TAOIS M

AND CHINESE RELIGION

Henri Maspero Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr.

Taoism and Chinese Religion
Henri Maspero
Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr.

This book is a translation of Le Taoisme et les

Religions Chinoises, which was posthumous-
ly published in France in 1971. It is the first
English translation of most of the seminal
works on Chinese religion of the great sinolo-
gist Henri Maspero. Maspero (1883-1945)
was the first Western scholar to study the vast
and recondite compendium of Taoist writing,
the Tao-tsang. As his discovery of its historic
meaning was explained in publication, it ex-
ploded forever the myths that China was ei-
ther a country without religion or one with
three religions. Maspero, as did other French
sinologists, rejected the idea that Confucian-
ism was the philosophy of the majority of
ancient Chinese.
The first part of the book closely examines
Chinese society, religion, and folk-myth; the
second part focuses on the practice and form
of Taoism specifically and includes an exten-
sive investigation of yoga-like procedures of
nutrition, breathing exercises, and sexual
techniques—all designed to insure personal
immortality in ancient Taoism. The titles of
the nine “books” comprising this study give
an indication of its breadth and variety: Chi-
nese Religion in Its Historical Development;
The Mythology of Modern China; The Soci-
ety and Religion of the Ancient Chinese and
the Modern Tai; How was Buddhism Intro-
duced into China?; Taoism in Chinese Reli-
gious Beliefs during the Six Dynasties Period;
The Poet Hsi K’ang and the Club of Seven
Sages of the Bamboo Grove; An Essay on
Taoism in the Eirst Centuries A.D.; HOW to
Communicate with the Taoist Gods; Meth-
ods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle” in the
Ancient Taoist Religion.
 Henri Maspero

Taoism and Chinese Religion

Translated by Frank A. Kierman, Jr.

The University of Massachusetts Press Amherst, 1981

Copyright © 1981 by The University of Massachusetts Press
All rights reserved
Composition by Asco Trade Typesetting Ltd., Hong Kong
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Maspero, Henri, 1883-1945.
Taoism and Chinese religion.

Translation of Le Taoi'sme et les religions chinoises.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. China—Religion. 2. Taoism—China. 1. Title.
BL1802. M3813 1981 299'.514'0951 80-13444
ISBN 0-87023-308-4

This is a translation of Henri Maspero, Le Taoi'sme et les

religions chinoises, co^yx'xghi 1971 by Gallimard.
The notes by Yoshio Kawakatsu, from Dokyo, the 1966
translation of Maspero’s work into Japanese, published by
Tokai Daigaku Shuppankai (Tokai University Press),
Tokyo, appear in English translation by kind permission of
Yoshio Kawakatsu.
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the support of the
National Endowment for the Humanities toward the
publication of this book.
 Contents
Introduction by T. H. Barrett vii
Translator’s Preface xxv
Original Preface by Max Kaltenmark xxix

BOOK I Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development 1

1. Ancient Religion 3
2. The Religious Crisis of the Warring States Period 17
3. Taoism 25
4. Buddhism 37
5. Confucianism 53

BOOK II The Mythology of Modern China 75

1. Popular Religion and the Three Religions 77
2. The Supreme Gods 88
A. The Jade Emperor, Yii-huang 88
B. The Family and Court of the Jade Emperor 91
C. Celestial Administration and Ministries 92
D. Heaven and the Supreme Emperor in Imperial Worship 93
3. The Gods of Nature 96
A. The Sun and the Moon 96
B. The Old Woman Who Sweeps Heaven Clear 97
C. Sire Thunder and the Mother of Lightning 97
D. The Rain and the Wind 98
E. The Dragon-Kings, Lung-wang 99
4. The Gods in Charge of Administrative Bodies 101
A. The Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak 102
B. The Gods of Administrative Districts 105
C. Family Gods 111
 iv Contents

5. Gods of Professions, Trades, and Guilds 129

A. Civil Mandarins 129
B. Military Mandarins 137
C. The Peasants 138
D. Sailors: The Empress of Heaven (T’ien-hou) 145
E. Tradesmen and Artisans 147
6. Gods Charged with Looking After Men Individually 150
A. Kuan-ti 150
B. The Supreme Lord of Dark Heaven (Hsiian-t’ien Shang-ti) 156
C. The Mother of the Bushel (Tou-mu) 157
D. The Three Agents (San-kuan) 158
E. The Three Stars (Gods of Happiness) 159
F. The Eighteen Arhats and the Eight Immortals 161
G. Taoist and Buddhist Gods Who Protect Women 164
H. Immortal Chang Who Gives Male Children 171
I. Gods of Illnesses and Healing Gods 173
1. Gods of the Other World 176
A. The Ten Hells and Their Kings 176
B. The Life of Souls in the Hells 182
C. The Bodhisattva Ti-tsang (Kshitigarbha) 187
D. The Paradise of Amitabha 191
E. The Immortals and the Queen Mother of the West, Hsi-wang-
mu 194

BOOK III The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese

and of the Modern Tai 197
1. Peasant Life 199
2. Spring Festivals 207
3. Official Religion 217
4. Mythology 226
5. Funeral Customs Among the Black Tai of Upper Tonkin 239

BOOK IV How Was Buddhism Introduced into China? 249

BOOK V Taoism in Chinese Religious Beliefs

of the Six Dynasties Period 263
1. Taoist Adepts and the Search for Immortality: Bodily
Techniques 265
 Contents

2. Spiritual Techniques: Inner Vision, Meditation, and Mystical

Union 272
3. The Taoist Church and the Salvation of the Faithful; Institutions and
Ceremonies 286

BOOK VI The Poet Hsi K'ang and the Club of Seven Sages
of the Bamboo Grove 299

BOOK VII An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 309

Preface by Paul Demieville 311
Bibliographical Introduction 312
1. Individual Religious Life and the Search for Immortality 319
A. Outer Religious Life: Practises and Exercises 321
B. Inner Religious Life: Gods and the Adept’s Relations to
Them 346
2. Taoist Communities and Public Worship 373
A. Organization of Communities in the Yellow Turbans Period 373
B. Collective Festivals and Ceremonies 378
C. Ceremonies for the Dead 388
D. Collective Taoism and Individual Taoism: The Evolution of the
Conception of the Gods 390
E. Additional Note on the Celestial Masters of the Chang
Family 397
3. Taoism and the Beginnings of Buddhism in China 400
4. Appendix: Historical Notes on the Origins and Development of the
Taoist Religion up to the Han Period 413
A. Techniques of Immortality and Mystical Life in the Taoist School
of Chuang-tzu’s Time 413
B. Taoism Under the Ch’in and the Han 427

BOOK VIII How to Communicate with the Taoist Gods 431

BOOK IX Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle" in the

Ancient Taoist Religion 443
Introduction 445
1. First Part: Breathing Techniques 459
A. Embryonic Respiration 459
B. Breathing Procedures Other than Embryonic Respiration 506
 vi Contents

2. Second Part: Methods of Uniting Yin and Yang to Nourish the Vital
Principle 517
3. Third Part: Gymnastics, Tao-yin 542

Key to Sources Maspero Used 555

Index 561
 Introduction
The translation into English of Henri Maspero’s writings on Taoism and
Chinese religion underlines the enduring value of a most remarkable
achievement in the history of the study of religion, a classic of sinological
scholarship that in its own day constituted an unprecedented advance,
and, in many ways, remains unsurpassed even now. By the time the
Gestapo took Maspero to his eventual death in Buchenwald in 1945, he
had spent a quarter of a century investigating Taoism and, based upon
study of the texts from its most creative period, had arrived at an
understanding of that religion’s beliefs and practices such as no non-
Chinese or even Chinese had attained before him and few have attained
since. His perception of the problems involved in understanding the
nature of Taoism has influenced a whole generation of scholarship both
in East and West, and his presentation of Taoism as a religious system
remains a synthesis unique to this day, incorporating research on topics
untouched as yet by any successor.
This book, in fact, represents the most remarkable work of a very
remarkable man.* Henri Maspero was the son of an Egyptologist,
Gaston Maspero (1846-1916),- reputedly the last and certainly the
greatest in his day of those who maintained a complete mastery of all the

1. The most detailed accounts of Maspero’s career are both by Paul Demieville:
“Necrologie: Henri Maspero (1883-1945),” JAs 234 (suite) (1943-45): 245-80, and “Henri
Maspero et I’avenir des etudes chinoises,” TP 38 (1947): 16-42. For a survey of Maspero's
scholarship within its intellectual context and an estimation of its value for the present day
see D. C. Twitchett’s “Introduction” in H. Maspero, trans. F. A. Kierman, Jr., China in
Antiquity [C/4] (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1978), pp. ix-xxx; the same
volume also contains a bibliography of Maspero’s writings on pp. 498-511.
2. For Gaston Maspero see W. Dawson and E. Uphill, H'lw H'as Who in Egyptology, 2nd
ed. (London, 1972), pp. 197-98. It is possible to trace Henri Maspero’s progress during his
first two years up until the appearance of his first seven teeth and beyond on pp. 78-80 of
W. Dawson, “Letters from Maspero to Amelia Edwards,” Journal of Egyptian Archaeology
33 (1947): 66-89. I am indebted to my colleague J. D. Ray for directing me to these
materials on a period of Maspero’s life overlooked by earlier commentators.
 via hitroductiou

various disciplines relevant to the subject. Henri Maspero was himself

part of a like era of giants in the study of China. This was the first era to
produce completely professional scholars capable of holding their own in
terms of erudition with their Chinese and Japanese contemporaries, yet
the last era in which a scholar was expected to display the breadth of
learning of Maspero’s father’s generation. In East Asia too a new age
was dawning during Maspero’s lifetime, which was to bring to academic
life another unique transitional generation, armed with a complete
traditional education yet eager to take advantage of the modern Western
approach to history. Small wonder that we are now beginning to look
back to this period with renewed interest.
Maspero was not the first grand master of French sinology: his teacher
Edouard Chavannes by the time of his death already had done much to
assure the high standards maintained by his pupils through his insistence
on accuracy in translation and his broad treatment not only of political
history but also of religion and of China’s foreign contacts. Maspero’s
slightly older fellow pupil Paul Pelliot extended his erudition to these
areas and others besides, laying particular stress on a sound knowledge
of bibliographical problems and displaying an almost superhuman
breadth of reading in primary and secondary sources. But Chavannes
died before he could complete many of the major tasks in which he was
engaged, while Pelliot, whatever the boldness of his deeds in China under
the declining Ch’ing dynasty, appears always to have quailed in the face
of his own erudition and rarely succeeded in marshaling his knowledge
into any major interpretative study.
However disparate Maspero’s own publications may seem, his urge
towards a synthesis of his findings was always much stronger. He saw
linguistic history, textual criticism, art, mythology, epigraphy, and the
history of science as contributing to the total picture of Chinese history.
Even his extensive studies in the history of Annam and particularly his
many years of ethnographic research in Indo-China provided compara-
tive materials suggesting to him new ways of viewing the ancient society
of China. While still in his forties he wrote a comprehensive history of
the preimperial age and thereafter was engaged upon research towards a
subsequent volume on the period up until the Sui dynasty. This involved
him in groundbreaking work in such areas as economic history and led
directly to the studies of the Taoist religion translated here.
Yet a full appreciation of the place of Maspero’s work in the history of
Taoist studies requires some understanding of the way in which Taoist
literature was disseminated in traditional China and the direction that
research into this literature has taken up until the present. For the
Taoism that managed to perpetuate itself throughout Chinese history
 Introduction i.x

was not a great evangelizing movement proclaiming a new message to all

mankind but rather a graded hierarchy of initiates dispensing occult
knowledge to disciples persistent enough to learn and wealthy enough to
pay initiation fees. The tendency to preserve esoteric secrecy in Taoism
was and is strong and, had not countervailing forces also been present, it
is doubtful whether modern scholarship would have been left with much
in the way of materials to study.
It is fortunate that almost from its inception Taoism had to compete
with Buddhism, a universal religion organized along very different lines.
Not the least of the results of this was that various Taoist groups which
had originally maintained separate scriptural traditions came to conceive
of themselves as belonging to a single hierarchy of teachings opposed to
Buddhism, just as the diverse Mahayana and Hinayana doctrines were
all seen as the teaching of the Buddha. This conception further led to the
practice of ranging the various Taoist scriptures together in a single
canon after the Buddhist model, probably by the middle of the fifth
century A.D.^ It was an act of religious merit to copy out Buddhist
scriptures, especially the whole canon, so perhaps it is not surprising that
we find the Taoist canon also copied out under imperial auspices during
the seventh century.*^ Under the Northern Sung dynasty in 1116 or 1117
such an imperially sponsored compilation was printed for the first time:
the title of the collection included the word Tao-tsang, now the normal
term for the Taoist canon.^
Though this edition and two others that were produced under the
Chin and Yiian dynasties have completely disappeared, a further, final
edition in 5,305 fascicles, compiled and published by the Ming dynasty in
1445 has survived, together with a supplement in 180 fascicles produced
in 1607. Maspero used a photolithographic reproduction of both the
main canon and supplement based on a copy formerly kept in the Po-
yun kuan, Peking; this reproduction was made in Shanghai in 1926.
There is a faint chance that Maspero’s one or two apparent misread-

3. A good account of this process in English is provided by Ofuchi Ninji, “The

Formation of the Taoist Canon,” in H. Welch and A. Seidel, eds.. Facets of Taoism (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1979), pp. 253-67.
4. The preface to this collection survives among the Tun-huang manuscripts, S. 1513a:
see Ofuchi Ninji, Tonko Dokyo, mokuroku-hen (Tokyo, 1978), p. 316, and Tonko Dokyd,
zuroku-hen (Tokyo, 1979), p. 647. The latter work provides a reproduction of the text.
5. A convenient account of the transmission of the Taoist canon in English is Liu Ts’un-
yan, “The Compilation and Historical Value of the Tao-tsang,” in D. Leslie, C. Mackerras,
and Wang Gungwu, eds.. Essays on the Sources for Chinese History (Canberra; A. N. U.,
1973), pp. 104-19. The summary given here is based on this and on Ch’en Kuo-fu, Tao-
tsang yiian-liu k’ao, 2nd ed. (Peking, 1963).
 A' Introduction

ings indicate occasional use of another source. As noted by M. Kal-

tenmark, Maspero erred in believing that 1445 marked the last time that
the Tao-tsang was actually printed. The date 1598 may be found on one
of the two fragmentary copies of the Tao-tsang in Paris, and this date,
and even 1524, is found on such a copy in Tokyo; we hear of the imperial
donation of copies of the canon (presumably printed ad hoc) to Taoist
establishments at several other dates during the Ming and Ch’ing
dynasties. Since one copy in Tokyo—more complete than most and
apparently deriving for the most part from the 1445 printing—manifests
a small number of minor textual variants when compared with the
photolithographic edition, it may be that the printing blocks, which were
eventually destroyed during the Boxer uprising, were partially or totally
recut on one or more occasions. The Po-yiin kuan copy itself is usually
taken as deriving from the 1445 printing, apart from a few portions
repaired in 1845, so whether Peking, Tokyo, or Paris possesses the oldest
copy would in any case seem to be open to question.^
At all events the Taoist canon remained a rare work prior to 1926,
which must in part explain why Maspero found himself confronting a
vast body of literature almost totally untouched by traditional Chinese
scholarship. The contrast with Buddhism is marked: not only do we have
surviving editions of the Buddhist canon produced in China dating back
to the Sung, Chin, and Yuan dynasties, but Korean and Japanese
editions besides. The earliest collated edition with movable type had
already been produced in Japan by 1885. What is more, many of these
editions were financed solely by private subscription and specifically
destined for wide circulation, quite unlike the Taoist canon, which seems
to have been mainly used as a symbol of imperial munificence. Perhaps it
is because of the occult nature of its contents, as much as because of its
value as a rarity, that access to the Po-yiin kuan copy—in recent times
at least—was often restricted; only a sister institution in Shanghai
possessed a copy equally complete and it was apparently even less
accessible.^ It is true that a Ch’ing dynasty anthology of the canon, the

6. Curiously enough only Kubo Noritada has paid any attention to this slight problem
for students of the Tao-tsang. See his description of the Po-yiin kuan canon in the second
part of his article “Hakuun-kan no genkyd ni tsuite,” Shina Bukkyd shigaku 7.2 (August
1943): 32-36, and his subsequent bibliographic notes in Tdhd shukyo 7 (Feb. 1955): 72-75
and 10 (March 1956): 69-81. Notes on the Paris copies of the Tao-tsang by Pelliot may be
found in JAs, series 10, 20 (1912), pp. 142-43 and by Chavannes in TP, series 2, 12 (1911):
750 and 13 (1912): 126-27. Maspero evidently did consult these copies on occasion: see
Melanges posthwnes, vol. 3, p. 96 n. 1.
7. Kubo, “Hakuun-kan no genkyd ni tsuite,” notes that although he was allowed access
to the canon other distinguished enquirers, to say nothing of ordinary Taoist priests, had
not been. Ch’en Kuo-fu, Tao-tsang yiian-liu k’ao, p. 188, preserves for posterity the name
of the gentleman responsible for obstructing access to the Shanghai canon.
 Introduction xi

Tao-tsang chi-yao, did enjoy a wider circulation, particularly after 1906,

when a thoroughly collated edition was produced in Szechwan, but this
collection reflects the contemporary interests of its compilers and con-
tains less than a third of the works Maspero used to reconstruct the
earlier history of Taoism.^
It is also true that a handful of the more indefatigable Ch’ing scholars
did gain access to the Tao-tsang and copied from it works of particular
value, but here an even more marked contrast with Buddhism becomes
apparent. For without exception the works extracted manifest a strictly
Confucian bibliographic or historiographic interest in texts devoted to
early philosophy or to biography rather than any curiosity concerning
the Taoist religion as such.*^ We find no Taoist equivalent of the devoutly
Buddhist scholar P’eng Shao-sheng (1740-1796) or of Rung Tzu-chen
(1792-1841), who carried out bibliographic research into the Buddhist
sutras using the Chinese version of the canon. During the same period
Japan, less dominated by Confucian values, maintained even stronger
Buddhist intellectual traditions which produced scholars such as Nanjio
and Takakusu who had by the end of the nineteenth century added a
European Indological training to their erudition. Buddhism, indeed,
constantly forced as it was to defend itself as an alien intrusion into East
Asian culture, could look back on a long tradition of apologetic
scholarship but Taoism, more securely rooted in the Chinese tradition,
felt no impetus to challenge the overtly disdainful attitudes towards
religion of the Confucian literati.
It was not until 1911 that Liu Shih-p’ei, apparently the first Chinese
scholar with the opportunity and inclination to sit down and read
through the Po-yiin kuan copy of the canon, published some notices on
select works that had interested him, by which time Chavannes and
Pelliot had already removed to Paris two partial copies of the Tao-tsang
and Father Leon Wieger, S. J., was preparing a complete if unreliable
catalogue of it in French.'^ The writings of Chavannes and Pelliot soon

