Daozang 道藏, The Daoist Canon

The name "Daoist Canon" usually refers to the collection compiled during the Zhengtong reign-period 正統 (1436-1449) of the Ming era 明 (1368-1644). A supplement including books written after that time was compiled during the Wanli reign-period 萬曆 (1573-1619). These two versions are called (Zhengtong) Daozang (正統)道藏 (or Da-Ming daozang jing 大明道藏經) and (Wanli) Xu daozang (萬曆)續道藏.

Yet the history of collections of Daoist writings or of catalogue listings is long. The term daozang originates in the Daoist repository of the imperial library, as mentioned in Wang Chong's 王充 (27-97 CE) Lunheng 論衡 (Schipper 2004: 8). The earliest catalogue of Daoist writings is found in Ge Hong's 葛洪 (283-343 or 363) Baopuzi neipian 抱樸子內篇 (ch. 19 Xialan 遐覽). It includes more than 300 writings and collections of talismans. The flourishing of the oldest Daoist "ecclesia", the "Way of the Celestial Masters" (Tianshi Dao 天師道) instigated the compilation of precepts of outer alchemy, liturgical and ceremonial instructions, cosmic diagrams and symbols, registers of deities and spirits, "petitions to deities" or orations. The oldest collection (lost) was called Zhengyi fawen 正一法文 "Statutory texts of the Orthodox Unity" and was compiled around 500 CE.

With the spread of Daoism among the eminent families of southeast China many new scriptures were "revealed", belonging to the Shangqing 上清 or Lingbao 靈寶 traditions. A third tradition was called Sanmei 三昧 or Dongyuan 洞淵. The emergence of countless Daoist writings coincides with the flourishing translation work of Buddhist writings from Sanskrit into Chinese. Yet the concept of "three caverns" (sandong 三洞) as used for the Daoist canon was not derived from the tripiṭaka "three baskets"-arrangement in the Buddhist Canon, but from Daoist concepts of cosmological trinities, i.e. the Three Pure Ones (sanqing 三清), the highest deities in the Daoist pantheon. The three caverns were believed to be part of the primordial chaos in which the dao 道 was still integrative.

Figure 1. The Three Pures (sanqing 三清)

The highest deities of the Daoist pantheon, surrounded by countless "immortals" or transcendental persons (xian 仙). Frontispiece of the (Zhengtong) Daozang.

In 437, Lu Xiujing 陸修靜 (406-477) presented to the throne a catalogue of Daoist writings, Sandong jingshu mulu 三洞經書目錄. His catalogue was deemed as canonical. Lu classified all writings as belonging to one of the Three Caverns which corresponded, apart from the Shangqing and the Lingbao revelations, also that of a third tradition called Sanhuang 三皇 "[Writs of] the Three Sovereigns".

Only fragments of Lu's catalogue have survived, but it can be guessed that the Shangqing section included mostly texts on tending life, meditation, visualization, and spiritual alchemy, all aiming at gaining individual immortality. The Lingbao section focused on liturgy, for instance, retreats and offering rituals (zhai jiao 齋醮). The Sanhuang texts were apparently evocations of and prayers to deities, saints, spirits and ancestors, often in the form of talismans. The catalogue was not a complete register of all Daoist books, but focused on writings not included in earlier lists and which had been compiled in recent times.

The next mark stone was Wang Yan's 王延 (fl. 537) 7-juan-long catalogue Sandong zhunang 三洞珠囊 which allegedly listed all Daoist books known at the time and thus integrated all schools and traditions of Daoism. The Maoshan 茅山 patriarch Pan Shizheng 潘師正 (585-682) mentions an organisation of scriptures and writs in seven categories, namely the Three Caverns, and four auxiliary compartments (sifu 四輔) "assisting" the other scriptures.

