The Sun Mingdao 孙明道

Sun Mingdao lived during the Jin Dynasty.

In the 28th year of the Dading era (1188), Emperor Shizong of the Jin Dynasty issued an imperial edict, ordering the transfer of the printing blocks of the Taoist Canon (Daozang) from Bianjing (the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, now Kaifeng, Henan Province) to Tianchang Guan (Tianchang Taoist Temple) in Zhongdu (the capital of the Jin Dynasty, now Beijing).

In the 1st year of the Mingchang era (1190), Sun Mingdao was appointed as "Tidian Guanshi" (the official in charge of managing the temple affairs) of Tianchang Guan in Zhongdu. He began to use the existing printing blocks to publish a complete set of the Taoist Canon.

At the same time, he assigned Taoist priests to collect scattered Taoist scriptures extensively and recruited craftsmen to supplement and re-engrave the missing or damaged printing blocks. After nearly two years, the engraving and compilation work was fully completed.

In total, 1,074 volumes of scattered scriptures were recovered, and more than 21,800 supplementary printing blocks were made. Sun Mingdao, together with other Taoist practitioners, then categorized and arranged these scriptures in detail according to the "Sandong Sifu" system (a traditional classification framework for Taoist texts, dividing scriptures into "Three Grottoes" and "Four Auxiliaries") and detailed standards. They also compared the similarities and differences between different versions and finalized the order of the texts. The complete collection amounted to 6,455 volumes, and was titled The Taoist Canon of the Great Jin Dynasty (Da Jin Xuandu Baozang), commonly known as the "Jin Edition Taoist Canon" (Jin Zang).

After the fall of the Jin Dynasty, these Taoist scriptures were scattered and lost one after another.