8. Liu Ts'un-yan, “Compilation and Historical Value,” p. 107, doubts that this work was
originally compiled by P’eng Ting-ch’iu (1645-1719), but there are indications that this
man was responsible for printing the Taoist work mentioned in Liu’s n. 18: see Sun Tien-
ch’i, Fcm-shu ou-chi hsu-pien (Peking, 1980), p. 363.
9. One or two examples of this are given by Liu Ts’un-yan, “Compilation and Historical
Value,” pp. 117-18, though he probably errs in assuming that Shen Tseng-chih
(1851-1922) had access to the Tao-tsang: a close reading of his works suggests that Shen,
who had a strong interest in religion, particularly Buddhism, had only read the Tao-tsang
chi-yao. Further references concerning Ch’ing scholars and the Tao-tsang may be found in
p. 213 n. 12, of the review article by M. Strickmann cited below, n. 30.
10. Liu Shih-p’ei’s notes were published in Kuo-ts'ui hsueh-pao, issues 15-11, in the first
quarter of 1911; Wieger’s Taoisme, I: Bibliograpliie generate (Hien-hien, 1911) appeared
later in the year. It should be added that though Wieger had doubtless seen volumes from
 xii Introihiction

showed that their acquisitions were being used to good purpose and the
former had, by the time of his death in 1918, prepared the first
translation directly from the Tao-tsang into a European language in his
superbly documented study of a Taoist ritual, “Le jet des dragons.” ‘ ‘
Thus when Maspero succeeded Chavannes at the College de France in
1920 he had before him both academic precedents and indeed materials
unavailable to any Chinese who might have taken up the study of
Taoism.
In fact Maspero’s efforts during the early 1920s were largely directed
towards the synthesis of the history of preimperial China that became La
Chine Antique {China in Antiquity). Though this contains a section on the
early Taoist philosophers Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, there is no evidence
that Maspero had read any portion of the Tao-tsang prior to its
publication in 1927.^- Thus his distinctive interpretation of these early
writers may be attributed to the earliest stages of his research on Taoism,
while his yet more controversial ideas stressing the continuity of these
works with the Taoism of the Han and of subsequent centuries emerge
by 1935, the year in which he first revealed an extensive reading of the
Tao-tsang in his published work.'^ In this way he pushed forward from
the reinterpretation of a period already well studied in East and West
through areas of Chinese intellectual history less well known into the
total terra incognita of post-Han Taoism. It is noteworthy that none of
his critics has pursued this strictly chronological approach to research in
Taoism but, whatever bias this process may have involved him in by
concentrating his thoughts from the outset on notions of unilinear
development, he certainly cannot be accused of reading the results of his
research in the Tao-tsang back into texts of an earlier historical epoch.
With this sole proviso, that Maspero approached later Taoism from a
markedly historical perspective, it may truly be said that his lack of

the Tao-tsang his work displays great ingenuity in the adaptation of existing Chinese
catalogues, perhaps to the total exclusion of having read any portion of it.
11. In Memoires concenumt TAsie orientate (Paris, 1919), 3: 53-220. The honor of having
translated the first work taken indirectly from the Tao-tsang had already fallen to the
Russian Archimandrite Palladius in 1866: see Liu, “Compilation and Historical Value,"
p. 117. The first direct citation of the Tao-tsang in Western sinology would appear to be on
pp. 328-30 of Chavannes and Pelliot, “Un traite Manichien retrouve en Chine,” JAs. series
11, 1 (1913), pp. 99-199, 261-394.
12. Taoism is treated on pp. 305-16 of the translated version cited in n. 1 above.
13. See Demieville’s comment added to the first note to Chapter 4, Book VII of the
present volume. Maspero’s earliest references to the Tao-tsang would appear to be those in
a review of J. Ware’s translations of early historical sources on Taoism, JAs 226 (1935);
313-17. It is most intriguing, however, to find Maspero’s type of treatment of these
questions already implicit in the writings of Marcel Granet: see pp. 120-30 (p. 121 seems
quite explicit) of M. Freedman’s translation cited below, n. 27.
 Introduction xiii

preconceptions concerning his work was almost total. Indeed one of the
greatest attractions of Maspero’s writings in this volume (and one that
will endure even when our own researches eventually make us better
informed than he was on every topic upon which he touched), is the
invaluable picture disclosed to us of a mature sinologist remarkable for
his broad erudition and penetrating insight confronting a field of re-
search completely untouched by earlier scholars. For apart from occa-
sional mention of the researches of Chavannes and Pelliot, which were in
any case concerned with matters peripheral to the period and literature
that he made his major study, the only other secondary scholarship on
Taoism to which he makes reference is that of James Ware, and this
evidently taught him little he did not know by the time of its
publication.
Of course by the time of his death several Chinese scholars had availed
themselves of the 1926 reprinting of the Tao-tsang to produce articles on
Taoism of a high quality. It may be that Maspero read these, and that
the lack of any reference to them in the writings included in this volume
simply illustrates the sad fact that nearly all the findings of his researches
in this area were published posthumously. We may only guess at the
appearance of the study that might have resulted had he been spared to
produce a synthesis as well wrought as China in Antiquity, and it would
reflect no discredit on his editor had notes on Chinese publications been
overlooked in the course of the Flerculean task of assembling the
profusion of fragments left behind in 1945 into the seamless narrative
that appeared as Melanges posthwnes in 1950. It should further be
admitted that Chinese researchers at this stage were mainly concerned
with bibliographic and historical questions, thus preserving the emphases
of Ch’ing scholarship even while elevating Taoist literature to equal
status with more traditional sources.The only attempt to describe
Taoism as a religion, the well-known Tao-chiao shih of Fu Ch’in-chia, is
conspicuous in its failure to make use of the full range of materials
available in the Tao-tsang. * ^
Curiously enough, much the best Chinese work on Taoism to appear

14. See the preceding note, and J. Ware, “The Wei Shu and the Sui Shu on Taoism,”
y/105 53 (1933): 215-50; 54(1934): 290-94.
15. The only bibliography to do justice to Chinese research on Taoism is Liu Ts’un-yan,
“Yen-chiu Ming-tai Tao-chiao ssu-hsiang Chung, Jih-wen shu-mu chii-yao,” Ch’ung-chi
hsiieh-pao 6.2 (May 1962): 107-30. The coverage is broader than the title indicates: a brief
general bibliography of Chinese studies appears on pp. 109-10.
16. One exception to this is the chapter based on Tao-tsang sources in Ku Chieh-kang
and Yang Hsiang-k’uei, San-huang k’ao (Peking, 1936), but this goes to the opposite
extreme by shirking any bibliographical or historical criticism of the texts it quotes.
17. First published in Shanghai in 1937, this work had been through five printings in
Taiwan by 1975.
 .v/v Introduction

to date was produced under the same sort of difficult wartime circum-
stances that formed the backdrop to Maspero’s last years. A copy of the
1926 Tao-tscmg from Peking was billeted in 1942 in Lung-ch’iian chen,
near Kunming in Yunnan, and it was here that Ch’en Kuo-fu, a
Western-trained expert on the history of Chinese chemistry, occupied his
time in reading through the work in order to discover the origins and
transmission of what was to him a particularly valuable collection of
source materials.Ch’en had already made some attempt to assemble
information on Taoist literature even prior to his return to China, and
was to continue his thoroughgoing investigation of all relevant historical
literature throughout the troubled period that followed the defeat of the
Japanese. The final result of his endeavors, the masterly Tao-tscmg yiian-
liu k’ao, appeared in 1949 and presented not only a well-documented
account of the history of the Taoist scriptures but also a number of
valuable notes on aspects of the Taoist religion and its history that he
had uncovered in passing.**^
Research in Taoism published in Chinese since the war has continued
to show a concern primarily with historical and textual questions.
Scholars in the People’s Republic have rendered the cause of Taoist
studies useful service in the latter field in particular, and the publication
in Peking at the end of 1979 of a revised edition of Wang Ming’s T’ai-
p’ing clung ho-chiao and at the beginning of 1980 of a new work from the
same editor, the Pao-p’u-tzu nei-p’ien chioo-shih, augurs well for the
future. So, too, does the reactivation of the Chung-kuo Tao-chiao hsieh-
hui, a Taoist association first formed in 1957 which published four issues
of an academic periodical prior to the Cultural Revolution and which
once again is contemplating major research projects.
But, at least in terms of sheer volume, Chinese research on Taoism has
always been outstripped by the productions of Japanese scholarship. The
publication of the 1926 Tao-tsang soon prompted one or two established
scholars of Chinese religion such as Koyanagi Shigeta to embark upon
an investigation of the same bibliographic problems that attracted the

18. Facets of Taoism, p. 2 n. 4, contrives to construe the place-name as if it referred to

some mysterious Taoist mentor. In fact Ch'en found that with the rarest exceptions it was
only in Szechwan that Taoist priests showed any great signs of erudition. See his remarks
on pp. 190 and 203 of the 1963 edition of his work.
19. The first edition of 306 pages appeared in Shanghai; the revised edition (see. n. 5
above) in two volumes amounts to 504 pages (continuous pagination) and contains ten
extra notes together with five supplementary studies on such topics as Taoist music and
alchemy.
20. See B. Kandel, “A Visit to the China Taoist Association, July 24, 1980,” Bulletin of
the Society for the Study of Chinese Religions 8 (Fall 1980): 1-4. I am indebted to my friend
Soo Ming-wo for bringing this to my attention.
 Introduction .vv

concern of their Chinese contemporaries.^* These men were shortly

joined by a younger scholar with a Buddhist background, Fukui Kojun,
who was to become the first of a number of Japanese experts on Taoism
having similar antecedents.^- For Japan, as noted above, though heir to
religious traditions deriving from or deeply influenced by China, was less
encumbered with the somewhat negative attitudes towards the study of
religion prevailing in China both before and during this century.
Japanese scholarship on Chinese religion in general has therefore been
both informed and sensitive, though it has risked an overemphasis on the
importance of Buddhist influences on native Chinese beliefs.
Of particular value to Taoist studies was the postwar return to Japan
of scholars such as Yoshioka Yoshitoyo and Kubo Noritada who had
observed Taoism in China at first hand, though it should be remembered
that they were primarily familiar with the monastic Taoism that had
arisen in North China in the Sung dynasty. One of the chief achieve-
ments of postwar Japanese research has been the refinement of tech-
niques for dating the composition of early Taoist works—precisely the
same techniques, in fact, that Maspero had used, though in a somewhat
ad hoc fashion. In 1955 Yoshioka published in Tokyo a survey of the
history of the Tao-tsang, his Dokyo keiten shiron, to which is appended a
full list of Taoist works mentioned or quoted in Buddhist polemics or
Taoist compilations of known date. Investigation of the Taoist manu-
scripts, mainly of T’ang date, discovered at Tun-huang in the first decade
of this century and occasionally used by Maspero has proceeded more
slowly. Both Yoshioka and Ofuchi Ninji published partial catalogues of
these materials, but now the latter has published a comprehensive
catalogue accompanied by a volume of facsimile reproductions, thus

21. One reason for Koyanagi’s enthusiasm for Taoist studies may well have been that he
was the proud possessor of a pre-1906 edition of the Tao-tsang chi-yao: see Sawada
Mizuho’s note in Tdhd shukyd 30 (Oct. 1967): 81-82. The early preeminence of Japanese
Taoist studies may be judged by Ch’en Pin-ho's translation of Koyanagi’s preliminary
observations on Taoism into Chinese: Tao-chiao kai-shuo (Shanghai, 1926). Fu Ch’in-chia
also is forced to take account of the work of Koyanagi, Tsumaki Naoyoshi and Tokiwa
Daijo. See Chung-kuo Tao-chiao shih, pp. 9-13, SI-lb.
22. Much of Fukui’s prewar research is contained in the volume Dokyd no kisokuteki
kenkyii (Tokyo, 1952). A complete conspectus of the development of Fukui’s work may be
obtained from the list of his publications in Fukui hakase soju kinen Toyo hunka ronshu
(Tokyo, 1969), pp. xxix-xxxix.
23. A full survey of the development of Taoist studies in Japan with complete
bibliographical references is provided by Sakai Tadao and Noguchi Tetsuro as a
supplement to Facets of Taoism, pp. 269-87. Note also the earlier survey listed on p. 15
n. 28. I have tried to point out the importance of Japanese research on popular religious
movements (which often drew on elements of Taoism) in a review, “Chinese sectarian
religion,” Modern Asian Studies 12.2 (April 1978): 333-52.
 xvi Introduction

completing the work of his father Ofuchi Eshin, who started research on
these materials even earlier than Maspero.^*^
Nor has the history of Taoism been neglected: the Six Dynasties
period upon which Maspero concentrated his research has been the
subject of two volumes by Miyakawa Hisayuki covering all aspects of
religious development,-^ and two general surveys of Taoism have also
been addressed to the nonspecialist reader. The earlier of these,
Yoshioka’s Eisei e no negai: Ddkyd, published in Kyoto in 1970, consists
of a concise outline of the development of Taoism up to the present,
followed by an account of the organization and daily life of the Taoists
Yoshioka had observed thirty years earlier in China. The inclusion of an
extensive bibliography of monographs in Chinese and Japanese is a
particularly useful feature of the work. In 1977 Kubo published his
Ddkydshi in Tokyo, which though more strictly confined to a chronolo-
gical framework offers a fuller picture than Yoshioka had. The critical
bibliography appended to Kubo's work is shorter than Yoshioka’s and
confined to monographs in Japanese, but is also valuable in that it
indicates the main lines of disagreement between Japanese scholars.
The reader will have noted that, despite the initial benefits conferred
by a brief opportunity to study contemporary Taoist life in the 1940s,
Japanese research also has tended to concentrate on the traditional
priorities of history and bibliography. In general it must be conceded
that the Buddhist inclinations of most researchers in the field may have
inhibited the depiction of what had traditionally been for their con-
tinental co-religionists a rival mode of religious experience. For this
reason the work on Taoism produced in Paris since Maspero’s death is
of considerable interest. Though it should be remembered that the
postwar tradition of French scholarship on native Chinese religion owes
much to Maspero’s contemporary Marcel Granet,-^ the writings con-
tained in this volume at the very least established a precedent in the
exploitation of the Tao-tsang at a time when the Anglophone world
regarded it with indifference or dread.

24. For Ofuchi’s catalogues see n. 4 above. On Ofuchi Eshin see the remarks of Yoshioka
in Tdlw shukyd 3 (July 1953): 87-90.
25. Rikuc/wshi kenkyu, shukyo-hen (Kyoto, 1964), and Rikucho shukydshi (Tokyo, 1974):
the first edition of the latter work appeared as early as 1948.
26. This portion of Yoshioka's survey has been summarized in English by Whalen
W. Lai, “Towards a Periodization of the Taoist Religion,” History of Religions 16 (1976):
75-85.
27. I am indebted to my colleague Mile. Anne Cheng for confirming this point. A recent
translation of Granet’s La Religion des Cliinois (Paris, 1922) by the late M. Freedman,
prefaced by a twenty-nine-page survey of Granet’s significance as a sociologist, is The
Religion of the Chinese People (Oxford, 1975).
 Introduction xvii

The roll call of scholars, by no means all of French origin, who have
fallen heir to this rich legacy is long and still growing: to M. Kaltenmark,
M. Soymie, and R.-A. Stein have been added the names of K. Schipper
and A. Seidel, and, more recently, I. Robinet and M. Strickmann. All of
these have produced work rivaling that of their Chinese and Japanese
colleagues in attention to historical and bibliographic problems yet
displaying an imaginative awareness of the religious problems at the
heart of Taoist studies."^ Though it may be invidious to single out one
name from this list, the career of K. Schipper calls for special comment,
since to a thorough training in Paris he has added firsthand experience of
an invaluable kind by becoming an initiated priest of Taiwanese Taoism.
Firsthand experience is indeed the only element missing from
Maspero’s approach to Taoist studies. Though throughout his long years
in China and Indo-china he exploited with avidity any opportunities to
witness religious occasions directly (as the earlier studies in this volume
demonstrate) and though his readiness to interview Buddhist monks on
doctrinal questions suggests that he would have welcomed guidance from
Taoist priests also, his researches into the Tao-tsang were alas carried out
after his last visit to the Far East.“‘^ Even more unfortunate, the bulk of
Western fieldwork in Taiwan has been carried out by researchers from
the English-speaking world less well grounded in Taoist studies.
The main contribution of English-language scholarship to Taoist
studies has until recently lain in the area of the history of science.^*
Whether Taoism has any particular and exceptional connection with
science is a somewhat contentious question; it might be truer to say that,
since the history of science was not a traditional historiographic cate-
gory, researchers in this area have been able to elude the prejudices
inherited from traditional scholarship and have therefore been much
28. The fullest bibliography not only of French studies on Taoism but of Western studies
in general is M. Soymie and F. Litsch, “Bibliographie du Taoisme; Etudes dans les langues
occidentales," Dokyo kenkyu 3 (1968): 1-72 and (by Soymie alone) 4 (1971): 1-66.
Information on French publications from 1972 to 1977 may be found in Facets of Taoism,
pp. 17-18. Donna Au and Sharon Rowe, “Bibliography of Taoist Studies,” in M. Saso and
D. Chappell, eds., Buddhist and Taoist Studies 1 (Hawaii, 1977), pp. 123 48, purports to be
a revision and continuation of Soymie and Litsch, but is not comprehensive and contains a
dangerous quantity of misprints.
29. For Maspero's contacts with Buddhist monks, see pp. 62-63 of N. Peri, “HarTtT, la
Mere-de-demons,” BEFEO 17.3 (1917): 1-102.
30. On this situation see the extremely detailed and incisive review article by
M. Strickmann, “History, Anthropology and Chinese Religion,” Harvard Journal of
Asiatic Studies 40.1 (1980): 201 48.
31. The main works in the field are N. Sivin, Chinese Alchemy: Preliminary Studies
(Cambridge, Mass., 1968) and J. Needham et ai. Science and Civilization in China
(Cambridge, 1954-); both contain generous bibliographies of earlier research.
 win Introduction

more open to the value of Taoist source materials. Such an interpre-

tation would indeed apply also to the remarkable work of Ch’en Kuo-fu
mentioned above, though his readiness to comment on the purely
religious aspects of Taoism is still exceptional.
Curiously enough, what is probably the most important development
in Taoist studies during the past two decades may be traced back to the
English-speaking world, despite or indeed even because of its lack of
strong academic traditions in the field. In the United States, in 1962,
Derk Bodde first suggested the need for an international conference on
Taoism. This eventually took place in Bellagio, Italy, in 1968 under the
auspices of the American Council of Learned Societies and involved
participants from eight different countries. The papers given were pub-
lished in the journal History of Religions together with a summary of the
proceedings. A further conference in Tateshina, Japan, in 1972 eventu-
ally produced the volume Facets of Taoism The increasing importance
of Taoist studies in American universities as a result of these inter-
national efforts may be gauged by such indicators as the production of
bibliographical surveys of the state of the field,to say nothing of the
appearance of studies of Chinese literature which take full cognizance of
the imagery of the Taoist religion.
Anyone embarking on a career of research in Taoism today is thus
confronted with a situation very different from that which obtained when
Maspero first ventured alone and unaided into the uncharted mysteries
of the Tao-tsang. To name but one obvious example, a Taiwanese Taoist
priest has recently provided the research aid for which Maspero must
often have felt the need: the first comprehensive (although also distinctly
sketchy) dictionary of Taoism.The cultural background to the origin
of the Shang-ch’ing scriptures, the chief source materials for Maspero’s

