道法自然
道德天尊
The Deified Laozi
Festival · 15th day of the 2nd lunar month
The Deified Laozi
The third Pure One is none other than Laozi himself — philosopher of the 6th century BCE raised to cosmic divinity. Tradition says he has descended to earth eighty-one times, leaving behind the five-thousand-word Tao Te Ching.
Festival · 15th day of the 2nd lunar month
History · 史记
The third Pure One is Laozi himself — the philosopher of the sixth century BCE raised to cosmic divinity. Sima Qian's Shiji already records his biography: keeper of the archives of Zhou, author of the five-thousand-character Daode Jing, riding west through Hangu Pass upon an ox. By the later Han he was worshipped as a god; the Tang emperors, sharing his surname Li, honored him as their imperial ancestor.
Taoist tradition holds that Laozi does not live only once: he descends again and again across the ages — the eighty-one transformations — appearing as teacher to every generation.
At the frontier pass of Hangu, the gatekeeper Yin Xi saw purple qi coming from the east and knew a sage approached. He begged Laozi to leave his teaching behind, and the Daode Jing was written — five thousand characters that have shaped twenty-five centuries.
From the Han onward, murals and scrolls depicted Laozi's eighty-one descents into the world — each time under a new name, each time founding a teaching: the myth of the eternal teacher.
In 142 CE Laozi, as Taishang Laojun, descended upon Heming Mountain in Sichuan and conferred upon Zhang Daoling the Covenant of Orthodox Unity — the founding act of religious Taoism.
史記·老子韓非列傳
Sima Qian's historical record, written around 94 BCE — the earliest surviving biography of Laozi.
老子想爾注
The earliest Taoist commentary on the Daode Jing, produced by the Celestial Master movement that first worshipped Laozi as a god.
老子八十一化圖
The illustrated cycle of Laozi's eighty-one descents, carved and painted from the Yuan dynasty onward.