| The first Taoist pantheon, Chen-ling-wei-yeh-t'u (Table of the Hierarchy of the Real Transcendents), was composed by Tao Hung-ching, a famous Taoist scholar and master in the fifth century. T'ao's literary erudition, his knowledge of early Taoist tradition, and his interest in other traditions makes his composition of the pantheon tremendously meaningful for the growth of Taoist religion. The pantheon contains seven ranks on which over six hundred deities were distributed. The investigation of the structure of the pantheon and the origins of major divine beings shows that the Taoist ideas of divinity were mostly a continuation of ancient Chinese spirit cults and religious ideas, namely, ancient worship of heavenly beings, ideas of immortality, and belief in the postmortem life. Furthermore, Taoist theology found in the pantheon also derived from the ancient mythological narratives and the traditional ideas of cosmology and cosmogony. A certain kind of Chinese mythological euhemerism gave rise to the major divine beings and became the basic source for the Taoist divinities. Moreover, various ancient Chinese cosmologies are clearly related to the basic structure of the pantheon. The origin of the major deities in the pantheon shows that the spirit cults in Han times, which were transmitted by the traditions of Fang-shih (Magicians) and Wu (Shamans), entered into the mainstream of Taoist cults of divinity. The investigation of the social context of the pantheon and the social roles of the divine figures shows that it was the social upheavals and the Buddhist challenge during the second and fourth century that promoted the configuration of Taoist religion and its divine world. The composition of the pantheon suggests that the Taoist tradition can be traced back to a time even before Lao Tzu's teachings. In this sense, Taoism represents a continuation of the pre-Han Chinese intellectual and religious heritage in general. |