The first three of them were individual "auxiliaries" to one of the Three Caverns, while the last one, the Zhengyi Auxiliary, was "pertinent" to all writings and included the texts of the old Zhengyi fawen, and the Tianshi Dao texts. The Taixuan 太玄 part includes the "philosophical" writings, the Taiping 太平 section recently revealed scriptures, the Taiqing 太清 division books on alchemy, physical exercises and techniques for nourishing life.

These seven parts of Three Caverns and Four Auxiliaries became standard for the traditional arrangement of Daoist writings. A more elaborate system of categories was applied to the Three Caverns, resulting in 36 sub-categories, actually consisting of three sets of 12 sub-categories under each of the Caverns. These sub-categories consisted of different types of writing. They were first defined in the handbook Daojiao yishu 道教義樞 compiled by Meng Anpai 孟安排 around 700 CE.

The standardization of the Daoist canon proceeded under Emperor Xuanzong 唐玄宗 (r. 712-755) of the Tang Dynasty 唐 (618-907) who was a patron of Daoism. In 748, he ordained the distribution of the latest standard catalogue Sandong qionggang 三洞瓊綱. The contemporary canon was known as (Kaiyuan) Daozang (開元)道藏. It was an expression of ideological fight against Buddhism, for instance, by incorporation of the forged text Laozi huahu jing 老子化胡經. The brief Zhouyi cantong qi 周易參同契 also found entrance into the canon. The Tang-period canon did not survive the political turmoils of the 9th century, but the master Du Guangting 杜光庭 (850-933) did his best to reconstruct as much as possible.

In 1017, Wang Qinruo 王欽若 (962-1025) presented to Emperor Zhenzong 宋真宗 (r. 997-1022) of the Song dynasty 宋 (960-1279) a new Daoist canon of 4,350 fascicles of writings (Schipper 2004: 27), Baowen tonglu 寶文統錄. The canon was hand-copied and distributed privately - unlike the Buddhist Tripitaka, the printed propagation of which was financed by government. Wang's canon was revised by Feng Dezhi 馮德之 and published under the title Yunji qiqian 雲笈七籤 (not to be confounded with Zhang Junfang's 張君房 [fl. 1001] anthology Yunji qiqian). These two Song-period canons followed the sevenfold categorization of the Tang period. A first printing project of the Daoist canon was begun in 1119 under the patronage of Emperor Huizong 宋徽宗 (r. 1100-1125), but the (Zhenghe wanshou) Daozang (政和萬壽)道藏 was never finished completely. It included 5,387 juan of books (Schipper 2004: 28). The Jurchen-Jin dynasty 金 (1115-1234), fostering the emergence of the Quanzhen School 全真宗 in north China, continued the project and published the canon Da-Jin xuandu baozang 大金玄都寶藏 with a volume of 6,455 fascicles (Schipper 2004: 29). Only one copy of this canon survived the onslaught of the Mongol invasion and was reedited by Qin Zhi'an 秦志安 (1189-1244).

Qubilai Qaɣan (Yuan Shizu 元世祖, r. 1260-1294), tending to Buddhism rather than Daoism, decided in 1281 to prohibit and annihilate not just a few anti-Buddhist texts in the Daoist canon, but ordered the complete public destruction of the whole collection - barring the Daodejing 道德經. As much as 800 books were entirely lost, at least according to the list of the catalogue Daozang quejing mulu 道藏闕經目錄. Yet single or fragmentary copies were still available in the early 15th century.

The destruction of the ancient Canon allowed to re-arrange the whole concept of the series by considering the economic and social changes that had taken place since the Tang period, but much more the change of rituals and ceremonies and the structure of Daoist lineages. The ancient Tianshi Dao lineage, for instance, had ceased to exist and was replaced by that of Mt. Longhu 龍虎山.