32. For the first conference and its antecedents see Holmes Welch’s remarks on pp. 107-
8 of History of Religions 9.2 and 3 (Nov. 1969-Feb. 1970), which contains the majority of
the papers presented. For Facets of Taoism see n. 3 above. Notes 5 and 6 on p. 3 of that
work give details of the papers from the conference not published in the volume itself.
Papers from a third conference in Switzerland in 1979 are not yet available in published
form.
33. See, D. Yu, “Present-day Taoist Studies,” Religious Studies Review 3.4 (Oct. 1977):
220-39. The review article by Strickmann cited in n. 30 above also constitutes an important
survey of the field.
34. See E. Schafer, Pacing the Fo/V/(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), and
other works from the same author.
35. Li Shu-huan, Tao-chiao ta-tz’u-tien (Taipei, 1979); earlier works, such as the Hsien-
hsiieh tz’u-tien of Tai Yiian-chang (rev. and enlarged ed. [Taipei, 1970]), only cover one
variety of post-Sung Taoism.
 Imroduction xix

studies, has now been deftly pinpointed by M. Strickmann,^^ and even

the complex problem, which he found so intriguing, of the relations,
between early Buddhism and Taoism has been considerably illuminated
by a recent study by E. ZiircherT^ Almost everyone who has touched
upon topics treated by Maspero has been able to offer corrections or
improvements to his work in matters of detail,so it may legitimately
be asked whether the present volume serves any purpose save to satisfy
curiosity concerning the scholarship of an earlier era.
If it is realized however that this translation marks but the latest stage
in the international dissemination of Maspero’s work, the very compel-
ling reasons for bringing it to a wider audience become more readily
apparent. For Maspero’s posthumous writings on Taoism were first
introduced to the Japanese academic community a full quarter of a
century ago, and within a year of this event Japanese scholars, notably
Miyakawa Hisayuki, had organized regular sessions for translating and
discussing them.^‘^ Eventually responsibility for translation passed to

36. “The Mao Shan Revelations; Taoism and the Aristocracy,” TP 63 (1977): 1-64. It
seems in retrospect most puzzling that Maspero made no use of the historical portions of
T'ao Hung-ching's Chen-kao, which provides most of the necessary information, especially
since he does make occasional reference to other parts of this text. The Chen-kao had been
widely available outside the Tao-tsang, for instance through its inclusion in 1831 in the
Hsueh-chin t’ao-yuan, and had by the 1930s attracted the attention of some Chinese
historians, notably Hu Shih. Hu’s article, “T’ao Hung-ching ti Chen-kao k’ao,” Ch’ing-tsu
Ts’ai Yuan-p’ei hsien-sheng Uu-shih-wu sui lun-wen-chi (Peking, 1933), pp. 539-54, adopts a
scathingly supercilious tone towards T’ao’s combination of rigorous scholarship and
fervent Taoist faith. This may be due to Hu’s antitraditionalism, but the article reads
almost as a parody of the traditional Confucian scholar’s disdainful attitude towards the
study of religion and tellingly illustrates the handicap under which Taoist studies labored in
China.
37. “Buddhist Influence on Early Taoism,” TP 66.1-3 (1980): 84-147.
38. Thus since World War II the least studied of the many aspects of Taoism investigated
by Maspero have been the sexual and other practices outlined in the final study in this
volume, but even here it is possible to improve upon Maspero’s dating of his materials, as I
have attempted to show in “On the Transmission of the Shen Tzu and of the Yang-sheng
yao-c hi," Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2 (1980): 168-76.
39. The review, by D. Holzman, appeared in Toho shukyo 8 and 9 (March 1955): 111-14;
the notice of reading sessions may be found in Toho shukyo 10 (March 1956): 82. As far as
I have been able to discover Maspero’s work was not introduced to a Chinese readership
until 1969, and even then this was done in a periodical published in Japan: see Chu Chan,
trans., “Fa-kuo liang-wei hsien-che tui-yii Chung-kuo Tao-chiao ssu-hsiang ti k’an-fa,”
Chung-kuo hsiieh-chih 5 (1968; published April 1969); 181-97. This article consists of a
brief but illuminating introduction by M. Kaltenmark comparing the views of Maspero
and Granet, followed by an abbreviated translation of Maspero’s “Le saint et la vie
mystique chez Lao-tseu et Tchouang-tseu,” from Melanges posthwnes, vol. 2, pp. 225-42,
and of a portion of Granet’s La Pensee Chinoise (Paris, 1934).
 A'.v Introduction

Kawakatsu Yoshio, who published in 1962 a summary of Maspero’s

views on Taoism.In particular Kawakatsu drew attention to
Maspero’s interpretation of early Taoist philosophy as a form of mys-
ticism and his emphasis on the continuities between this early philosophy
and the later Taoist religion. In 1966 Kawakatsu produced a complete
translation of the writings on Taoism published in 1950, together with a
translation of the piece which is Book VIII in the present volume. A
slightly revised second edition of this appeared in 1968, and yet further
revisions were incorporated in a new edition that was included in a
popularizing series in 1978.“^*
Though some inferences as to the continuing worth of Maspero’s work
may be drawn from the successive reprintings of this translation in a land
(as M. Kaltenmark observes) not lacking in experts on Taoism, a better
indication of the esteem which it holds in Japan is available in the
lengthy review of Kawakatsu’s first edition published by Ofuchi Ninji in
1967.*^- This in fact constitutes the most detailed and well-informed
critique of Maspero to appear to date, so it may be of interest to note
some of Ofuchi’s comments. A major part of the review is devoted to a
deft summary of Maspero’s research, but this is interspersed with several
pertinent observations. Thus Ofuchi points out that though Maspero’s
picture of Taoist belief during the Six Dynasties is in some measure a
comprehensive one, he himself warned that it was based much more on
what we would term the Shang-ch’ing scriptures than on those of the
Ling-pao (Sacred Jewel) tradition.
Ofuchi also cautions that Maspero’s reconstruction of Taoist phy-
siological ideas is arrived at inductively from passages scattered through
a variety of texts, and registers his reservations about Maspero’s argu-
ments concerning the evolution of the conception of the gods in Taoism.
In Ofuchi’s opinion there is no proof that the highest god of the Yellow
Turbans was Huang-lao chiin, nor that this figure had any connection
with Lao-tzu. Since furthermore we are now in the happy position of
knowing that the Ling-pao scriptures originated in much the same
aristocratic social circles as the Shang-ch’ing revelations, Ofuchi also
doubts that the advent of the divinities known as T’ien-tsun could have
had much to do with mass religion. He also comments in passing on
Maspero’s somewhat subjective fashion of quoting Chuang-tzu, already
noted in Kawakatsu’s translation.

40. “Maspero no D5kyo rikai ni tsuite,” Toho shukyd 20 (Nov. 1962); 51-61.
41. This last edition, Dokyd, Toyo hunko series no. 329 (Tokyo, 1978), is the source of
the notes marked K or otherwise attributed to Kawakatsu in the notes to the present
translation.
42. In Toho shukyd 31 (May, 1968); pp. 68-81.
 Introduction xxi

The main thrust of Ofuchi’s criticism is reserved for those same

features of Maspero’s understanding of Taoism already remarked upon
by Kawakatsu in his earlier survey of Maspero’s work. Thus Maspero
sees the thought of Chuang-tzu as representing but the most mystical
tendency among a number of contemporary groups. But if these groups
are to be understood as corresponding to those that were later known for
their pursuit of immortality, it should be pointed out that this pursuit of
immortality would (in Ofuchi’s view) amount to no more than a method
of preserving health or a body of medical knowledge were it not for the
involvement of gods in the process. Yet there is no evidence for the
presence of this religious element in such a pursuit at the time of
Chuang-tzu.
To Ofuchi, Maspero’s treatment of the Han also involves problems.
References to Huang-lao at this time indicate to him a strain of political
thought rather than Taoism as understood by Maspero, while he doubts
that the popular movements of the late Han offered their adherents
salvation in the form of immortality. As for the idea of union with the
Tao in later religious Taoism, it would seem to occur but once, in the
passage from the Tso-wang lun quoted by Maspero. For these reasons
Ofuchi concurs with “the commonly accepted view” in Japan that the
early Taoist philosophers and the later Taoist religion are not aspects of
the same thing but were, originally at least, separate phenomena. This
criticism of Maspero indeed reflects the commonly accepted opinion in
Japan, and has been more recently reiterated by Kubo Noritada.**^
It is also fair to say that it reflects a substantial body of opinion in the
West as well. European sinology accepted Maspero’s views with alac-
rity,"^*^ but dissenting voices were soon heard from across the Atlantic.
The resultant controversy has been the subject of an extensive review
article.More recently Western students of Taoism have tended to-
wards a much more carefully circumscribed and indeed circumspect use
of the word “Taoist,” partly no doubt to avoid provoking the continu-
ation of sterile polemics.Yet it should not be imagined that Maspero’s
interpretations are now outmoded: they have for instance inspired K. M.
Schipper’s most recent work on the Chuang-tzu.^"

43. Ddkydslu, pp. 41-42. Kubo is also uneasy over Maspero’s tendency to see later
Chinese religion as too syncretic to merit the exclusive label “Taoist” for any part of it.
44. See for example the review by J. Duyvendak, TP 40.4-5 (1951): 372-90, esp. p. 387.
45. N. Girardot, “Part of the Way: Four Studies on Taoism,” History of Religions 11.3
(1972): 319-37.
46. Note N. Sivin, “On the Word Taoist’ as a Source of Perplexity,’ History of Religions
17.3,4 (Feb.-May 1978): 303-30, and M. Strickmann on pp. 164-67 of Facets of Taoism.
47. See the .Annuaire of the Fifth Section of the Ecole Practique des Hautes Etudes, vol. 87
(1978-79): 113-17.
 xxii Introduction

Perhaps one major reason for the sharp division of opinion over this
question has been the paucity and frequent ambiguity of the materials
used by Maspero in dealing with the period prior to the end of the Han.
Recent archaeological discoveries in China have now caused the previous
controversy over this obscure era in religious history to give way to a
period of constructive research. The finding of a Han funerary banner
near Ch’ang-sha, for instance, has already prompted the writing of
studies in English, French, and Japanese.'^^ In the meantime Maspero’s
bold hypotheses may yet prove of heuristic value.
But criticisms of Maspero have been confined to the points outlined
above: the value of the bulk of the writings contained in this volume has
not been a matter of controversy. Ofuchi, for example, roundly declares
Maspero’s work a major advance over both Chinese and Japanese
studies, which at the time he wrote his review (and indeed since) had
approached Taoism only through the history of its texts or of its church
organization or of its contacts with Buddhism, at least for the period
Maspero dealt with. To Ofuchi the systematic study of Taoism as a
religion in its own right appears as a truly original contribution; indeed
Maspero’s treatment of Taoism throughout shows marked originality in
his eyes.
Yet if Kawakatsu’s translation seemed to touch upon a blind spot (to
use Ofuchi’s term) in Japanese research, one might have expected
Maspero’s successors in Paris to produce a work rendering this volume
obsolete. The reason that this has not happened may perhaps be gleaned
from the closing sentence of M. Kaltenmark’s preface. French scholar-
ship has tended to communicate its findings either in extremely technical
monographs on narrow topics or in broad surveys aimed at a maximum
of popularization. The writings contained here, since they reflect a
posthumous compilation of all Maspero’s surviving fragments concerned
with Taoism, include both types of presentation; but, since Maspero was
both a scholar with a fine grasp of detail chary of over-simplification and
a pioneer attempting to provide a comprehensive summary of a vast new
area of research, the tendency is for his writings to converge (not without
detectable overlaps) on an intermediate standard of technicality more
familiar to the English-speaking world.

48. M. A. N. Loewe, H''oys to Paradise (London, 1979), pp. 17-59; Sofukawa Hiroshi,
“Konronsan to shosenzu,” Tohd gakuho (Kyoto) 51 (March 1979); 83-185. Facets of
Taoism, p. 18, lists an earlier French study by C. Larre not quoted in either of the
preceding. D. C. Twitchett, in the introduction to CA, outlines the massive contribution of
archaeology to our understanding of China since Maspero’s day; D. Yu, “Present-day
Taoist Studies,” comments specifically on the significance of recent finds for the history of
Taoism.
 Introduction xxiii

The most technical study included here is Book IX, a masterpiece alas
not translated into Japanese for Ofuchi to comment on: the fact that this
was the only major study of Taoism Maspero himself produced during
his lifetime shows how much he could have achieved under more
fortunate circumstances. For this particularly thorough piece of work
remains every bit as important as the day it was first published, unrivaled
by any later book or article. Yet it too is no narrow monograph but a
surprisingly wide-ranging survey. By comparison, a recent publication by
I. Robinet, which comes closest to the work of Maspero in that it
presents a general readership with a thorough analysis of the religion as
seen in a corpus of Taoist texts, confines itself deliberately to meditation,
which is but one aspect of Taoist religious practice.Thus this volume
serves even now as a good general introduction to Taoism and as a
source of information on Taoist practices unavailable elsewhere. One
day no doubt it will be replaced by fresh surveys and by more detailed
monographs incorporating the results of research in the fields of history
and bibliography over the past generation. But even then we will always
have to test our own understanding of Taoism against Maspero’s initial
intuitions and measure our own insight against his.
As the tragic events of 1944 and 1945 have receded deeper into history
the constant reprinting and translation of Maspero’s work from then
until now has inevitably elicited ever more encomiastic tributes to the
durability of his scholarship. But perhaps the highest praise for his
understanding of Taoism has come not from a fellow scholar but from
someone simultaneously an outsider and an insider in an unrivaled
position to judge his achievements. Some ten years ago a copy of
Kawakatsu’s translation was brought to the attention of a Taoist priest
of many years standing in Taiwan. It is reported that he was delighted
with Maspero’s work and amazed that a foreigner could derive so much
from the Taoist canon.Surely no student of Chinese religion ever
received, or deserved, a finer epitaph on his work.
T. H. Barrett
49. I. Robinet, Meditation Taoiste (Paris, 1979). See also P. Andersen, The Method of
Holding the Three Ones (London and Malmo, 1980). This study of a single text on
meditation marks the advent of Danish studies in religious Taoism, one more indication of
the increasing internationalization of the field.
50. M. Saso, The Teachings of Taoist Master Chuang (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1978), p. 285 n. 5 to chapter 3.
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 Translator \s Preface

Translating Lc Tao'isme et les religions chiuoises is perhaps a logical step

after La Chine antique {China in Antiquity, 1978). Le Tao'isme is indeed
the only book-length trace, other than La Chine antique, of Henri
Maspero's remarkable, tragically abbreviated career. Like the earlier
book it is part and parcel of Maspero’s effort to write a popular but
scientifically respectable history of China within the framework of
Cavaignac's Histoire du Monde. Once La Chine antique had been
completed, Maspero found that he could not proceed with confidence
into imperial times because neither he nor any other Westerner knew
enough about Taoism; so he spent most of his last two decades breaking
his way into that hermetic, and then almost trackless, tradition.
On the other hand, Le Taoi'snie is not a work totally shaped by
Maspero’s own hand, nor therefore one that is designed as a symmetrical
whole. The pieces of various lengths which make it up were composed
for various purposes and for audiences of widely different kinds, and
since introductory material is necessary for each audience, there is some
more or less marginal duplication. Editing has been necessary, and this
has inevitably altered what Maspero himself might finally have said if he
had been spared to recast those notes. More particularly, from my own
viewpoint, Taoism and Chinese religion do not by any means lie at the
center of my own competence, whereas the history of ancient China has
been my professional focus for over three decades.
Nevertheless, Taoism and Chinese Religion displays Henri Maspero's
unique combination of talents- as ground-breaking scholar and as
popularizer—magnificently. 1 allowed myself to be persuaded and, with
the help of many people, the book is now' available to English-speaking
readers. Inevitably, in view of my own limitations, 1 must acknowledge
the help of a good many people, and of some published material.
Three segments of Le Tao'isme had been translated into English before
I began. The largest single portion is what has become Book ii. That
Book was reprinted from Joseph Hackin and others, Mythologie
 xxvi Taoism and Chinese Religion

asiaticjue illustrh’ (see bibliographic note to Book n), and Maspero’s

chapter on “Mythologie de la Chine moderne” was translated with
the rest of that volume as Asiatic Mythology, Crowell, 1963, the
translator being F. M. Atkinson. Unfortunately, this workmanlike trans-
lation did not invade my consciousness until two years after I had
hnished translating Book ii, but it has been very useful for checking
doubtful points. There is also an abridged and edited translation of Book
I, Chapter 3 (“Taoism”) in Laurence G. Thompson’s The Chinese Way in

