Dao Church

The main religion of XiaYuan. A cult devoted to ancestor worship, worship of the Seven Gods, and the mastery of Cultivation.

Structure

There is an organized structure in that each temple has a High Priest/ess, Monks, Priests, and then Initiates. Each teir has different responsibilities and rituals. Generally, they are as follows:
High Priest/ess - Lead the congregation as well as the flock. Appear during rituals and sacrifices on a regional level. Often a cultivator of fairly high rank.
Monks - Devote their life to cultivation. Isolate selves in monasteries, training to be worthy of being in any of the Cultivators Sects.
Priests - Those who spread the religion. Often travelling to and from villages and towns, they provide fortune telling, blessings, excorcism, and weddings. Often a low level cultivator.
Initiates - The newly initiated up to 5 years of service to the church. Often not a cultivator, but working towards being one. Their responsibilities include serving those higher than them, cooking, cleaning, grunt work, building, praying, and attending to every need of those above them.

Public Agenda

To bring the light of Cultivation to all.

Assets

Many temples throughout the land, monasteries as well. A sizable treasury in each region, from which large sacrifices are made to the Gods and their Sects.

Cosmological Views

Daoist Cosmology Article
Various ideas about the nature of the earth, the universe, and their relationship to each other have historically existed as either a background or a focus of mythologies. One typical view is of a square earth separated from a round sky by sky pillars (mountains, trees, or undefined). Above the sky is the realm of Heaven, often viewed of as a vast area, with many inhabitants. Often the heavenly inhabitants are thought to be of an "as above so below" nature, their lives and social arrangements being parallel to those on earth, with a hierarchical government run by a supreme emperor, many palaces and lesser dwellings, a vast bureaucracy of many functions, clerks, guards, and servants. Below was a vast under ground land, also known as Diyu, Yellow Springs, Hell, and other terms. As time progressed, the idea of an underground land in which the souls of the departed were punished for their misdeeds during life became explicit, related to developments in Daoism and Buddhism. The underground world also came to be conceived of as inhabited by a vast bureaucracy, with kings, judges, torturers, conductors of souls, minor bureaucrats, recording secretaries, similar to the structure of society in the Middle Kingdom (earthly China).
Mythological places and concepts See also: Chinese spiritual world concepts, List of mythological Chinese mountains, and List of mythological Chinese rivers The mythology of China includes a mythological geography describing individual mythological descriptions of places and the features; sometimes, this reaches to the level of a cosmological conception. Various features of mythological terrain are described in myth, including a Heavenly world above the earth, a land of the dead beneath the earth, palaces beneath the sea, and various fantastic areas or features of the earth, located beyond the limits of the known earth. Such mythological features include mountains, rivers, forests or fantastic trees, and caves or grottoes. These then serve as the location for the actions of various beings and creatures. One concept encountered in some myths is the idea of travel between Earth and Heaven by means of climbing up or down the pillars separating the two, there usually being four or Eight Pillars or an unspecified number of these Sky Ladders.
Directional The Four Symbols of Chinese cosmology were the Azure Dragon of the East, the Black Tortoise of the North, the White Tiger of the West, and the Vermillion Bird of the South. These totem animals represented the four cardinal directions, with a lot of associated symbolism and beliefs. A fifth cardinal direction was also postulated: the center, represented by the emperor of China, located in the middle of his Middle Kingdom (Zhong Guo, or China). The real or mythological inhabitants making their dwellings at these cardinal points were numerous, as is associated mythology.
Heavenly realm Further information: Chinese constellations The Heavenly realm could be known as Tian, Heaven, or the sky. Sometimes this was personified into a deity (sky god). In some descriptions this was an elaborate place ruled over by a supreme deity, or a group of supreme deities. Jade Emperor being associated with Daoism and Buddhas with Buddism. Many astronomically observable features were subjects of mythology or the mythological locations and settings for mythic scenes these include the sun, stars, moon, planets, Milky Way (sometimes referred to as the River of Heaven), clouds, and other features. These were often the home or destination of various deities, divinities, shamans, and many more. Another concept of the Heavenly realm is that of the Cords of the Sky. Travel between Heaven and Earth was usually described as achieved by flying or climbing. The Queqiao (鵲橋; Quèqiáo) was a bridge formed by birds flying across the Milky Way, as seen in The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl mythology surrounding the Qixi Festival.
Subterranean realm
Tainan Madou Dai Tian Temple Eighteen Levels of Hell Main article: Diyu Further information: Yama (Buddhism) According to mythology, beneath the Earth is another realm, that of an underground world. This world is generally said to be inhabited by souls of the dead (see hun and po). Inhabited by souls of dead humans and various supernatural beings this subterranean hell is known by various names, including Diyu or the Yellow Springs. In more historically recent mythology, this subterranean land is generally described as somewhat similar to the ideas about the land above land above. It possesses a hierarchical government bureaucracy, centered in the capital city of Youdu. The rulers are various kings, whose duties include making sure that the souls of dead humans are correctly placed according to the merits of their life on earth, and that adequate records are kept about the process. One example being Yánluó the wáng ("King Yanluo"). Various functions are said to be performed by minor officials and their minions, such as Ox-Head and Horse-Face, humanoid devils with animal features (Wenlin Institute, Wenlin Software for Learning Chinese, Version 3.4). The functions performed in Diyu tend to focus on punishment by torture according to the crimes committed during life, weighed against any merits earned through good deeds through a process of judgment. In some versions of mythology or Chinese folk religion, the souls are re-incarnated after being given the Drink of Forgetfulness by Meng Po.
Earthly realm Much mythology involves remote, exotic, or hard-to-get-to places. All sorts of mythological geography is said to exist at the extremes of the cardinal directions of earth. Much of the earthly terrain has been said to be inhabited by local spirits (sometimes called fairies or genii loci), especially mountains and bodies of water. There are Grotto Heavens, and also earthly paradises.
Seas, rivers, and islands Various bodies of water appear in Chinese mythology. This includes oceans, rivers, streams, ponds. Often they are part of a mythological geography, and may have notable features, such as mythological islands, or other mythological features. There are mythological versions of all the major rivers that have existed in China in between ancient and modern China (most of these rivers are the same, but not all). Sometimes these rivers are said to originate from the Milky Way or Kunlun. Anyway, they are said to flow west to east because Gonggong wrecked the world pillar at Buzhou, tilting Earth and Heaven away from each other at that sector. Examples of these mythologized rivers include the Yangzi (including various stretches under different names), the Yellow River, the mythological Red River in the west, near Kunlun, and the Weak River, a mythological river in "the west", near "Kunlun", which flowed with a liquid too light in specific gravity for floating or swimming (but unbreathable). Examples of features along mythological rivers include the Dragon Gates (Longmen) which were rapid waterfalls where select carp can transform into dragons, by swimming upstream and leaping up over the falls. Examples of islands include Mount Penglai, a paradisaical isle in the sea, vaguely east of China but sometimes conflated with Japan.
Mountains and in-between places Further information: List of mythological Chinese mountains and Sacred Mountains of China Various other mythological locales include what are known as fairylands or paradises, pillars separating Earth and Sky, ruined or otherwise. The Earth has many extreme and exotic locales – they are separated by pillars between Earth and Heaven, supporting the sky, usually four or eight. Generally, Chinese mythology regarded people as living in the middle regions of the world and conceived the exotic earthly places to exist in the directional extremes to the north, east, south, or west. Eventually, the idea of an eastern and western paradise seems to have arisen. In the west according to certain myths there was Kunlun. On the eastern seacoast was Feather Mountain, the place of exile of Gun and other events during or just after the world flood. Further east was Fusang, a mythical tree, or else an island (sometimes interpreted as Japan). The geography of China, in which the land seems to be higher in the west aand tilt down toward the east and with the rivers tending to flow west-to-east was explained by the damage Gonggong did to the world pillar Mount Buzhou, mountain pillars separating the sky from the world (China), which also displaced the Celestial Pole, so that the sky rotates off-center.
Kunlun
Lamp Representing the Realm of the Queen Mother of the West (1st–2nd century CE) Main article: Kunlun (mythology) In the west was Kunlun (although also sometimes said to be towards the south seas. Kunlun was pictured as having a mountain or mountain range, Kunlun Mountain where dwelt various divinities, grew fabulous plants, home to exotic animals, and various deities and immortals (today there is a real mountain or range named Kunlun, as there has in the past, however the identity has shifted further west over time). The Qing Niao bird was a mythical bird, and messenger of Xi Wangmu to the rest of the world. Nearby to Kunlun, it was sometimes said or written and forming a sort of protective barrier to the western paradise or "fairyland" named Xuánpǔ (玄圃) where also was to be found the jade pool Yáochí (瑤池), eventually thought to exist on mount Kunlun (which itself was thought to possess cliffs insurmountable to normal mortals was the Moving Sands, a semi-mythological place also to the west of China (the real Taklamakan Desert to the west of or in China is known for its shifting sands). There were other locations of mythological geography around the area of Kunlun such as Jade Mountain and the various colored rivers which flew out of Kunlun.

