Jiugongdao (九宫道 "Way of the Nine Palaces") is a

Chinese folk religious sect Chinese salvationist religions or Chinese folk religious sects are a Chinese religious tradition characterised by a concern for salvation (moral fulfillment) of the person and the society.; ''passim'' They are distinguished by egalitarianism, a f ...

centered in the

Wutai County Wutai County () is a county under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Xinzhou, in the northeast of Shanxi Province, China, bordering Hebei province to the east. It is named after Mount Wutai, which is located within its borders. I ...

of the province of Shanxi. The name of the sect is based on the ''jiugong'' diagram of esoteric cosmology. Flourishing in the

Qing dynasty The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-spea ...

, but rooted in earlier times, the Jiugongdao developed greatly on Mount Wutai thanks to the efforts of Li Xiangshan, also known as ''Puji'', his name as a Buddhist monk who was close to the Manchu court. With his contribution, Jiugongdao took over more than twenty run down former Buddhist monasteries on Mount Wutai and rebuilt them thanks to the donations of its strong following, especially concentrated in

northeast China Northeast China or Northeastern China () is a geographical region of China, which is often referred to as "Manchuria" or "Inner Manchuria" by surrounding countries and the West. It usually corresponds specifically to the three provinces east of ...

. The monasteries were reformed into

Chinese temple Chinese temple architecture refer to a type of structures used as place of worship of Chinese Buddhism, Taoism or Chinese folk religion, where people revere ethnic Chinese gods and ancestors. They can be classified as: * '' miào'' () or ''d ...

s dedicated to indigenous deities and the cosmological Lords of the Five Peaks. The sect also gathered a following among

Khorchin Mongols The Khorchin ( mn, Хорчин, ''Horçin''; ''Qorčin''; ) are a subgroup of the Mongols that speak the Khorchin dialect of Mongolian and predominantly live in northeastern Inner Mongolia of China. History The Ming dynasty gave Borjigin ...

. The Jiugongdao declined on Mount Wutai in the 1940s, as a

Han Chinese The Han Chinese () or Han people (), are an East Asian ethnic group native to China. They constitute the world's largest ethnic group, making up about 18% of the global population and consisting of various subgroups speaking distinctiv ...

-acquired tradition of

Tibetan Buddhism Tibetan Buddhism (also referred to as Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, Lamaism, Lamaistic Buddhism, Himalayan Buddhism, and Northern Buddhism) is the form of Buddhism practiced in Tibet and Bhutan, where it is the dominant religion. It is also in majo ...

took power. With the campaigns against religion in the 1950s and the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

, Jiugongdao and other folk religious sects focused on Mount Wutai, Huanxiangdao and Houtiandao, were persecuted and went underground. They have revived since the 1980s.

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* * {{cite book , last = Charleux , first = Isabelle , year = 2015 , title = Nomads on Pilgrimage: Mongols on Wutaishan (China), 1800-1940 , publisher = Brill , url = https://books.google.com/books?id=VzoLCgAAQBAJ , isbn = 978-9004297784 Chinese salvationist religions

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