Lord Lao's Mountain: From Celestial Master Daoism to Contemporary Daoist Practice.

The Mountain of Lord Lao (Laojun shan) in Xinjin District, Sichuan Province, has been identified as the center of a former diocese of Celestial Master Daoism (Tianshi dao). Moreover, it remains a famous sanctuary for the worship of Laozi. The temple on Mt. Laojun is today an active religious institution that belongs to the Dragon Gate (Longmen) lineage of Complete Perfection (Quanzhen) Daoism. In the late Qing dynasty and Republican times, the temple was closely connected with a popular religious movement called the Teachings of the Liu School (Liumen jiao), which was founded by the Confucian scholar Liu Yuan (1768-1856). In this paper, several aspects of Mt. Laojun's past and present will be highlighted. Special emphasis will be placed on the Liumen movement and the impact that this community made on the recent development of the sanctuary. We will see that the current hagiographic legitimization of Mt. Laojun, which holds that Lord Lao once dwelled there and engaged in secluded self