The most brilliant synthesis of the Way of the Celestial Masters with the indigenous traditions of the Southeast occurred in the 4th century ce in a family closely related to Ge Hong. Xu Mi, an official at the imperial court, and his youngest son, Xu Hui, were the principal beneficiaries of an extensive new Daoist revelation. A visionary in the Xus’ service, Yang Xi, was honoured with the visits of a group of perfected Immortals (zhenren) from the heaven of Shangqing (“Supreme Purity”), an improvement on the Taiqing heaven and the ordinary Immortals (xian) that peopled it. In the course of his visions, which lasted from 364 to 370 ce, Yang received a whole new scriptural and hagiographic literature, in addition to much practical information from the “perfected” (zhen) on how it was to be understood and employed. Like the Ge family, the Xus belonged to the old aristocracy of Wu, who had been displaced from prominence by the arrival of the great families of the North, to whose Daoist beliefs they had been converted. The perfected assured them that the present unjust order was soon to end and that the rule of men on earth was to be replaced by a universal Daoist imperium. The present (i.e., the 4th century) was a time of trials, given over to the reign of the demonic Six Heavens, and marked by war, disease, and the worship of false gods. The sole mission of the demonic forces, however, was to cleanse the earth of evildoers, a task that would be completed by an overwhelming cataclysm of fire and flood. At that time the Good would take refuge deep in the earth, in the luminous caverns of the perfected beneath such sacred mountains as Maoshan (in Jiangsu province), the immediate focus of spiritual interest for the Xus. There they would complete the study of immortality already begun in their lifetimes, so as to be ready for the descent from heaven of the new universal ruler, Lord Li Hong, the “sage who is to come” (housheng). This was prophesied for the year 392. Yang and the Xus would get high office in the heaven of Shangqing and rule over a newly constituted earth peopled by the elect (zhongmin).
Yang Xi’s prodigious genius gave great consistency and consummate literary form to his comprehensive synthesis of many spiritual traditions. Popular messianism was adapted to provide an encompassing framework and temporal cogency. Yang and his patrons, however, were also thoroughly familiar with Buddhist thought. In addition to integrating Buddhist concepts into their Daoist system, the perfected also dictated a “Daoicized” version of large portions of an early Buddhist compilation, the Sutra in Forty-two Sections (Sishierzhangjing). Buddhist notions of predestination and reincarnation were subtly blended with native Chinese beliefs in hereditary character traits and the clan as a single unit involving mutual responsibility on the part of all its members, living and dead. Furthermore, building upon the Way of the Celestial Masters, the Maoshan revelations envisaged some reform of the practices of the parent sect. Its sexual rites in particular were stigmatized as inferior practices, more conducive to perdition than to salvation. In place of this, a spiritualized union with a celestial partner was apparently realized by Yang Xi and promised to his patrons. Other rituals of the Celestial Masters were allowed to continue in use among the Maoshan adepts but were relegated to a subordinate position. Thus, the movement did not reject but rather incorporated and transcended the older tradition.
Though the perfected inveighed against the popular cults, even elements of these were absorbed and transformed. There is some evidence that, before Yang’s inspired writings, Lord Mao himself, the august perfected Immortal who gave his name to the mountain, was no more than a local minor god worshipped by an exorcistic priestess in the shadow of Maoshan. Among the more learned traditions, alchemy received particular attention, being adopted for the first time into the context of organized religious Daoism. The perfected revealed the highly elaborate formulas of several of the elixirs that served them as food and drink. For all their extravagance, they were intended as real chemical preparations and described as being deadly poisonous to mortals. By preparing and ingesting one of them, the younger Xu probably willingly ended his earthly existence in order to take up the post that had been offered him in the unseen world and to make ready for the coming of the new era. The Lingbao scriptures and liturgies
Another member of the Ge family was responsible for the second great Daoist scriptural tradition. Ge Chaofu began composing the Lingbaojing (“Classic of the Sacred Jewel”) c. 397 ce. He claimed that they had been first revealed to his own ancestor, the famous Ge Xuan, early in the 3rd century. In these works the Dao is personified in a series of “celestial worthies” (tianzun), its primordial and uncreated manifestations. These in turn were worshipped by means of a group of liturgies, which, during the 5th century, became supreme in Daoist practice, completely absorbing the older, simpler rites of the Way of the Celestial Masters. As each celestial worthy represented a different aspect of the Dao, so each ceremony of worship had a particular purpose, which it attempted to realize by distinct means. The rites as a whole were called jai (“retreat”), from the preliminary abstinence obligatory on all participants. They lasted a day and a night or for a fixed period of three, five, or seven days; the number of persons taking part was also specified, centring on a sacerdotal unit of six officiants. One’s own salvation was inseparable from that of his ancestors; the Huanglujai (“Retreat of the Yellow Register”) was directed toward the salvation of the dead. Jinlujai (“Retreat of the Golden Register”), on the other hand, was intended to promote auspicious influences on the living. The Tutanjai (“Mud and Soot Retreat, or Retreat of Misery”) was a ceremony of collective contrition, with the purpose of fending off disease, the punishment of sin, by prior confession; in Chinese civil law, confession resulted in an automatic reduction or suspension of sentence. These and other rituals were accomplished for the most part in the open, within a specially delimited sacred area, or altar (tan), the outdoor complement of the oratory. The chanted liturgy, innumerable lamps, and clouds of billowing incense combined to produce in the participants a cathartic experience that assured these ceremonies a central place in all subsequent Daoist practices. The great Southern masters
Though Daoism never became the exclusive state religion in the South, its most eminent representatives founded powerful organizations that received considerable official support. Lu Xiujing in the 5th century epitomized the Lingbao tradition, the liturgies of which he codified. His establishment at the great Buddho-Daoist centre, Lushan (in Jiangxi province), carried out ceremonies and provided auspicious portents in favour of the Liu-Song dynasty (420–479), in whose rulers Daoists complacently agreed to recognize the fulfillment of the old messianic prophesies and the legitimate continuation of the Han dynasty. Lu was frequently invited to the capital (present-day Nanjing), where the Chongxuguan (Abbey) was founded for him and served as the focal point of the Lingbao movement.