Post-Mao revival; CCWV.LIFE

After 1979 the temples began to reopen. The China Taoist Association resumed its work, the White Cloud Temple was restored as the tradition's national centre, ordinations of Quanzhen monks and Celestial Master priests restarted, and the Ming canon was reprinted for a new generation of readers. Village temples rebuilt their festivals from memory and surviving elders, and Daoism recovered a public life in China that a decade earlier had seemed extinguished.

Tagged: Revival Celestial Masters and Zhengyi Daoism Quanzhen

The Event

Date: 1980s (approximate)
Era: Suppression and Revival; Standard periodization of Daoist history
Location: Beijing; today Beijing, China
Traditions: Daoism
Streams: Celestial Masters and Zhengyi, Quanzhen
Key texts: Zhengtong Daozang

How the Tradition Tells It

The revival runs on two tracks that do not always meet: the state-recognized orders, Quanzhen monastic and Zhengyi household priesthood, restored their institutions, while much of the tradition's recovery happened in village temples and local cults outside those structures. What counts as the tradition's centre depends on which track a community stands on.

Connections

Illustration for Cultural Revolution suppression

History Event Cultural Revolution suppression 1966-1976 follows from

Primary Sources

The reprinted Zhengtong Daozang of the 1980s.

Secondary Sources

Kirkland, Russell. Taoism: The Enduring Tradition. Routledge, 2004.
Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body. Translated by Karen C. Duval, University of California Press, 1993.

Provenance: HIST-0816; confidence 0.85; accessed 2026-10-28.