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Daoism has maintained an active presence in Nanyang region since the Eastern Han era. Daoist temples have remained the focal points of clerical and institutional interaction and engagement with the imperial state and local society since the late Yuan. The major Daoist temple in the Nanyang area is the Xuanmiao guan 玄妙觀, a famous center of the Quanzhen order, who trained prestigious leaders, such as Zhang Yuanxuan 張圓璿 (1828–1887) who defended Nanyang against the Nian and Taiping armies between 1861 and 1865 before going all around China to ordain new clerics.
Beside the Quanzhen monastic networks, the Xuanmiao guan and other Daoist-managed temples in Nanyang are also linked to the Xuantian shangdi 玄天上帝 (zushi 祖師 or 祖始) pilgrimage networks, both to Wudangshan, and to smaller, but still very active, sacred sites in the Nanyang area.
The T&T project principal investigator in the Nanyang site is Prof. Liu Xun 劉迅, who is pursuing a book-length study of Nanyang Daoism, and has already published several articles on this topic. The pictures below are from temples near Fangcheng 方城 and on Wuduoshan 五朵山, two major zushi sacred sites in Nanyang area, taken in 2007.
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