Wei Huacun

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Lady Wei Huacun (Chinese: 魏華存, 251-334) was a founder of the Shangqing sect of Daoism.

[edit] Overview

She was born in Rencheng County, Shandong province, during the Jin dynasty. Her father, Wei Shu, was a government official. From an early age she displayed a propensity for studying the works of Laozi and Zhuangzi, and practicing Daoist methods of cultivation.

At the age of 24 she was married against her will and had two sons. After they grew up, she resumed her Daoist practices. At some point she became a libation pourer in the priesthood of the Celestial Masters (Tianshi) sect of Daoism.

According to her Shangqing hagiographers, her devotion to Daoist cultivation so impressed a number of immortals that she received revelations from them- 31 volumes of Daoist scriptures which would become the foundation of Shang Qing Daoism. Among these were the Yellow Court scriptures which detailed a form of meditation involving the visualizations of deities within the adept's body, a practice that would become a defining feature of Shangqing. Shangqing has sometimes been described as a "mystical" form of Daoism, emphasizing the notion of the human body as a microcosm containing universal energies, which could be actualized by ecstatic union with deities. With the emphasis on meditation, there would be much less attention paid to physiological cultivation by ingesting herbs and drugs, which had been important in earlier forms of Daoism.

When Wei's disciple Yang Xi formally founded the Shangqing school, 30 years after Wei Huacun's passing, Wei Huacun was acknowledged as the first "patriarch" of Shangqing Daoism and, as an immortal, would be a source of continuing revelations. The sect would be centered on Mao Mountain, situated to the south of Nanjing, and would thus be also known as the Mao Shan sect. From the sixth to the tenth century, Shangqing would be the most prominent Daoist sect and would gain favor among aristocrats of the Tang Dynasty court. The Shangqing scriptures were regarded as possessing a high literary quality that previous Daoist scriptures did not, and their vivid esoteric imagery was an inspiration to artists and poets.

[edit] References

Robinet, Isabelle. Taoism: Growth of a Religion. Trans. Phyllis Brooks. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997.
Saso, Michael. The Gold Pavilion: Taoist Ways to Peace, Healing, and Long-life.North Clarendon: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1995.