Among Wu Zhao’s pantheon of female political ancestors, the mother of Daoist founder Laozi proved problematic, presenting singular opportunities and yet posing serious difficulties. This chapter examines, with attention to specific context and timing, the various strategies Wu Zhao devised to exalt the mother of Laozi in ways that might redound upon her own political authority.
THE MOTHER OF LAOZI
Perhaps the clearest sense we have of Laozi’s mother as a mortal being comes from the genealogical records of the Li family in the New Tang History. In this Northern Song Confucian text, she is not a divine goddess but a woman of the Yishou clan named Yingfu, married to Censor-in-Chief Li Qian (c. eighth century B.C.) during the Eastern Zhou dynasty. Her son Laozi, then known as Li Er, served under King Ping as a royal scribe. The clan name Li does not derive from the plum (li 李) tree she grasps while birthing Laozi; rather, it originates from an earlier female ancestor from the state of Chen who, along with her son Li Zhen, ate “fruits of wood” (mu zi 木子) while fleeing the notorious last Shang king, Zhou (c. eleventh century B.C.). The characters for “fruits of wood” were combined to derive the new clan name Li (mu 木 + zi 子 = 李).1
In balance, Song Confucians present a diminished image of Laozi. Conversely, Daoist traditions elevate the mother of Laozi to divine status, in preparation for the coming of Laozi. Catherine Despeux categorizes the mother of Laozi as one of “a number of major goddesses who played a key role in religion,” along with the Queen Mother of the West and Mazu, the protectress of fishermen and merchants.2 Daoist hagiographer Du Guangting listed Laozi’s mother first in his Register of Assembled Transcendents. The text provides a four-stage evolution of this divinity. First, this “mother of the Dao,” initially known as the Jade Maiden of Mystery and Wonder (Xuanmiao yunü 玄妙玉女), arose from creation—from the merging of primordial qi, the “virginal culmination of the dao 道,” with the essence of the universe.3 Second, after taking human female form, she gave birth to Laozi from her left side, while clutching a plum tree. As a result, she was known by the earthly name of Mother Li (Li mu 李母) and gained the celestial title Sage Mother Goddess (Shengmu yuanjun 聖母元君). Third, she expounded the crux of the Daoist teachings to Laozi, gaining the title Goddess of the Great Unity (Taiyi yuanjun 太一元君). Finally, having passed on her wisdom to her prodigious offspring, with a caravan of chariots and an entourage of attendants, she ascended to the highest cerulean reaches as Grand Dowager of the Anterior Heaven (Xiantian taihou 先天太后), where “she presides as benevolent ancestor over the wider universe.”4
In the Book of Transformations of Laozi (Laozi bianhua jing 老子變化經), a text dated to the Eastern Han, it is recorded, “By the transformation of Heaven and Earth he [Laozi] is incarnated in the womb of Mother Li.”5 This passage prompted Kristofer Schipper to remark, “Cosmogony, the creation of the universe, and the pregnancy of Laozi’s mother do here coincide.”6 In the Secret Jade Tally Record (Yuzhang bi jue 玉章秘訣), another work by Du Guangting, the mother of Laozi plays what Anna Seidel terms “the primordial role of the mother demiurge”:7
Some believe that it is she who is the greatest and the most venerable. She controls Heaven and Earth, harmonizes yin and yang, employs Wind and Rain as her servants. She makes the five planets advance and retreat, arranges the cold and the heat, wields power over Qian 乾 and Kun 坤 and rules over all immortals of the three realms. Life and death of men, rise and decline of generations, all proceed from her. It is from the Holy Mother of Laojun that Heaven, Earth and all beings have received life.8
Du Guangting’s tenth-century perspective illustrates that the mother of Laozi was a powerful Daoist divinity who filled multiple roles: world creator, mother-educator of Laozi, and transcendent divinity. These multiple roles—mother, demiurge, and divine goddess—would all prove important to the affiliation Wu Zhao sought with the mother of Laozi.