The project of the new Daozang was initiated by Emperor Chengzu 明成祖 (r. 1402-1424) who ordered in 1406 the Heavenly Master Zhang Yuchu 張宇初 (1361-1410) to supervise the compilation of the new canon. Yet Zhang died a few years later, and with the passing away of the sovereign the project came to a halt. It was resumed by Emperor Yingzong 明英宗 (r. 1435-1449, reign-period Zhengtong 正統) in 1436. The final revision was carried out by Shao Yizheng 邵以正 (c. 1368-1463) in 1444. Shao included the collected writings of Zhang Yuchu, Xuanquan ji 峴泉集, as well as a series of Song-period writings of the Shangqing tradition. The outcome of the project is disappointing. The compilers ignored a surviving copy of the Zhenghe wanshao daozang owned by Xuanmiao Temple 玄妙觀 in Zhangzhou 漳州, Fujian. According to estimations, about 2,000 juan of Daoist writings were still available (Schipper 2004: 33), particularly texts earlier than the Song period.

The (Zhengtong) Daozang includes texts with a total length of 4,551 juan (Schipper 2004: 3, 40). The compiler Zhang seems to have preferred to establish a "modern" canon of Daoism shaped by his own perception of how the Daoism of the time should be rather than taken into account the complex history of the creed's sects, traditions, methods and rituals. Even the order of texts was made entirely new. The canon began with the Lingbao yuanshi wuliang duren shangpin miaojing 靈寶元始无量度人上品妙經 "Most excellent and mysterious book of the marvelous jewel that saves innumerable human beings" (or Durenjing 度[=渡]人經 "Book of salvation" for short) that was believed to have been revealed by the Yuanshi Tianzun 元始天尊 "Heavenly Worthy of Primordial Beginning", the personification of the Dao. Zhang also changed attributions of texts to the seven categories. The Daodejing, for instance, was shifted from the Dongxuan section to the Dongshen part. xxxx

The twelve categories of texts established in the Tang period did likewise not reflect the varieties of Daoist writings of the Ming period. There were, for instance, novel texts of inner alchemy (neidan 內丹), logia (yulu 語錄) and local gazetteers of temples and sacred mountains. It can be demonstrated that texts were ignored because they alleged to have been written by "descent into the brush" (jiangbi 降筆), a belief which Zhang rejected, or were included in the canon because the related institutions had political influence. The Ming Canon even received writings of Neo-Confucian scholars like Shao Yong 邵雍 (1011-1077) or Zhu Xi 朱熹 (1130-1200). These alternations and inconsistencies make the arrangement of the (Zhengtong) Daozang very opaque for users, or to speak more directly, "resulted in total disorder" (Schipper 2004: 35).

Figure 2. Beginning of the (Zhengtong) Daozang

First two pages of the scripture Durenjing 度人經 "Book of salvation".

A supplement to the early Ming-period canon was begun in 1585, during the Wanli reign-period, on imperial order under the supervision of Heavenly Master Zhang Guoxiang 張國祥 (d. 1611). The supplement called (Wanli) Xu daozang includes 56 books with a total length of 180 juan. The selection is characterized by an inclusion of writers originating in Confucian scholarship but who interpreted Daoist scriptures.

The Qing dynasty 清 (1644-1911) was again critical towards Daoism and did not sponsor the revision or enlargement of Daoist collections. The dynasty even banished the Heavenly Master from the imperial palace after 1740, and from Beijing in 1821. The imperial series Siku quanshu 四庫全書, pretending to be a "complete collection" of writings, reduced the Daoist part practically to commentaries on the Daodejing, Zhuangzi 莊子 (Nanhua zhenjing 南華真經) or Liezi 列子 (Chongxu zhide zhenjing 沖虛至德真經) and shifted the Daoist section to the very end of the Masters category. These writings are usually rather deemed "philosophical texts" then "religious ones" - even if a distinction between philosophy and religion is artificial.

The original printing plates of the Ming Canon stored in the Da Guangming Hall 大光明殿 (once standing close to Xi'an Gate 西安門) in Beijing were destroyed in 1900 during the Boxer Rebellion. President Xu Shichang 徐世昌 (1855-1939) decided to reproduce the (Zhengtong) Daozang. The project was carried out by the Shanghai Shangwu Yinshuguan 上海商務印書館 in cooperation with the bibliophile association of the Hanfenlou Studio 涵芬樓. The facsimile, reduced in printing size, was published in 1926 in 1,120 fascicles.

