Currently housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Canonization Scroll of Li Zhong is a 30-foot painted handscroll dating from the final years of the Ming dynasty (1368--1644). The painting and its colophons respectively illustrate and describe a process known as daofeng [special characters omitted], or "conferral of the Way, " typically translated in current scholarship as "canonization." The term denotes the liturgical promotion of a local god into the authorized pantheon of the most prominent Daoist institution at the time, the Zhengyi Order of the Dragon-Tiger Mountains.

This dissertation offers a new interpretation of Canonization Scroll that aims to elevate its historical significance. Not only is the handscroll the only illustrated record of canonization to survive, but it furthermore introduces the notion of a representative, by-proxy liturgical procedure---where a local priest self-consciously assumes the authority of the hereditary patriarch of the Zhengyi Order. By allowing local communities to canonize gods at a distance from the Dragon-Tiger Mountains, the Zhengyi Daoist institution could more easily bring unity to what it perceived as heterodox local cults. With painted icons of the gods at the heart of this particular case, questions emerge as to the role images had in articulating ritual ties between local cults and the Daoist institution. What kind of document is this handscroll, and why is it illustrated? In the first comprehensive study of Canonization Scroll to date, I argue that the handscroll serves as an official certificate for a special form of canonization---namely a canonization by proxy---and its painted icons work to reinforce the sacred reality of the ritual event it records.