MOTHER LI AND HER SON IN EARLY TANG DAOISM
Shortly after establishing the Tang dynasty, to enhance their prestige among the great clans of the day, the imperial Li family claimed descent from the Eastern Zhou Daoist sage Laozi, with whom they shared a surname.9 In the truculent wake of their military seizure of the empire, such ideological and kin connections helped legitimize the newly risen Lis (with their central Asian background), by anchoring their authority in indigenous Chinese political and cultural tradition.10 Daoist prophecies and miracles, including the appearance of Laozi, played an important role both in the legitimation of the first Tang emperor, Gaozu, and in the founding of the dynasty, creating what Charles Benn calls “an aura of mystique for the royal house” that was “uniquely destined” for power.11 In 620, Gaozu honored the Daoist forefather-divinity as “Sage Ancestor” (Shengzu 聖祖).12
Lest anyone doubt the kin connection, one Ji Shanxing told the Tang court that on Ram’s Horn Peak (Yangjiaoshan 羊角山), he had encountered an old man riding a white horse who had declared himself to be Laozi. The venerable rider then instructed Ji to inform Gaozu that he (Laozi) was the emperor’s ancestor and that once the emperor pacified the realm his scions would rule for a thousand years. Gaozu marveled, and built a temple in Laozi’s honor.13 Thus the Tang dynasts “accepted Laozi as a deity, claiming that his divine guardianship and grace protected the dynasty and caused it to prosper.”14 In 625, Gaozu formally elevated Daoism over Buddhism, an ideological hierarchy reconfirmed by Taizong in 637.15 The divine Laozi manifested himself twice during the corule of Gaozong and Wu Zhao, in 662 and 679, both times on Mount Beimang, overlooking Luoyang to the north.16 Overall, the reigns of the first three Tang emperors witnessed not only Laozi’s emergence as a Tang ancestor, but the elevation of divine Laozi as “creator of the cosmos, a universal deity who promised salvation for all mankind.” Daoism was placed “over Confucianism and Buddhism in the official rankings of the three doctrines.”17
Naturally, the promotion of the cult of Laozi greatly publicized and politicized the Daoist ideology. Yet despite the ascendancy of Laozi as apotheosized sage and ancestor of the imperial Li clan, his mother remained little more than a shadowy presence until the reign of Gaozong and his powerful empress and coruler Wu Zhao. As with the elevation of the cults of Nüwa, the mother of Qi, and the Queen Mother of the West, it was no accident that the rise of the cult of the mother of Laozi coincided with the political ascendancy of Wu Zhao.
THE ELEVATION OF THE MOTHER OF LAOZI AT BOZHOU IN 666
In 637, Taizong restored the Laojun (Laozi) Temple in Bozhou, reputed birthplace of the Daoist sage, and endowed it with land revenues to pay for performing rites there.18 This site developed into an early Tang center for the worship of both Laozi and the mother of Laozi.
As mentioned earlier, from 660, when Gaozong was stricken with a serious illness, until his death in 683, Wu Zhao often assisted him in his public duties as emperor. She sat behind a curtain in the audience hall and deliberated upon administrative decisions with her husband. Because the emperor and empress jointly made decisions and wielded political influence, people called them the “Two Sages.”19 In the second month of 666, returning from their execution of the feng and shan rites on Mount Tai—as empress, Wu Zhao had deftly maneuvered her way into an unprecedented role in these grand ceremonies—the Two Sages stopped at the Laojun Temple in Bozhou and bestowed an exalted title upon the Tang founder: Grand Superior Emperor of Mysterious Origin (Taishang xuanyuan huangdi 太上玄元皇帝). According to Hu Sanxing’s (1230–1287) commentary in the Comprehensive Mirror, Guyang County in Bozhou prefecture, 898 li from Luoyang, housed a shrine to Laozi. On this occasion, the Two Sages changed the name of Guyang County to Zhenyuan (True Origin) County.20 In addition, all citizens of this county who shared the Li surname with the Daoist founder and the Tang dynasts were specially granted a year’s tax relief.21
Du Guangting’s account presents the Two Sages’ stop in Bozhou as part of a watershed Daoist movement rather than a simple homage to the renowned sage:
In the second year of the Longshuo era (662), the emperor ordered Xu Lishi, the vice prefect of Luo prefecture and duke of the state of Qiao, to build Shangqing Abbey on Mount Mang in order to ward off demons. When this meritorious achievement was complete, the Grand Superior One [Laozi] appeared once again, and the entire court presented a memorial to offer their congratulations. The emperor was delighted. At the beginning of the Qianfeng era (666), when the emperor’s feng sacrifice in the east was complete, the imperial chariot returned to Bozhou, and the emperor personally visited Laozi’s temple. He respectfully presented the honorific title “Emperor of Nebulous Origin” (Hunyuan huangdi 混元皇帝) and made the Sage Mother “Grand Dowager of the Anterior Heaven.” Guyang County was subsequently renamed “True Origin County.”22
In another text, Du Guangting similarly recorded that “under the Great Tang dynasty, she [Mother Li] was venerated posthumously and given the title Grand Dowager of the Anterior Heaven.”23 On the momentous nature of this title, Charles Benn remarks: “In the Daodejing, xiantian 先天 refers to the Dao which precedes creation in time and is taken to be the mother of the world. The Emperor thus recognized Laozi’s mother as the personification of the Dao and cosmic progenitor.”24 The timing of this elevation of Laozi’s mother can best be understood in conjunction with Wu Zhao’s rising political presence, unprecedented in the feng and shan rites.