Religion, translated by Dr. Thompson, and this too has helped as a

reference. The most directly valuable block of translation is from a
University of Vermont master’s thesis done by Mr. James Marett under
the guidance of Professor Gerald Swanson, through whose kindness I
had access to it. This was a rendering of Book ix, or rather of the
original as published in Journal asiatique for 1937: “Les procedes de
‘nourrir le principe vital’ dans la religion Taoiste ancienne”. Since that
book is the most technically difficult of the nine and represents
Maspero’s most extensive unique contribution to Taoist studies, it was
extremely handy to have an English version of the text and footnotes
available, even though it had to be thoroughly reworked.
Direct aid from several individuals must also be acknowledged. Some
of them deserve to be called collaborators, since they have spent a great
deal of time on the usually untidy draft versions. First in point of time,
certainly, is Professor Denis C. Twitchett of Cambridge University, who
urged me to undertake the task, read the various drafts through with
great care, provided detailed suggestions, and supported the enterprise
throughout. Most basic is surely M. Frederic O’Brady, sometime
Lecturer in French at Princeton University, whose expertise saved me
from innumerable lapses into Franglais. Mr. Stephen Jones, a former
student of Professor Twitchett’s, read the draft through meticulously,
offered many valuable emendations, and prepared the index. Professor
Kristofer Schipper of the Ecole Pratique des Flautes Etudes, Section des
Sciences Religieuses, spent two days from his frenetic schedule working
over two extensive segments of the manuscript, and on the second day
Dr. John Lagariwey joined him in that onerous task. It was also Dr.
Schipper who persuaded me that Taoism and Chinese Religion is a better
title than the more literal Taoism and the Religions of China. Professor
Max Kaltenmark graciously read and corrected my translation of his
original preface. Mme. Maspero and Professor Paul Demieville,
Maspero’s longtime literary executor and shaper of the Melanges post-
humes which constitutes the skeleton of Le Tao'isme, read the first four
draft chapters of Book i and made detailed criticisms which both set me
on the track and persuaded me that I could in fact do the work. I have
 Translator’s Preface xxvii

also received indispensable detailed help from professors Jerry Norman

of the University of Washington and Robert Henricks of Dartmouth,
from Mr. T’ang Hai-t’ao of Princeton, and from the staff of the Gest
Memorial Research Library at Princeton University. As must always be
said, of course, none of these kind people bears any responsibility for
whatever errors, inconsistencies, or infelicities may remain in the book.
Those are my unique contribution.
A special note of appreciation is due to Professor Kawakatsu Yoshio,
who translated Melanges posthumes. Volume ii {Le Tao'isme), into
Japanese {Do kyd, reprinted 1979 by Heibonsha Publishers) and pro-
vided copious footnotes. During the last year of his life Professor
Demieville had suggested that many of these amplifying and explicatory
notes would add considerably to the usefulness of the translated work.
Professor Kawakatsu kindly agreed to let us use such footnotes to Books
V, VI, and vii, and at his request we are happy to acknowledge also the
contribution of his original publisher, T5kai University Press. An even
more special debt of gratitude is owed to Dr. T. H. Barrett of Cambridge.
He read through Dd kyd, translated the relevant notes for me, suggested
which of them are especially useful, read through the manuscript to
make general recommendations, and finally—when circumstances pre-
vented Prof. Twitchett from supplying an introduction—produced a
learned and graceful one at short notice.
The current translation uses Wade-Giles romanization, rather than the
standard French academic romanization which Maspero used or the piti-
yin which the editors of Le Taoi'sme rather gratuitously decided to adopt.
Since Wade-Giles is the best-known system in English Sinological works,
especially those dealing with the traditional period, I have not thought it
necessary to supply a key to its pronunciation. A key is available in
China in Antkpiity, pages 489-90, or, for those who wish a three-way
concordance, one keyed to pin-yin is in Le Taoi'sme, pages 601-08. I have
myself made use of Ireneus Laszlo Legeza's Guide to Transliterated
Chinese in the Modern Peking Dialect (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1968), since
juggling names and terms in Wade-Giles, French academic, and pin-yin
is a mind-bending exercise.
Le tao'isme has a Chronologic soniniaire du cadre dynastiepte on pages
593-97. This has been omitted in the English version, since comparable
charts are readily available (e.g., the inside back cover of Eairbank,
Reischauer and Craig, East Asia: Tradition and Transformation,
Houghton Mifflin, 1973, or Charles O. Hucker, China’s Imperial Past,
Stanford, 1975, Appendix A on pages 434-35).
Frank A. Kierman, Jr.
 Original Preface

When Henri Maspero was depe^rted to Buchenwald, whence he was not

to return, he left behind him an immense body of sinological work, only
a portion of which had been published during his lifetime. Some of the
numerous unpublished materials found among his papers were gathered
into three volumes put out by the Bibliotheque de dilfusion du Musee
Guimet;* others, of a more technical kind, were published separately.^
There is almost no area of Chinese studies which Maspero did not take
up or to which he did not make important contributions,'^ but it is in
religious history that his works are most numerous. This is not due to
arbitrary choice but is justified by the importance of religious factors
which, in China as in all the old traditional civilizations, condition both
social structures and individual behavior. But in China these factors
happen to be peculiarly numerous, confusing, and varied in origin, so
their study presents extraordinary difficulties.
Although the articles reproduced in this volume are already old, they
w ill give the reader quite a complete overview of Chinese religions. More
recent work allows us to flesh out Maspero’s conclusions, but it never
fundamentally invalidates those conclusions. What the first study says
about the religion of antiquity remains valid for the classical period,
which Maspero knew perfectly. We must now take archaeological and

1. Melanges posthumes sur les religions et I'histoire cle la Chine: /, Les Religions chi noises',
II, Le Taoisnie', III, Etiules hisloriques, Paris, 1950.
2. “Le Ming-t’ang et la crise religieuse avant les Han”, in Melanges chinois et hoiul-
dhiques puhlies par I'Institut helge des Mantes Etudes chinoises, vol. ix, Bruges, 1951. —
“Contribution a I’etude de la societe chinoise a la fin des Chang et au debut des Tcheou”,
BEEEO, XLVi, no. 2, 1954.
3. A complete bibliography of Maspero’s works follows the obituary written by M. Paul
Demieville in J.As., ccxxxrv, 1943-45, pp. 245-280. M. Demieville has likewise given a
general summary of Henri Maspero’s contribution to the progress of sinological studies (in
TP, XXXVIII, 1947, pp. 16-42). [A bibliography and appreciation in English are also to be
found in Maspero’s China in Antiquity (Folkestone: Dawson, and Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1978), both prepared by Denis C. Twitchett.]
 -V.v.Y Taoism and Chinese Religion

epigraphical data more and more into account. At the time when
Maspero was writing, the decipherment of archaic Yin inscriptions had
only begun and the Anyang excavations had not yet yielded all the
information available to us today. The same is true for excavations of
more recent sites. But we must admit that all this new documentation
has hardly been used thus far in Western language studies.
The study on modern popular mythology and religion, here republish-
ed for the first time, remains one of the best that can be read on that
subject. I fear that it does not give a very high opinion of Chinese
imagination in this sphere nor, in general, of the religious worth of these
popular beliefs. But we must beware of reaching a hasty judgment. We
see only the outward appearance of this religion, which is for the most
part playful. This is essentially a religion of festivals, and it was at the
festivals celebrated during the year that divinities or demons from the
immense pantheon took shape, as they were represented by statues either
pre-existing or made up for the occasion, or were played by professional
or amateur actors. We must likewise bear in mind local differences,
necessarily important in so vast a country. Aside from a minority, aware
of belonging to a particular religion (Buddhism, Taoism, Islam,
Christianity), the religious needs of the Chinese were manifested on the
one hand in festivals through which each local community somehow
restored its cohesion and heightened its vitality and on the other in
two more limited areas: domestic worship (of the ancestors, of the
Kitchen God) and professional worship (of the patron divinities of
occupational guilds).
During his long stays in Indo-China, Maspero had the chance to study
non-Vietnamese peoples, especially the Tai communities, and to gather a
great body of documentation about them. Part of this material is used in
the article comparing the religion of the ancient Chinese and that of the
modern Tai. There we see how the village festivals of the latter allow us
to understand those of the Chinese as they can be envisioned through the
love-songs of the Shih ching, confirming Marcel Granet’s interpretation,
to which Maspero gives due credit here.
But it is especially through his work on Taoism that Maspero showed
himself a pioneer, attacking a practically unexplored realm. Before him,
Edouard Chavannes alone had written the first serious study of a Taoist
rite."^ Paul Pelliot, to be sure, had understood the importance of this
doctrine very well, and had brought back numerous manuscripts from
Tun-huang concerning it. He also has important scholarly notes on this
subject in several of his articles, in which, additionally, many questions

4. Edouard Chavannes, “Le Jet des Dragons”, in Memoires concernant I'Asie orientale,
1919.
 Griff inal Preface xxxi

arose which still await solution, Marcel Granet was likewise interested in
this religion but, though he talked about it a great deal in his courses at
the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, he barely mentioned it in his
writings.
In fact, no serious study could be undertaken so long as the Taoist
Canon {Tao-tsang) remained unknown and almost inaccessible.
Chavannes and Pelliot had brought back a number of volumes which
they were able to obtain in China and which were deposited in the
Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris; but the two collections when brought
together remained clearly incomplete. Only when a reproduction of the
complete Peking copy (one of the few, if not the only one, in existence)
could researches in Taoism be considered. But it was necessary to begin
almost at zero, for only a very few studies on the subject existed. Chinese
scholars had scorned this religion and were hardly interested in more
than the ancient philosophers, Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. But the Tao-
tsang represents a considerable mass of texts, since it includes no fewer
than 1,120 volumes and 1,476 titled works. The majority of these were
then unknown and many did not even bear the author’s name or a date.
We may imagine the difficulties Maspero encountered when he launched
into the examination of this enormous mass of documents. The per-
sistence of his efforts in this area can be traced through his reports in his
courses at the College de France. As early as 1921-22 one of his courses
was entitled “The Origins of the Taoist Religion”. From 1926 to 1927 on
he regularly gave his students the benefit of his research results. It should
be noted that, during 1933-34, he studied the anti-Taoist Buddhist
pamphlets, a source that was external, hostile, and prejudiced, but very
valuable. It is largely through them that a number of events and writings
concerning the history of Taoism can be dated.
It was indeed necessary to seek out chronological benchmarks in order
to orient oneself within this immensity of texts. A brief bibliographical
introduction is to be found at the beginning of the “Essay on Taoism in
the First Centuries A.D.” (Book vii). Here, as in the notes to several of
the articles, corrections would now have to be made, since the history of
the Taoist Canon has been the subject of many Chinese, and especially
Japanese, works in these recent years. The problem has thus advanced
somewhat beyond the time when no guide existed except Father Wieger’s
Catalogue (1911), or when the Index to the Tao-tsang appeared in the
Harvard-Yenching Sinological Index Series (1935).^ In this short presen-

5. This index includes: (I) the table of contents of the Canon: (2) the index to the works
according to the “four-corner” system; (3) the index of authors; (4) an index of biographies
appearing in seventy-seven works of the Canon. —Father Wieger’s Catalogue gives, for
each work, an indication of its contents, but these references are quite often erroneous. If
the Harvard-Yenching Index is unavailable, this Catalogue can nevertheless still be useful.
 .v.v.Y// Taoism ami Chinese Religion

lation there can be no question of giving the results of these labors, so I

shall limit myself to a few important points.
The Tao-tsang which is available to us through the photo-mechanical
edition of 1926 was indeed printed under the Ming dynasty, but it is an
error to say that there was only a single printing under that dynasty. In
reality there was a first wood-block edition in 1445 and several new
editions or reprintings with re-engraved plates. The main one of these re-
editions was that of 1598 (some of the volumes in the Bibliotheque
Nationale bear this date); and there was a supplement which was printed
in 1607. Finally, under the Ch’ing dynasty (1644-1911), there were other
printings regarding which we do not have precise information.
Another error which it is well to correct concerns the T'ai-p’ing clung,
which he dates from the fifth century in “Methods of ‘Nourishing the
Vital Principle’” (Book ix. First Part, note 8 of the present edition) and
from the sixth century in Book vii (page 338 of this edition). This book is
extremely important since it is the first of the revealed texts of religious
Taoism and the copy of it which exists in the Tao-tsang goes back
ultimately to the period of the Later Han. It was the sacred text of the
Yellow Turbans and the Celestial Masters and was simply reworked
somewhat in the fifth and ninth centuries.
For centuries China has appeared to the West as essentially
Confucianist. The importance of Confucian doctrine in the official
ideology of the imperial era, the necessity for Sinologists to acquaint
themselves with the Classics idling) and with the enormous scholarly
literature which they inspired, explain this partial view. Among the
“three religions”, Confucianism was the best known, even though the
religious character of this system of thought could be questioned.
Buddhism, the writings of which had been accessible for a long time, had
been well studied, but the way it had entered China remained obscure. It
is one of Maspero’s accomplishments to have demonstrated the legen-
dary character of emperor Ming’s dream, which according to the old
story had occasioned the introduction of the new religion.^ The problem
of the reciprocal influences of the two religions is very thorny and
remains much debated. To resolve that, it is clearly necessary to know
the history of Taoism better. Maspero’s great merit was to have posed
the problem and to have opened the way towards a better comprehen-
sion of this highly hermetic body of doctrines. The fact that several of his
articles, especially those which figure in the “Taoism” of the Oeuvres
postlnnnes, have recently been translated into Japanese shows the impor-

6. "Le Songe et I'ambassade de I'empereur Ming”, BEFEO, vol. x, 1910. See below,
p. 257.
 Original Preface xxxiii

lance which is attached to these works, even in a country which has the
best specialists.
Nowadays Taoism is arousing a growing interest, as much within
orientalist circles as among the public at large. Tlie present re-edition,
which reassembles studies of a rather technical kind (such as that which
sets forth so remarkably “the procedures for nourishing the vital prin-
ciple", Book IX) with articles easier to read, thus answers a double need,
that of a general initiation to the subject and that of an introduction to
more advanced researches.^
Max Kallenmark

7. The transcription of Chinese terms Maspero used was that of the Ecole frangaise
d’Extreme-Orient, which has been generally adopted by French scholars. In Le Taoismc ei
Ics religions ehinoises that system was replaced by the so-called pin-yin system used in
certain publications of the Chinese People's Republic [and generally in oflficial correspon-
dence since I January 1979. This translation uses the Wade-Giles system, standard for
Sinological work in English.]
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 BOOK I

Chinese Religion in
Its Historical Development
The history of Chinese religion is that of a continuous development from
antiquity to our own day. This does not mean that nothing ever changed
or that the beliefs of today are those of earlier times: in China as
everywhere, political revolutions and social transformations have had
profound repercussions upon religious ideas. But new ideas were always
introduced gradually enough so that they could be integrated into the
ancient framework without shattering it. Thus there never occurred any
such complete revolution as came about several times in the West,
interrupting continuity: conversion to Christianity, then conversion to
Islam in a part of the East, and still later the Reformation in some
countries of the West.
To be sure, not much of the ancient beliefs remains any longer in
modern Chinese religion, hardly more than a few general ideas—
perhaps rather a way of feeling than any specific belief. But the
framework has lasted, though emptied little by little of its ancient
substance, which has been replaced at many points by different ideas.
And the Chinese have never had that sense of a sudden break with the
past, that condemnation of earlier beliefs, which characterizes the
religious evolution of the West. This has served to give them the illusion
that the religion of today is still the ancient religion and that by keeping
up the tradition of antiquity, they are preserving something of it.

/. Ancient Religion
Ancient China hardly extended beyond the vast plain where the Yellow
River {Hucm^-ho) runs its course. A sedentary people dwelt there,
dedicated to work in the fields and to animal husbandry. Their work in
First prepared for publication by Paul Demieville in Melanges posthwnes sur les religions
el riiistoire de la Chine, by Henri Maspero (Bibliotheque de diffusion du Musee Guimet,
Paris, 1950). The sixth part of that text, “Mythologie et croyances populaires modernes”,
was not included here to avoid duplication with “The Mythology of Modern China",
Book II.
 4 Taoism and Chinese Religion

the fields then was far harsher than today’s, for it consisted of using the
hoe to clear land for cultivation though it could be kept in use for no
more than three years. Only in about the middle of the first millennium
B.c. did the Chinese begin to use the ox-drawn plow, and following that
discovery they gradually abandoned the practice of clearing and started
to establish permanent fields.
Clearing the fields was too laborious a task for each peasant to do on
his own. Several families had to join together to work one field in
common, and the associated groups of families formed villages. Each
group of villages, larger or smaller, had its territory where the right of
clearing land for tillage and of pasturing animals was reserved to the
inhabitants. These territories constituted seignories, units both political
and religious, which the lords governed on the human level and over
which the earth gods presided on the divine level. Below the lord, the
populace was divided into two classes: patrician families (relatives of the
lord, or younger sons of other seignorial families who had been banished
or had fled, and so on) who usually possessed domains or held offices
within the seignory, and plebeian families of peasants who cultivated the
soil. Below were the slaves. Only patricians could possess domains,
which were granted by the lord. They owed this privilege to their
proximate or distant descent from an ancestor who had been a lord.
The family, the fundamental cell of ancient Chinese society, is well
known only for the patrician class. From the very earliest time this
patrician family was essentially agnatic. The name was transmitted from
father to son; daughters left the family when they married and joined the
husband’s family; headship of the family descended to the eldest son of
the principal wife, unless he had a physical defect which rendered him
unfit to perform the rituals of ancestor worship.
Underlying the family proper was the clan, hsing. This consisted of all
the families which bore the same clan name—Chi, Ssu, Tzu, Yiin, and
so forth—and had the same original ancestor: Sovereign Millet (Hou
Chi) for the Chi clan; for the Ssu clan, Yii the Great, the mythical hero
who had drained the flood waters, founded the Hsia dynasty, and so on.
The clan was a religious unit, linked by the worship of the first ancestor
and sanctioned by the rule of exogamy. It was a widely dispersed unit,
for the families bearing the same clan name were scattered to the four
corners of the Chinese world. But the rule of exogamy was absolute,
allowing of no exception. However far apart their dwellings were,
marriage was forbidden between persons of the same clan name. It
would be an error to believe, as some have done, that the rule of
exogamy implied the necessity for young men to go and search out wives
among the daughters of another village. Still less may it be supposed
 Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development 5

that it gave rise to organized exchanges of girls between neighboring

villages.
The fundamental element of both secular and religious organization
was the seignory, just as the city was for the Greek world. Within the
seignory, society was founded upon two bases: the family group and
possession of the seignorial land. Likewise, religion was founded upon
two kinds of worship: of ancestors and of local earth gods. The two
kinds of worship were merely the two fundamental bases of society
transposed onto the religious plane: the ancestors were the family made
divine, as the earth god was the seignory deified. These two cults were to
be found at all levels. Among private persons, the god of the Impluvium
{cliung-liu, rain catchment) was the earth god of the house, assisted by
the gods of the various parts of the dwelling and by the family ancestors.
In the seignory, there was the Earth God of the Seignory (she), assisted
by the God of the Harvests and gods of the mountains, rivers, lakes,
various localities of the seignorial territory, and the lord’s ancestors. For
the empire, there was the Great Royal Earth God {ta-slie or wang she),
assisted by the God of the Harvests, the gods of the Five Peaks and the
Four Seas and famous places of the empire, and the royal ancestors.
Between them, these two kinds of worship symbolized sovereignty.
A prince of Ch’en, defeated in 548 B.C. and throwing himself upon his
opponent’s mercy, appeared before his conqueror in mourning costume,
holding in his arms the Earth God and preceded by his general bearing
the ritual vases of the ancestral temple: it was thus the entire seignory
that he was offering.* Indeed to found a principality or—what comes
down to the same thing—to establish the capital of one was,
according to Mo-tzu (writing at the end of the fifth century B.C.), “to
choose the most correct sacred space for building the ancestral temple
and to choose the trees with the most beautiful leaves to make the sacred
wood.” At that time this was a universally accepted idea, mentioned in
the “Ritual of the Chou” (Chou-li), in the “Lost History of the Chou”
(Yi Chou-shu), and so on.
The earth god was earth deified, though not after the fashion of
Cybele and the mother-goddesses of the Mediterranean East. The deified
earth can be conceived in two ways. It may be thought of as the
cultivated soil which produces crops and is worshipped as a foster-
mother, as it was in the Near East; or as a delimited territory upon
which men live, subject to a prince. It then becomes a god-protector of
the princely domain and its inhabitants. The Chinese thought of the
earth in this latter way and therefore, unlike the Mediterranean peoples.

