{"id":1042,"date":"2020-12-21T23:25:03","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T23:25:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/?p=1042"},"modified":"2025-11-18T22:16:58","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T22:16:58","slug":"the-white-lotus-sect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/the-white-lotus-sect\/","title":{"rendered":"The White Lotus Sect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By: Ulrich Theobald<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Source: chinaknowledge.de<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bailianjiao<\/em> \u767d\u84ee\u6559 “White Lotus Sect” was a millenarian movement with Buddhist<\/a> traditions that several times in history ignited large-scale popular uprisings against the ruling dynasties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The religious background of the White Lotus Sect goes back to the Pure Land School (Jingtuzong<\/em> \u6de8\u571f\u5b97) whose oldest patriarch, Huiyuan \u6167\u9060 (334-416 CE), founded White Lotus Societies (bailianshe<\/em> \u767d\u84ee\u793e or lianshe<\/em> \u84ee\u793e “Lotus Societies”) in the Donglin Monastery \u6771\u6797\u5bfa near Mt. Lushan \u5eec\u5c71 (today in Jiangxi). During the Northern Song period<\/a> \u5317\u5b8b (960-1126), White Lotus societies spread over all southern China. They were supported by monasteries as well as by rich landowners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the mid-12th century the monk Cizhao \u6148\u7167 (c. 1096-1166, worldly name Mao Ziyuan \u8305\u5b50\u5143) founded a new Buddhist School out of these societies, the White Lotus School (bailianzong<\/em> \u767d\u84ee\u5b97). The adherents of this school venerated the Amit\u0101bha Buddha (Amita Fo \u963f\u5f4c\u9640\u4f5b) and observed the five Buddhist rules of discipline (wujie<\/em> \u4e94\u6212: not killing, not stealing, not indulging in pleasures, not speaking bad words, not drinking) that were also a focal point of the Pure Land teaching. Mao Ziyuan also adopted the method of the Tiantai School \u5929\u53f0\u5b97 to illustrate the teachings of the Buddha by drawings and pictures, which made it much easier to attract a wider followership. He also compiled confessional rules for daily worship, the Bailian chenchao chanyi<\/em> \u767d\u84ee\u6668\u671d\u61fa\u5100. In order to connect the scattered Lotus Societies he erected a Lotus Repentance Temple (Lianchantang \u84ee\u61fa\u5802) on the shores of Lake Dinghshan \u6dc0\u5c71\u6e56 near Kunshan \u6606\u5c71, Jiangsu, adopted the title of Master (daoshi<\/em> \u5c0e\u5e2b), and assembled an auditorium to which he preached the teachings of the White Lotus School.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The newly founded White Lotus School was officially forbidden, and Mao Ziyuan had to leave Kunshan for Jiujiang \u4e5d\u6c5f (today in Jiangxi). Yet because the teachings of his school were quite simple and easy to understand, the White Lotus School attracted a lot of adherents not only in the Lower Yangtze region, but also in other parts of China. When the Mongols founded the Yuan dynasty<\/a> \u5143 (1279-1368), the White Lotus School was officially acknowledged and even sponsored by the government. It therefore became such an important branch of Buddhism that some believers even participated in the propagation of the faith as “Lotus people” (liandaoren<\/em> \u84ee\u9053\u4eba) in private temples at home (tang’an<\/em> \u5802\u5eb5). Because these “householders” retained the everyday clothes and did not shave their heads, they were also called “long-haired monks” (faseng<\/em> \u9aee\u50e7). Their private temples became such important clerical institutions that sons commonly inherited their father’s duty of managing these semi-public prayer halls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most popular deities were the Amitabha Buddha, the Bodhisattva Avalokite\u015bvara (Guanshiyin Pusa \u89c0\u4e16\u97f3\u83e9\u85a9), and the Mah\u0101sth\u0101mapr\u0101pta (Dashizhi Pusa \u5927\u52e2\u81f3\u83e9\u85a9). These three were subsumed under the designations Three Amida Saints (Amituo sansheng \u963f\u5f4c\u9640\u4e09\u8056), Western Saints (Xifang sansheng \u897f\u65b9\u4e09\u8056), Three Amida Venerables (Amituo zansun \u963f\u5f4c\u9640\u4e09\u5c0a; note: the Eastern Saints are “Medicine Master” Bhai\u1e63ajyaguru \u85e5\u5e2b\u4f5b, the “Sunlight Bodhisattva” S\u016bryaprabha, Riguang Pusa” \u65e5\u5149\u83e9\u85a9 and the “Moonlight Bodhisattva” Candraprabha, Yueguang Pusa \u6708\u5149\u83e9\u85a9). The adherents prayed for health and fortune, and rich believers sponsered the building of official institutions like streets, bridges or temples. The owners of private temples often belonged to the most wealthy families in the cities and had close ties to the government.