hierarchy, especially in south China, they also retained
their local specificity and religious loyalties among the general populations.
Often grouped into groups of five or thirty-six, these deities issued special
talismanic missives written in strange characters known as "thunder script,"
and were thoroughly integrated into several Song ritual movements. They
were especially prominent in the *Shenxiao (Divine Empyrean) and *Qingwei
(Pure Tenuity) movements, and were central to the ritual activities of figures
such as *Un Ungsu (I076-II20), *Wang Wenqing (I093-II53), *Sa Shoujian (fl.
II41-78?), *Bai Yuchan (II94-I229?), and *Huang Shunshen (1224-after 1286).
By the early thirteenth century, the Thunder Ministry (Leibu ,~. ffI\) was
understood to be headed by the Celestial Worthy of Universal Transforma-
tion Whose Sound of Thunder Responds to the Primordials in the Nine
Heavens (Jiutian yingyuan leisheng Puhua tianzun JL )( ~ j[:'~ if ~ it '}( ~;
see *Puhua tianzun), at once an incarnation of the Great Saint of the Nine
Heavens Who is Upright and Luminous (Jiutian zhenming dasheng 7L'}(i[
IUJ -}( -'\~) and the Perfect King of jade Clarity (Yuqing zhenwang 3'. ir'i ~T.).
Later those who revered this exalted and bureaucratized form of the Thun-
der Deity performed special rites of reciting the deity's special scripture, the
*Yushu jing (Scripture of the jade Pivot), on his birthday, the twenty-fourth
day of the sixth lunar month.

Lowell SKAR

m Barrett 198ob, 167-69; Eberhard 1968, 253-56; Uu Zhiwan 1986; Maspero
1981, 97-98; Matsumoto K6ichi 1979; Skar 1996-97

* leifa; TAOISM AND LOCAL CULTS

Leng Qian

ca. 13IO-ca. 1371; zi: Qijing ~ftl£ (or: ~ftl£); hao: Longyang zi
'Il~-T (Master of Draconic Yang)

Leng Qian, whose birthplace is indicated in various sources as jiaxing M ~
(Zhejiang) or Wuling i\ ~£t (Hubei), was a painter and noted musician in the
early years of the Hongwu reign period (1368-98), His biographical profile