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The Daozang (Chinese: 道藏; pinyin: Dàozàng; Wade–Giles: Tao Tsang) is a large canon of Taoist writings, consisting of around 1,500 texts that were seen as continuing traditions first embodied by the Daodejing, Zhuangzi, and Liezi. The canon was assembled by monks c. 400 CE in an attempt to bring together these disparate yet consonant teachings, and it included commentaries and expositions from various masters on material found in the aforementioned core texts of Taoism. The anthology consisted of three divisions (known as grottoes 三洞) based on what were seen at that time in Southern China as Taoism's primary focuses: meditation, ritual, and exorcism. These three grottoes rather than seeing them as a doctrine of immanent ascendance or a kind of hierarchical staking that is ranked by skill level, it is better to understand them as a kind of scaffolding that the lower section is as important as the highest as seen within the body of the text with exorcism being the lowest Grotto and meditation the highest Grotto — both being used by for the Taoist masters and Monastics.
In addition to the Three Grottoes, there were the "Four Supplements" (四辅) that were added to the canon c. 500 CE. Three were primarily sourced from the older core texts, with the other taken from a separate, established philosophical tradition known as Tianshi Dao.
Unlike many spiritual and religious canons, the Daozang is not considered to be highly organized. Although at present the core divisions have been preserved, substantial forks in the ordering and arrangement of the constituent texts have arisen due to the later addition of commentaries, revelations and texts further elaborating upon earlier iterations.
