Luo teaching

As long as Patriarch Luo was alive, his personality guaranteed the unity of the movement.[14] While some of his disciples may have established separate communities, they didn't contest Luo's position as teacher and leader of Wuweiism.[15] Then, when Luo died, apparently without having chosen a successor to the leadership, the Wuwei teaching started to split into different branches all claiming to continue Luo's tradition.[16]

Little more than half a century after the death of Luo, the activities of Luoist sects began to raise the suspicion of state officials.[17] Just after 1584 several warnings were presented to the throne, against the influence of Luoism linking it to the earlier White Lotus movement, a label which by that time had become a derogatory designation used by official historians to demonise religious groups considered heretical by the established orthodoxy.[18] At the end of the 16th century there were religious groups which influenced and in turn were influenced by the Luoists, Hongyangism (弘阳教 "Red [or Great] Sun") and the Huangtiandao ("Way of the Yellow Sky"),[19] both identifying as Taoist branches.[20]

Documents produced by the Buddhist establishment condemning Luoists testify the activity in the late 16th century of the branches known as Great Vehicles (大乘 Dacheng)[lower-alpha 7] and Timeless (无年 Wunian)[lower-alpha 8] Luoism.[21] The sources show that at the end of the 16th century, Luoist sects had spread widely in northern China, and they were known by different names.[22]

Also the Luo family contributed to the transmission of Luo's teaching.[23] Within the original movement, Luo's wife and two children, Fozheng and Foguang, occupied relevant positions.[24] Successively, Luo's wife continued the teaching according to the original tradition.[25] She founded a branch named Sudden Stillness (圆頓 Yuandun)[lower-alpha 9] which by the late Ming dynasty no longer claimed connection to Luo's wife.[26]

Fozheng continued the male line of the Luo family.[27] His grandson Wenju is mentioned in the imprint of the 1615 edition of the Wubuliuce, printed in Nanjing.[28] Luo Congshan, the fourth generation patriarch, lived at the beginning of the 17th century.[29] A century later, official records testify that there were still male descendants of Luo active as sect leaders.[30] The centre of the family was in Miyun, where the tomb of Luo Menghong still existed.[31] It was destroyed on official order in 1768.[32]

In the early 18th century Luoist sects spread along the Grand Canal from Hebei to Zhejiang and Fujian; boatmen belonging to Luoist sects recognised the eighth generation descendant Luo Mingzhong as the head of the religion.[33] Records of the late 18th century testify the contribution of three persons surnamed Qiang, Wen and Pan, to the diffusion of the religion in southeast China.[34] They founded three different lines, which congregation halls (an) also functioned as social relief institutions.[35] After the ninth patriarch the line of hereditary leadership came to an end.[36] An investigation of 1816 testifies that the male descendants of Luo no longer practiced the religion of the forefather.[37]

Meanwhile, in the 16th century Yin Ji'nan (1527-1582) from Zhejiang originated an independent line that successfully spread throughout their native province, Fujian, Jiangxi and surrounding southern provinces.[38] He became the leader of a Luoist group and reformed it into the Venerable Officials' teaching of fasting (老官斋教 Lǎoguān zhāijiào), which in later centuries gave rise to the Xiantiandao.[39]

Yin Ji'nan organised his movement into a hierarchy and integrated the theology about Maitreya, the Wusheng Laomu and the Three Suns eschatology within the original Luoist doctrines[40] through the influence of a Hunyuan sect.[41] Years after Yin's death, Yao Wenyu (1578-1646) rose as the leader of the religion with strong opposition from other influential members, although he greatly expanded the sect's empire.[42] By the time of Yao's successors in the late 17th century the sect was known as the Numinous Mountain (灵山 Lingshan).[lower-alpha 10][43]

Yaoism later gave rise to the Dragon Flower (龙花 Longhua)[lower-alpha 11] sect and other branches.[44] Wu Zixiang's branch, the Great Vehicle (Dacheng) or Third Vehicle (三乘 Sancheng)[lower-alpha 12] introduced his scripture entitled the "Book of the Great Precepts of the Great Vehicle" (Dacheng dajie jing).[45]

Another important indirect branching is that started by Sun Zhenkong, claiming to be the fourth patriarch after Qin Dongshan and Master Zhao, a disciple of Luo who founded and independent group called Wujidao (无极道 "Way of the Unlimited").[46] Patriarch Sun incorporated the theology of Maitreya and Wusheng Laomu just half a century after the death of Luo and called his group the Namodao (南無道).[47] The Namodao later developed into different currents.[48] A disciple of Yi Ji'nan's school, Pushen, formulated a Chan interpretation of Luo's writings that excluded the Maitreya eschatology.[49]

Zhenkongdao (真空道 "Way of the True Void")[lower-alpha 13] founded in Anhui in the 1860s, is another Luoist branch promoting sitting meditation, healing, and scriptures recitation.[50] The group expanded to Fujian in the late 19th century, and from there throughout southern China and Southeast Asian Chinese ethnic groups.[51] It is possibly a continuation of Patriarch Sun's branch.

In the theology of Luoist sects the absolute principle of the universe is the central focus of meaning and worship. In the original writings of Luo it is represented as "True Void" (真空 Zhēnkōng).[67] Since the 17th century the prevalent representation became a goddess, the Unborn Venerable Mother (無生老母 Wúshēng Lǎomǔ).[68] Other symbols of the source of being, also common to other traditions, are Wújí (the "Unlimited"), Zhēn (真 "Truth", "True Reality"), Gǔfú (古佛 "Ancient Awakened").[69]

These symbols are commonly combined together in sect's precious scrolls to express the impersonal absolute origin according to the tastes of different social groups.[70] The absolute principle is also associated to the Big Dipper asterism.[71]

Luo Menghong's original revelation emphasises the impersonal representation of the absolute.[72] However, he also talks of Holy Patriarch of the Unlimited (无极圣祖 Wújí Shèngzǔ)[73] and of the mother as a duality, the Eternal Parents (無生父母 Wúshēng Fùmǔ).[74] Patriarch Luo is considered an incarnation of the universal God by his followers.[75]

The Three Suns (三阳 sānyáng) eschatological doctrine places itself in a tradition flourishing at least since the Ming dynasty.[76] It can be traced back to a Hunyuan Taoist school named after the concept of hunyuan ("original undetermined") that existed before hundun ("coalesced undetermined") and is the beginning of primordial qi (yuanqi) according to some Taoist cosmologies.[77] Although originally Taoist, these concepts became part of the folk tradition and were incorporated into the sects.[78]

In the earliest sects of the Ming period, the Lord of the Original Undetermined (混元主 Hùnyuánzhǔ) represents the origin of the universe developing through three stages, yang, or cosmic periods.[79] In most sect scriptures, these three periods are known as Green Sun (qingyang), Red Sun (hongyang) and White Sun (baiyang).[80] They are known by other names due to oral transmission of the teaching.[81]

The earliest written evidence of this doctrine can be found in the Huangji jieguo baojuan, published in 1430.[82] In this text the three stages are already associated to the three buddhas Dipankara, Gautama and Maitreya.[83]

In Luoist writings the symbol of wúshēng (無生 "unborn") means the state of "no birth and no death" that gives enlightenment.[84] The Unborn Venerable Mother or the Holy Patriarch of the Unlimited are personifications of this state.[85] In Luoist traditions, as written for example in the "Book of the Dragon Flower" (Longhuajing), meditation has a crucial role in the path to salvation, that corresponds to the "return to the mother" or the wusheng state.[86] Salvation is the realisation of one's true nature.[87]