1. Tso chuan (TC), Hsiang, 21st year; cf. Chavannes, Dieu clu Sol, p. 516.
 6 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

they made earth into a god rather than a goddess. In both cases,
however, the spirit of vegetation is distinguished from Earth itself. The
Soul of the Grain among the Lolo and Thai barbarians of southern
China, who cultivate rice, and the Sovereign Millet of the Chinese, who
in antiquity mainly cultivated millet, correspond to the Phrygian Atys
and the Canaanite Adonis.
Each earth god was the god of a delimited territory, and his
importance varied according to the importance of the domain and of the
family which possessed it. The smallest territory forming a religious unit
was the household. It had its earth god, the god of the Impluvium, who
was one of the “five gods to whom one sacrifices" {wu-ssu), the others
being those of the great front door and the small rear door, of the
walkways, and of the wells. Besides these, the household had other gods
who—although they did not enter into official ritual—must have been at
least equally important in popular devotion, such as the Kitchen God,
Lord Hearth {Tsao-kung). Each group of households forming a village
also had its own earth god. Finally, each seignory likewise had its own
god who protected the inhabitants and gave them good fortune and
health. He was eager to know everything that went on in his domain.
Thus he was kept informed of all events: the beginning and end of work
in the fields, hunts, war and so on. Moreover, in the spring of each year
all able-bodied men were presented to him in a ceremony which, in the
times we know about, had taken the form of a great review before him.
A primitive divinity, he consumed raw meat and lived, not in a temple, a
dwelling constructed by the hand of man, but in a square mound planted
with a great tree, often in the midst of a sacred wood. This belief was the
relic of a time when pioneers, clearing an area for the first time, left a
copse of brush or at least the largest tree intact as a retreat and dwelling
for the lord god of the forest.
Earth gods of households, earth gods of villages, earth gods of
seignories, and Royal Earth God formed a divine hierarchy set oft'
against the hierarchy of heads of families, village heads, lords, and king.
The earth gods, barely personalized, had no legend. They were not
even permanent gods. Their fate was tied to that of the family which
ruled over their domain and, when that family disappeared, the earth
god was changed by reversing the stone tablet and setting up a palisade
around the god's mound. This severed communication between the god
and the domain; but the dead god was not entirely abandoned, and he
w'as still worshipped on certain occasions. The custom of changing the
earth god disappeared early in China, and in historical times there
remain only traces of it in certain principalities. These the ritualists of the
last centuries before our era explained tortuously by ethical consider-
ations: it was, they said, a warning earth god. The example of this
 Chinese Religion in Its Historical Deve/opntent 7

overthrown god was supposed to remind prinees that, if they governed

badly, they would lose their prineipality. The eustom has been retained,
how'ever, among the Blaek Tai of Tonkin, a people whose religious
condition is in many ways reminiscent of the ancient Chinese. At the
death of each prince they change the tablet consecrated to the earth god
and set up in the midst of the Forbidden Wood, replacing it with a new
one. We can see why gods as transient as this could not have had a
clearly defined personality.
One of them did, however. This was the Great Royal Earth God,
called Sovereign Earth {Hou-t'it): and his legend explained how he had
managed not to be replaced, remaining the permanent Earth God. In the
beginning the earth, still unpopulated, was the domain of Kung-kung, a
monster with the body of a serpent, the face of a man, bright red hair
and horns. The Lord on High, desiring to set the terrestrial world in
order, sent the Master of Fire, Chii-yiitig, against Kung-kung; but he was
forced to return to Heaven without having succeeded in his mission.
Chuan-hsii, sent subsequently, vanquished Kung-kung and chased him
to the end of the earth at its northwest corner. There in his rage, before
dying, Kung-kung tried to revenge himself by destroying the world. He
dashed his horns against Mount P'u-chou, which supported the heavens,
hoping to make the sky fall upon the earth. He knocked down a part of
the mountain and the sky drooped, remaining ever since slightly tilted
towards the northwest (that is why the pole star is not at the zenith); and
the earth also inclined towards the southeast (that is why the rivers of
China flow southeastwards). But Kung-kung was killed before he quite
knocked the mountain down. His son, Kou-lung, who inherited his
domain the earth, made his submission and set the earth in order for
cultivation. This is why he became Sovereign Earth, to w'hom men make
sacrifices.
At the end of the Hsia dynasty the victor wished to overthrow Kou-
lung as Earth God of the vanquished dynasty; but nobody could pull up
the god's tablet and he had to be acknowledged for all dynasties as
Earth God of the entire empire. A poet of the early third century B.C.,
Ch'ii Yiian, describes him under the name Count of the Earth, T'lt-po, in
a poem entitled “The Summons to the Soul", as a monster like his
father;

There is the Count of the Earth, coiled round nine times; sharp are
his horns;
Thick are his muscles and bloody his claws; he chases men fast, fast;
Three eyes he has and the head of a tiger, a body massive as a
bull's;
He loves to feast on men.
 8 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

It was natural that the sovereign of the earth should become the
sovereign of the dead, since the act of burial placed them in his realm,
and since his subterranean domain was regarded as the prison where he
held them. Such was indeed the popular belief upon which the Taoists
later built their representation of the sojourn of the unsaved dead, whom
Sovereign Earth—whom they called Agent Earth, T’u-kuan—Jealously
guards in his Dark Jails, in the bosom of the Nine Darknesses near the
Yellow Springs.
In all royal ceremonies the king associated Sovereign Earth, Hou-t’u,
the Earth God, with Sovereign Millet, Hou-chi, the god of harvests, who
was grain itself deified, “the soul of the grain”, as the barbarian peoples
of southern China say. Similarly, each lord associated his seignorial earth
god with the seignorial millet god Chi. The “Book of Poetry”, Shih
dung, has preserved his legend for us in a form which combines the story
of how the anthropomorphized millet grain developed with the story of
the divine hero who teaches men to farm. Like the grain. Sovereign
Millet is laid upon the soil at birth, but the cattle do not trample him
with their hooves. Again like the grain, he grows quickly and becomes
very strong; but the sowing of the grain has become the rejection of the
supernaturally-born child. Thrice abandoned on the earth, he is each time
miraculously protected. Barely adolescent, he knows how to cultivate the
five kinds of grain (millet, beans, wheat, cucumbers, and hemp), sowing
them in regular rows, hoeing, gathering and storing, finally winnowing
and then pulverizing and reducing the grain to a ground meal for the
offerings to the gods. It is from this divine hero that the royal family of
the Chou claimed descent, so the hymns of the royal worship preserved
in the Shih ching perhaps present him in a more anthropomorphic guise
than the legend of the god associated with the worship offered to the
earth god.
In addition each mountain, each river, each lake, each terrain feature
had its divinity whose power extended over a greater or a lesser area
depending upon the importance of the place over which he presided.
Most of these divinities undoubtedly never had very well-defined
personalities (any more than the analogous deities in the Mediterranean
world). Only one of them shows a very clear individuality. This is the
formidable god of the most dangerous river in all China, the terrible
Yellow River with its sudden and enormous floods: the Count of the
River, Ho-po, as he was called. He was sometimes seen passing along the
River, in his chariot drawn by aquatic tortoises. The legends about him
told of his quarrels with the gods of his tributaries and with the lords
whose domains lay along his banks, of his having stolen the wife of one
and having had his own cattle stolen in reprisal, and of other adventures.
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 9

Worship of him was as savage as his anger. In at least two places the
river people offered him a young girl in marriage every year. She was laid
upon a magnificent bed which was pushed into the river and allowed to
float with the current until it sank. Capricious and cruel, Ho-po was
believed to have visited incurable ailments upon a prince who, for ritual
reasons, refused the offerings he demanded. Again, when he had taken a
fancy to a general’s bonnet decked with jade pendants, had asked for it
in a dream, and had been refused, he caused the general to lose a battle.
The other gods of rivers and mountains had hardly more than a local
fame. In the heavens too, the Count of the Wind and the Master of the
Rain remained rather vague divinities; and the Mother of the Sun, Hsi-
ho, who bathed him each morning and drove his chariot, and the Mother
of the Moon, Ch'ang-o, bulked larger in folklore than in worship. With
them, perhaps above them, the Lord on High, Shaug-ti, was the
sovereign of heaven, where he governed the souls of the dead—at least
those of sovereigns and princes—and from which height he punished
kings and lords who were deficient in virtue.
Each noble family had its ancestors, whose power corresponded to
that of the family itself. The ancestors of kings protected not only the
royal family but the whole empire; those of lords protected the seignory
and its inhabitants; those of private individuals, the family, the house
and everything connected to it: servants, animals, helds, harvests. The
ceremonial hymns of the Book of Poetry show the king’s ancestors “to
the right and left of the Lord on High”, whom they served in heaven
after the ti sacrifice had been carried out for them at the end of the
mourning ceremonies. The very name of that sacrifice indicated that it
made the deceased into a ti, a lord like the Lord on High himself. The
souls of ministers and great officers, similarly, served those of kings and
princes in heaven. In the celestial world the souls were fed by the
offerings of their descendants. Thus when the fall of the Shang dynasty
interrupted the offerings made at the tombs of the kings buried near the
former capital, the famished spirit of one of them stole the offerings
which the lords of Wei, located nearby, made to their own ancestors.
One of the dead thus deprived went in a dream to plead with his
grandson, who instituted offerings to this robber spirit.

Beliefs regarding the fate of the dead were many (survival of souls in
the tomb; sojourn in that subterranean domain of Sovereign Earth, the
Yellow Springs; or again residence in the ancestral temple built to house
them), but although the multiplicity of the souls themselves in each man
might have furnished the elements for a systematization, nobody ever
thought of organizing these beliefs in a coherent fashion. Furthermore,
 10 Taoism and Chinese Religion

worship hardly concerned itself with beliefs, and took account of the
ancestors only insofar as they came to attend the banquets offered to
them, which they descended to earth to enjoy by taking temporary
possession of a grandson or a more distant descendant who was
supposed to represent them. This representative of the dead person was
called the Corpse or Cadaver, shi/i.
It is possible that originally the son definitively abandoned his dead
father's house, leaving it to the father’s spirit, which continued to dwell
there with his wives and his chamberlain. Thus it was, apparently, that
the first kings of the Chou abandoned to the souls of dead sovereigns the
palace in which they had dwelt while living, together with its entire
administrative organization: wives, artisans, slaves, under the orders of a
special chamberlain. During the mourning period the son lived in a hut
near the tomb and, when the mourning ended, he moved into a new
dwelling. In historical times, however, there remained only a few vestiges
of this custom. After the transfer of the Chou capital eastward from
modern Shensi to Lo-yi (present-day Lo-yang, in Honan), in the eighth
century B.C., there was no reason to reconstruet a separate palace for
each ancestor; and all were brought together in a single palace, the
Ancestral Temple {tsung-miao) or Grand Temple {t'ai-niiao). The eentral
chapel was reserved to the First Ancestor. To his right and left were the
two founders of the dynasty, kings Wen and Wu, while the sovereigns
nearest to the living king, his immediate aneestors, each occupied one
chapel, the intermediary ancestors being placed off in a storage-room,
from which they emerged only for certain great festivals. Each of these
was represented by a simple wooden tablet. In no longer abandoning
each generation’s palaee so as to leave it to the deceased sovereign, the
kings of Eastern Chou (and perhaps of Western Chou before them) were
merely following a eustom already ancient in the east of China; for the
capitals of the Shang, insofar as excavations under way allow us to know
them, do not reveal multiple locations of successive royal palaces.
Lords and great oftieers also had their temples and their chapels.
Private individuals reserved the southwest eorner of the house to the
worship of the ancestors.
It was not enough to be dead to be an aneestor and to have the right
to be worshipped: the funeral ceremonies still had to be performed. Here
we ean recognize a feature common to the ancestral cults of the classical
world. The analogy holds very well. A Chinese general of the seventh
century B.C., cashiered in disgrace for having pursued his defeated enemy
without having taken the time to carry out the funeral ceremonies owed
to the dead of his army, might be compared to the Athenian com-
manders condemned to death for the same reason after the victory of the
Arginusae.
 Chinese Religion in Its llistorieal Development II

I cannot describe the extremely meticulous funeral ceremonies of

Chinese antiquity in detail. At most I can indicate their principal
characteristics.
They were performed in two parts. At the moment of death, while all
the family, men and women, started to wail aloud, a man bearing the
ceremonial vestment of the deceased climbed upon a roof and turning
towards the north, the region of the dead, called the soul by its infant
name, crying three times, “I summon you back, so-and-so; come back!”
Then, when it had been established that the soul would not obey and
that the dead man would not come back to life, they proceeded to wash
the body. The eyes were closed, the jaws separated so as to keep the
mouth open, and the feet tied to a stool to keep the legs straight. After
bathing, a special costume, the funeral vestment, was put on, and over
that the body was dressed in its ceremonial robes. During the washing
and dressing, the weeping continued without pause, relatives replacing
one another night and day.
During the following two days the exhibition of garments took place
in the room next to the mortuary chamber. Nineteen complete costumes
were hung up first for the Small Exhibition, with still rr.ore for the Grand
Exhibition on the following day. The sons, dressed in unhemmed
garments of white linen, received visits of condolence. On the last
evening, the body was put into the coffin which was closed up in a
ceremonial case and set in a pit at the foot of the earthen terrace in the
principal room of the house, awaiting definitive burial. (This may have
been a vestige of an ancient ritual of provisional inhumation.) With it
were set an offering of cooked grain, dried fish, and parched meat. Then,
the children’s sorrow redoubling, they could no longer hold themselves
up. and from the following day on they used the staff of mourning to
support themselves when walking.
Interment took place only much later, when the tomb was ready; and
since its construction took time, more or less according to the rank of the
deceased, the Rituals had prescribed a delay. There was a procession, in
which all relatives and friends took part. At its head there marched,
dancing and brandishing his halberd to the four directions, a faug-
hsicing, a sorcerer who could discern evil influences and drive them away.
Then came a four-wheeled cart bearing the casket wrapped in white linen
and followed by a banner inscribed with the dead man's name, by his
chariots if he had had the right to possess them, and by a carriage loaded
with victims. After that came the sons, clad in white and supported upon
mourning staffs, followed by relatives and friends. This entire crowd
proceeded, wailing, to the burial site. There the coffin was taken down
into the tomb in such a way that the dead man’s head was turned
towards the north; and the lamentations broke off'. At this moment the
 12 Taoism and Chinese Religion

victims were brought, men and women first, or their substitutes, and
then animal victims, and these were taken down into the burial vault.
Upon his return home, the eldest son went to the ancestral temple,
deposited a provisional tablet near his grandfather’s, and made his first
offering to his father as an ancestor. For the first time, too, the spirit of
the dead man took possession of the grandson designated to represent
him {shih), coming in the grandson's person to take part in the funeral
banquet. He ate several mouthfuls of food, drank several drafts of wine,
and then departed. This last rite showed the deceased become ancestor.
From that moment on, he inhabited the special premises reserved to the
ancestors, the Ancestral Temple or Grand Temple, as the Chinese called
it. The tablet bearing his name took its appointed place beside his
grandfather's and opposite his father’s. There it was supposed to receive
regular worship until the time when, the new generations pushing it back
from place to place, it ended by being put away in a storeroom from
which it emerged only once a year during the collective sacrifice to all the
ancestors of the family.

Among the plebeians, the peasants, worship closely followed the

rhythm of work in the fields. At the beginning of spring, its commence-
ment was marked in each village by the ceremonial opening of the earth.
The news was announced to the earth god because, as divine sovereign of
the village territory, he desired to know everything that went on there.
But before work really began, evil influences—vestiges of winter, the
season of cold and sterility—had to be driven away. And since in ancient
China as in many lands the fecundity of the earth and that of families
were interlinked, the same ceremonies which banished the evil influence
of winter announced the beginning of both the agricultural season and
the marriage season.
Each region had different festivals for this, in which young men and
women played the primary roles. In Chou and Cheng (northern Honan
today), they went together to the confluence of the rivers Chou and Wei
when the thaw came, and the girls, each with an orchid in her hand,
called the two kinds of human souls, him and p'o, so as to reunite them,
thus bringing back fecundity for the new year. In Ch’en (southeast
Honan), they danced together on a Yiian mound, waving egret plumes.
And almost everywhere they went to sing in groups or by couples in the
countryside, and their singing ended with intercourse in the open air. The
festival of the Earth God was known for ending up in scenes which
provoked strong disapproval from scholars in the Warring States period.
These customs were not peculiar to the Chinese; they were common to
all the agricultural peoples of Southeast Asia. They are still to be found
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 13

in all areas where local circumstances have retarded the normal develop-
ment of certain tribes or have kept them apart from the major currents
of civilization: among the Lolos, for example, or the Miao-tzu, or the
Tai. I have attended spring festivals of this kind among the Black Tai of
Upper Tonkin, and have seen young men and women leaving their
villages in groups and sometimes marching three or four days through
the forest to go and sing in the grotto traditionally consecrated to this
custom.
After these festivals the peasants turned to the task of clearing, broken
off since the end of autumn:
In the days of the third month, we take our hoes;
In the days of the fourth month, we leave (the village).
With our wives and our children.
Who bring us food to eat in these southern fields.
If the clearing was an old one, it had been left untouched since the
harvest. If it was a new one, the chosen area had been burned off the
preceding year at the time of the spring hunt, and during that whole year
the hardest work had been done on it. They prepared it, clearing away
stumps and brush, hoeing, seeding. Then in the third month, when
summer was drawing near and the growing seedlings demanded constant
labor, hoeing, weeding, and surveillance every moment against wild
animals, everybody—men, women, and children—left the houses in the
hamlet to go and set themselves up in huts near the clearing. And in
departing they “brought the fire out” by extinguishing the hearth in the
house so as to relight a new fire, using a twirling-stick, at a space in the
open field.
The absorbing labor of summer and autumn and the distance from the
villages slowed the rhythm of the festivals for a while, unless there were a
long drought and it was necessary to pray for rain. With that exception,
religious life resumed its activity only towards the end of the year, when
field work ended. In the ninth month the peasants “took the fire back in”
and reestablished themselves in their village houses. A ritual purification
drove away the influences of summer, which had become baleful for the
period of repose which was beginning. The return to the village was
announced to the Earth God. Then, the harvest completed and the grain
stored, the year ended with the harvest festival, a great peasant fete in
which everybody, lords and cultivators, had to take part, all dressed as
peasants without distinction. It was called “the Grand Festival in honor
of the Eight who are to be sought”, pa-clut or ta-cha. There every kind of
offering was presented: products of farming, of hunting, of fishing. The
main spirit was the First Flarvester. Besides him, sacrifice was made to
 14 Taoism and Chinese Relii^ion