Gaozong’s “Imperial proclamation to exalt Laojun [Laozi] with the honorific title Emperor of Primal Origin” corroborates Du Guangting’s account:
It is proper that the origin of mysteries be expounded to make manifest the merit of the Original Sage (Yuan sheng 元聖). Thus, we shall posthumously designate him [Laozi] Grand and Superior Emperor of Primal Origin (Taishang yuanyuan huangdi 太上元元皇帝), and denominate the Sage Mother as Grand Dowager of the Anterior Heaven. Temples, shrines, and halls [dedicated to Laozi] shall be repaired or built, with a director and an aide installed at each to make sacrifices. In addition, Guyang County shall be changed to True Origin County.25
Though the dating of this proclamation is unclear and the title is slightly altered from that one mentioned in Du Guangting’s account, on no other occasion during Gaozong’s reign did he bestow titular honors upon Laozi. This proclamation was issued in the second month of 666, on the return of the imperial cortege from Mount Tai. Benn has observed that the director and aide “customarily managed the affairs of imperial ancestral temples” and other temples related to state cultic sacrifices. These sacrifices, involving not only imperial kinsmen but a wider circle of high-ranking court ministers, were usually held at the imperial ancestral temple in the capital. On this singular occasion, however, they were held in Bozhou to honor Laozi and Laozi’s mother.26 Mother and son were not only elevated as universal, cosmic divinities, but they were honored as ancestors of the ruling clan. Naturally, the prestige and authority of Gaozong and Wu Zhao, the earthly sovereigns who honored them, was augmented as well.
MOTHER LI IN WU ZHAO’S GROWING PANTHEON OF FEMALE DIVINITIES
Late in Gaozong’s reign, while the Two Sages remained corulers, Wu Zhao’s control over her ailing husband was increasingly apparent. During the emperor’s final years, the pair retreated to the hot springs and craggy peaks of Mount Song, an area dotted with Daoist temples and Buddhist monasteries.27
On the vernal equinox in 680, when Gaozong and Wu Zhao visited Mount Song, encomiast Cui Rong composed an inscription for a stele erected at the temple of the mother of Qi. Though Wu Zhao still ostensibly shared political authority with the dying Gaozong at this juncture, Stephen Bokenkamp describes Cui Rong’s composition, studded with references to female divinities, as a clear-cut endeavor to project the empress as the “mother of gods.”28 In the inscription, Cui Rong deftly frames the proper celestial orientation of the mother of Laozi and the Queen Mother of the West as consonant to and parallel with the harmonious earthly rule of Wu Zhao:
Examining the Northern Dipper (Beidou 玉斗) with the armillary sphere, the residence of Mother Li is near the Northern Culmen (Beiji 北極);29 and in the Stone Chamber of the Golden Terrace,30 the dwelling of the Queen Mother is on the Western Mount.31 When the pneumas act as mother, the myriad things all sprout forth. When the moon acts as mother, its glowing countenance shines down on all. When the earth element acts as mother, above and below merge and produce greatness. When the empress acts as mother, state and family are successfully formed.32
Though Gaozong was still alive, Cui Rong’s inscription clearly focused upon the exaltation of Wu Zhao, affiliating her with an array of female divinities from antiquity, among them Mother Li. With a flourish—“When the empress acts as mother, state and family are successfully formed”—Cui Rong situated Wu Zhao as heir to these cosmic mothers. In this collection of worthy celestial mothers, Mother Li was the polestar. In Cui Rong’s elegant metaphor, just as Mother Li presided over the supernal realm above, so mother-empress Wu Zhao oversaw the harmonious earthly empire below.
