Sanqing daozu 三清道祖 20/9/2003

Plot:
I'm riding uphill to reverse a Shaolin Temple, along the hanging red lanterns and saw three people ~
One of them left hand touched his long beards looking at me: check your body? now refers to the direction of a clerical, that many people line up when one ask me: is the Evil? loud shouts and suddenly the clouds. At this point my splitting headache, the old man seems like the Buddha Ji Gong (also seemingly Taoist) caught a break with a Guchong out, and there is a long tongue and then they tell me said: the pathogen have been removed and I have been recovered…

Keywords: 
Sanqing daozu, Sanqing, Yuanshi tianzun, Lingbao tianzun, Daode tianzun

About:

Sanqing daozu (三清道祖), Three Pure Ones, are the three highest gods in Daoism. Daoist thought that the creation of universe is the result of their works. In Six dynasties, Sanqing (三清) originally denoted the place where Three Pure Ones live in. They are three places in the heaven. According to Daoist cosmology, there are more than 30 levels in Heaven. The highest one is Yuqing jing (玉清境) , the second is Shangqing jing (上清境), the third is Taiqing jing (太清境). Sanqing dao zu are Yuanshi tianzun (元始天尊), Lingbao tianzun (靈寶天尊), and Daode tianzun (道德天尊). Yuanshi tianzun dwells in Yu-qing jing, Lingbao tianzun and Daode tianzun lives in Shang-qing jing and Tai-qing jing separately.

Yuanshi tianzun is Pan gu (盤古). He lives in Yu-qing jing, the jade pure, where a purple cloud is around his palace. The cloud with bright green color is surrounded the palace as the wall. All of the Daoist immortal in heaven should periodically have an audience with Yuanshi tianzun on schedule. 

Lingbao tianzun is the hua shen (化身), the “avatar” , of Yuanshi tianzun. Though his title and dwelling place was recorded, his statue was rare before Tang dynasty. It seems his character was not very clear in early Daoism. Daode tianzun is Lao Zi (老子). However, he is not the philosophical Lao Zi but the religious one who is not very well known today. At first, early Daoists regarded Lao Zi as the symbol of the natural of Dao. He was born before nothing and rose up when the very primitive universe had not begun. The famous Daoists, such as Zhang Daoling (張道陵), Kou Qianzhi (寇謙之) all claimed that their teaching of Daoist imparted by Lao Zi directly. However, when Tao Hong-jing (陶弘景) compiled the Zhenling weiye tu (真靈位業圖), he dropped Lao Zi down to the fourth place. Until Tang dynasty, because the royal house’s surname is also Li, emperor recovered Lao Zi to the third place. The hierarchy of Sanqing daozu was settled down then.

Besides Sanqing daozu’s arrangement in heaven represents the cosmology of Daoism. In Daoist, they are separately represented the major three schools of Daoism. Yuanshi tianzun represents the Shang-qing school, Lingbao tianzun and Daode tianzun represent the Ling-bao school and the Tianshi dao (天師道) separately. Sanqing daozu are also the symbol of Dao (道), scripture (經) and Master (師). Because the Yuanshi tianzun is the very first, he represents the essence or natural of Dao. Lingbao tianzun is the avatar of Yuanshi tianzun, Dao. He represents the Way which is equal to the scripture or the teaching of Dao. Daode tianzun, as Lao Zi, imparted the teaching directly to mortal human. His meaning is the Daoist, who is the master of people.

All of the Daoist temples dedicated to Sanqing daozu. On the arrangement of Sanqing daozu’s statue, Yuanshi tianzun is situated in the middle. He often holds a crystal ball on right hand. The crystal ball, hun-yuan zhu (混元珠), means the chaos before the universe started. Lingbao tianzun is situated on the left side with a ruyi (如意), a decorative object symbolized as you wish, or a diagram of Tai-ji (太極圖). Ruyi or the Tai-ji means the chaos is becoming clear. Daode tianzun hand a Tai-ji fan with him and situates on the right side. The Tai-ji fan means the Yin (陰) and Yang (陰) being on the right position of universe.