The Deified Laozi: Taishang Laojun, Lord Lao and His Cult

Taishang Laojun, the "Most High Lord Lao", is Laozi worshipped as a god: the personification of the Tao who, in Taoist belief, has appeared again and again throughout history to teach rulers and reveal scriptures. The transformation of a shadowy author into a cosmic deity was under way by the second century CE, and Lord Lao remains one of the highest gods of religious Taoism, honoured as one of the Three Pure Ones.

From Archivist to God: Laozi in the Han Dynasty§

The earliest biography of Laozi, by Sima Qian around 100 BCE, is cautious. It describes an archivist of the Zhou court named Li Er, mentions alternative identifications, records the story that he wrote his book at a pass before leaving for the west, and adds that "no one knows where he ended". Modern scholars doubt that a single historical author lies behind the Tao Te Ching (see Laozi and the Tao Te Ching). Yet this uncertainty left room for legend.

During the Han dynasty Laozi was paired with the Yellow Emperor in "Huang–Lao" thought and associated with the search for long life. By the second century CE he had become an object of worship. In 165 the Han emperor Huan sent officials to sacrifice at Laozi's reputed birthplace in Ku county (in modern Henan), and in 166 sacrifices were offered to Laozi in the palace itself, together with the Buddha. An inscription composed for the 165 sacrifice, the Laozi ming by Bian Shao, reports what Laozi's devotees believed: that he was formed from primordial energy, existed before heaven and earth, and descended in age after age to serve as teacher of the sage kings.

The French scholar Anna Seidel, in a pioneering study of 1969, showed how these ideas combined popular messianic hopes with cosmological speculation. By the end of the Han, Laozi was being described as the Tao itself in human form.

Lord Lao and the Celestial Masters§

The movement that founded organised Taoism made the deified Laozi its central revealer. According to its tradition, in 142 CE Taishang Laojun appeared to Zhang Daoling on Crane Call Mountain in Sichuan and gave him the "authority of the covenant with the powers of orthodox unity", establishing the line of Celestial Masters. The early Celestial Masters' commentary on the Tao Te Ching, the Xiang'er, identifies Lord Lao with the One, which disperses as energy and gathers into form as the deity.

For the Celestial Masters, then, the Tao Te Ching was not simply a book by a wise man but scripture revealed by a god, to be recited and obeyed as a set of precepts. Later Taoist schools continued to treat Lord Lao as the source of revelation, even when new scriptures were credited to other heavenly beings. The history of the movement is told in Religious Taoism.

In the developed Taoist pantheon of the medieval period, Lord Lao took his place as the third of the Three Pure Ones (Sanqing), the highest emanations of the Tao. He is the Celestial Worthy of the Way and Its Virtue (Daode tianzun), ruling the Heaven of Great Clarity, beside the Celestial Worthy of Primordial Beginning and the Celestial Worthy of Numinous Treasure. In temple halls he is shown as a white-bearded elder, often holding a fan.

The Transformations of Laozi: Birth Legends and Cosmic Incarnations§

Taoist hagiography gave Laozi a miraculous life. In the most widespread version his mother carried him for seventy-two or eighty-one years and gave birth to him from her left side under a plum tree (li), which explains his surname Li; he was born already white-haired, hence the name Laozi, which can be read as "old child". He could speak at birth and pointed to the tree as the origin of his name.

A Han-period text preserved in a Dunhuang manuscript, the Scripture of the Transformations of Laozi (Laozi bianhua jing), describes how he took a different name and form in each age, appearing as adviser to the legendary rulers Fuxi, Shennong, the Yellow Emperor and their successors, and promising to return to save the faithful. Later hagiographies elaborated the pattern at great length. Among the most important are the Song dynasty Like Unto a Dragon (Youlong zhuan, 1086) by Jia Shanxiang and the Sage Record of Chaos Primordial (Hunyuan shengji, 1191) by Xie Shouhao, which Livia Kohn has studied in God of the Dao.

The departure to the west also grew in the telling. The guardian of the pass, Yin Xi, recognised Laozi by a purple vapour approaching from the east, begged him for teaching, and received the Tao Te Ching. Laozi rode away on a green ox, an image that became one of the most familiar in Chinese art. Louguan, in Shaanxi, where Yin Xi was said to have lived, became a major Taoist monastery.

Converting the Barbarians: The Huahu Controversy§

The story of Laozi's westward journey acquired a polemical edge when Buddhism spread in China. By the late Han some people claimed that Laozi had gone to India and become, or taught, the Buddha. Around 300 CE a Celestial Master named Wang Fu is said to have composed the Scripture of Converting the Barbarians (Huahu jing) after losing debates with a Buddhist monk. It argued that Buddhism was a simplified teaching Laozi had given to foreign peoples, and therefore inferior to Taoism for the Chinese.

