Lu Xiujing, known by the courtesy name Yuande and the posthumous name Jianji, was a Taoist compiler and ritualist who lived under the Liu Song dynasty.
18 Facts About Lu Xiujing
1.
2.
Lu Xiujing was very highly regarded in his lifetime but, after his death, his attempt at unifying the Taoist practices into one canon encountered a lot of criticism.
3.
Lu Xiujing came from a family of literati and received a strong education in the Confucian classics.
4.
The earliest biography of Lu Xiujing includes a passage where Lu is said to have declined to heal his gravely ill daughter, despite his family's laments and supplications.
5.
Lu Xiujing was only passing by, and the story goes that his daughter had miraculously recovered the day after he departed.
6.
Lu Xiujing was first a hermit on Mount Yunmeng in Henan province.
7.
Lu Xiujing arrived at Mount Lu where tradition holds that he met Huiyuan and Tao Yuanming, although their differing dates of birth make such a meeting an impossibility.
Related searches
Tao Yuanming 8.
Lu Xiujing died in the capital in 477 at the age of 71, and was buried at Mount Lu.
9.
In 437, Lu Xiujing annotated and structured the book to produce the catalog of Lingbao Scriptures.
10.
Lu Xiujing kept only thirty-five of the fifty-five scriptures, three of which are now lost.
11.
Lu Xiujing considered humans to be fundamentally sinful, thus he put a great emphasis on purification rituals.
12.
Lu Xiujing specified its details in numerous works describing "the nine observations and twelve rules" of the ceremonies.
13.
Lu Xiujing modeled part of his practice of Taoism after Confucian rites, and adopted the three main requirements inherent in the Buddhist Noble Eightfold Path: right thought, right speech and right action.
14.
Lu Xiujing is credited with the first Taoist clerical costume.
15.
Lu Xiujing reinstated the three days of reunion, during which the followers had to go to their libation masters to take stock of their past actions and review the rules.
16.
Lu Xiujing reformed the school to make it more dynamic and meritocratic.
17.
Lu Xiujing had in his possession the Shangqing texts that were kept in the imperial library as well as a number of other catalogs.
18.
Lu Xiujing compiled the first comprehensive Taoist Canon, which he named "the Three Caverns" in imitation of the Tripitaka, Three baskets of the Buddhist Canon.