The most important studies on the Daozang are Chen Guofu's 陳國符 (1914-2000) Daozang yuanliu kao 道藏源流考 (with a supplement), Fukui Kōjun's 福井康順 (1898-1991) Dōkyō no kisoteki kenkyū 道教の基礎的研究, Yoshioka Yoshitoyo's 吉岡義豐 (1916-1979) Dōkyō kyōten shiron 道教経典史論, and Schipper & Verellen (2004).

Figure 3. Talismanic banners

Four "true talismanic symbols" (zhenfu 真符) to be applied on banners as shown in the Lingbao yuanshi wuliang duren shangpin miaojing. Each of them expressed the divine power of one of four protective deities ruling over one of the four cardinal directions.

Schipper & Verellen (2004) suggest the following arrangement of Daoist texts: PART I: EASTERN ZHOU TO SIX DYNASTIES I.A Texts in General Circulation I.A.I Philosophy I.A.I.a Texts I.A.I.b Commentaries I.A.2 Divination I.A.3 Medicine and Pharmacology I.A.4 Yangsheng ["Nourishing Life"]‚ I.A.5 Alchemy I.A.6 Sacred History and Geography I.A.6.a Cosmogony and the Pantheon I.A.6.b MythologyandHagiography I.A.7 Collected Works I.A.8 Compendiums and Encyclopedias I.B Texts in Internal Circulation I.B.1 The Way of the Heavenly Master I.B.I.a Didactic and Doctrinal Treatises I.B.I.b Rituals and Rules I.B.2 Shangqing I.B.2.a The Canonical Shangqing Scriptures I.B.2.b Other Early Shangqing Scriptures I.B.2.C Early Shangqing Hagiographies I.B.2.d Anthologies I.B.2.e Rituals and Rules I.B.3 Lingbao I.B.3.a The Canonical Lingbao Scriptures I.B.3.b Other Early Lingbao Scriptures I.B.3.c Doctrinal and Liturgical Works I.B.4 Texts of the Dongshen Division I.B.5 Other Revealed Scriptures I.B.6 The Taipingjing PART 2: SUI, TANG, AND FIVE DYNASTIES 2.A Texts in General Circulation 2.A.I Philosophy 2.A.I.a Commentaries on Ancient Philosophers 2.A.I.b Tang Philosophical Texts (General) 2.A.I.C The Yinfu jing and Its Commentaries 2.A.I.d Commentaries on the Zhouyi cantong qi and Related Scriptures 2.A.I.e Commentaries on Lingbao Scriptures 2.A.2 Divination and Numerology 2.A.3 Medicine and Pharmacology 2.A.4 Yangsheng 2.A.4.a Miscellaneous Practices 2.A.4.b Respiratory Techniques 2.A.5 Alchemy 2.A.5.a Laboratory Alchemy 2.A.5.b Inner Alchemy 2.A.6 Sacred History and Geography 2.A.6.a Sacred Annals and Records 2.A.6.b Hagiographies 2.A.6.c Mountain and Temple Monographs; Epigraphy 2.A.7 Collected Works 2.A.8 Handbooks and Encyclopedias 2.B Texts in Internal Circulation 2.B.I The General Liturgical Organization of the Tang 2.B.2 The Orthodox One Way of the Heavenly Master 2.B.2.a Liturgical Organization 2.B.2.b Rituals 2.B.2.c Miscellaneous 2.B.3 The Taiping Division 2.B.4 The Taixuan Division 2.B.s Sanhuang Scriptures and Rituals 2.B.6 Dongyuan and Shengxuan Scriptures and Rituals 2.B.6.a The Dongyuan shenzhou jing 2.B.6.b The