The Way of the Celestial Masters or the Heavenly Masters Sect is a Chinese Taoist movement that was founded by Zhang Daoling in 142 AD. Its followers rebelled against the Han dynasty, and won their independence in 194. At its height, the movement controlled a theocratic state in what is now Sichuan.
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đ Tianshi Dao in the context of Daozang
The Daozang (Chinese: éč; pinyin: DĂ ozĂ ng; WadeâGiles: Tao Tsang) is a large canon of Taoist writings, consisting of around 1,500 texts that were seen as continuing traditions first embodied by the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and Liezi. The canon was assembled by monks c.â400 CE in an attempt to bring together these disparate yet consonant teachings, and it included commentaries and expositions from various masters on material found in the aforementioned core texts of Taoism. The anthology consisted of three divisions (known as grottoes) based on what were seen at that time in Southern China as Taoism's primary focuses: meditation, ritual, and exorcism. These three grottoes were ranked by skill levelâwith exorcism being the lowest and meditation the highestâand used for the initiation of Taoist masters.
In addition to the Three Grottoes, there were the "Four Supplements" that were added to the canon c.â500 CE. Three were primarily sourced from the older core texts, with the other taken from a separate, established philosophical tradition known as Tianshi Dao.