Do the highest deities of Taoism, the "Three Pure Ones", have birthdays?

Birth and death represent the beginning and end of a person's life respectively, so people attach great importance to these two days. Ordinary people have birthdays. The immortals in Taoism who became saints through cultivation, such as Lu Dongbin and Qiu Chuji, of course, have birthdays. So do the "Three Pure Ones", the highest deities of Taoism, have birthdays? If so, on which days are they?

The "Three Pure Ones" refer to Yuanshi Tianzun, Lingbao Tianzun and Daode Tianzun, who are the embodiments of the Tao. Therefore, fundamentally speaking, the "Three Pure Ones" have no beginning or origin. According to this understanding, these three supreme deities originally have no birthdays and thus there is no talk of celebrating birthdays. If so, Taoism would lack some small opportunities to expand its influence. Therefore, later Taoists, for convenience, still set birthdays for these three founders of the religion.

Let's start with Yuanshi Tianzun. When the two forms were not separated and heaven and earth were still in chaos, Yuanshi Tianzun already existed. Yuanshi Tianzun symbolizes chaos and is the first great era when yin and yang were initially distinguished. The characteristic of this great era is that yin reaches its extreme and yang begins to grow, the nights become shorter and the days gradually longer. Therefore, Taoism regards the winter solstice of each year as the birthday of Yuanshi Tianzun.

Lingbao Tianzun ranks second among the "Three Pure Ones". In Tao Hongjing's "True Spirit Position Ranking Map", Lingbao Tianzun is listed in the middle position of the second divine rank, named "Supreme Saintly Jade Morning Emperor of the Supreme Purity". Lingbao Tianzun is the master of all Tao, symbolizing the beginning of clarity from chaos and is the second great era when yin and yang began to be clearly distinguished. In this great era, yin begins to grow and yang begins to wane, the days become shorter and the nights longer. Based on this characteristic, Taoism regards the summer solstice of each year as the birthday of Lingbao Tianzun.

Among the "Three Pure Ones", the deity with a clear date of birth is Daode Tianzun. This is because Daode Tianzun is different from the previous two: Daode Tianzun actually had a real person, namely Taishang Laojun, who was Laozi. Laozi is clearly recorded in Sima Qian's "Records of the Grand Historian". A historical figure who actually existed naturally has a birthday.
However, the records of Laozi in historical books have more doubts and less certainty. We only know that Laozi was a person during the Spring and Autumn Period and once held the position of the director of the national library of the Zhou Dynasty, but we do not know his exact date of birth. This problem was solved during the Tang Dynasty. The key figure who solved it was the famous Du Guangting.

Du Guangting was an inheritor of the Maoshan Sect of Taoism and a master of Taoist rituals. People may be familiar with him because he once wrote a famous legendary story: "The Tale of Qiu Ranje". But Du Guangting was a famous Taoist priest, and his main energy was of course in Taoist practice. He annotated many Taoist scriptures. Among them, "The Extensive and Saintly Meanings of the True Classic of Morality" written to explain the "Classic of Morality" clarified the birthday of Laozi.

Perhaps contrary to your expectations, Du Guangting pushed the era of Laozi's birth back to the Shang Dynasty. According to him, Laojun was born in the ninth year of King Wu Ding of the Yin and Shang Dynasty, on the fifteenth day of the second month of the Gengchen year. Du Guangting had an extremely high status during the late Tang and Five Dynasties and was called the "Prime Minister in the Mountains". Through his determination, the birthday of Daode Tianzun was determined.

During the Northern Song Dynasty, the Taoist priest Jia Shanxiang wrote a book called "The Biography of the Dragon-Like", which is the most important biographical work about Daode Tianzun. In it, Laozi's birthday was set on the fifteenth day of the second month. Xie Shouhao of the Southern Song Dynasty's "The Sacred Chronicle of the Primordial Chaos" also followed this statement. Therefore, the fifteenth day of the second month became the conclusive date for Laozi's birthday.

The above are the statements about the birthdays of the Three Pure Ones in Taoism. Do you know on which days they are?