What is Maoshan Sect 茅山宗?

The Maoshan Sect is a Taoist school with Maoshan as its ancestral court. It inherits the Shangqing Sect and is also known as the Shangqing Sect with Maoshan as its development center. Its actual founder was Tao Hongjing. In the tenth year of Yongming in the Southern Qi Dynasty (492), Tao Hongjing retired to Maoshan and called himself "Huayang Hermit". He inherited the Shangqing scriptures passed down by Yang Xi and Xu Mi, carefully searched for the lost authentic handwritten scripts of Shangqing classics and formulas by Yang and Xu, and compiled more than 200 volumes of Taoist scriptures such as Zhengao (which specifically records the early doctrines, techniques and history of the Shangqing Sect), Dengzhen Yinjue and Zhenling Weiye Tu, promoting the Shangqing classics and methods. Through decades of painstaking efforts by him and his disciples, the doctrines and organization of the Shangqing Sect gradually became complete. In fact, Maoshan had already become the center of the Shangqing Sect of Taoism at that time, and later the Shangqing Sect was called the "Maoshan Sect".

Taoists of Maoshan are called "Shangqing disciples" or "San dong disciples" within Taoism. They mainly practice in Taoist temples as monks and attach importance to cultural and religious moral cultivation. They study Taoist scriptures, abide by precepts, and perform rituals mostly in accordance with ancient methods. The Maoshan Sect has relatively systematic doctrines and standardized religious rituals. Many Taoists are good at writing. Even in the Song and Yuan dynasties, there were still Du Daojian and Zhang Yu who were famous for their metaphysical poems and articles.

In the history of Chinese Taoism, the Maoshan Sect has an important position. It not only became the mainstream of Taoism during the Sui and Tang dynasties, but also made great contributions to Taoist theories and cultivation techniques, with relatively complete organizational systems. Therefore, before the various talisman sects merged into the Zhengyi Dao, it could stand side by side with the Longhu Sect and the Gezao Sect as one of the three talisman sects. After the merger, it could still be passed down as a small sect until modern times.