The Empress and the Heavenly Masters: A Study of the Ordination Scroll of Empress Zhang

Over twenty-seven meters long, the Ordination Scroll of Empress Zhang (1493) is an important Ming Dynasty Daoist artifact from the San Diego Museum of Art’s collection. It is a record of the imperial ordination of Empress Zhang (1470-1541), consort of the Ming Dynasty Hongzhi emperor (r. 1488-1505), by Zhang Xuanqing (d. 1509), the forty-seventh Heavenly Master of the Zhengyi institution. This book builds a history of imperial ordinations through a detailed examination of the scroll’s transcriptions and meticulously painted images of celestial beings, and it examines the influences of the Daoist leaders known as the Zhengyi Heavenly Masters.