This thesis focuses on the pantheon in the Sanqing Hall of the Yongle Palace. It investigates three related issues: did the Quanzhen Daoist pantheon change during the Yuan? If so, how and why. The result of the study will show that the Yuan pantheon did not become standardized by the end of the Northern Song, as scholars believe, but changed considerably both in form and in content. Instead of sanctifying the contemporary imperial clans as did the Tang and Song pantheons, the late Quanzhen pantheon glorifies its own patriarchs. The connection between the Daoist pantheon and imperial ancestry established from the Tang onward was severed during the Yuan because the Mongol rulers, as foreign conquerors, had neither the necessity nor the possibility to claim ancestry in the pantheon of the native Daoist religion.; Unlike the Chinese Buddhist pantheon whose thearchy and theogony remained relatively stable, the Daoist pantheon was frequently rejuvenated to meet both the religious and political needs of changing situations.
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