Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
“One who walks the Great Tao is called a daoshi, a scholar of the Tao. In body and mind they follow principle, following the Tao alone and making the Tao their work; therefore they are called daoshi.” As Taoist clergy, Taoist priests devote themselves chiefly to spiritual practice, and take long life and lasting vision as the goal of cultivating the Tao.
For thousands of years, because Taoist thought is “mysterious and more mysterious still,” and because most cultivators of the Tao have chosen to practice in seclusion from the world, ordinary people have known very little about Taoist priests. Even in modern society today, Taoist priests still wear blue-green Taoist robes, simple and plain, and while saving themselves and others, they also transmit traditional Chinese culture.
The Taoist robes worn by Taoist priests are mostly black, white, or blue. This reflects the Taoist ideal of showing plainness and embracing simplicity, of a pure heart and few desires. At the same time, black and white are symbols of yin and yang—“the alternation of yin and yang is called the Tao”—and the black-and-white Taoist symbol of the Supreme Ultimate (Taiji) is a visual summary of the way of yin and yang.
The shoes of Taoist priests are also simple and plain: round-mouthed shoes, double-faced shoes, ten-directions shoes, cloud shoes, and so on; their socks are all tall white cloth socks. Taoist priests wear many kinds of caps in daily life. As the saying goes, “Taoists have nine caps (jin); monks have eight hats.” The jin here are the caps Taoist priests wear every day.
Although it is said that “Taoists have nine caps,” which caps are included is generally not fixed. The most popular list is: the Hunyuan cap, the Zhuangzi cap, the Chunyang cap, the Haoran cap, the Xiaoyao cap, the Lotus Leaf cap, the Sun cap, the Yizi cap, and the Jiuliang cap.
The Nine Caps: The Hunyuan Cap
The Hunyuan cap is worn by Taoist priests of the Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) school. It is a round cap with a stiff brim made of black silk pasted into shape, with an opening in the middle through which the topknot shows. Because the Quanzhen school observes the precepts, among them that “Taoist priests keep their hair,” Quanzhen priests from ancient times to the present have had to grow their hair long, and so they have kept a form of capping similar to the ancient “capping ceremony” for young men.
Only after undergoing the capping ceremony (guanjin) can one become a Quanzhen Taoist priest and be entitled to wear the Hunyuan cap. The word hunyuan, “primordial chaos,” represents the Taoist view of how the cosmos came into being. The Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel (Yunji Qiqian) says: “Hunyuan records what was before chaos, the beginning of primordial qi.” It also says: “When the five qi had not yet taken form, the three powers had not yet divided, and the two modes had not yet been established, this is called chaos, also called hunyuan, also called the primordial lump like an egg, in which the five qi are mixed as one.” Therefore the Hunyuan cap is also regarded as the first of the nine caps.
The Nine Caps: The Zhuangzi Cap
The Zhuangzi cap, also called the Chonghe cap or the Nanhua cap, is said to have been created by Zhuangzi, Perfected Nanhua. Zhuangzi is one of the Four Great Perfected of Taoism. In the chapter “The Great and Venerable Teacher” of his Zhuangzi (True Classic of Southern Florescence), he describes the Perfected thus: “What is a Perfected? The Perfected of old did not rebel against want, did not grow proud in plenty, and did not plan their affairs. Being like this, they could make a mistake and not regret it, meet with success and not be self-satisfied. Being like this, they could climb the heights and not be frightened, enter the water and not get wet, enter the fire and not get burned. Such is the knowledge that is able to ascend to the Tao.” Zhuangzi’s ideas of clarity and stillness, non-action, and living free and at ease in the world had an important influence on the development and teachings of Taoism.
The Zhuangzi cap is square below and triangular above, shaped like a roof. A piece of white jade is set in the front, called the cap-straightener, symbolizing upright conduct.
The Nine Caps: The Chunyang Cap
According to the Illustrated Compendium of the Three Powers (Sancai Tuhui): “The Chunyang cap, also called the Letian cap, closely resembles the caps of the Han and Tang dynasties. At the top is an inch of silk, folded like bamboo slips and hanging down behind; on the cap is a pattern of coiling clouds. It is called Chunyang after an immortal, and Letian after a man.” The name Chunyang comes from Patriarch Lü Dongbin, one of the Five Patriarchs of the Quanzhen school. Lü Dongbin, whose courtesy name was Dongbin and Taoist name Chunyangzi, called himself the Returning Taoist. Legend has it that before Patriarch Lü was converted by Patriarch Zhongli Quan, becoming an immortal, he often wore this cap, and so Taoism named it the Chunyang cap.
