Zhang daoling biography of mahatma

Aug 9, 2017 © Ulrich Theobald

Zhang Daoling 張道陵 (34?-156? CE), also called Zhang Ling 張陵, was the founder of the School of the Five Pecks of Grain (wudoumi dao 五斗米道), the earliest school of religious Daoism.

Zhang daoling biography of mahatma

Zhang is also known with the epithet "Celestial Master" (tianshi 天師), and his movement is known as the School of the Celestial Masters (tianshi dao 天師道).

Zhang Daoling hailed from Feng 豐 (modern Fengxian 豐縣, Jiangsu) in the princedom of Pei 沛 and lived during the late Eastern Han period 東漢 (25-220 CE).

The biographic collection Han tianshi shijia 漢天師世家 from the Ming period 明 (1368-1644) says that he was born in 34 CE and died in 156 (sic!). With the age of seven sui he began studying the teachings of the "Way" (dao 道).

Yet the Song period 宋 (960-1279) encyclopaediaTaiping yulan 太平御覽 quotes from a Daoist text called Shangyuanbao jing 上元寶經 where it is said that he was a grand Confucian scholar he began engaging with Daoist teachings in 125 CE.

According to t