The earliest known Daode jing
(Book of the Way and Its Virtue).
Bamboo slips, Guodian, ca. 300 BCE
or slightly earlier.
To a significant extent, the history of Taoism may be seen as a continuous restatement of the principles enunciated in the early founding texts. To an equally significant extent, its development has been marked by adaptation to varying historical circumstances, response to the needs and demands of different social groups, and incorporation of concepts, beliefs, cults, and practices derived from other trends of Chinese thought, religion, and culture.
At the beginning of this process is the ☞ deification of Laozi, now represented not only as the sage who expounds the doctrines of the Daode jing, but also as a messiah named Lord Lao (Laojun), who embodies the Dao and reappears at different times either as a sage counselor of political rulers, or as the inspirer of religious leaders. In one of these transformations, Lord Lao appeared (in 142 CE, according to the traditional date) to Zhang Daoling, in the southwestern region of Sichuan. Lord Lao established a covenant (meng) with Zhang Daoling, revealing the teaching of Orthodox Unity (zhengyi) and granting him the title of Celestial Master (tianshi). This revelation is at the origin of the ☞ Way of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi dao), the main Taoist priestly lineage, which continues to exist in the present day.
See also a longer Introduction to Taoism:
1. Taoism and Chinese Thought and Religion
2. The Origins of Taoism
3. Revelations and Textual Corpora
4. Cosmos and Gods
5. The Human Being
6. Bibliography
The diaspora of the Celestial Masters' communities after the end of the Han (early 3rd century) resulted in the expansion of the new religion to other parts of China. Its spread in Jiangnan, the region south of the lower Yangzi River, was one of the prerequisites for the formation of two other major bodies of Taoist doctrines, texts, and practices in the second half of the 4th century. The first corpus, known as ☞ Shangqing (Highest Clarity), derived from revelations that occurred from 364 to 370 and was centered on meditation practices. The second corpus, known as ☞ Lingbao (Numinous Treasure), derived from revelations that occurred between ca. 395 and 405 and was based on communal ritual. These two codifications clearly define, for the first time, the two main poles of Taoism as a whole, namely individual practices of self-cultivation on the one hand, and collective practices for the community of the faithful or for the dead, on the other.
The relations among these and other traditions were formally codified in the early 5th century in the system of the Three Caverns (sandong). Its purpose was to arrange hierarchically the main Taoist legacies of that time, assigning the higher rank to Shangqing, the intermediate one to Lingbao, and the lower one to other local traditions of Jiangnan. Around 500 CE, the corpora associated with the Daode jing, the Taiping jing (Scripture of Great Peace), alchemy, and the Way of the Celestial Masters were also incorporated into this system, by assigning them to the so-called Four Supplements (sifu). The Three Caverns also provided the formal schema for other important aspects of Taoist doctrine and practice, including the ordination stages of Taoist priests and the arrangement of scriptural and other writings in the collections of Taoist texts (☞ Daozang) that began to take shape from the early 5th century.
This model continued to perform its function even after the contours of Taoist religion were reshaped by several new revelations and codifications that occurred during the Song period (960-1279) and later, and by the creation in the early 13th century of ☞ Quanzhen (Complete Reality, or Complete Perfection), a monastic order that is, with the Way of the Celestial Masters, the main branch of present-day Taoism.
Read a more detailed ☞ Introduction to Taoism
© 2014 Fabrizio Pregadio and Golden Elixir Press
Picture of Laozi reproduced from Stephen Little, Taoism and the Arts of China (Chicago: The Art Institute of Chicago, 2000).