TWINNED MOTHERS OF LI AND GRAND DOWAGERS: A TIMELY REAFFIRMATION
In 683, during Gaozong’s final months, when the Two Sages visited a Daoist monastery converted into a summer palace on Mount Song, they inaugurated the Amplifying the Dao era, decreeing the construction of Daoist monasteries in every prefecture.33 After Gaozong’s death, however, the relationship between his widowed empress and the Daoist establishment became much more conflicted.
In 684, mere months after Gaozong’s demise, grand dowager Wu Zhao deposed her son Li Xiǎn (Zhongzong) and replaced him with weak-willed Ruizong, her youngest son Li Dan. Presiding over the court in the ninth month of 684, Wu Zhao launched a series of reforms that imitated the archaic titles, nomenclature, and court colors of the Zhou dynasty of antiquity.34 The reform most troubling to Daoists was the titular elevation of Wu Zhao’s natal kinsmen to princely rank. Any advancement that threatened the paramount position of the Li family—given their fictive blood ties to Laozi—implicitly jeopardized the entire Daoist establishment.
Indeed, the collective anxiety of the Daoist establishment is reflected in Du Guangting’s Historical Records Exalting Daoism (Lidai chongdao ji 歷代崇道記):
In the inaugural year of Wenming (684), when the Celestial Empress desired to make all of the Wus princes, Taishang 太上 [Laozi] appeared on the August Heaven Plateau in the Fangxing hamlet of Longtai town, Wenxiang County, in Guozhou prefecture.35 He sent Wu Yuanchong36 to transmit the following report to the Celestial Empress: “The empire has been long blessed and enjoyed great peace. It is inappropriate for you to seize the throne.” The Celestial Empress let the matter rest and ordered the temporary palace in Wenxiang converted into the Temple of Worship of the Immortals (Fengxian guan 奉仙觀).37
The appearance of the divine Laozi and the transmission of his message might best be understood as part of a wider political and ideological discourse (or negotiation) between the dowager-regent, court, and empire. Sensing the time was not yet appropriate, Wu Zhao pulled back, content to style herself an exemplary Confucian widow, assiduously working to manage and preserve the family estate for posterity.38 There is further evidence that Daoists, worried that Wu Zhao’s rise might jeopardize their faith, rallied behind the Li family. In 685, ostensibly to commemorate recently deceased Gaozong—but perhaps reflecting the apprehension of the imperial Li clan and Daoist establishment alike—250 Li family members commissioned a statue of Laozi at the Daoist monastery near the grand dowager’s newly proclaimed Divine Capital.39
Ever astute at reading the shifting ideological landscape, Wu Zhao initially took steps to mollify the disquietude of the Daoists. Immediately after Gaozong’s death, she bestowed upon her deceased husband the title Heavenly Great Emperor (Tianhuang dadi 天皇大帝), a former title for Laozi in his divine aspect.40 And in her inaugural address to promulgate the Guangzhai era in the autumn of 684, Wu Zhao bestowed upon the mother of Laozi the honorific title Grand Dowager of the Anterior Heaven,41 reaffirming the title granted the Daoist goddess in 666:
Now, the Mysterious Original One (Yuanyuan zhe 元元者) is the wellspring from which the imperial house issued. Embracing the Way and its virtues, it is effortless; crowning all spirits and immortals, it is unfathomable. Brilliant and wondrous beyond measure, its benevolence extends to the myriad matters. So how is it that while this precious son is made manifest in the imperial apartments, the Original Mother (Xianmu 先母) still has no honored position? I hereby present the honorific title Grand Dowager of the Anterior Heaven. It is fitting that at Laojun Temples her honored image be respectfully erected in order to receive our sincere offerings.42
Far from a gratuitous recognition of Laozi’s mother, this announcement represents Wu Zhao’s efforts to define, at one remove, her own paramount position. In the ninth month of 684, she was de facto ruler, issuing edicts and making decisions of state, while the nominal emperor, Ruizong, simply remained in the crown prince’s apartments, minimally involved in court politics.
