fectural capital. Later the same year, he built a hall for the
worship of Laozi in his Flourishing Celebration palace com-
plex. Following this precedent, even the non-Chinese ruler
Abaoji (r. 907–926), whose successor would found the Liao
dynasty (947–1125), built at least one Daoist abbey in his
first capital in Inner Mongolia. Under the non-Chinese
dynasty Jin (1115–1234), important construction took place
at Tianchang Abbey (today White Cloud Abbey in Beijing),
where building had begun during the Tang dynasty. The
oldest extant wooden building from a Daoist temple com-
plex survives at Five Dragons Temple in Ruicheng, Shanxi
province. It is dated by inscription to the year 831.
More than a dozen buildings from the eleventh through
thirteenth centuries, a period of syncretism among the three
faiths, survive at Daoist temple compounds. Premier among
them is Sage Mother Hall at the Jin Shrines in Taiyuan,
Shanxi province, built between 1023 and 1032. Today a
complex of more than thirty buildings, in the Zhou dynasty
(1150–256 BCE) a shrine to Prince Shu Yu, son of Zhou King
Wu, stood there. The shrine to Shu Yu’s mother, the Sage
Mother, is marked by beams that span eight rafter lengths
(the greatest span of the period), gilt dragons that wind
around the front columns, and a fish pond covered by a cru-
ciform bridge in front. All are examples of the most eminent
building standards of eleventh-century China. Although
clearly having ties to China’s imperial tradition, the Daoist
context is underscored by the worshippers who come to the
shrine to pray for help from the Sage Mother and to pray
for rain from the nearby springs. Further associations be-
tween the shrines and Daoism are the presence of grottoes
to Laozi, the Three Purities, the Three Heavens, and Yellow
Emperor; shrines to the Three Pruities, the Eastern Peak,
Three Sages, and Lu Ban, the Chinese patron deity-hero of
architects; pavilions to the Daoist immortal Lü Dongbin, the
Three Officials, and Zhenwu, the Supreme Emperor of Dark
Heaven; temples (miao) to the god of wealth, Dragon King,
spirits of the mountains, god of war, and god of the earth;
and a palace complex to the god of literature.
The Temple to the Earth God (Houtumiao) in Wan-
rong, Shanxi province, focused on a Daoist deity but heavily
patronized by the imperial family, was a similar temple com-
pound of the Song dynasty (960–1279). Built in 1006 but
destroyed by flood waters in the sixteenth century, its nine-
bay, multistoried main hall, the central focus of five court-
yards of architecture, is believed to have resembled an impe-
rial palace of Song times. Its plan is believed to have been
nearly identical to that of the Daoist Temple to the Earth
God compound in Dengfeng, Shanxi, that survives in a post-
Song version. Halls to the Three Purities, dated 1016 and
1176, stand at abbeys known as Xuanmiaoguan in Putian,
Fujian province, and Suzhou, Jiangsu province, respectively.
Both possessing the broadly sloping roof eaves of southeast-
ern Chinese buildings of the Song dynasty, the former is
today a middle school and the latter a tourist site. Jade Em-
peror Temple and Two Immortals Abbey are also among the
Daoist temple compounds in Shanxi province where both ar-
chitecture and sculpture survive in their eleventh- and
twelfth-century forms. Two Song emperors were intimately
involved with Daoism and Daoist construction. Zhenzong
(r. 998–1023) ordered the construction of Abbeys to Cele-
brate the Heavens (Tianqingguan) throughout his empire.
The equally prolific patron Huizong (r. 1101–1125) had
Genyue (Northeast Peak), an artificial Daoist paradise of
mountains, streams, and landmasses, built at his capital city,
in addition to numerous Daoist temple complexes there and
throughout China. More than thirty Daoist temple complex-
es were built in the Southern Song (1127–1279) capital city,
today Hangzhou.Several of China’s most important premodern buildings
remain at Daoist monasteries from the period of Mongolian
rule (1267–1368). Three superlative halls and a gate stand
at the Yongle Palace in southern Shanxi, a building complex
dedicated to the popular twelfth- and thirteenth-century
Daoist sect, Quanzhen. Paintings of the Three Purities and
their entourages, the immortal Lü Dongbin, and the twelfth-
century founder of Quanzhen Daoism, Wang Zhe (1113–
1170), cover the interior walls of the three main halls, mak-
ing this site the largest repository of Daoist painting in
China. An even more splendid building, the Hall of Virtuous
Tranquility, was built by imperial order at the Temple to the
Northern Peak in Quyang, Hebei province, in 1270. Its
white marble approach and balustrade, as well as its roof
eaves and bracketing, are believed to be the closest extant ex-
amples of China’s imperial building tradition of the thir-
teenth century. The Temple to the Water God, alternately
known as the Dragon King, is an example of humbler Daoist
architecture but with equally extraordinary murals. Among
them are paintings of the Dragon King and his court and an
itinerant dramatic troop that performed there in the four-
teenth century.Post-fourteenth-century Daoist temple complexes sur-
vive in every city and town of China today and across the
Chinese countryside. Some of the most impressive Daoist
temple compounds are on sacred peaks, among which
Mount Tai and Mount Wudang are probably the most fa-
mous. Located in Shantung province, Taishan, the Eastern
Peak, was considered the abode of life-giving forces, includ-
ing those that controled the fate of the Chinese emperor, as
well as the site to which dead souls return. In imperial times
more than 250 temple compounds stood on the mountain,
with Dai Temple, dedicated to the god of the mountain it-
self, the most austere. Inside Dai Temple, the god of Mount
Tai is enthroned in the yellow robes of a Chinese emperor,
and the emperor’s journey from his capital to Taishan is
painted on the interior walls. Wudangshan, in Hubei prov-
ince, is where Daoists believed Zhenwu, the Perfected War-
rior, attained immortality. Because the Yongle emperor
(r. 1403–1424) believed Zhenwu had come north to help
him attain the Chinese throne from his uncle, he patronized
enormous temple complexes across the mountain. WithTEMPLE: DAOIST TEMPLE COMPOUNDS 9057