the First Husbandman, to the First Constructor of Dikes, to the First

Builder of Houses, and afterwards to the spirits of cats who catch rats
and to those of tigers who eat wild boars: in brief, to all the spirits who
presided over the various moments of cultivation or protected the
harvest. It was a great masquerade: the spirits of cats and of tigers were
represented by children and men, masked and disguised, who behaved
like the animals whose souls possessed them, leaping, crying, scratching.
The offerings were consumed on the spot in a great banquet which ended
in a grand orgy. This ended all work in the fields for the year. From then
on nobody was any longer supposed to touch the earth. Even animals
were brought from their pastures into the stables, and men closed
themselves up in the houses, sealing the doors. An interdict was upon the
soil until the time when spring should bring the commencement of the
ceremonial cycle round again.
The seasonal ceremonies of the lords and of the royal court hardly
differed from these peasant festivals, except in a grander solemnity and
pomp. No village could celebrate a festival before the lord had celebrated
it himself in his home place. The king opened the earth of his domain at
the “Field of the Lord” (that is, of the Lord on High), fi-c/n\ the harvest
from which was to be set aside as sacrificial grain. When the auspicious
day had been set by divination, the Grand Scribe announced it to the
king, saying: “In nine days, the earth will be turned over. Let the king
purify himself with all respect and let him direct the hoeing without
changing anything!” On the day mentioned, the king began by offering a
suovetawilia to the Ancestor of Agriculture, the Great Offering as the
Chinese call it: bull, ram, and pig. Then the king himself, dressed as a
peasant, sank the hoe into the soil and picked up three clods of earth,
after which the ministers, the great officers, and the people of the court,
each according to his rank, finished the hoeing of the thousand acres.
Some of these festivals—the opening of the soil in order to break the
interdict upon it, the opening of the season of marriages by sacrificing to
the Exalted Go-Between, the spring and autumn sacrifices to the earth
god, sacrifices for rain in summer—took on a particular character in
thus being transposed into royal festivals. The spring sacrifice to the
Earth God was followed by a review of troops, who were presented to
the god and who took an oath before his mound, which served as an
altar. In the Royal Domain and in certain principalities (for example, Lu
in Shantung and Sung in Anhwei; but apparently not in Chin, in Shansi)
the series of festivals opened in spring and ended in autumn with a
sacrifice to the Lord on High. In spring it was the sacrifice on the Altar
of Heaven, a round knoll in the open air, without a temple, in the
southern suburbs, nan-chiao, of the capital. In autumn the sacrifice was
 Chinese Religion in Its Hislorieal Development 15

carried out in the Ancestral Temple, or in that mysterious Sacred Palace,

the Ming-t'ang. This latter seems to have been the ancient royal dwelling
at the time when the king, a sacred personage, did not mix with the mass
of men but lived, hemmed in by taboos, in a palace surrounded by a
moat full of water. In historical times, however, and when the sacrificial
odes of the Shih citing were written (eighth to seventh century B.C.), it
was only the temple of royal power around which the ritualists of the
fourth and third centuries B.C. had created an impenetrably mystical
atmosphere.
The changes in men's lives, passing from the house in the village to the
temporary held hut in spring and coming back from huts to houses in
autumn, were matched by a similar displacement of the Lord on High.
He was taken outside the city in spring by sacrificing to him in the open
air and was brought back into the city in autumn by sacrihcing to him
inside a temple.
These two sacrihces to the Lord on High were the most solemn
festivals of the royal ritual. Everything that had a part in the ceremony
had to be ritually pure: sacrihcers, participants, offerings. The king and
all who took part maintained a strict abstinence for ten days; and on the
day of the sacrifice no person in mourning could enter the city, nor could
any funeral rite be celebrated. The king himself killed the victim with
arrows; it was a young red bull, whose whole body was burned on the
top of the knoll so that it would go up to heaven as an offering in the
smoke. During the sacrificial burning the blind musicians chanted:
We fill the wooden cups with offerings.
The cups of wood and cups of clay;
As soon as their fragrance has ascended.
The Lord on High begins to eat.
Afterwards a second bull w^as offered, not to Heaven, but to the First
Ancestor of the royal family, who served as an intermediary between the
king and the Lord on High, a divinity too exalted to be addressed
directly. And the festival finished with a great dance, following which the
victim offered to the Ancestor was eaten.
The worship of the ancestors was intermingled with agrarian wor-
ship, though it had its own ceremonies. On the one hand, each month the
first fruits of the season were offered to the ancestors; on the other, each
of them had his anniversary. On those days, the spirit descended and
took possession of one of the grandsons designated beforehand for the
purpose. The child received the offerings in the ancestor's place, mixed
with those attending, offered drinks and accepted them, spoke and acted
under the initiative of the ancestor who possessed him, and then retired
 16 Taoism and Chinese Religion

after having expressed his satisfaction and given promises of good

fortune:

The skillful prayer-sayer receives the declaration (of the spirits)

And goes to bear it to the pious descendants:
The pious sacrifice is fragrant.
The ancestral spirits are satisfied with drinks and with dishes;
They will bestow upon you good fortune a hundredfold:
Whatever you desire, that you will realize!
Forever they will grant you the highest favors
By tens of thousands, by hundreds of thousands.

After the ancestor's departure, all those in attendance had a banquet,

eating what he had left; and a portion was even sent to those descendants
who had not been able to be present. Thus the continuity of the family
bond was reaffirmed for all its members through the communion of the
sacred meal in which they ate the offerings to the common ancestor.

Agrarian and ancestral worship both took place entirely in public

ceremonies in which offerings and prayers were made on behalf of an
established group such as the family or the seignory by its chief, and
never on behalf of one person in particular. Those who had requests to
make of the gods for themselves had to go and seek out particular
intermediaries: sorcerers or sorceresses of various classes (mediums,
physicians, rain-makers, exorcists, and so on), for such persons—having
personal relations with the spirits—went to carry the supplicants’
requests to them. The spirit descended into the medium’s body and took
it over: “This body is that of the sorceress, but the spirit is that of the
god.” The sorceress purified herself by washing her face with water in
which orchids had been boiled and her body with water perfumed with
iris. Then she dressed herself in the garments of the divinity she was
going to summon. When the ofl'erings were ready, she sent her soul to
seek out this divinity and bring it back into her own body, miming the
journey, a flower in her hand, in a dance accompanied by music and
song, to the sound of drums and flutes, until she fell exhausted. That was
the moment when the god was present and replied through her mouth.
After he departed, the sorceress arose and “hailed her own souls”, so as
to call back those which might have “forgotten to return” during the
journey.
Such, in its broad outlines, was the Chinese religion of antiquity. It
was an expression of religious life in defined social groupings where each
person’s place was determined by his role in the society—the lords to
carry on the worship, the subjects to take part in it following their lord.
It allowed no room whatever for personal feeling.
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 17

2. The Religious Crisis of the

Warring States Period
It is easy to see that agrarian worship was originally built upon a group
of ceremonies which were efficacious in themselves, since in each season
they contributed to the work of nature and assisted in its orderly
development. In historical times, however, these became mixed with
ceremonies of contrition and thanksgivings addressed to divinities whose
favor was being asked or who were being thanked for their blessings.
From this there resulted a complex worship in which the ceremonies
were by no means all equally important.
When one “went out to meet the spring” in the eastern suburbs, or
“saw the cold out”, the ceremony was valid in itself. The fact of
proceeding solemnly to the eastern gate on the day of the equinox, in the
first case, and the solemn closure of the ice-storage pit accompanied by
the sacrifice of a lamb, in the second, were sufficient to produce the
desired result, without the intervention of any divinity. Likewise, the
solemn opening of the earth in the spring sufficed to desacralize it. No
divinity intervened, and it was only later that the earth god was
addressed, not to ask that he return the earth to cultivation, but to
inform him that it had been done.
By contrast, the ceremonies relating to the earth god or to the Lord on
High were prayers addressed to personal divinities whose favor was
desired; and the same was true of all the festivals in ancestor worship.
These were two quite different conceptions of the meaning of religious
ceremonies, and in general of the relations between man and the sacred,
corresponding to two levels of culture which were themselves different.
The second conception seems to have gained ground little by little as
civilization and intellectual progress developed. The magico-religious
ceremonies which imposed the will of the celebrant upon the sacred
smacked of a barbarous brutality, incompatible with the sovereign
character which men increasingly tended to attribute to the gods as they
became personalized. Ceremonies of a magico-religious kind did not
disappear from the ritual on that account, but they occupied a more and
more restricted place. The important ceremonies of the year were those
which were addressed to personal gods, especially to the Lord on High
and the earth gods, and to ancestors as well.
The gods of antiquity had in no sense succeeded in becoming perfectly
individualized or in emerging from the throng of their fellows: there were
too many earth gods for each of them to have a really clear image. But
all were at least conceived of as actual persons, living and acting, rather
than as impersonal entities, magico-religious forces such as certain
sinologists have imagined, having transposed to the antique religion the
 IS Taoism and Chinese Religion

ideas concerning divinities which the literati now hold regarding the
latter-day official religion. Those ancient gods hardly differed from the
living beings one saw on earth. The Lord on High was an anthropomor-
phic giant who, when he walked on earth, left the enormous traces of his
footprints in the soil. The Count of the River was often described as a
great fish. The Count of the Wind was a bird with a deer’s head; the
Master of Thunder was a dragon with a man’s head who struck his belly
to produce the rolls of thunder; the Master of the Rain was perhaps
a toad. But they were men or animals or monsters endowed with super-
human qualities:

The spirits have delicate hearing and a piercing gaze; they are
upright and just and without duplicity; they treat men according to
their Just deserts.

So says the scribe Yin concerning the appearance of a spirit in the land
of Kuo.' They had their tastes and their preferences, like the Count of
the River who coveted the jade headdress of Tzu-yii, the Ch’u general,
promising him in recompense victory over his adversary, the prince of
Chin. The general refused to yield it to him and was vanquished at
Ch’eng-p’u on the Yellow River.- Men sacrificed to them in order to
attract their good-will and not to activate an impersonal force. Ying of
Chao in a dream saw a messenger who said to him,^ “If you make me a
sacrifice, I shall give you good fortune.”
Men’s deservings depended in large measure upon the quality of their
offerings. The gods liked victims to be numerous and fat, and that is
what the ritual writings always claim to have presented to them. A
fourth century historian has a prince say, when accused by his counselor
of lacking piety towards the gods:"*

The victims I offer are perfect, fat, and of a single color; my millet
fills the cups, fragrant and well prepared; in what respect am I
lacking in piety?

And to another:'*'

My offerings are abundant and pure. Surely the spirits will sustain
me!

By contrast, offerings which were infrequent and meager displeased

1. TC, Chuang, 32nd year; tr. Legge, p. 120.

2. Ibid., Hsi, 2Kth year; Legge, p. 210.
3. Ibid., Ch’eng, 5th year; Legge, p. 357.
4. Ibid., Huan, 6th year; Legge, p. 48.
5. Ibid., Hsi, 5th year; Legge, p. 146.
 Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development 19

them, and in return they sent maladies and calamities:

If the state is poor, the otherings of grain and of wine will not be
pure; if the people are few, what is offered to the Lord on High and
to the spirits will not be abundant; if the government is troubled, the
sacrifices will not take place on the days appointed. ... The Lord on
High and the spirits will say: “What is better for me, to have this
man or not to have him?” And they will say, “To me, having him or
not having him would make no difference!” And the Lord on High
and the spirits will cause punishments and calamities to come
down.^
These ideas which Mo-tzu, the great philosopher of the fifth century
B.C., expresses so clearly and powerfully were widespread in his day. If
any calamity occurred in the domain of a prince who had carried out the
sacrifices conscientiously, he could not understand the cause of it and
complained to the gods. This is the subject of an ode in the Shih citing:^
The king says: Alas! what crime
Have the men of today committed.
That heaven sends mournings and troubles.
Shortage of grains and of beans?
There is no god I have not honored,
I have not been miserly with my victims!
Rings and tablets of jade are exhausted (because of offerings):
Why am I not heard?
The drought is very great.
The heat is intense;
I make pure offerings without cease.
From the suburbs even to the palace;
For the gods on high I have presented, for those below I have
buried (my victims);
There is no god whom I have not honored;
But Sovereign Millet is powerless
And the Lord on High is not favorable.
Why has Heaven sent this drought?
I do not know its cause.
Early I prayed for a good harvest;
1 was not late in my sacrifices to the Earth God.

6. Mo-tzu(MT), VI, 22 (ed. SPTK, cli. 6, 1 \h-\2a): tr. Forke, pp. 305-06.
7. Shill eking (SC), ill, 3, 4.
 20 Taoism and Chinese Religion

God on High, of Luminous Heaven

Does not think of me.
I have honored the spirits.
They should have neither hatred nor anger!

All this indicates a spirit little different from that of the contemporary
Mediterranean religions, in which equivalents for this Chinese ode from
the seventh century B.C. could easily be found.
The “abundant and pure offerings”, the “victims perfect, fat, and of a
single color”, were what the lord offered for himself, of course, but also
for his people. It was not he alone whom “the spirits will sustain”: it was
the whole seignory, land and inhabitants. Worship at each level consisted
of public ceremonies in which offerings and prayers were made for an
established group, such as the family or seignory, by the chief of that
group. But the members of the group felt that they shared in the worship
offered on their behalf, and this participation was made evident by the
fact that they attended the ceremonies and shared the offerings. The
religion relied essentially upon the strict solidarity between the lord who
offered the worship and the subjects who participated in it. Duplicating
seignorial society on the divine level, it could not fail to share in the
destruction of that society.

Seignorial society was already approaching its end as early as the

dawn of historical times, at the beginning of the first millennium before
our era. The history of the Chou dynasty, which fills this millennium,
was no more than the long death-agony of the seignorial regime. Almost
every year saw the end of some seignory, though we are far from
possessing complete chronicles. The works which cover the history of the
eighth and seventh centuries B.C. mention more than five hundred
seignories; in the fourth century, ten of those had absorbed the others
and had formed principalities which, in their extent and their organiz-
ation, were very different from the ancient seignories. Chin conquered
the seignories of the north, Ch’u destroyed those of the south, Ch’i and
Lu absorbed or subdued most of those in the east. Then these princi-
palities in their turn devoured one another until one of them, the
w'esternmost of all, Ch’in, conquered all and unified the Chinese world
starting in the middle of the third century B.C. The new empire was
divided into provinces governed by functionaries. The increase of the
population, the disappearance of cultivation by clearing and its replace-
ment by irrigated fields, the invention of the drawn plow, the discovery
of iron-working, the extension of the territory on all sides (especially its
enormous expansion southward), as well as its growing links with the
 Chinese Religion in Its Hislorieal Development 21

civilizations of the West and the development of commerce, all combined

to transform the old society from top to bottom.

This destruction of the seignories dealt a mortal blow to the ancient

religion. In the Chinese world they had played a role analogous to that
of the cities in the Hellenic world, units which were at the same time
political and religious and which provided (though with less intensity in
China than in Greece) a center to the life of the locality. Their disappear-
ance left the spirits helpless. In ancient times, when the lords had been
very numerous, their domains had been small enough so that the
inhabitants were able to appear at the capital for festivals, sacrifices to
the earth god, sacrifices to the prince’s ancestors, the harvest festival, and
so forth. They could thus feel themselves the more really involved in the
worship because those who attended ate the leftovers of the offerings and
took a personal part in the sacrifice through this communion. It was this
direct participation in worship which made the ancient religion living
and immediate to the peasant. The disappearance of the seignories
robbed it of this character. The centers of worship vanished with the
seignories and with them the seignorial ceremonies themselves.
When, in place of numerous small seignories, there were no more than
some ten great principalities, so that state worship was conducted only in
ten centers rather than being offered in hundreds of places within the
Chinese world, it became impossible for the populace to participate
directly in that worship. The new principalities were far too extensive for
the people to be able to come from every corner of their territory to
attend the ceremonies. These continued as in the past, but only in a few
special places. Where they continued, they gained in splendor and pomp
as the wealth and power of the princes increased. But, celebrated in a
distant capital, they became an affair of the court from which the people
were gradually excluded. The religious solidarity of the lord with his
subjects, so easily perceived while he dwelt in their midst on a small
domain, was barely sensed when the lord was transformed into a great
prince living remote in his palace, far from the peasants.
Princely worship wilted in the atmosphere of courts where agrarian
cults had nothing more to do; and it endured only because of tradition.
Peasant worship remained a living thing, but isolated. Having lost all
contact with the seignorial cults and moreover being poor and lacking in
show, it soon appeared to the courtiers as crude superstition with no
recognizable relation to their own ceremonies. The divorce became
complete when the principality of Ch’in unified China and its seignorial
cult, which alone survived, became the imperial worship. That was
preserved traditionally until the revolution of 1911; but it was no longer
 S')
Taoism and Chinese Religion

anything more than a business of the sovereign, of court people and

literati, of ministers and officials. Only in theory did the people constitute
the community of the faithful.

Thus, under its two forms, seignorial cults and peasant cults, the
religion of antiquity was in full decline by the end of the Chou dynasty,
about the middle of the second half of the last millennium B.C. It could
hardly have been otherwise. Modeled upon the seignorial society, it had
fitted itself perfectly to that society, with its two clearly divided classes,
patricians ■ and plebeians, each having its proper functions and not
intermingling in public or private or religious life. But with time society
had become less simple.

Between the seignorial families on the one hand and the peasants on
the other there had gradually developed a third class which was related
to both, noble in origin but impoverished like the peasants. This was the
class of the scribes, predecessor of the literati class which was to play so
important a part in the subsequent history of China. And this new class,
halfway between the two others, very early had its own aspirations which
made it a constant source of social and religious agitation and
transformation.
In origin this class was ancient. Originally the lords had shared out the
domains and villages of the seignory to their close relatives for them to
administer. But this rudimentary system of family apanages, besides
resulting in a deplorable administration which yielded hardly anything to
the prince, often became dangerous to him when one of his brothers, too
generously endowed, was seized with ambition. Consequently princes
looked everywhere for more docile and more reliable agents, to whom
they could entrust the functions of administration.
The writing system was complicated. Each Chinese word is written
with a special sign, so that ancient dictionaries made up of characters
taken from inscriptions and from the classical books (the lexicons of the
language as it was in the eleventh to fifth centuries B.C.) include more
than ten thousand different symbols. This complicated writing, together
with the difificulty of wording administrative documents in a language
which was still hard to manage, had soon given rise to a class of trained
scribes. It is probable that, from the beginnings as well as in the
historical era, this class was recruited from among the more distant
descendants of the lords, younger sons of younger branches who were
too distantly related to receive an apanage and were hence obliged to
find another means of subsistence. These scribes appeared in very ancient
 Chinese Religion in Its Ilisloricul Development 23

times. Some of them were already signing certain Shang dynasty inscrip-
tions on tortoise shells in about the eleventh century B.C. But it was
especially when the growth of the principalities made a regular adminis-
tration imperative that they became important. Princes and great lords
needed these trained men, hard-working, honest, and faithful. Moreover
they offended nobody, being too humble to be given the high respon-
sibilities of the court. From among them were recruited the counselors of
ministers, the chamberlains responsible for administering the domains of
the prince or the great lords, and so on.
From this class came men like K’ung-tzu (Confucius), Meng-tzu
(Mencius), Flsiin-tzu, Mo-tzu, and Chuang-tzu: in brief, all the great
writers and philosophers of that period. Between the aristocracy of
princely courts and the plebeian peasantry, the literate scribes formed a
sort of intellectual bourgeoisie w'hose influence grew with time. Several
disciples of Confucius and of Mo-tzu were chamberlains for great officers
of Lu or of other principalities. Those who did not succeed in making an
administrative career founded schools in which they taught the correct
doctrine to new' generations: that was the case with Confucius,
apparently. It was within this class that the philosophical movement was
born and religious thought developed.