Why would Wu Zhao once again ceremoniously bestow upon Laozi’s mother a title that had been granted eighteen years earlier? The timely attachment of this title reaffirmed that Wu Zhao, like Laozi’s mother, was a grand dowager, allowing the future female sovereign, at this critical juncture, the time to consolidate her tenuous control over the court. Thus, Wu Zhao underscored her station as a mother of empire—and avoided, for the moment, alienating the Daoist establishment.
The title was all the more poignant because Laozi had no father, only a demiurgic mother. With Gaozong gone, the empire had no father—only a powerful, all-seeing mother.
FROM SAGE MOTHER TO EMPEROR: PHASING OUT LAOZI’S MOTHER
Later in this period of incubation as grand dowager, Wu Zhao mustered ideological support anticipating her establishment of a new dynasty, assuming the title Sage Mother, Divine Sovereign, on the summer solstice in 688.43 Everyone in court and country heard the echo of the well-known title of Laozi’s mother, Sage Mother Goddess. Even as Wu Zhao marshaled Buddhist propaganda and constructed sky-piercing Buddhist monuments, her choice of nomenclature signaled that she was not entirely unsympathetic to the Daoist establishment. Her identification with Laozi’s mother still carried potent political resonance, helping confirm Wu Zhao in her roles as grand dowager presiding over the imperial family and Sage Mother ruling the empire. From 688 until she formally claimed the throne in 690, Wu Zhao’s propagandists often used the epithet “Sage Mother” in their rhetoric.
“Sage Mother” was not merely a Daoist title of Laozi’s mother. Contemporary scholar Gu Zhengmei has remarked upon the Buddhist overtones in Wu Zhao’s usage of the character sheng 聖, contending that the “sage” in Wu Zhao’s new title was closely linked to Buddhist sainthood and to a Khotanese tradition of Buddhist kingship.44 Wei-dynasty dowager empress Feng (馮太后, 442–490) had styled herself a “saintly mother” (shengmu 聖母) after succoring Buddhist monks in the late fifth century.45 Simultaneously, Wu Zhao may have been claiming to be a sagacious Confucian mother of empire, like King Wen’s wife, Mother Wen. In short, “sage” or “saintly” mother was a multivalent political concept that straddled the many current coexisting ideologies.
In 689, Wu Zhao demoted Laozi from Emperor of Primal Origin to Lord Lao (Laojun).46 Though there are no records of a commensurate reduction in title for Laozi’s mother, once Wu Zhao established her Zhou dynasty in 690, she immediately jettisoned the title Sage Mother and, reflecting her paramount stature, designated herself Sagely and Divine Emperor,47 a title that effectively muted her gender. Laozi’s mother was too intimately identified with the Li clan and the Tang dynasty. Once Wu Zhao attained the position of emperor, it was no longer politically advantageous to emphasize her role as widowed mother of the imperial Li clan. Thus, although she neither disparaged nor severed ties with the Daoist goddess, Wu Zhao also realized that Laozi’s mother no longer offered the sort of legitimation she sought.
