Seven ‘All True’ Greats V

When he was a small, barefooted boy, so legend goes, Wang got lost in a remote mountain, where he came across a very old man, who, in fact, was a xian (仙) or an Immortal. The immortal, sitting under a very old tree, told the boy, “You will be summoned to the imperial court and made the patriarch of Taoism.” On finishing his divine prediction, the immortal came to his feet, patted the child on the head, and disappeared into thin air. When he grew up, Wang practiced asceticism under Wang Chong-yang — the two Wangs were not related — and was granted the honorific bane of Yu-Yang-zi (玉陽子) or the Jade Sun.

The longest-reigning Jurchen emperor, Shi-zhong (世宗1161-1190), first summoned the Jade Sun to court in Beijing to learn how he could achieve longevity. As he was getting old, the emperor wished to stay healthy for a long time, and invited Taoist masters to stay in the court as health consultants in his old age. Another All True apostle summoned to court was Qiu Chu-qi (邱處機). With two apostles as health consultants to the aging emperor, the All True sect continued to gain a larger following in Shandong, Henan and Hebei, where Sangha-like communes of mendicant Taoist friars mushroomed.

The Emperor Zhang-zhong (章宗1190-1209) succeeded his father Shi-zhong. Zhang-zhong asked the Jade Sun to hold a series of services to pray for Shi-zhong’s happiness in the other world. The emperor kept the Taoist master in court as his consultant, too. Aware that Wang was a clairvoyant, Zhang-zhong wanted to test the latter’s magic power. The emperor asked the apostle about many a secret he alone shared with his father. The Taoist master correctly answered each and every question asked. A greatly astonished emperor asked why the master knew all those private secrets. “By accident,” Wang replied. He went on to say, “The clean mirror reflects everything, not to mention whatever happens between the Heaven and Earth. Nothing can escape its scanning inspection. And this all-seeing mirror is right in one’s mind!”

An indelibly impressed Zhang-zhong granted the Taoist master the name of Ti-xuan da-shi (體玄大師) or Mystery-perception grand master and had a magnificent Taoist temple erected for him in Beijing, where he officiated at a great Taoist service for Shi-zhong and ordained more than 1,000 All True priests en masse. But he was not made the patriarch of Taoism as the immortal had foretold.

The prediction was borne out much later by a successor to the Jade Sun. Genghis Khan, the founder of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty (1206-1229), made Qiu Chu-qi the patriarch of Taoism for all of China, albeit there already existed at Dragon-Tiger Mountain in Jiangxi the Taoist papacy that has survived all the vicissitudes for close to two millennia. Zhang Dao-ling (張道臨) founded his Taoist dynasty in the second century after Christ.

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