Tenets of Faith

Honor thy Ancestors Honor thy Parents Honor thy Emperor Honor thy Gods Act not without face. (don't have a poor reputation) Help thy Neighbor Help the Beggar Help the Sick Help the Downhearted (those going to hell)

Worship

Lighting incense/giving sacrifice to ancestors at least once a day. Memorising the manuscripts/Memoirs of famous Cultivators Acting in a Morally Upright way.

Priesthood

There is an organized structure in that each temple has a High Priest/ess, Monks, Priests, and then Initiates. Each teir has different responsibilities and rituals. Generally, they are as follows:
High Priest/ess - Lead the congregation as well as the flock. Appear during rituals and sacrifices on a regional level. Often a cultivator of fairly high rank.
Monks - Devote their life to cultivation. Isolate selves in monasteries, training to be worthy of being in any of the Cultivators Sects.
Priests - Those who spread the religion. Often travelling to and from villages and towns, they provide fortune telling, blessings, excorcism, and weddings. Often a low level cultivator.
Initiates - The newly initiated up to 5 years of service to the church. Often not a cultivator, but working towards being one. Their responsibilities include serving those higher than them, cooking, cleaning, grunt work, building, praying, and attending to every need of those above them.

Granted Divine Powers

Divine Manuscripts are passed down from the Gods to High Preist/esses, which are then passed down to the Monks, who, in turn, pass them to the priests, who then provide appropriate manuscripts to the Initiates. This is how Cultivation is taught within the Daoist religion.
See: Cultivator for more information

Political Influence & Intrigue

The Emperor is Daoist, and therefore bends to the 'will of the gods' more often than not. If the church wants something, they usually get it.

Sects

EAch region has it's own 'sect', and sometimes they're different on certain details, or which Gods they revere.

Enlightenment does not come Free.

Type

Religious, Monastic Order

Demonym

Daoist

Parent Organization

Kunlun Mountain

Location

Raushu Temple