LU XIUJING

LU XIUJING (406–477), Daoist scholar and liturgical master active during the Liu Song dynasty (420–479) in China. Regarded as the seventh patriarch of the Celestial Master sect (Tianshi Dao ), founded by Zhang Daoling in Sichuan province in the second century, Master Lu was a key figure in the development of the Daoist church during the Six Dynasties period (317–618). He has traditionally been credited with the earliest organization of the Daoist canon (Daozang ) into its three major sections. Further, by editing and teaching the so-called Lingbao (Spiritual Treasure) scriptures, upon which he based his instructions for Lingbao rites, Master Lu laid down basic and enduring patterns for the subsequent development of Daoist liturgical life.

Born in Zhejiang province, Lu is said to have left his family and official career in order to collect and study Daoist scriptures. Although he withdrew to Mount Lu (Lushan) in Jiangxi province, he nonetheless enjoyed close connections with the courts of several Liu Song emperors, and as a result, both Mount Lu and the Chongxu monastery, which was built for him outside the capital (modern Nanjing), became renowned centers of Lingbao Daoism. Traditional accounts of his life include stories of omens surrounding his birth, his healing of Emperor Mingdi (r. 465–473), and dramatic victories over the learned Buddhists of his day in public debates. His most prominent disciple, Sun Youyue, was in turn a teacher of the great Daoist scholar Tao Hongjing, to whom much of Lu's scriptural collection was passed down.

Textual references to the earliest form of the Daoist canon date back to the year 437, when Master Lu signed himself "Disciple of the Three Caverns." These "caverns" (dong ), evoking traditional beliefs that divine treasures are hidden in caves under the earth, were in fact the collected scriptural revelations of several Daoist groups: the Shangqing (Supreme Purity) scriptures; the Lingbao scriptures; and the Sanhuang (Three Sovereigns) scriptures. Master Lu's Catalog of the Scriptures of the Three Caverns, no longer extant but quoted elsewhere, was perhaps the first comprehensive listing of all these texts. Although the notion of three caverns probably did not originate with Master Lu, his early catalog not only served to define what was deemed authentic and Daoist at that time, but may well have established the notion of a single canon common to the various early movements of the emerging tradition.

Master Lu dedicated much of his career to the exposition of the Lingbao scriptures, which were claimed to have been revealed over a hundred years earlier. In fact, they were composed in the late 390s by Ge Chaofu, whose remarkable set of "revelations" not only drew upon Shangqing and Buddhist texts circulating then, but also upon the extensive library of his renowned great-uncle, Ge Hong. The popularity of these scriptures provoked so many forgeries and imitations that some fifty years after their initial release Master Lu undertook the difficult task of identifying and editing the original corpus. His catalog of the Lingbao scriptures, of which only the preface (Lingbao jingmu xu ) remains extant in the Daoist canon, has recently been reconstructed from documents uncovered at Dunhuang.

Actively extolling the ultimate primacy of these particular scriptures and the effectiveness of Lingbao rites, Master Lu formulated a set of rituals for lay followers, as well as rites for the ordination of Daoist masters and the transmission of sacred scriptures. These liturgical writings helped develop an institutional structure within Daoism by combining Han dynasty (206 bce–220 ce) court ceremonies with the practices of both the early Celestial Master sect and the old traditions and cults of southern China. Fundamental liturgical practices included the internalization of protective deities within the body of the initiated Daoist (the daoshi ) and their projection as messengers in the course of the rite; the use of talismans (especially the five Lingbao written talismans) to orient and bind the various levels of heaven, earth, and underworld in each of the five directions (four cardinal points and the center); and the proclamation and burning (to effect their transmission heavenward) of official petitions for such ends as the release of ancestors from the sufferings of the underworld and the protection of the state. Basic to Master Lu's liturgies is a macrocosm-microcosm identity of the extended universe and the internal geography of the body, combined with a bureaucratic mediation of proper relations among spiritual realms. These features served to define a distinctive type of religious authority in the centuries of religious innovation after the fall of the Han dynasty, an authority that was not only formally invested, hierarchical, and stable, but also simultaneously holistic and deeply rooted in the practices of local traditions. The Lingbao liturgies codified by Master Lu were amplified and embellished until the middle of the Song dynasty (960–1279), when there were major changes and innovations in the ritual tradition as a whole. Even today, however, the rites of ordained Daoist masters in Taiwan still contain sections that faithfully preserve the instructions first penned by Master Lu.

See Also

Daoism, article on Daoist Literature; Ge Hong; Tao Hongjing.

Bibliography

The sources on Lu Xiujing's life and work are detailed in Chen Guofu's Daozang yuanliu kao (1949; rev. ed. Beijing, 1963), pp. 38–44. Special studies in Western languages include Ofuchi Ninji's "On Ku Ling-Pao-Ching," Acta Asiatica 27 (1974): 33–56, and Max Kaltenmark's "Ling-pao: Note sur un terme du taoïsme religieux," Mélanges publiées par l'Institut des Hautes Études Chinoises 2 (1960): 559–588. For general background on this period of Daoist history, consult Rolf A. Stein's "Religious Taoism and Popular Religion from the Second to the Seventh Centuries," in Facets of Taoism, edited by Holmes Welch and Anna Seidel (New Haven, 1979), pp. 53–81; and Michel Strickmann's "The Mao Shan Revelations: Taoism and the Aristocracy," T'oung pao 63 (1977): 1–64.

New Sources

Nickerson, Peter. "Abridged Codes of Master Lu for the Daoist Community." In Religions of China in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., pp. 347–359. Princeton, 1996.

Pregadio, Fabrizion. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. Richmond, Va., 2001.

Yamada, Toshiaki. "The Evolution of Taoist Ritual: K'ou Ch'ien-chih and Lu Xiujing." Acta Asiatica 68 (1995): 69–83.

Catherine M. Bell (1987)

Revised Bibliography