At the two extremities of the society, princes or great lords at court

and peasants in their villages were constantly occupied: the former by
palace intrigues, by ambition and by their pleasures, the latter by the
unceasing occupations of life in the fields. Neither class was much
educated, nor had they much time to reflect upon general ideas or
religious questions. Besides, both had their festivals and their ceremonies
by which they assured the gods’ protection for themselves, instrumenta-
lities hallowed by long tradition.
The scribes filled many positions in the service of the princes and the
great. The best or cleverest of them came to handle the lords’ private
affairs or administer their domains. Thus Confucius was chamberlain of
Chung-tu, a city held by the Chi family, whose chief was hereditary
Prime Minister of Lu. One of Confucius’s disciples, Tzu-yu, was cham-
berlain of Wu-ch’eng: another, Jan-ch’iu, was family chamberlain of that
same Chi family and responsible for the general administration of their
domains. The least able of them were mere copyists and staffed the
bureaus wTere correspondence was carried on: they appear in each
section of the book of administrative ritual called the Chou-li.
Their very functions, by obliging most of them to deal with adminis-
trative affairs, led the best among them to produce a doctrine of
 24 Taoism and Chinese Religion

government for themselves and in the process of doing so to reflect also

upon the religious questions which still were hardly separate from
administrative questions in the mind of that time.
It seems that one of the first points which offended them when they set
themselves to reflecting upon the relations between men and gods was
the gross unseemliness of the sacrifice, that bargain, that almost com-
mercial exchange of fat, pure victims for divine favors. They wished that
less attention would be given to the material perfection of the ceremonies
and more to the moral perfection of those who officiated and partici-
pated. Some of them asserted that the gods would not allow themselves
to be purchased by sacrifices and that nothing counted but the dis-
interested virtue of the one who sacrificed. Others, more radical, insisted
that the gods did not exist or that, if they did exist, they were uncon-
cerned with human affairs. As early as the fifth century, the philosopher
Mo-tzu reproachfully mentions the atheism of some of his contem-
poraries:^
Those who maintain that there are no spirits say: “The spirits?
Surely they do not exist!” And from morning to night they labor to
persuade everybody of this, and succeed in making the masses of the
world doubt the existence of the spirits.
Well before Mo-tzu the short works by various authors and of various
dates which make up the Shu clung (leaving aside the fake chapters) are
divided into two tendencies: some believe in the spirits, others seek to
dispense with them in explaining the world. The author of one of these
little pieces, the “Grand Declaration” (T’ai-shih), is of the first group and
includes, among the grievances against the tyrant Tsou of the Shang
dynasty and among the reasons why “the Lord on High did not hold
him in favor and caused his doom to come down upon him”, the fact
“that he declared that the sacrifices are ineffective”. This conflict between
belief and non-belief in spirits lasted throughout the entire Chou
dynasty, and the atheistic point of view triumphed within the scholar
class only in Han times or a little before. Furthermore, it never took an
acute form: the absence of an organized clergy and of large centers of
worship tended to prevent this, as did the care which those who tried to
eliminate the belief in personal gods took to maintain the traditional
external forms of worship.

Thus little by little the notion of personal gods was discarded, and for
it was substituted that of impersonal forces set in motion by the mere

8. MT, viii, 31; tr. Forke, p. 344.

 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 25

play of the rites well performed, without its being necessary to grant
them a conscious and thereby even an arbitrary will. Thus the Lord on
High gave way to Heaven, Sovereign Earth to Earth, and so on. As in
the Greek world, the philosophers contributed to hastening this evol-
ution. Divergences existed among their various conceptions, and it was
this proliferation of opinions which brought about the brilliant flowering
of philosophy in the fourth and third centuries B.C. But throughout their
efforts, their researches, their trials, their speculations, we can clearly
descry two currents corresponding to the general tendencies of religious
thought in the China of this period, tendencies representing the Chinese
manifestation of the two attitudes which have, always and everywhere,
divided minds over fundamental religious questions. These were the
rationalist and the mystical attitudes, though preferences for collective
forms and for personal forms of religion were intermingled with them.
One of the currents was thus a rationalistic effort to give religion a
scientific explanation, emptying it of all irrational content (that is, of
what seemed irrational to the men of that day), while maintaining its
external forms. This was accompanied by a philosophical movement
which gave a remarkably lively brilliance to the literature of the time.
The second current was a search for a personal religion which sought to
provide all that was lacking in the official worship and its group
ceremonies.
Ultimately these two very powerful currents gave rise, the first to
Confucianism, and the second to Taoism—and beyond Taoism to the
religious feeling that would later allow Buddhism to put down roots in
China.

3. Taoism
The profound upheavals within Chinese society which marked the last
centuries of the Chou dynasty provoked a religious crisis between the
fifth and third centuries B.C., especially within the class of the Literati.
Many of these, dissatisfied with the official religion and its rather
graceless conception of the relations between man and the gods, sought
to get away from the uncomfortable feeling of bargaining which they got
from contemporary ideas about sacrifices. Denying the gods any person-
ality or awareness, they substituted unconscious magico-religious forces
instead. But in their zeal to explain the world rationally and systemati-
cally, they often lost sight of the actualities of religion, so that their ideas
were far from being generally accepted.
 26 Taoism and Chinese Religion

By contrast, those who were more inclined to a personal religion were

less concerned with the problem of man in society and in the universe
than with questions of individual conscience, of inner life, of personal
morality, and they refused to admit that all which was higher than
man was impersonal and unconscious. Moreover, they found, in the
experiences of sorcerers and sorceresses, experts in serving as mediums
between gods and men, an empirical proof that personal and conscious
gods existed, since by those techniques of possession one could enter into
direct and personal relation with such divinities. For them religion was
no longer the business of lords officiating in the name of all their subjects
so as to obtain a certain material felicity for the entire society. Rather
they came to consider it every man's business: each had to seek, by a
personal contact, to obtain from the gods an effective assurance of solid
individual spiritual felicity, first in this life and then after death. For the
problem of man's fate after death, almost ignored by the official religion,
became a matter of capital importance in their eyes.
They knew that man has numerous souls which are dispersed at death,
but they had hardly any idea what became of each of them. Various
beliefs existed simultaneously: life in the tomb; life underground at the
Yellow Springs, in the dark prisons of the Count of the Earth; eternal
bliss in Fleaven with the Lord on Fligh. They seem to have arranged
these diverse destinies into a hierarchy of sorts according to the rank of
the deceased. The commonalty of men went to the Yellow Springs within
the Nine Darknesses; kings and princes, thanks to ceremonies peculiar to
them, mounted to be with the Lord on Fligh; great lords, having no title
to these rites but wishing to escape the common fate, managed an exist-
ence for themselves in their funerary temple, near the tomb. But this
hierarchization was itself merely one belief among many, and an anec-
dote concerning a prince Cheng of the eighth century B.C. shows that
princes themselves might go to the Yellow Springs after their death.
Estranged from his mother because she had supported one of his
brothers who had rebelled, this prince made a rash vow never to see her
again in this world. Later, seized with regret, he had a deep subterranean
gallery dug and there, in the underground domain of the Count of the
Earth, near the Yellow Springs, he was able to meet her again without
breaking his vow.
If there was some doubt regarding the fate of princes after their death,
there was none for the mass of the population. The sojourn at the Yellow
Springs, or at best in the tomb, were all that these common people could
hope for. The former was the life of prisoners in the Count of the Earth's
dark jails; the latter was perhaps less harsh, but it was subject to the
vicissitudes of the family, since the deceased had nothing to live upon but
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Deve/opnient 27

his descendants’ offerings. And in getting to the funerary temple, what

hazards had to be avoided! A poet of the third century Pi.c. set these forth
in his poem, “The Summons to the Soul”:'
O soul, return! Having left the accustomed body of your lord, what
are you doing in the four directions?
O soul, return! You may not abide in the east!
There's the Giant, a thousand cubits tall, and it is souls he seeks.
Ten suns follow one another, melting metal, dissolving stone;
Those who dwell there can bear it, but the soul that goes there will
be consumed.
Soul, return! You cannot abide in that region!
O soul, return! In the south you cannot stay!
Tattooed Brows and Blackened Teeth offer human flesh in sacrifice.
And with the bones they make soup.
It is the land of vipers and snakes and pythons a hundred leagues
long.
The vigorous nine-headed hydra comes and goes, swift and sudden.
And devouring men delights his heart!
O soul, return! In the south you may not linger!
O soul, return! In the west is danger, the Moving Sands a thousand
leagues wide.
If, whirling about, you get into the Thunder chasm, you will be
dashed to pieces. Stay not there!
If perchance you escape, beyond is the empty desert.
Full of red ants big as elephants and black wasps big as gourds.
The Five Grains do not grow there, but only weeds; that is the only
food!
That land dries men up; they seek water and do not find it.
You will go, wandering here and there, never finding anything to
cleave to, in that unending immensity.
Return, return! I fear lest you cast yourself into perdition!
O soul, return! The northern region, you may not stay there!
The layered ice forms mountains, the flying snow sweeps a thousand
leagues.
Return, return! You may not stay there!
O soul, return! Mount not to heaven!
Tigers and panthers guard its Nine Gates: they bite, they wound
men from down here.
A man with nine heads cuts a tree with nine thousand branches
there.
1. Chao-hun, “Summons to the Soul”, in C/i'u Tz'u {ChT).
 28 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Wolves with piercing eyes stalk to and fro;

They toss men into the air and play with them, then cast them into
the abyss.
Obeying the orders of the Lord on High; and then they sleep.
Return, return! In your wanderings I fear you may run into danger!
O soul, return! Do not go down to the Land of Darkness!
There is the Count of the Earth, nine-coiled; sharp are his horns.
Thick his muscles and bloody his claws; he chases men, fast, fast;
Three eyes he has and a tiger’s head, a body like a bull’s.
All these monsters love human flesh.
Return, return! I fear lest you cast yourself into anguish!

And having described to the soul all the misfortunes that await it
abroad, the poet summons the soul back into the funerary temple which
his family has just erected for him and which will be his dwelling. But
this refuge is itself unsure, for the soul has nothing to maintain it but the
offerings which its descendants make to it. If the family vanishes, the soul
will starve.
Thus in this life there are no relations with the gods, and after death
there is a sort of Sheol in which all, good and wicked alike, are lumped
together in the darkness, jealously guarded by the Earth God who
devours them in the end. That is all the official religion had to offer for
souls tormented by the need for a personal religion and by anxiety
concerning their fate beyond the grave. This latter was peculiarly critical:
even if the souls evaded the perils which menaced them, the persona of
the dead could not last, since the various souls had separated. In view of
the desire to survive complete rather than in dispersed fragments and in
view of the impossibility of surmounting the difficulty presented by the
multiplicity of souls, the problem was turned around by the claim that all
the spirits, the inhabitants of man, could be preserved within the body,
which then had to be transformed, by an appropriate technique, into an
immortal body. Thus from the beginning the religious effort collided
with the requirement for recourse to techniques which were often
complicated. The importance of these techniques continued to grow and,
in Taoism, technical research sometimes almost stifled religious inquiry.
What the Taoists sought to obtain was the immortality of the material
body, the abode of the souls and spirits. It seemed to them that this
enclosing material was necessary to hold these spiritual entities together.

Since antiquity, sorceresses had communicated with the gods by

sending their souls to the gods’ dwelling-places. Donning the costume of
the divinity who came to possess them, they entered into trance by
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 29

various means, the best-known being an increasingly rapid dance, to the

sound of drum and flutes, described in a collection of ancient poems, the
Nine Songs.- Thus they mimed the voyage and, when they fell exhausted
and unconscious, the god whom they had gone to seek even as far as his
dwelling-place, and with whom their relations were apparently com-
plicated by a sexual connection, had taken possession of them; and what
they did and said then was taken as the acts and words of the god
himself. The Tso chiian, which is the work of an author contemporary
with Ch’ii Yiian, the author of “The Summons to the Soul”, and also
with Chuang-tzu, the great Taoist philosopher, abounds in stories of
sorceresses possessed by spirits.
In one of these stories,^ the spirit of a dead person is so thoroughly
identified with the sorceress whose body he temporarily occupies that
after a first apparition he announces to his questioner that he will return
in the following terms: “In seven days, on the western side of the new
city, there will be a sorceress and you will see me.” And in that next
interview he speaks through the mouth of the sorceress always in the first
person. The History of the Former Han Dynasty^ confirms the general
belief of the time by having a sorceress, Li Nu-hsii, say in the course of a
consultation: “The Hsiao-wu emperor (141-87) has come down into
me.” And Wang Ch’ung, towards the end of the first century before our
era,*' again bears witness to it by refusing to accept it:
For a living person, being in a hypnotic trance, to speak as a
medium for a dead person, or for a sorceress, mt, to call up a dead
person who speaks through her intermediacy, such things are foolish
tricks and stupid words.
It was from this school that the Taoists, who could observe such
practises every day, learned to make their souls leave their bodies so that
they could be sent to roam the world seeking gods even to the heavens;
but in the course of borrowing they deeply altered the procedures and
the purposes of sorcery. Their techniques of ecstasy, as well as their
dietetic systems, are probably related to those of the sorcerers and
sorceresses. A proof of this is one of the terms by which the Taoists
describe ecstasy: the “entry of the spirit”, kuei-jii. This term is explicable
only if the Taoist ecstasy was derived from the sorceresses’ possession,
for such an expression expresses Taoist ecstasy rather badly. Among
sorceresses possession is well conceptualized as “the entry of the spirit”;
2. Ch’ii Yiian, Chiu-ke (ChT).
3. TC, Hsi, 10th year; Legge, p. 157.
4. Ch'ien Han shu {CHS), ch. 63, 6h.
5. Wang Ch’ung, Lun-heng {LH), ch. 20; tr. Forke, i, p. 196.
 30 Taoism and Chinese Religion

it is apparently accompanied by a notion of sexual union, a notion which

I have also found quite clearly among the Jarai sorceresses in the
mountains of Annam. Even if no such parallel holds, the spirit enters
into the sorceress’s body, speaks through her mouth, acts through her
limbs. There is none of that in Taoist ecstasy: the mystical union with the
impersonal Tao necessarily excludes any trace of eroticism. The very idea
of a spirit’s entering is inadequate: the Tao has no “entering” to do, since
it is already in us as in everything. Another expression denoting Taoist
ecstasy, “oblivion” {wang), is likewise borrowed from the sorceresses: it
is found in the Nine Songs. This is virtually all we know about the
relations between the sorcery of the spirit mediums and the origins of
Taoism.
What characterizes the Taoists is that they sought quite early to do
without such uncontrolled rituals as ways of attaining mystical trances.
Some, such as Hsi K’ang and his friends, the Seven Sages of the Bamboo
Grove, in the third century A.D., had recourse to wine as a means of
freeing their souls from themselves. Others claimed to achieve this by
solitary meditation, as in the schools of Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzu, the
great masters of Taoist mysticism in the fourth and third centuries B.C.
This school attributed to an old master whose name was all they knew,
Lao-tzu, the invention of its mystical technique, which seems to have
consisted of entering into a trance and attaining ecstasy without any
external stimulant. But for this ecstasy a lengthy preparation was needed,
analogous to the via purgativa of the Christian mystics. One adept spent
nine years in going through this; another, no doubt better prepared,
spent only nine days.

After three days he was able to detach himself from the external
world; after seven days he could detach himself from the things
about him; at the end of nine days he could detach himself from his
own existence. After he was detached from his own existence, he
attained luminous perception, he saw that which is unique. After
having seen that which is unique, he was able to arrive at a
condition in which there was neither past nor present. Finally he
attained the condition in which there is neither life nor death.^
The one who spent nine years passed through the same phases but
went yet farther:

The first year, he said himself, I was simple; the second, 1 was
docile; the third, I understood; the fourth, 1 considered (myself) as
an external object; the fifth, I advanced; the sixth, a spirit entered
6. Chuang-tzu (CT), section 6.
 Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development 31

me (that is, the ecstatic trance); the seventh, I was made divine; the
eighth, I no longer felt whether I was dead or alive; the ninth, I
attained the Great Mystery (that is. Mystical Union)."
One must liberate the soul from all external influence by the “fasting
of the heart”;
Concentrate your attention. Listen not with the ear, but with the
heart; listen not with the heart, but with the Breath. The ear is
limited to understanding, the heart is limited to applying itself to
things; it is the Breath which, when it is empty, grasps reality. The
Union with the lao cannot be attained except by Emptiness; this
Emptiness is the Fasting of the Fleart.^
In fact, the heart (which for the Chinese is the organ of the intelli-
gence, of the spirit) “fasts” when, by emptying it of all that comes from
outside, it is given nothing more to absorb, nothing upon which to
reason;
His body is like a block of dead wood;
His heart is like a cold cinder.
He realizes true knowledge;
He does not concern himself with causes.
He has become blind and deaf;
Oh! what a man he is, that one!^^
The “fasting of the heart”, to Chuang-tzu, is the contrary of the
“fasting of sacrifices”, the ritual abstinence which precedes the sacrifices,
just as among Muslim mystics the purification of the soul is the contrary
of ritual purification.

