Three Pure Ones- Chinese GroupCollective"The Three Purities"

The Dao Unfolds

"The Dao produces One, One produces Two, Two produces Three, Three produces the ten thousand things." In this line from the Daodejing, Daoists found the blueprint for their highest theology. The Three Pure Ones are that unfolding made divine: the Dao splitting itself into three stages of creation, each stage personified and enthroned in its own heaven above the Jade Emperor's domain.

The highest existed before creation, in perfect stillness. The second holds the scriptures through which reality takes shape. The third walked the earth as Laozi, riding an ox westward through the pass at Hangu and leaving the Daodejing with the gatekeeper Yin Xi before vanishing beyond the borders.

Three Revelations

The trinity did not appear all at once. In the 2nd century CE, the Celestial Masters movement venerated the deified Laozi as Taishang Laojun, the Supreme Lord Lao, and built their practice around his teachings. He was, for these early Daoists, the highest god.

Two centuries later, the Shangqing revelations arrived. A medium named Yang Xi received visions of a celestial hierarchy that placed a new figure at its summit: Yuanshi Tianzun, the Celestial Venerable of Primordial Beginning, who had existed before Laozi, before heaven and earth, before anything at all. Around the same time, the Lingbao scriptures introduced Lingbao Tianzun, the keeper of sacred texts through which all beings might achieve salvation.

Tao Hongjing, a Daoist master of the 5th and 6th centuries, wove these traditions together. In his ordering of the cosmos, the three figures took their places: Yuanshi Tianzun at the top, Lingbao Tianzun in the middle, Daode Tianzun completing the triad. By the Tang dynasty, the arrangement was fixed. The Tang emperors, who claimed Laozi as their ancestor, gave the trinity imperial backing.

The Hall of the Three Purities

In Daoist temples, the Sanqing Dian is the main hall. Three figures sit side by side on the central altar. The one in the highest position holds a cosmic pearl. The one who looks oldest clutches the Daodejing, because he is Laozi.

During the jiao, the great Daoist community ritual that may last several days, priests ritually ascend through the celestial hierarchy, passing through heaven after heaven until they reach the Three Pure Heavens at the summit. There they hold audience with the Three Pure Ones and channel their authority back into the human world.