White Lotus

The White Lotus (simplified Chinese: 白莲教; traditional Chinese: 白蓮教; pinyin: Báiliánjiào; Wade–Giles: Pai-lien chiao) was a religious and political movement that appealed to many Han Chinese who found solace in worship of Wusheng Laomu ("Unborn Venerable Mother" (simplified Chinese: 无生老母; traditional Chinese: 無生老母)), who was to gather all her children at the millennium into one family.

The doctrine of the White Lotus included a forecast of the imminent advent of the future Buddha, Maitreya.

The White Lotus originated as a hybrid movement of Buddhism and Manichaeism that emphasised strict vegetarianism and permitted men and women to interact freely, which was socially shocking. Like other secret societies, they covered up their unusual or illicit activities as "incense-burning ceremonies". The first signs of the White Lotus Society came during the late thirteenth century. Mongol rule over China, the Yuan dynasty, prompted small yet popular demonstrations against its rule. The White Lotus Society took part in some of these protests as they grew into widespread dissent.

The Mongols considered the White Lotus society a heterodox religious sect and banned it, forcing its members to go underground. Now a secret society, the White Lotus became an instrument of quasi-national resistance and religious organization. This fear of secret societies carried on in the law; the Great Qing Legal Code, which was in effect until 1912, contained the following section:

[A]ll societies calling themselves at random White Lotus, communities of the Buddha Maitreya, or the Ming ts'un religion (Manichaeans), or the school of the White Cloud, etc., together with all who carry out deviant and heretical practices, or who in secret places have prints and images, gather the people by burning incense, meeting at night and dispersing by day, thus stirring up and misleading people under the pretext of cultivating virtue, shall be sentenced.

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