Shengxuan neijiao jing 2.B.7 Lingbao 2.B.7.a Scriptures 2.B.7.a.I The Long Treatises 2.B.7.a.2 Medium-Length Scriptures 2.B.7.a.3 Short Doctrinal and Prophylactic Texts 2.B.7.b Litanies 2.B.7.C Rituals and Rules 2.B.8 TheDongzhenDivision 2.R.8.a Scriptures 2.B.8.b The Shangqing Registers 2.B.8.c Manuals, Anthologies, and Encyclopedias 2.B.8.c.1 Practices 2.B.8.c.2 Liturgy 2.B.8.3 Encyclopedias PART 3: THE SONG, YUAN, AND MING 3.A Texts in General Circulation 3.A.l Philosophy 3.A.I.a Commentaries on Ancient Philosophers 3.A.I.a.1 The Daodejing 3.A.I.a.2 The Zhuangzi 3.A.I.a.3 TheLiezi 3.A.I.a.4- Others 3.A.I.b Commentaries on the Yinfu jing 3.A.I.c Commentaries on the Zhouyi cantong qi and Related Scriptures 3.A.I.d Commentaries on Zhengyi, Shangqing, and Lingbao Scriptures 3.A.I.e Treatises and Essays 3.A.2 Divination and Numerology 3.A.3 Medicine and Pharmacology 3.A.4 Neidan and Yangsheng 3.A.4.a General Works and Manuals 3.A.4.b The Zhong-Lü Tradition 3.A.4.c The Wuzhen pian and the Southern School (Nanzong) 3.A.4.d Other Neidan Traditions 3.A.5 Alchemy 3.A.6 Sacred History and Geography 3.A.6.a Sacred Histories and Records 3.A.6.b Hagiographies 3.A.6.c Mountain and Temple Monographs 3.A.7 Collectanea 3.A.7.a Logia (Yulu) 3.A.7.b Collected Works 3.A.8 Handbooks and Anthologies 3.B Texts in Internal Circulation 3.B.I Zhengyi 3.B.I.a Scriptures 3.B.I.b Lamp Rituals 3.B.I.c Registers and Talismans 3.B.I.d Miscellanea 3.B.2 Sanhuang 3.B.3 Lingbao 3.B.3.a Scriptures 3.B.3.b Litanies 3.B.3.c Rituals 3.B.3.d Manuals 3.B.3.e Hymnology 3.B.4 Shangqing 3.B.4.a Scriptures 3.B.4.b Registers 3.B.4.c Rituals 3.B.5 Tianxin Zhengfa and Related Rites 3.B.6 Shenxiao Fa and Related Thunder Rites 3.B.7 The Qingwei School 3.B.8 The Jingming Zhongxiao School 3.B.9 The Quanzhen Order 3.B.9.a Hagiography and Biography 3.B.9.b Logia and Collected Works 3.B.9.C Rules and Organization 3.B.9.d Individual Practice 3.B.1O The Beidi and Xuantian Shangdi Cult 3.B.11 The Wenchang Cult 3.B.12 The Hangen Lingji Zhenjun Cult 3.B.13 The Zhenyuan Scriptures 3.B.14 Other Popular Cults 3.B.14.a Scriptures of Popular Cults 3.B.14.b The Cult of the Northern Dipper 3.B.14.c Popular Rites 3.B.14.d Divination Slips Tables of contents [Catalogues]

The following list is not complete, but just lists texts of general interest beyond the field of religious studies.

Not included in the Daozang:

老子化胡經 Laozi huahu jing
老子想爾注 Laozi Xiang Er zhu
老子義疏 Laozi yishu
正易心法注 Zhengyi xinfa zhu
周易集說 Zhouyi jishuo
文昌帝君陰騭文 Wenchang dijun yinzhi wen
方壺外史 Fangfu waishi
道書十二種 Daoshu shier zhong
古書隱樓藏書 Gushu yinlou cangshu
道書十七種 Daoshu shiqi zhong
神仙傳 Shenxianzhuan by (Jin) 葛洪 Ge Hong
三教搜神大全 Sanjiao soushen daquan
黃帝四經 Huangdi sijing