8th July, 2020: 張道陵 Zhang Dao Ling

8th July, 2020

張道陵
Zhang Dao Ling
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This year Zhang Dao Ling’s birthday falls on the 8th July in the Gregorian calendar, which will vary from year to year. In the lunar calendar [nong li 农历] it is celebrated on the 15th day of the 5th month.
Zhang Dao Ling, also known as the Ancestral Heavenly Master [zu tian shi 祖天师] is the founder of the Upright Oneness [zheng yi 正一] school of Daoism. The following is a translation of a passage about him found in Supernatural Traces of Immortals and Budhhas [xian fo qi zong 仙佛奇踪]:

張道陵，字輔漢。子房八世孫。身長九尺二寸，龐眉廣顙，朱頂綠睛，隆準方頤。目有三角，伏犀貫頂，垂手過膝，龍蹲虎步，望之儼然。漢光武建武十年生於天目山，母初夢大人自北魁星中降至地，以蘅薇香授之。既覺，滿室異香經月不散，感而有孕。及生日，黃雲籠室，紫氣盈庭。室中光氣如日月。七歲通道德經、河洛圖緯之書，皆極其奧。舉賢良方正。身雖仕而志在修煉。入蜀，愛蜀中溪嶺深秀，遂隱於鶴鳴山。弟子有王長者，習天文通黃老，相與煉龍虎大丹。三年丹成，真人年六十餘，餌之，若三十許人。與王長入北嵩山，遇繡衣使者，告曰：「中峰石室藏上三皇內文皇帝九鼎、太清丹經，得而修之。乃升天也。」

Zhang Dao Ling, style name Fu Han. He was the eighth-generation descendant of [Zhang] Zi Fang. His body was 9 Chinese feet and 2 inches high, he had enormous eyebrows and a wide forehead, a vermillion crown of his head, green eyes, a prominent nose and square cheeks. His eyes had three corners, and had a hidden rhino horn that pierced through the crown of the head. When his arms were hanging down, they went past his knees. He crouched like a dragon and walked like a tiger, and his gaze was that of solemnity. He was born on Mount Tian Mu in the tenth year of the Jian Wu (34 CE), the reign period of [emperor] Guang Wu of Han. At conception, his mother dreamed about a a great person descending to the earth from the Northern Kui Xing stars, who then bestowed to her the fragrances of Asarum blumei and Osmunda regalis. When she woke up, the whole chamber had filled with an extraordinary fragrance, which did not disperse for months; [during the time,] she felt that she had become pregnant. And on his day of birth, yellow clouds enshrouded the chamber and purple Qi overflowed from the main hall. In the chamber, there was radiant Qi that resembled the sun and the moon.

At seven years of age, he understood thoroughly the Dao De Jing and the books of the River Map and the Luo [Scroll], all of which he fully probed intp their profundity. He was then nominated for officialdom as being an able, virtuous, and upright person with integrity. Despite his body serving as official, his devotion and ambition was [directed] towards cultivation and refinement. He then entered the Shu province, where he came to love the deep rivulets and elegant mountain ranges. Thereupon, he went into seclusion on Mount He Ming. His disciple was Wang Zhang, who studied the heavenly scripts, and clearly penetrated [the teachings of] Huang [Di] and Lao [Zi]. Together with each other, they practiced the great elixir of the refinement of the dragon and tiger. He accomplished the elixir in three years and became a Realized One in sixty-odd years of age. When he swallowed [the elixir] he seemed to turn into a person of 30-odd years of age. Together with Wang Zhang, they entered Northern Mount Song, chancing upon a messenger in embroidery clothes, who informed them:

In the central summit’s stone chamber lies hidden the Inner Script of the Three Emperors of the Far Antiquity, the Nine Cauldrons of the Emperor, and the Great Clarity Elixir Scripture – obtain them and cultivate them, then you will ascended to the heavens.