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the course of time the teachings of Mao Ziyuan changed somewhat, especially among the common populace that developed their own ideas of the White Lotus religion. It was a very popular belief that the Amitabha Buddha would descend from Heaven as a redeemer of mankind. Adherents of this millenarian branch of the White Lotus School assembled at night and soon began to rise weapons against the Yuan dynasty in order to hasten the advent of the Amitabha Buddha or the Bodhisattva Maitreya (Mile Fo \u5f4c\u52d2\u4f5b). In 1308 therefore, the Yuan court prohibited the White Lotus School in total and was only allowed open confession again a few years later. In 1322 it was declared illegal again because more and more White Lotus societies had begun to fight openly against local governments. The most important leaders of White Lotus rebel societies were Han Shantong \u97d3\u5c71\u7ae5 (d. 1351), Liu Futong \u5289\u798f\u901a (1321-1363), Xu Shouhui \u5f90\u58fd\u8f1d (c. 1310-1360) and Zou Pusheng \u9112\u666e\u52dd. Their adherents fought to topple the Yuan dynasty and to welcome the “King of Brilliance” (mingwang<\/em> \u660e\u738b), i.e. the Maitreya Boddhisattva. The White Lotus societies constituted indeed an important reason for the downfall of the Yuan dynasty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Based on this experience, the White Lotus School was prohibited under the Ming dynasty<\/a> \u660e (1368-1644), and for good reasons, because the foundation of the new dynasty was no reason to cease belief in the advent of a redeemer deity. During the early Ming period, White Lotus uprisings in all provinces were successfully put down. The various secret White Lotus societes later changed their names and were so not easily to be recognized as White Lotus offsprings. They adopted names like Teaching of the Golden Zen or dhyana<\/em> (Jinchan jiao \u91d1\u79aa\u6559), Non-Activity, i.e. Nirvana (Wuwei jiao \u7121\u7232\u6559), Dragon Flower (Longhua jiao \u9f8d\u83ef\u6559), “Aware of the Voidness (Wukong jiao \u609f\u7a7a\u6559), Back to Origins (Huanyuan jiao \u9084\u6e90\u6559), Perfectness and Directness (Yuandun jiao \u5713\u9813\u6559), Vast Yang (Hongyang jiao \u5f18\u967d\u6559), Maitreya (Mile jiao \u5f4c\u52d2\u6559), Pure Voidness (Jingkong jiao \u6de8\u7a7a\u6559), Great Completeness (Dacheng jiao \u5927\u6210\u6559), Three Yang (Sanyang jiao \u4e09\u967d\u6559), Origin of the Primordial Chaos (Hunyuan jiao \u6df7\u6e90\u6559), Sensing Perfume (Wenxiang jiao \u805e\u9999\u6559), or Way of the Arhet (Luodao jiao \u7f85\u9053\u6559).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because they were not allowed to establish a central authority, their rituals and liturgies differed from each other, as well as the central deities, albeit the most important deity for most White Lotus sects was the Maitreya. From the Zhengde reign-period \u6b63\u5fb7 (1506-1521) on a new deity appeared among White Lotus adherents, namely the Wusheng Laomu \u7121\u751f\u8001\u6bcd “Birthless Old Mother” that was seen as a form of transcendent Buddha that never incarnated but ever existed without coming into being or transforming into a non-being form. She would nevertheless come down upon earth in the human shape of children, would protect them from harm and guide them safely back to Heaven, the “home of the true voidness” (zhenkong jiaxiang<\/em> \u771f\u7a7a\u5bb6\u9109). The different societies also used different writings to propagate their faith.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The behaviour of these various societies toward the government was therefore also not stringent. While some cooperated as normal religious institutions, others were openly opposed towards the local government. The adherents of the latter societies came mainly from the lower strata of society, like landless peasants or unemployed persons. In 1420 Tang Sai’er \u5510\u8cfd\u5152 (b. 1399) rebelled against the Ming government, in 1622 Xu Hongru \u5f90\u9d3b\u5112 (d. 1611). The most important White Lotus society during the late Ming period was the Wenxiang School (also called “Mahayana” Dasheng School \u5927\u4e58\u6559) that had been founded by Wang Sen \u738b\u68ee and Wang Haoxian \u738b\u597d\u8ce2 in Luanzhou \u7064\u5dde. They managed to attract the support even of more fortunate persons so that they were able to purchase large tracts of land and acted as employer to peasants and workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the Qing period<\/a> \u6e05 (1644-1911) the situation even more aggravated, so that there were more than one undred various branches of the White Lotus school. In 1774 the White Lotus leader of the Pure Water Society (Qingshui jiao \u6e05\u6c34\u6559), Wang Lun \u738b\u502b (d. 1774), rose in rebellion in the province of Shandong. Between 1796 and 1804 the “heretic” (xiejiao<\/em> \u90aa\u6559) Lotus societies in the border region of the provinces Hunan, Hubei, Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu aroused a protracted local war against the Qing authorities. This was the first large-scale popular uprising that initiated the downfall of the Qing dynasty, although this had in many cases not been the main objective of the rebellions. In 1813 the Heavenly Order Society (Tianli jiao \u5929\u7406\u6559) under Li Wencheng \u674e\u6587\u6210 (d. 1813) disturbed the local governments in northern China. Only in the second half of the 19th century the leaders of White Lotus societies adopted political plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The White Lotus Rebellion 1796-1804<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the densely forested border area between the provinces Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi, a lot of homeless peasant refugees<\/a> (liumin<\/em> \u6d41\u6c11, see also shed people<\/a>) had gathered to escape the grip of landowners, creditors\u3000and tax collectors. Until 1772 and 1773 already several hundred thousand persons belonged to these outlaws, and numbers constantly rose by immigrants from the provinces of Henan, Anhui and Jiangxi. In the bad climate of the region that made agriculture a scarcely profitable business, the inhabitants made their lives by working in the land clearing business, in the paper industry, or in the smithry business.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under such hard conditions, a lot of people resorted to the harbour of religion and became followers of the many secret White Lotus societies. A saviour deity that only required people living in a modest and cooperative way with each other (sharing income, sharing food, mutual support in case of need) provided a strong appeal for the White Lotus leaders. The first leader proclaiming the coming of a new age was Fan Mingde \u6a0a\u660e\u5fb7 in Henan. Liu Song \u5289\u677e, Liu Zhixie \u5289\u4e4b\u5354 and Song Zhiqing \u5b8b\u4e4b\u6e05 in Hebei, Sichuan and Anhui even prognosticated the return of the Ming dynasty (they used the character code Niu-Ba \u725b\u516b for the character of the surname of the Ming rulers, Zhu \u6731). In 1795 a collective uprising was carefully planned, and societies willing to participate were equipped with swords and gunpowder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The local government instantly took harsh measures to catch and arrest all adherents of the White Lotus societies and thereby even intensified the resistance of the White Lotus leaders against government and dynasty. In February 1796 Zhang Zhengmo \u5f35\u6b63\u8b28 and Nie Jieren \u8076\u5091\u4eba rose in rebellion in the region of Yidu \u5b9c\u90fd and Zhijiang \u679d\u6c5f in Hubei. A month later Wang Cong’er \u738b\u8070\u5152 and Yao Zhifu \u59da\u4e4b\u5bcc rebelled in the region of Xiangyang \u8944\u967d. The various rebel societies did not cooperate with each other but fought for themselves, barricaded behind timber palisades or fortified villages to resist the local gendarms. Only the troops of the Xiangyang rebels were able to build up a large army that was able to challenge the Qing troops in the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Half a year later White Lotus societies in Sichuan joined the rebellion under the leadership of Xu Tiande \u5f90\u6dfb\u5fb7 in Dazhou \u9054\u5dde and Wang Sanhuai \u738b\u4e09\u69d0 and Leng Tianlu \u51b7\u5929\u797f in Dongxiang \u6771\u9109 (modern Xuanhan \u5ba3\u6f22). In February 1797 the rebel armies of Hubei spread out and looted all the region and began wandering to the neighbouring provinces. The regular Qing troops were only able to persue them and was not able to root out any base of the locust-like White Lotus army. In July the Qing finally managed to encircle the rebel base in Sichuan, so that the Hubei rebels approached for relief. Although Wang Cong’er was talented enough to build up effectively brigades under different commanders, his soldiers were not able to cooperate with each other, so that each company after the other was repelled and disintegrated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In March 1798 the Hubei rebels were trapped by the Qing army near