Buddhists replied in kind, producing texts in which Laozi and Confucius were disciples of the Buddha sent to prepare China. Erik Zürcher's study of early Chinese Buddhism traces this exchange, which became a recurrent theme of the court debates described in the Three Teachings. The Tang court ordered the Huahu jing destroyed in 668 and again in 705, but it survived and was expanded; a version in ten scrolls is partly preserved in Dunhuang manuscripts.

The controversy reached its climax under the Mongols. The Quanzhen order, powerful after Qiu Chuji's meeting with Chinggis Khan, circulated illustrated versions of Laozi's eighty-one transformations. Buddhist leaders protested, and in a debate held before Möngke Khan's court and presided over by Khubilai in 1258 the Taoist side was declared defeated; seventeen Taoists were required to become Buddhist monks and many temples were returned. In 1281 Khubilai ordered the burning of the Taoist canon except for the Tao Te Ching. The Huahu jing was lost in China, surviving only in fragments recovered at Dunhuang.

Laozi as Imperial Ancestor of the Tang§

The deified Laozi reached his political height under the Tang dynasty (618–907). Its ruling Li family claimed descent from Laozi, whose surname was also Li, and a miraculous appearance of Lord Lao was reported during the dynasty's founding wars, promising the empire to the Li. In 666 Emperor Gaozong gave Laozi the title "Supreme Emperor of Mysterious Origin" (Taishang xuanyuan huangdi).

Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–756) went further. He wrote his own commentary on the Tao Te Ching, ordered every household to keep a copy, established temples to Laozi in the capitals and prefectures, and created examinations in Taoist texts. Taoist priests and nuns were treated as members of the imperial clan. Under the Song, Emperor Zhenzong added further honours in 1014, and pilgrimages to the reputed birthplace at Bozhou continued.

The imperial cult did not make Laozi only a dynastic ancestor; it strengthened his status as a cosmic deity, and Tang poetry and painting are full of his image.

Lord Lao in Temples, Art and Popular Religion§

Lord Lao remains a major god of Taoist temples, where his birthday is usually celebrated on the fifteenth day of the second lunar month. A Song dynasty stone statue of Laozi at the foot of Mount Qingyuan near Quanzhou, in Fujian, is one of the most famous images: a seated elder carved from a natural boulder, several metres high.

In popular culture he is best known from the sixteenth-century novel Journey to the West, where Taishang Laojun is a heavenly alchemist whose furnace, built on the eight trigrams, cannot destroy the Monkey King but instead gives him fiery golden eyes. Because of this association with furnaces and elixirs, Lord Lao was also revered as a patron of smiths, potters and other trades that worked with fire. He sits within the great heavenly hierarchy headed in popular religion by the Jade Emperor, though Taoist theology ranks the Three Pure Ones higher.

For historians, the deified Laozi illustrates how the boundary between "philosophical" and "religious" Taoism, discussed in What Is Taoism?, was never sharp: the same figure was at once the author of a philosophical classic and a god who revealed scriptures and protected an empire.

Frequently asked questions§

Who is Taishang Laojun?§

He is Laozi as a god, the "Most High Lord Lao", believed by Taoists to be a personification of the Tao who has appeared in many forms through history. He is one of the Three Pure Ones, the highest deities of the Taoist pantheon.

When did Laozi become a god?§

The process was gradual, but by the mid-second century CE he was receiving imperial sacrifices, and in 165 an inscription described him as a cosmic being existing before heaven and earth. The Celestial Masters, founded in 142 CE according to tradition, worshipped him as their revealer.

What is the Huahu jing?§

The Scripture of Converting the Barbarians claimed that Laozi travelled west and taught Buddhism to foreign peoples. It caused bitter disputes between Taoists and Buddhists, was banned under the Tang, and was condemned and burned under the Mongols in the thirteenth century.

Why did the Tang emperors honour Laozi?§

The Tang royal family shared Laozi's surname, Li, and claimed him as their ancestor. This made the patronage of Taoism a matter of dynastic prestige, and Laozi was given an imperial title in 666.

Sources and further reading§

• God of the Dao: Lord Lao in History and Myth — Livia Kohn, 1998
• La divinisation de Lao tseu dans le taoïsme des Han — Anna Seidel, 1969
• Lao-tzu and the Tao-te-ching — Livia Kohn and Michael LaFargue (eds.), 1998
• Laughing at the Tao: Debates among Buddhists and Taoists in Medieval China — Livia Kohn, 1995
• The Buddhist Conquest of China — Erik Zürcher, 1959
• Early Daoist Scriptures — Stephen R. Bokenkamp, 1997