During her fifteen years as emperor, there are few records of Wu Zhao making any effort to amplify her connection with the mother of Laozi. Among his measures designed to reestablish the Tang dynasty and erase the reforms of his mother, Zhongzong restored Laozi’s lofty title in 705.48
CLUES FROM EMPEROR XUANZONG’S DAOIST RITUAL INNOVATION
In 743, Xuanzong, known for compiling and standardizing ritual protocol, introduced by imperial decree a new major state sacrifice: the practice of worshipping the divine Laozi in a rite at the Taiqing Palace, a refurbished temple complex in Chang’an. This ceremony reconfirmed Xuanzong’s kinship with the venerable Daoist sage. Victor Xiong remarks that “in his decree on initiating Taiqing Palace worship, Xuanzong honored Laozi’s father and mother with the posthumous titles . . . while emphasizing the blood relation between Laozi and the imperial family of Tang.”49 This elevation of status is recorded in the Old Tang History:
On the ren-zi day of the third month of Tianbao 2 (11 April 743), Xuanzong personally offered a sacrifice and bestowed honorific names at the Temple of Mysterious Origin. By imperial edict he posthumously honored the father of Sage Ancestor Emperor of Mysterious Origin 聖祖玄元皇帝 [Laozi], Zhou censor-in-chief Li Jing, as Emperor Emeritus of the Anterior Heaven 先天太上皇 and the mother, from the Yishou clan, as Grand Dowager of the Anterior Heaven. The temple remained fixed in his ancestral village in Qiao commandery 譙郡.50
On the surface, it appears peculiar that Xuanzong, an emperor seeking to reestablish patriarchal Confucian rule, would publicly honor Laozi’s mother. After Wu Zhao’s deposal and death, a divided court and a series of palace coups marred the restoration of the Tang. Female relatives and in-laws of the Li family—the Taiping Princess, the Anle Princess, and Empress Wei—held sway over court and politics. Xuanzong’s ascent to the throne in 712 marked the termination of half a century of court domination by powerful women.51 On closer analysis, the intent of Wu Zhao’s grandson was not to exalt the celestial status of a Daoist female divinity. Rather, in keeping with Xuanzong’s own ideological agenda, it was a calculated effort to retrofit this divinity into a patriarchal ancestral framework. This is perhaps a perfect example of what Richard Kagan refers to as the constant effort of “general literary and official Confucian circles” in early and medieval China “to place all female deities into a context of subservience to more powerful male divinities who were themselves rationalized reflections of the social order.”52 Under Wu Zhao, Laozi’s father was never mentioned. To mention the earthly father reduced the mystical aura surrounding Laozi’s mother. In affirming a position within the ancestral order for Laozi’s little-known father, Xuanzong joined a long tradition of those seeking to diminish female ancestresses, goddesses, and divinities by yoking them to male counterparts.
CONCLUSION
At the beginning of the Tang, the new imperial Li family, with mixed Han Chinese and non-Han blood, drew upon Daoist sage and founder Laozi to construct an identity grounded in indigenous Chinese tradition. In the aftermath of Wu Zhao’s extraordinary involvement in the feng and shan rites at Mount Tai in 666, the Two Sages honored the mother of Laozi at Bozhou with an exalted title—a measure that helped normalize Wu Zhao’s open political involvement. While a dying Gaozong sought peace of mind and immortality on Mount Song, Wu Zhao rose in political eminence, honoring a growing pantheon of female divinities that included Mother Li, the mother of Qi, and the Queen Mother of the West. During her time as grand dowager—a critical incubation period for the establishment of her own dynasty—Wu Zhao designated Laozi’s mother as a kindred spirit, a fellow grand dowager, and an affiliate who helped confirm her status as mother of empire. Mother Li helped connect Wu Zhao to her imperial Li in-laws, to the Daoist establishment in particular, and to a wider Chinese cultural tradition.
But her affiliation with Laozi’s mother was more than a means of affiliating herself with the Li imperial clan. On a primordial level, her connection to this female divinity helped define Wu Zhao as a demiurgic force. Kristopher Schipper has illustrated that in the Daoist conception of creation, “there was no father creator,” only a mother. Furthermore, of unclear etymology, the jun 君 of Laojun “can designate woman as well as man.” In mythology, jun often referred to female deities. Schipper concludes that “Lao-chün is Lao Tzu before his birth . . . is the body of the Tao before birth; Lao Tzu is the Old Child and the Old Master of this world. It is the Mother in whom and through whom this transformation is accomplished. The Tao has taken form in her. Through her the Tao has been revealed.”53 At once precursor, embodiment, and progenitor, Mother Li was Laozi before Laozi. Through this association, Wu Zhao, too, becomes a generative force, a mother of the Dao.
Wu Zhao’s affiliation with Mother Li lasted as long as this identification was politically expedient. As Wu Zhao renegotiated her political authority, however, building a broad multiethnic, pluralistic coalition as she prepared to set up her own Zhou dynasty, she relied increasingly on Buddhism and masked her gender. Her identification with Mother Li, a figure tightly bound to Tang legitimation and indigenous Chinese culture, became a political liability. Consequently, once Wu Zhao established her Zhou dynasty in 690, Mother Li vanished from rhetoric and rites.
