Lu Zhongyi (; 18 May 1849 – 26 February 1925) was the seventeenth patriarch of Yiguan Dao (I-Kuan Tao). His religious titles were ''Tung Li Zu'' and ''Jin Gong Zu Shi'' (金公祖師; Golden Elder). Lu is, according to Yiguan Dao doctrine, the incarnation of

Maitreya Maitreya (Sanskrit: ) or Metteyya (Pali: ), also Maitreya Buddha or Metteyya Buddha, is regarded as the future Buddha of this world in Buddhist eschatology. As the 5th and final Buddha of the current kalpa, Maitreya's teachings will be aimed at ...

. He was born on the 24th day of 4th Lunar month in 1849, in

Jining Jining () is a prefecture-level city in southwestern Shandong province. It borders Heze to the southwest, Zaozhuang to the southeast, Tai'an to the northeast, and the provinces of Henan and Jiangsu to the northwest and south respectively. Jining ...

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal province of the People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilizati ...

province, China. He was said to be illiterate, his father died when he was young, left with his mother and sister Lu ZhongJie. He joined the army at age 22 and became an officer in the Manzhou DongBei (

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym " Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East (Outer Manc ...

) government. In 1895, at the age of 46 he was said to have a dream from God instructing him to become the student of the 16th patriarch Liu Qingxu (

Wang Jueyi Wang Jueyi ( Wáng Juéyī) was the founder of the Yiguan Dao "Unity Sect" of Taoism and claimed the 15th Taoist patriarchate () Life Wang Jueyi was born Wang Ximeng () in 1821 in Qingzhou under the Qing Dynasty. On account of his orphanhood in ...

's successor). He became the 17th patriarch of Yiguan Dao in 1905 in

Qingzhou Qingzhou () Wade–Giles: Tsing-chou, sometimes written as Ching-chow-fu, formerly Yidu County (Yitu) (), is a county-level city, which is located in the west of the prefecture-level city of Weifang, in the central part of Shandong Province, Chin ...

. Yiguan Dao followers believe that he is the first leader of the "White Sun" Era, the last era of the Three Stages Final Kalpa, thus he is the incarnation of savior

Hotei Hotei may refer to: *Hotei Station, a Japanese train station *Tomoyasu Hotei, a Japanese musician *Budai, known as "Hotei" in Japanese, a semi-historical monk and deity *''Coralliophila hotei ''Coralliophila hotei'' is a species of sea snail, a ...

. In 1918, Lu brought I-Kuan Tao to his hometown

, within a few years, Lu managed to attract some 25 disciples, among them

Zhang Tianran Zhang Tianran () (8 August 1889 – 29 September 1947) was the eighteenth patriarch as well as the founder of the I-Kuan Tao (Yiguandao) religious sect. He is usually referred to as the ''Father of I-Kuan Tao'', or as ''Shi Zun'' (), meaning th ...

and

Sun Suzhen Sun Su Chen (孫素真) (16 October 1895 - 23 February 1975) was the 18th matriarch of Yiguandao. She was the successor of Zhang Tianran, Yiguandao's contemporary founder. Sun was also known as ''Ming Shan'' (明善) or ''Hui Ming'' (慧明), her re ...

. Lu died on the 2nd day of the 2nd lunar month in 1925. Thus, Lu's younger sister Lu Zhong Jie (also known as ''Lao Gu Nai Nai'', Mistress of the Old Cave) who was believed to be the incarnation of bodhisattva

Guan Yin Guanyin () is a Bodhisattva associated with compassion. She is the East Asian representation of Avalokiteśvara ( sa, अवलोकितेश्वर) and has been adopted by other Eastern religions, including Chinese folk religion. She w ...

, took over the leadership for six years.

and Sun Suzhen became the successor through

spirit writing Automatic writing, also called psychography, is a claimed psychic ability allowing a person to produce written words without consciously writing. Practitioners engage in automatic writing by holding a writing instrument and allowing alleged spiri ...

by the Heavenly Mother. However, the other seven major disciples of Lu once refused his succession. In 1930 Zhang officially was bestowed the leadership as the 18th patriarch of Yiguan Dao in

Jinan Jinan (), Postal Map Romanization, alternately romanization of Chinese, romanized as Tsinan, is the Capital (political), capital of Shandong province in East China, Eastern China. With a population of 9.2 million, it is the second-largest city i ...

References

*Thomas DuBois. 2005. ''The Sacred Village: Social Change and Religious Life in Rural North China''. University of Hawai'i Press. * David Jordan & Daniel Overmyer. 1985. ''The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Chinese Sectarianism in Taiwan''. Princeton University Press. * Soo Khin Wah. 1997. A Study of the Yiguan Dao (Unity Sect) and its Development in Peninsular Malaysia. Ph.D. dissertation, University of British Columbia.

External links

Patriarchs of I Kuan Tao
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lu Zhongyi 1849 births 1925 deaths I-Kuan Tao Patriarchs People from Jining

See also

References

External links