The Shangqing Sect 上清派

A Taoist Sect that reveres the Shangqing scripture system.

The founders of the Shangqing School were Yang Xi, Xu Mi, and Xu Hui, Taoist priests of the Celestial Master tradition during the Eastern Jin Dynasty.

In the second year of Xingning (364 CE) during the reign of Emperor Ai of the Jin Dynasty, Yang Xi practiced automatic writing (planchette writing), claiming that the Purple Void Primordial Lord and Highest True Director of Destinies, Madame Wei of Nanyue (Wei Huacun), had descended to bestow 31 scrolls of the Shangqing True Scriptures. She ordered Yang Xi to transcribe them in clerical script and pass them to Xu Mi, the Military Advisor to the Guard Commander, of Gouqu (in present-day Jurong, Jiangsu), and his son Xu Hui. The two Xus copied the Shangqing scriptures and attained enlightenment through practicing their methods. At the end of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Wang Lingqi obtained the Shangqing scriptures from Xu Huangmin (Xu Hui’s son), then edited, revised, and expanded them, creating over fifty texts of Shangqing scriptures and methods. Taoist priests in the Jiangdong region (southeastern China) admired the richness and breadth of the Shangqing teachings, competing to copy and transmit them, thus forming the Shangqing School, which focused on transmitting and practicing the Shangqing scriptures and methods in Jiangdong.

The Shangqing School regarded Wei Huacun, a female Taoist of the Jin Dynasty (known as Madame Wei of Nanyue), as its first patriarch, and Yang Xi as the second.

Following Yang Xi, the third to ninth patriarchs of the Shangqing School, in the order of scriptural transmission, were Xu Mu (Xu Mi), Xu Hui, Ma Lang, Ma Han, Lu Xiujing, Sun Youyue, and Tao Hongjing.

Tao Hongjing resided in Maoshan (Mount Mao) during the Qi and Liang dynasties, spreading the Shangqing scriptures and methods and founding the Maoshan School. The Shangqing School was thus inherited by the Maoshan School.

The Shangqing School worshipped Yuanshi Tianwang (Primordial Heavenly King) and Taishang Dadaojun (Highest Great Dao Lord) as the supreme deities. Its most distinctive practice was cunsi (visualization/meditative contemplation), which held that through visualization, the gods of heaven and earth could enter the human body. When the spirits within the body merged with the qi of the celestial and earthly gods, one could achieve immortality and ascend to the Shangqing realm (the Highest Clarity).

The Shangqing practices, such as cunsi, fuqi (absorbing qi), yanjin (swallowing saliva), reciting incantations, and wearing talismans, greatly influenced Taoist ritual ceremonies. Lu Xiujing’s Catalogue of Scriptures of the Three Grottoes recorded 186 scrolls of Shangqing scriptures, with 127 scrolls circulating in the world. Its representative classics include the Shangqing Great Cavern True Scripture and the Yellow Court Classic.

The patriarchs of the Shangqing School came from the aristocratic families of Jiangdong. The creation and dissemination of the Shangqing scriptures matured Taoist theory, making the Shangqing School the most influential Taoist school in the Jiangdong region during the Eastern Jin and Southern Dynasties.