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The Canon · No. 019

Daoism

Taoism; Dao Jiao

c.4th c. BCE – present · East Asian · Living · China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Korea, diaspora

III. THE AXIAL AGE — c.900 – 200 BCE

How many

Perhaps 8–20 million formally, though tens of millions more practise Daoist ritual within Chinese folk religion without labelling it.

Who began it

Attributed to Laozi, the old master, traditionally a 6th-century BCE archivist who met Confucius and departed westward, writing the Daodejing at a border guard's request. Most historians regard him as legendary or composite; the text is a compilation, probably 4th–3rd century BCE. Zhuangzi (c.369–286 BCE) is a securely historical figure and the better writer.

What it is for

To align with the Dao — the way, the underlying pattern of reality — rather than fight it. Where Confucianism prescribes more culture, Daoism prescribes less.

What it worships

Philosophical Daoism has no personal god; the Dao is impersonal and unnameable. Religious Daoism, which developed from the 2nd century CE, has an enormous bureaucratic pantheon mirroring the imperial state: the Jade Emperor, the Three Pure Ones, the Eight Immortals, city gods, kitchen gods, and deified Laozi as Taishang Laojun.

What it holds

Dao — the way that cannot be named; the opening line of the Daodejing says the Dao that can be spoken is not the eternal Dao. De — inherent power or virtue, what a thing does when it is being what it is. Wu wei — non-action, better rendered effortless action or not forcing; the water that wears the stone. Ziran — spontaneity, self-so-ness. Yin and yang — complementary, mutually generating opposites, not a good-versus-evil dualism. Qi — vital breath or energy. Daoism is systematically suspicious of moralising: Laozi argues that when the great Dao is abandoned, that is precisely when talk of benevolence and righteousness appears.

What it does

Meditation and breath control. Inner alchemy (neidan), refining body and spirit to produce an immortal embryo — and earlier outer alchemy (waidan), which involved elixirs of cinnabar and mercury and killed several emperors. Qigong and taijiquan. Traditional Chinese medicine, feng shui and Chinese astrology all draw on Daoist cosmology. Temple liturgy with talismans, memorials burned to the celestial bureaucracy, and jiao offering rituals. Dietary regimes, including the avoidance of the five grains.

After death

Multiple and not fully harmonised. Early philosophical Daoism treats death as simply another transformation — Zhuangzi drums on a pot and sings after his wife dies, on the reasoning that she has changed as the seasons change, and mourning would show he did not understand. Religious Daoism pursues literal physical immortality (xian, the transcendent), attained through alchemy and discipline, sometimes with the body left behind as an empty shell. It also absorbed a bureaucratic underworld of courts, registers and hells from Buddhism, staffed by officials who can be petitioned, bribed and appealed to — the afterlife as a government department.

Its texts

Daodejing (Tao Te Ching), 81 short chapters, the most translated book in the world after the Bible. Zhuangzi, philosophically the deepest and the funniest. Liezi. Huainanzi. The Daozang, the Daoist canon, containing roughly 1,400 texts.

Its branches

Zhengyi (Celestial Masters, hereditary married priests, ritual-focused) and Quanzhen (monastic, celibate, meditation-focused). Plus Shangqing, Lingbao and numerous local traditions.

Of note

Chinese religion is usually not exclusive. The standard formula is that a person is Confucian in office, Daoist in retirement and Buddhist at death — three systems used for three different jobs, by the same person, without contradiction.

Its timeline

  1. c.4th–3rd c. BCE Daodejing takes shape; Zhuangzi writes.
  2. 1993 CE Guodian bamboo slips excavated, containing a Daodejing version from c.300 BCE — the earliest known copy.
  3. 142 CE Zhang Daoling receives a revelation from the deified Laozi and founds the Way of the Celestial Masters, the first organised Daoist church.
  4. 184 CE Yellow Turban Rebellion, a Daoist-millenarian uprising that helps bring down the Han.
  5. 4th–5th c. CE Shangqing and Lingbao revelations; canon formation.
  6. 618–907 CE Tang dynasty; the imperial Li family claims descent from Laozi and Daoism becomes the state religion.
  7. 1167 CE Wang Chongyang founds the Quanzhen monastic school.
  8. 1281 CE Kublai Khan orders Daoist texts burned after Buddhist-Daoist court debates.
  9. 1966–76 Cultural Revolution devastates temples and lineages.
  10. 1980s–present Revival in mainland China; continuous unbroken practice in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

Sources

Not yet checked against named sources. This entry is the house's reading; until it is checked, treat each claim as unverified. Correct it, with a source.

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