Heavenly Masters: Two Thousand Years of the Daoist State by Vincent Goossaert
To an already astonishing list of publications, Vincent Goossaert has added a book that will forever change the way we look at Daoism as an organized religion. In Heavenly Masters: Two Thousand Years of the Daoist State, Goossaert tells the story of the Zhangs of Longhushan 龍虎山, and their Heavenly Master institution, that considered itself the heir to the original Heavenly Master church (Tianshidao 天師道). As in many of his earlier books and articles, Goossaert, a leading scholar in the field of the social history of Chinese religion, has expertly analyzed an enormous amount of primary source material (works in the Daoist canon, gazetteers, collections of anecdotes, archives, manuscripts, literary collections, and newspapers) to provide us with an account of two millennia of what the author provocatively calls "the Daoist State." By "state" Goossaert means "an institution that proclaims and enforces norms and laws that apply to the whole population, that taxes its registered subjects in order to support itself and its officers, and that wields violence against its enemies" (p. 5). As the Heavenly Master institution attempted to do that "within and as part of the imperial state" (ibid.), Goossaert also uses the term "deep state."
As is well known, the true origins of the Zhangs of Longhushan are shrouded in mystery, and their claim to constitute an unbroken tradition going back to Zhang Ling 張陵 (later Zhang Daoling 張道陵), the first Heavenly Master, rests on very little. As Goossaert explains (p. 42), the earliest trustworthy date for the presence of a Heavenly Master named Zhang at Longhushan is 828.1 Among the many historical Zhangs who claimed descent from Zhang Daoling before the ninth century, Goossaert (p. 26) mentions Zhang Daoyu 張道裕, described as a "twelfth generation descendant of Ling, Heavenly Master of the Han" (漢朝天師陵十二代孫) in an early sixth-century [End Page 186] stela inscription.2 A stela inscription dated 677, not mentioned by Goossaert, refers to Zhang Wenli 張文禮, fifteenth generation descendant of the Heavenly Master (see Chen Yuan, Daojia jinshi lüe, p. 67). That, one and a half centuries after the 677 inscription, Zhang Shaoren or Zhang Shiyuan should only have been eighteenth generation descendants, suggests the simultaneous presence of different patriarchal lines, or the extraordinary longevity of a number of Medieval Longhushan Heavenly Masters. However, the "exceptional longevity" for which the Zhangs were praised (p. 268) is not confirmed by the historical record. Longhushan Heavenly Masters died relatively young: the average age of the twenty-eight Heavenly Masters for whom we possess reliable dates of both birth and death was forty-nine.
In light of the paucity of trustworthy historical documents relating to Zhang Daoling, Goossaert, in his chapter 1 ("Inventing the Founding Ancestor"), focuses on the history of the myth that grew around the first Heavenly Master. Chapters 2 and 3 discuss the success of the Longhushan Zhangs in utilizing the wealth and power concentrated in their region during the latter half of the Tang, and in obtaining what Goossaert describes as the "ultimate grail" (p. 74): the empire-wide, state-sanctioned monopoly on ordinations. Chapters 4 and 5 analyze how the Heavenly Master institution grew to maturity during the early modern period (tenth to fourteenth centuries), against a background of thorough changes in Daoist ritual (the rise and integration of new exorcistic traditions). During the Ming and Qing dynasties, the Longhushan Zhangs continued to be active throughout the entire empire, cooperating with the imperial bureaucracy, and shaping local society by licensing all sorts of religious specialists, and local gods as well. They were major landowners, living on the rent from their landed estates, they received donations from the court, and they charged fees (at times very substantial ones) for their ritual services (ordinations, canonizing local gods and "recycling demons," sale of talismans). The organization also functioned as a court of law, and taxed local communities so as to be able to maintain their status of elite Daoists, who intermarried with influential, aristocratic, and wealthy families of the Longhushan region and beyond. All of this is explained in chapters 7 and 8. As skillful politicians, the Longhushan Zhangs weathered many storms, surviving dynastic collapse, accepting foreign rulers (Mongols as well as Manchus), and being recognized and supported by them.3 Closely bound to the empire as the Heavenly Master institution was, it inevitably shared the empire's fate. The downfall, which set in around 1850, as China was violently forced to open itself to the rest of the world, is the topic of chapters 9 and 10.
Goossaert's longue durée narrative is enlivened considerably by the insertion of detailed accounts of the lives of a small number of Heavenly Masters or other figures of importance in their organization. These include Zhang Jixian 張繼先 (1092–1126), the thirtieth Heavenly Master (pp. 95–104); Zhang Yuchu 張宇初 (1361–1410), the forty-third Heavenly Master, to whom the entire [End Page 187] sixth chapter is devoted; Lou Jinyuan 婁近垣 (1689–1776), the greatest Daoist chaplain at the Qing court (pp. 198–208); and Zhang Yuanxu 張元旭 (1862–1925), the sixty-second Heavenly Master and the last one to be nominated by an emperor (pp. 272–285). The life of Zhang Yuchu is particularly illuminating, divided as it is into different segments, discussing his role as Heavenly Master, scholar, self-cultivator, head of an empire-wide ordination system, and as a man with a vision of what Daoism should ideally be.