The Nine Caps: The Haoran Cap
The Haoran cap is a warm cap made of black cloth or satin, shaped like a hood. It is said that the famous Tang-dynasty scholar Meng Haoran often wore it when he went out, to protect himself against wind and snow, and so it was named after him. The Haoran cap is therefore generally worn by Taoist priests in the cold north.
The Qing-dynasty novel Flowers in the Mirror (Jinghua Yuan) has an episode describing the Haoran cap: during the Wu Zhou period of the Tang, Tang Ao takes his daughter on a sea voyage with Lin Zhiyang and Duo Jiugong, and they pass through the Land of Two Faces. The people there “all wear Haoran caps, covering the backs of their heads.” When they chat with the rich and powerful, “they wear kindly faces, full of humility and respect, so that one cannot help finding them lovable and approachable”; but lift the Haoran cap and “hidden beneath is a wicked face, with rat’s eyes and a hawk’s nose, a face full of coarse flesh; the broom-like brows knit, the blood-basin mouth opens, a long tongue sticks out and spews a gust of poison, and at once a gloomy wind howls and black fog spreads everywhere.” From this we can see that the Haoran cap covers part of the wearer’s face.
The Nine Caps: The Xiaoyao Cap
The Xiaoyao cap is a square piece of cloth wrapped over the topknot, with two long sword-tipped streamers tied to it. “Floating as if leaving the world behind and standing alone, sprouting wings and ascending as a feathered immortal”: when Quanzhen monastic disciples wear this cap, the streamers sway as they move, making them look carefree and at ease, and so it is named the Xiaoyao, “free and easy,” cap.
The Nine Caps: The Lotus Leaf Cap
The Lotus Leaf cap is similar in shape to the Zhuangzi cap, with a round base and a sloping, flat top. The top rises high toward the back, to show transcendence. A cap-straightener is set in the center of the front. The cap has folds like a lotus leaf, hence its name.
The Nine Caps: The Sun Cap
The Sun cap resembles today’s sun hat and is generally worn by Taoist priests when wandering, especially on hot summer days, when it shades the wearer from the sun and keeps them cool. It is usually blue with a white lining. Because Quanzhen priests put a hairpin in their hair after tying it up, the raised part in the middle is triangular for easier wearing, so that the whole looks like a Zhuangzi cap with a wide brim added. Influenced by Korean dramas, many people seeing a Sun cap for the first time think it is a Korean hat, but this is a misunderstanding.
The Nine Caps: The Yizi Cap
The Yizi cap, also called the Taiji cap, is simply a band in the shape of a single horizontal stroke (the character yi, “one”). At the forehead it has a wooden or jade clasp, with a cap-straightener at each end; overlapping the two cap-straighteners and fastening them together, one can wear it on the head. This is the simplest of all Taoist caps. The Records of Yijian (Yijian Zhi), a collection of classical-language tales of the strange by Hong Mai of the Southern Song, describes the Yizi cap: “In the Shaoxing era, Prince Han of the commandery, having given up his military command, lived at leisure at home. He often wore a Yizi cap, rode a fine mule, and roamed among the lakes and hills, followed only by four or five of his own page boys.”
The Nine Caps: The Jiuliang Cap
The Jiuliang cap, also called the Jiuyang cap, has nine ridges hanging down from the front top of the cap. In ancient numerology, nine is the highest of the yang numbers. The Qian hexagram of the I Ching (Book of Changes) says: “Nine in the fifth place: the flying dragon is in the heavens; it is favorable to see the great man.” Among all sixty-four hexagrams, Qian represents the image of utmost yang and is also the hexagram of the emperor, and nine is the number of pure yang. This cap is generally worn by Taoist priests of the Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) school.
Besides the nine caps above, on certain special occasions, such as fasts and offerings (zhaijiao), Taoist priests wear various Taoist crowns, including the Five Elders crown, which resembles the Vairocana hat, the yellow crown, the Five Peaks crown, the Star crown, and the Lotus crown.