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In religious Taoism, the theory of how Tao produces One, Two, and Three is also explained. In Tao produces One—Wuji produces Taiji, which represents the Great Tao, embodied by Hundun ( Chinese : 混沌無極元始天王 ; pinyin : Hùndùn Wújí Yuánshǐ Tiānwáng , "Heavenly King of the Never-ending Primordial Beginning") at a time of pre ...
"Gods" refers to deities and there are many kinds: heaven gods/celestials (天神); earth spirits (地祇); wuling (物靈, animism, the spirit of all things); netherworld gods (地府神靈); gods of the human body (人體之神); gods of the human ghost (人鬼之神) etc. "Xian" are those who have acquired perfect cultivation of the Tao ...
The term Tao means "way", "path" or "principle", and can also be found in Chinese philosophies and religions other than Taoism. In Taoism, however, Tao denotes something that is both the source and the driving force behind everything that exists. It is ultimately ineffable: "The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao." [1] Also called Daoism.
Daoism (or Taoism) is a philosophy centered on living in harmony with the Dao (Tao) (Chinese: 道; pinyin: Dào; lit. 'Way'), which is believed to be the source, pattern and substance of all matter. [9] Its origin can be traced back to the late 4th century B.C.E. and the main thinkers representative of this teaching are Laozi and Zhuang Zhou. [6]
'The Supreme Venerable Sovereign') is a high Taoist god. He is the Taiqing (太清, lit. the Grand Pure One) which is one of the Three Pure Ones, the highest immortals of Taoism. Laozi is regarded to be a manifestation of Daode Tianzun who authored the classic Tao Te Ching. He is traditionally regarded as the founder of Taoism, intimately ...
The Flemish philosopher Ulrich Libbrecht traces the origins of some features of Taoism to what Jan Jakob Maria de Groot called "Wuism", [6] that is Chinese shamanism. [ 7 ] Libbrecht distinguishes two layers in the development of the Chinese theology and religion that continues to this day, traditions derived respectively from the Shang ( c ...
During the Shang dynasty (17th―11th century BCE), the Chinese referred to their highest god as Shangdi or Di (帝, 'Lord'). [1] During the following Zhou dynasty, Tian became synonymous with this figure. Before the 20th century, worship of Tian was an orthodox state religion of China. [further explanation needed]
Finally in a particular school of philosophy whose followers came to be called Taoists, tao meant 'the way the universe works'; and ultimately something very like God, in the more abstract and philosophical sense of that term. [19] "Tao" gives Taoism its name in English, in both its philosophical and religious forms.