Tianshi dao (Way of the Celestial Masters)
A living tradition within Taoism. The disagreements in the sources are shown rather than settled.
Tianshi dao (Way of the Celestial Masters) is a living tradition within Taoism. Also written 天師道, Way of the Five Pecks of Rice (Wudoumi dao), Celestial Master Daoism.
Origin
Founders named in the sources: Zhang Daoling (Zhang Ling), Zhang Lu (third Celestial Master, organiser of the Hanzhong polity). Founding date given as 142 CE. 142 CE, when according to tradition Laozi (Taishang Laojun) descended to Zhang Daoling atop Mount Heming in Shu (present-day Sichuan) to establish a new covenant, bestowing the 'orthodox and sole doctrine of the authority of the covenant' (zhengyi mengwei). Organised into 24 administrative divisions (zhi). Zhang Lu's theocratic state in Hanzhong fell to Cao Cao in 215 CE, after which the community was dispersed across China. Popularly called Five Pecks of Rice from the annual contribution required of members.
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Citation
English
The language and the date you read it belong in the citation: this corpus is multilingual and articles are revised after publication.
John Shaqi. “Tianshi dao (Way of the Celestial Masters).” English version. 11 August 2026. https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-tianshi-dao-way-of-the-celestial-masters.
@misc{johnshaqi-sect-tianshi-dao-way-of-the-celestial-masters-en,
author = {John Shaqi},
title = {Tianshi dao (Way of the Celestial Masters)},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {English version},
url = {https://johnshaqi.com/articles/sect-tianshi-dao-way-of-the-celestial-masters},
note = {Accessed n.d.}
}The word count is counted from this edition. The minute estimate uses 238 words a minute, the silent reading rate for English non-fiction reported by Brysbaert (2019). The Urdu, Hindi and Roman Urdu editions carry a word count and no estimate, because no comparable rate has been published for those scripts.