Yunxi \u9116\u897f, and its leaders died. The Sichuan rebels likewise had suffered great losses. Yet the files of the rebels were constantly filled with new recruits, and the local population supported the insurgents, provided them with food and gunpowder, carried their supplies and scouted them through the mountain hills. In early 1800 the rebels were nevertheless again defeated near Jiangyou \u6c5f\u6cb9 in Sichuan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Qing generals had adopted a new method to cut the rebels off their supplies of material and recruits. The government had palisades built for villages and forcibly settled down the peasants of the hilly lands into these defense compounds (zhaibao<\/em> \u5be8\u5821, cunluo<\/em> \u6751\u843d). All economic activities were to take place within these compounds. At the same time, village militia<\/a> (xiangyong<\/em> \u9109\u52c7) were recruited and trained to fight against White Lotus “bandits”. These measures helped to deprived the White Lotus rebels of food and supplies and took them away the necessary manpower to staff their army. The Qing army step by step encircled the last rebel groups in the triangle of the provinces Hubei, Sichuan and Shaanxi, where the rebellion had begun. In late 1804 the war against the White Lotus heretics could be declared as terminated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nine-years long White Lotus war had devastated a large number of districts in Central China. It had cost the lives of countless civilians and regular troops, including more than 400 high officers, and consumed more than 200 million liang<\/em>\/tael, which corresponded to four times the annual revenues of the state treasury. It had proved the inability of the Qing government to cope effectfully with large-scale popular uprisings and the wide-spread corruption among both the civilian government and the military establishment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heavenly Order Society<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Heavenly Order Society was one of the few White Lotus movement of late imperial China that managed to associate different societies into one. It came into being by the cooperation of the Eight Trigrams Society (Bagua jiao \u516b\u5366\u6559, also called Nine Palaces Society, Jiugong jiao \u4e5d\u5bae\u6559), the Flowering Society (Ronghua jiao \u69ae\u83ef\u6703), and the White Sun (Baiyang jiao \u767d\u967d\u6559), Red Sun (Hongyang jiao \u7d05\u967d\u6559) and Blue Sun (Qingyang jiao \u9752\u967d\u6559) societies. The most important leaders of this new united society were Li Wencheng \u674e\u6587\u6210 and Feng Keshan \u99ae\u514b\u5584 from Henan and Lin Qing \u6797\u6e05 from Daxing \u5927\u8208 near Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The society was organised in eight groups (corresponding to the eight trigrams<\/a>). The mainly used scripture of the adherents was the Sanfo yingjie tongguan tongshu<\/em> \u4e09\u4f5b\u61c9\u52ab\u7d71\u89c0\u901a\u66f8, and they venerated the Birthless Old Mother, but also the sun. They believed in the three progressive eons (sanji<\/em> \u4e09\u969b), calling the past “dimension-less extreme” (wuji<\/em> \u7121\u6975), the present the “greatest extreme” (taiji<\/em> \u592a\u6975), and the future “august extreme” (huangji<\/em> \u7687\u6975), but also prognosticated the decline of the Red Sun (hongyang<\/em> \u7d05\u967d) and the ascent of the White Sun (baiyang<\/em> \u767d\u967d), thus favouring the rise of a new dynasty. In 1813 the Heavenly Order Society rose in rebellion against the Qing dynasty and devastated the provinces of Henan, Shandong and Zhili. Some groups even invaded the Imperial City.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By: Ulrich Theobald Source: chinaknowledge.de The Bailianjiao \u767d\u84ee\u6559 “White Lotus Sect” was a millenarian movement with Buddhist traditions that several times in history ignited large-scale popular uprisings against the ruling dynasties. The religious background of the White Lotus Sect goes back to the Pure Land School (Jingtuzong \u6de8\u571f\u5b97) whose oldest patriarch, Huiyuan \u6167\u9060 (334-416 CE), founded White Lotus Societies (bailianshe \u767d\u84ee\u793e Read more about The White Lotus Sect<\/span>[…]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reklam","category-uniteawake"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1042"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1043,"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1042\/revisions\/1043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uniteawake.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}