Mo PaiArchive

Mountain · Sichuan, China

Mount Heming

Where Taoism became a religion, in 142 CE.

Woodblock print of Zhang Daoling, founder of the Way of the Celestial Masters, seated with a sword and a talisman.
Zhang Daoling, in a woodblock print from the Xianfo qizong. The founder of the first organised Taoist church, and the start of every ordination lineage Mo Pai does not claim. Unknown · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons

The mountain in Sichuan where, in 142 CE, Zhang Daoling reported a revelation from the deified Laozi appointing him representative on earth. Whatever one makes of the event, it is the founding moment of organised Taoism.

Every ordination lineage in the religion traces back through it — which is what makes it worth naming in an archive about a tradition that claims none of them.

Where this is written about