The Rise of Daoism

Daoism is a religion native to China. It takes the “Dao” as its highest belief, draws on immortality arts and Huang-Lao thought, and seeks to attain the Dao and become immortal. After the middle of the Eastern Han, politics were dark, society unstable, and natural disasters and plagues frequent; the people's extreme suffering and need for spiritual refuge provided fertile ground for Daoism's rise. The Scripture of Great Peace (Taiping Jing) became an important early Daoist text. In the late Eastern Han, Zhang Jue of Julu founded the Way of Great Peace based on that scripture, venerating the Yellow Emperor and Laozi and absorbing popular immortality arts. Calling himself the “Great Worthy Teacher,” he healed the sick with talisman water and spread his teaching, finding favor among the poor. In over ten years he gained several hundred thousand followers across eight provinces, whom he organized into 36 divisions, and on that basis he later launched the Yellow Turban Rebellion. Meanwhile Zhang Ling (later called Zhang Daoling) founded the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice at Heming Mountain in Shu (in present-day Dayi, Sichuan), so named because entrants paid five pecks of rice; it honored Laozi as its patriarch and took the Laozi in Five Thousand Characters as its scripture. The two were the main early Daoist branches, followed mainly by lower-class people. The Five Pecks of Rice later developed into the Way of the Celestial Masters, and Zhang Ling was revered as the “Celestial Master Zhang.” After the Wei and Jin, Ge Hong, Kou Qianzhi, Tao Hongjing and others systematized Daoist theory. Daoism influenced ancient Chinese philosophy, medicine, chemistry, literature, art and folk customs.