Taoism was the first indigenous religion that Chinese himself founded. The recognized ancestor of Taoism is Taishang Laojun, but the historical figure who founded Taoism in reality is Zhang Daoling at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, commonly known as Zhang Tianshi. Zhang Daoling, formerly known as Zhang Ling, was the eighth grandson of Zhang Liang, the founding minister of the Western Han Dynasty. He founded a religious organization called Tianshi Dao at the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty. Everyone who wants to join only needs to pay five buckets of rice, so the folk commonly known as five buckets of rice. This was the early days of Taoism.
Zhang Daoling was born in Tianmu Mountain, Zhejiang. At an early age, he showed an extraordinary talent for reading, and he read the Taoist works Tao Te Ching twice, and he could understand its meaning and mystery. Originally a Confucian student, he was appointed as the Governor of Ba County at the age of 26. But soon after, he abandoned the official cultivation and left. He and his disciple Wang Changyi first lived in seclusion at the Longhu Mountain Monastery in Jiangxi, and then went to the Yunjin Mountain Monastery to cultivate for three years to become the Dragon and Tiger Great Dan. Zhang Daoling, who was already 60 years old at the time, took the Dan medicine, and his face looked like he was in his thirties, and he could catch up with the galloping war horse.
The most remarkable thing was that after years of cultivation, Zhang Daoling could actually practice the Fen Shen Fa and make himself appear in several different places at the same time. Zhang Daoling's mentor was Taishang Laojun. In 142 AD, Taishang Laojun descended on Heming Mountain and taught Zhang Daoling the secret records of Zhengyi Mengwei, the Three Qing Zhongjing, the Secret Recipe of Fu Zhen Danzao, the Double Sword of Male and Female, and other magic tools and spells, which made Zhang Daoling's spell level increase rapidly, and successfully dispersed the Six Heavenly Ghost King and the Eight Ghost Marshals who spread plague in the Sichuan region. Zhang Daoling's greatest skill, summed up in a sentence of the Taoist Pure Heaven and Earth Mantra, is to slay demons and bind evil spirits and kill thousands of ghosts!
Zhang Tianshi carried out a new theological transformation of pre-Qin Daoist thought, established a theological system with Taishang Laojun as the core, and first proposed the religious program and precepts of Taoism, making it an organized religion, and the Taoist culture of Science and Yi was also founded by Zhang Tianshi.