Heavenly Masters is more than the first complete and convincingly argued account of the institution's history and organization, its ideology and ritual practices, its monopoly on ordinations and licensing, its interaction with the imperial court, its societal and cultural roles, and its economics. It also dispels quite a few popular misunderstandings of certain facets of Daoism, regarding the use of terms like "Zhengyi pai" 正一派 and "Tianshidao" (pp. 6–7), the relationship between Longhushan and the Qing court (185 ff.), and the connection between Quanzhen 全真 and Zhengyi (pp. 165, 177, 222–223). It is the work of a scholar at the peak of his powers, who combines an impressive knowledge of both primary and secondary sources with an ability to narrate a story in a compelling and readable fashion. Furthermore, there is wisdom in Goossaert's judgment concerning the way the Longhushan Zhangs worked "by incentive rather than punitive methods, to maintain the relative purity of Daoist practice while being inclusive. The Heavenly Master's approach was not to suppress or to ban illicit practice […] but to entice, with the prestige of ordinations, Daoists of local traditions to make their practice closer to orthodox standards" (p. 231). And in this context, he quotes the example of the institution embracing a vernacular Buddhist liturgy popular in the region (ibid.). This flexibility toward originally foreign elements makes one think back to Sima Tan's 司馬談 (d. 110 B.C.E.) positive assessment of Daoism (daojia 道家) and their willingness to adopt what they considered to be the best practices in other traditions.
It will be obvious that Heavenly Masters is a must-read for anyone interested in Daoism and in Chinese religion in general. The only aspect of the Longhushan Zhang's history which Goossaert could have treated somewhat more fully is a minor one. It concerns their emergence in the early ninth century. If the year 828 is the first credible date for the Longhushan institution, and there is no reason to doubt that, then it is interesting to note, as the author hints at (p. 15), that the Longhushan Heavenly Masters coexisted for quite some time with other Daoist priests who bore the title of Heavenly Master but who had no ties with the Zhang family. The Tang dynasty has a well-documented history of Daoist masters known as tianshi 天師. In the Dongxuan Lingbao sanshi ji 洞玄靈寶三師記 (D 444, preface dated 920), Tian Xuying 田虛應 (d. 811) and Xue Jichang 薛季昌 (d. 759) are addressed as Heavenly Masters. Similarly, in the Sandong xiudao yi 三洞修道儀 (D 1237), a text that has been dated to both 943 and 1003, [End Page 188] Pan Shizheng 潘師正 (584–682), Sima Chengzhen 司馬承禎 (647–735), and Wu Yun 吳筠 (d. 778) all bear the title of Heavenly Master. A much later source, the Lishi zhenxian tidao tongjian 歷世真仙體道通鑑 (D 296, preface dated 1294), describes how Deng Ziyang 鄧紫陽 (703–739) obtained the title of Heavenly Master (32.7a). Also, Du Guangting 杜光庭 (850–933), born after Ying Yijie's visit to the Longhushan Heavenly Master, was addressed as Heavenly Master (in the Daomen tongjiao biyong ji 道門通教必用集, D 1226, preface dated 1201). As Goossaert notes (p. 15), the last Daoist outside the Zhang patriarchal line to use the title of tianshi was Song Defang 宋德方 (1183–1247). I have argued that the abovementioned Tang Daoist priests addressed as Heavenly Masters obtained the title because they had acted as "Master to the Son of Heaven" (天子之師),4 but the precise relationship between these Heavenly Masters, the Zhangs of Longhushan, and the emperor and his bureaucracy needs to be further clarified. Goossaert (ibid.) mentions the Longhushan Zhangs lobbying for the monopoly on the title, but provides no further details.
Heavenly Masters has been prepared with great care. One problematic sentence, though, on p. 211, seems to have eluded the author's and editor's attention: "[…] of 1,582 documented jurisdictions (counties, prefectures), 497 had a functioning local Daoist official, among whom 59 were located in City God Temples, and 20 in Eastern Peak Ton the work notes all numbered." It would seem that part of the information has gone missing.
Formerly of the universities of Ghent, Leiden, and Leuven, Jan De Meyer (1961) is a writer and a literary translator. Current research is on Ming dynasty Daoism in Yunnan.
NOTES
1. In the year 828 Ying Yijie 應夷節 (810–894) visited Longhushan and was ordained by Zhang Shaoren 張少任, descendant of Zhang Daoling in the eighteenth generation. In the "official" sequence of Heavenly Masters as presented in the Han tianshi shijia 漢天師世家 (D 1463, 2.15b–16a), the eighteenth Heavenly Master is called Zhang Shiyuan 張士元.
2. See Chen Yuan 陳垣, comp., Daojia jinshi lüe 道家金石略 (Beijing: Wenwu chubanshe, 1988), p. 28.
3. It is the cruel irony of history that some close collaborators of the Heavenly Masters were (indirectly, perhaps) responsible for the death of literati who had decided they would stay loyal to their dynasty. Thus, the Song loyalists Deng Mu 鄧牧 (1247–1306) and his closest friend, Ye Lin 葉林 (1248–1306), who had both withdrawn to a major Daoist sanctuary not far from Hangzhou, the Dongxiao gong 洞霄宮, apparently felt compelled to commit suicide by starvation after being invited or coerced by the Xuanjiao 玄教 patriarch, Wu Quanjie 吳全節 (1269–1346), to accept an official position under the new Mongol regime. See Fu Lo-Shu, "Teng Mu: A Forgotten Chinese Philosopher," T'oung Pao 52 (1965): 35–96.
4. De Meyer, Wu Yun's Way. Life and Works of an Eighth-Century Daoist Master (Leiden: Brill, 2006), p. 430. Note that the appellation "Master to the Son of Heaven" would have been a very high form of praise indeed and not a form of debasement of the original title to the degree that—in the words of Russell Kirkland—"By the early tenth century, any memorable Taoist was called a tianshi" (Fabrizio Pregadio, ed., The Routledge Encyclopedia of Taoism [London: Routledge, 2008], p. 981).
