The Three Pure Ones Found Their Schools

After the three sermons of Zixiao Palace, Taiqing, Yuqing and Shangqing each had a stream of Primordial Purple Qi and still lived together on Mount Kunlun. The three studied the Dao Hongjun had handed down, while cultivators from every quarter already came to their gate to ask for teaching.

After Nüwa made humankind, the new race multiplied along the mountains and rivers. Taiqing Laozi left Kunlun, went among the human settlements, handed down the method of the golden elixir to Xuandu and the rest, and founded the Human Sect. The merit of founding it came down, and Taiqing attained sainthood first.

Yuanshi then founded the Chan Sect on Kunlun, expounding the way of following heaven and setting forth the Dao, and attained sainthood by that merit as well. He took disciples at Yuxu Palace, and Guangchengzi, Chijingzi, Taiyi Zhenren, Yuding Zhenren and the rest entered his gate and came afterwards to be called the Twelve Golden Immortals.

Tongtian also declared the Jie Sect founded on Kunlun, to intercept a thread of life for all beings, and then attained sainthood. He took disciples without regard to kind: Duobao Daoren, Jinling Shengmu, Wudang Shengmu and Guiling Shengmu heard him in the inner court, and Zhao Gongming, the Three Xiao and many outer disciples came to the mountain in turn.

While the three teachings still shared Kunlun, disciples came and went outside Yuxu Palace every day. Among the Jie disciples were humans, and also cultivators grown from scale and feather, plant and stone; they opened caves in the mountains and came from every peak to the hall when there was preaching.

The Chan and Jie disciples quarrelled repeatedly over seating, over courtesies, over caves and over daily dealings. Yuanshi asked Tongtian to restrain his followers, and Tongtian still let disciples of every kind come into the hall to hear the dharma; the Three Pure Ones conferred several times in the palace on Kunlun and settled at last on separating.

Taiqing left Kunlun first and founded the Bajing Palace on Mount Shouyang, and the Human Sect followers moved to the new seat with him. He took very few personal disciples, and Xuandu Dafashi attended him at the Bajing Palace for long ages.

Tongtian then led a great many followers east, crossed the sea, and raised the Biyou Palace on Jin’ao Island. The Jie disciples settled the islands of the Eastern Sea, and whenever their master preached they gathered before the palace from across the water — which is where the scene of ten thousand immortals attending comes from.

Yuanshi and the Chan disciples were left on Kunlun at last, and Yuxu Palace became the seat of the Chan Sect. The Human, Chan and Jie Sects lived apart from then on, and their disciples travelled the world under their own masters’ tallies; only when Shang and Zhou went to war did the disciples of the three meet again in one calamity.