In these ecstasies and in Mystical Union, the Taoist masters of Lao-

tzu’s school passed beyond simple relations with those gods whom one
visits in their abodes, so as to enter into contact, beyond the gods, with
the primary principle of all things, the Tao. Under the influence of the
literati doctrines which I have described above, they conceived this
principle as impersonal and unknowing, at once transcendent and
immanent. They thus arrived at immortality by a kind of short-cut, for,
united with the eternal Tao, they shared its eternity.
The great mass of Taoists did not follow them to these summits. This
mystical and philosophical Taoism could attract only a few very great

7. Ihid., section 27.

8. Ibid., section 4 (text corrected by Yu Yiieh).
9. Ibid., section 22.
 32 Taoism and Chinese Religion

minds; and the great philosopher of the school, Chuang-tzu, one day
found among his disciples a man who came to ask “the way of
preserving life and nothing else”.'^ The great majority of Taoist believers
were in fact devoted to this: avoiding death and making the body last
eternally, such was the goal of almost all those who “studied the Tao”.
For Chuang-tzu, these were merely “men of the world”:

I pity the men of the world, said he, for they think that the
procedures for Nourishing the Body are sufficient to make life last
eternally. In truth. Nourishing the Body will not suffice for that.*'

But the ordinary Taoist did not look at things so closely, and recipes
for immortality multiplied. They were of all kinds: dietetic regimens,
alchemical prescriptions, respiratory procedures, magical formulas,
creeds of all sorts—they tried everything. And since they were not asking
for a spectacular immortality like that of the few great saints who had
been capable of “rising up to heaven in full daylight”, these procedures
seemed adequate to many and found their followers. To be sure, it
was conceded that, in order not to upset social life, in which death
is a normal event, the man who had secured immortality was sup-
posed to make no show of that fact. On the contrary, he had to pretend
to die. In reality he substituted for himself a sword or a cane which
took on the appearance of his body and was buried in his place,
while his body, become immortal, went off to the paradise of the
Immortals.
But even this immortality acquired by an apparent death (which was
called the Deliverance of the Corpse) was not given to all the faithful.
Not only were arduous efforts required to attain it, but also drugs, which
were expensive. The Taoist life, crammed with meticulously detailed
practises, was incompatible with worldly life. Still, Taoism quickly
became a universal religion leading to the salvation of all the faithful
alike, rich or poor, religious or men of the world, so that there were two
degrees in the religious life. Some were content to take part in collective
ceremonies through which one’s sins were washed away and a happy
destiny was prepared in the other world. These were the Taoist People,
tao-niin. To these participatory observances, the second group added
scrupulous observances of personal religion combined with physiological
techniques, seeking after an exalted rank within the hierarchy of the
immortals: these were the Taoist Adepts, tao-shih.

10. Ihid., section 23.

11. Ibid., section 19.
 Chinese Religion in Its llistorieal Development 33

The religious ceremonies of ancient Taoism, before our era, are

unknown to us. Towards the middle of the second century A.D., a master
{tao-shih), Chang Chiieh, had the revelation that the advent of the Great
Peace, t'ai-p'iug, which was to inaugurate paradise on earth, would come
on the day when the Yellow Heaven should replace the Blue Heaven in
the government of the world and that this replacement would occur at
the coming renewal of the sexagenary cycle (the Chinese do not count by
centuries, but by cycles of sixty years), in the year 184 A.D. He began to
preach the repentance of sins and set up ceremonies of public penitence.
The missionaries whom he sent throughout the empire recruited ad-
herents for him by the hundreds of thousands. He had them wear a
turban of yellow- material, so that the Yellow Heaven might recognize
them as belonging to it (from that came the sobriquet Yellow- Turbans,
which was given them): and he required of them an annual tax of five
bushels of rice so as to redeem their past faults (from that came the name
“Doctrine of the Five Bushels of Rice" which remained attached to his
sect). Within tw^enty years, all of eastern China was converted, which is
probably to say that all the various existing Taoist communities joined
with Chang Chiieh’s. But he did not know how to take advantage of his
success. Although an excellent religious leader, he had no capacity as a
military leader. Moreover, he seems to have believed that the Great
Peace would be established spontaneously and without struggle, for it
does not seem that the Yellow Turbans had made any preparation at all
for revolt. In 183 the Han court, disturbed by Chang Chiieh’s progress,
launched an attack upon him. The imperial generals besieged him in the
town where he lived; he was killed there after some months and the
revolt, deprived of its head, was drowned in blood.
There remained some nuclei: one in the north under the orders of one
Chang Yen, who after some twenty years finally surrendered to Wei at
the beginning of the third century; another in the west, led by a
personage named Chang Lu, who lasted about as long and who was
likewise subdued by the future founder of the Wei dynasty in 214 A.D.
Chang Lu’s organization, under different names, was quite similar to
Chang Chiieh's. This identity suggests that both of them had adapted to
their own use the organization of all the Taoist sects which had preceded
theirs, an organization which lasted beyond their attempts at unification.

The outlines of the Taoist church in the time of the Six Dynasties and
under the T’ang still retained many of the features of those in the Yellow
Turbans sect during the Later Han. Towards the sixth century A.D.
believers were grouped by their community of worship into something
 34 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

like parishes. The head of each community was the Master or Instructor,
shill. Functionaries {chu-kuan) formed a hierarchy of three degrees, for
the rich and very pious faithful, for the rich but lukewarm faithful, and
for the faithful who were pious but poor: the Hair-dressed or Hair-
dressed and Capped {nan-kuan and nii-kuan). Patrons {chu-che), and
Disciples with Talismans (lu-sheng). The first and third grades required a
kind of initiation at the age of eighteen years. Functionaries of the first
and second grades were responsible for financial aid to believers who
were in need, especially in case of illness; they had also to bear the
expense of the banquet at the beginning of the year. The ordinary
faithful constituted the Taoist People, tao-min. The Functionaries were
subordinate to the Instructor; they showed this by going to pay him
homage each year on a fixed day, under penalty of demotion within the
hierarchy.
The role of the Instructors was somewhat like that of our parish
priests. Their function was hereditary from father to son and then, if
there were no son, from elder to younger brother, the offspring of wives
of the second rank being excluded. This was the solid framework of the
whole organization; and they are the ancestors of today’s Instructors
insofar as they still exist in certain provinces, such as those De Groot
discovered at Hsia-men (Amoy). They always go under the same title
{shih-kung, locally pronounced sai-gong: “Master Instructor’’) and fulfill
the same role. It is possible that already in those days, as today, the
father began his son’s education and then sent him to a well-known
master for finishing, and that at the age of eighteen he received the initia-
tion which gave him the right to practise.
The religious life of the community was extremely busy. There were
first the annual Three Assemblies, san-lmi, on the seventh days of the
first and of the seventh month and on the fifth day of the tenth month,
for each of the Three Agents, .san-kuan: Heaven, Earth, and Water,
which examined the merits and demerits of men and allotted good or ill
fortune. Then there were the five days of the dead, when ceremonies were
conducted for the welfare of the ancestors (the first of the first month,
the fifth of the fifth month, the seventh of the seventh month, the first of
the tenth month, and a day in the twelfth month). At New Year’s Day
there was a great ceremonial banquet for the growth of the community
during the coming year. To these nine festivals celebrated regularly on
fixed dates were added others with variable dates. Those which were
called “Kitchens”, c/Tu, were religious banquets offered by families to the
Instructor and to a group of the faithful on the occasion of births and
deaths. The “Services”, chiao, were offerings of cakes and pieces of cloth
in order to obtain particular favors: petitions for children or for recovery
 Chinese Religion in Its Ilistorieal Development 35

from illnesses, prayers for rain in lime of drought, thanksgivings for

favors received, and so on. An altar was laid out in the open air, and the
Instructor recited the prayers.
The most important festivals were the Fasts, cluti, designed to cleanse
living believers of their sins, or to deliver the souls of the dead and bring
them salvation. In Han times, the Yellow Turbans had held ceremonies
of purification for sins in which the Master, holding in his hand a
bamboo wand with nine nodes (nine being the number of Heaven), made
incantations over the water which he gave to the sick, who were
prostrated head to ground so as to reflect upon their sins. This was in
order to cure them, since the malady was a punishment for unexpiated
sins. Among the Yellow Turbans of the west, the Hierarch com-
municated the names of the maladies to the Three Agents (Heaven,
Earth, Water) in three “letters to the Three Agents”, one of which was
carried to the peak of a mountain, another buried, and the third
immersed. This was the first rudimentary pattern for the grand festival,
the Fast of the Three Originals, san-yiktn chcti, of following centuries.
Under the Six Dynasties, the origin of all the collective festivals was
attributed to the “Three Chang”, that is, to the chiefs of the Yellow
Turbans in the second century; but their rituals are certainly more recent.
Some of these Fasts were obligatory, such as the Fast of the Golden
Talisman celebrated each year at the sovereign’s will so as to ward otf
disasters, eclipses, floods, famines, and to contribute to establishing the
Great Peace, t’ai-p’ing; and the Fast of the Jade Talisman, the purpose of
which was the salvation of all men, whether believers or not. The others
w'ere celebrated at the demand of the faithful; for example, the Fast of
Mud and Soot, which was designed to cure maladies which were the
consequence of sin, or the Fast of the Yellow Talisman, through which
the souls of ancestors to the seventh generation were delivered from hell.
The Fast of the Yellow Talisman was a long and costly ceremony;
others were cheaper, appropriate to the financial capacity of the poorer
faithful. Yet one need not believe that the great ceremonies were reserved
to wealthy families: the Taoist communities seem to have been quite
united. For the rich it was a pious work to assist the poor in their
sicknesses and miseries, and to help them effect their salvation and that
of their ancestors. Furthermore, the fact that it took at least eight
persons to celebrate the fasts often required that this number be made up
by offering places first to relatives, and then to persons from other
families.

Those who lead a pure life, free of sin, those who repent sincerely of
those sins they have committed and who zealously follow the offices of
 36 Taoism and Chinese Religion

penitence, will be saved: that is to say, they will escape the Dark Prisons.
They do, however, descend to the realm of the Earth Agent, but they
serve there as officials and employees, above the throng of unbelievers
who wallow in the shadows. They can, however, leave that realm only
after being ransomed by their descendants; they then ascend to Heaven,
where they occupy inferior positions in the celestial hierarchy. For the
fact is that all, even though they are faithful Taoists, have in fact died,
and nobody can manage to enter directly into paradise unless he knows
how to evade death. This was the end to which the Taoist Adepts, the
tao-shUh strove to bring themselves through a series of exercises and
practises designed to “nourish the Vital Principle” and render the body
immortal.
I cannot describe all these practises here, for they are innumerable.
The principle was that it was necessary to replace the elements of the
body, which were coarse and in consequence mortal, with elements
which were refined and immortal. All things are made up of Breaths. In
the beginning the Nine Breaths were intermingled in Chaos. When the
world was made, the Breaths were separated: the purest ascended and
formed heaven, the coarsest descended and formed the earth. Man’s
body is made of these coarse Breaths; but what gives him life, what
animates him, is the Original Breath, a pure Breath which penetrates into
him with his first respiration. Upon entering the body, this mixes with
the Essence which every person somehow distills within himself; and this
union forms the Spirit, the guiding principle of existence which lasts as
long as life does and which dissolves at death when Breath and Essence
are separated. This body is like the Universe, made exactly like it and,
like it, filled with divinities who are the same as those of the Universe.
For a man to live eternally, the body must be made to endure, to prevent
the spirit from being undone by the separation of Breath and Essence,
and to keep all the gods within the self so as to maintain the unity of
personality which their dispersal would destroy. From these necessities
came three practises: “to Nourish the Vital Principle”, yang-hsing\ “to
Nourish the Spirit”, yang-shein and “to Concentrate upon the One”,
sliou-yi.

In order to “Nourish the Vital Principle”, it is necessary to ward off

the causes of death: the chief of these is cereals, for the breath of cereals
causes maleficent demons, the Three Worms or Three Corpses, to be
born inside us. Of these three demons, one gnaws at the brain, the
second at the heart, the third at the viscera, and thus they cause our
death. “To give up cereals” is the essential dietetic rule; it is accompanied
by drugs and by respiratory exercises, the purpose of which is to achieve
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Developtnetn 37

“Feeding upon Breath". Little by little the coarse breaths of the body are
replaced by the pure Original Breath. The body becomes light and, when
the replacement is complete, one becomes immortal. Alchemy aids in this
too: when perfectly pure cinnabar is ingested, the bones then turn to gold
and the flesh to jade, and the body is incorruptible.
Yet more, by feeding on Breaths, one reinforces the Breath in oneself;
by guiding the Breath, drawn in through the nose, down through the
body to the belly where it is mixed with the Essence, and by making it go
back up through the spinal marrow to the brain, the union of Breath and
Essence is reinforced and one “Nourishes the Spirit”, preventing it from
dissolving.
Einally, by concentration, meditation, and ecstasy, one enters into
relation with the gods within oneself. First one sees petty gods of no
importance; in proportion to one's progress, one sees more significant
gods; when one sees the great Triad of gods who reside in the center of
the brain, immortality is assured. Some men desire yet more: after
having practised that controlled meditation which leads into relation
with the gods, they go still farther and, in their meditation, they entrust
the Spirit to itself after having emptied it of all influence from the
exterior world. These, Joining the great masters of Lao-tzu's school,
attain mystical union with the Tao. Indissolubly united with the Tao,
they have no need of a body to be immortal. They share in the
omnipotence of the Tao, they are masters of life and death, of transform-
ing themselves at will and of transforming the world. But, like the tao,
they have no will of their own and practise Non-Action; they let the
world follow its “way", its tao, which is the best possible when nobody
interferes. They renounce all personal immortality and submerge them-
selves in the tao. They are the great saints of Taoism.

4. Biuldhistn
At the very moment when it seemed that Taoism must triumph and
become the national religion of the Chinese, a foreign religion was
introduced into China with so little fanfare that a hundred years later
nobody any longer knew how and when it had first appeared.
Buddhism, of course, came from India. It was born there in about the
sixth or fifth century B.C. and enjoyed a brief triumph there in the third
century, when king Asoka, who had just unified a large part of India into
one empire, was converted. It had then had a less imposing but still
remarkable political career in northern and northwestern India under
Greek, then Parthian, then Kushan dynasts who ruled successively in the
 3S Taoism and Chinese Relif^ion

Indus Valley after Alexander’s conquest. The Greek king Menander in

the second century B.C. and the Kushan king Kanishka in the first or
second century A.D. have left their reputations as pious converts in
Buddhist traditions. By the conversion of the Kushans, whose empire
extended north as far as Bactria, Buddhism had begun to spread beyond
India and, by way of the great commercial routes of Central Asia, it
reached the small kingdoms then centered in the oases of the Tarim
Basin.
The Chinese conquered the lands of Central Asia at the end of the
second century B.C., thereupon entering into direct relations with Bactria,
Parthia, and India. The Kushan kings sent ambassadors, and it was no
doubt around this time that, following along with the traders who
brought Khotan jade, as well as the carpets of Persia and Kashmir, to
China and who carried Chinese silk back to the West, the first mis-
sionaries entered China. In the middle of the first century A.D. there was
a Buddhist community established at the court of a feudatory prince, the
king of Ch’u, whose apanage included the north of modern Kiangsu
province. A century later another community at Loyang, the capital, was
flourishing enough to attract the attention of the emperor Huan, who in
about 140 carried out Buddhist and Taoist ceremonies in the palace.
Around this time also, in the middle of the second century, the first
translations of Buddhist books into Chinese were made.

Buddhism brought to China a new doctrine of salvation. This caused

the Chinese initially to perceive it as a barbarian variant of Taoism, so
that it recruited its first devotees from among Taoists, although the two
doctrines were in fact not only very different but almost directly
opposite in all fundamental points. The Taoists sought the survival of
the human personality; Buddhism denied the very existence of the
personality: for the Buddhists there was no Me. Taoists claimed to make
the body last indefinitely and to render it immortal; for the Buddhists the
body, like all created things, is essentially impermanent. More than that,
it has only a nominal existence—is a mere “designation”, as they say—
and the only things which have a real existence are the simple elements
which make it up.
But these profound doctrinal differences were not perceived, while
certain outward facts were striking in their resemblance; in public
ceremonies a worship without sacrifice and, in private observances, the
importance of meditation, not to speak of such special practises as, for
example, respiratory exercises and fasting. At that time there existed a
legend of Lao-tzu which portrayed him as departing for the West
mounted upon an ox, an idea in no way extraordinary since the paradise
 Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development 39

of the Immortals, the domain of the Queen-Mother of the West, Hsi-

wang-mu, lies west of the world. It was believed that on his way out
there he had converted the barbarians and that this was the origin of
Buddhism. It took several centuries to undeceive the Chinese on this
point.
But Buddhism is rather a complicated religion for oral preaching: and
the work of translation which alone could really make it known proved
to be extremely difficult. In Han times the Chinese language, though it
had been made pliant by an already considerable literature, could still
express philosophical ideas only with difficulty. What was most trouble-
some was that, since the words were invariable, it was impossible to
render precisely those abstract words in which the Buddhist vocabulary
abounds, so translators had to put up with approximations. Even
physically, moreover, the task of translation was carried out under
irksome conditions. The missionary, even if he learned spoken Chinese,
could not learn how to write it; he had to accept the aid of a team of
natives who were meant to put his oral explanations into the correct
written characters. A multitude of errors and blunders must necessarily
have resulted.
The translations really improved only when there were masters, either
Chinese or foreigners, who knew both languages. It was only at the
beginning of the fifth century A.D. that a Central Asian monk,
Kumarajiva, under the protection of an emperor who was himself
barbarian in origin, organized a translation bureau far superior to any
which had preceded it. He published new books, retranslated books
which had been badly translated, disseminated his works in immense
quantities, and had a tremendous influence. It was from this moment on
that Buddhism really took wing and began to rival Taoism in earnest.
Thereafter translations continued more and more numerous and more
and more accurate until about the eighth century. Various translation
bureaus took up Kumarajiva’s work again at intervals, especially that of
Paramartha in the middle of the sixth century, those of Hsiian-tsang
towards the second half of the seventh century and of Yi-ching at the end
of the seventh and the beginning of the eighth centuries, and that of
Amoghavajra in the beginning of the eighth century. Their labor was
considerable, and that of translators working separately was no less.
It cannot be said that this enormous work contributed much to the
specifically religious evolution of Buddhism in China. The translations of
the masterpieces of the Buddhist teachers of India—those of Nagarjuna
in the fifth century, those (then quite new) of Asanga and of Vasubandhu
in the sixth century—provided important themes to Chinese philosoph-
ical speculation, not only Buddhist, but also Taoist and even Con-
 40 Taoism and Chinese Religion

fucianist, and thereby they profoundly affected Chinese thought. But the
effects upon the development of religion itself were far less than those of
the period when Buddhism was introduced. Almost all of the Buddhism
that has passed over into Chinese religion came in at the start, during the
Han and Three Kingdoms periods, when Buddhism was half confused
with Taoism. It was Taoism which, in making certain Buddhist notions
its own by reducing them to a rather unsophisticated but readily
assimilable form, made them accessible to the Chinese masses. The
remainder was to be introduced during the Buddhist renaissance under
the Sui and the T'ang, through the T'ien-t’ai sect, that of the Dhyana
(cITan-tsung), and the Tantric sect {chen-yen-tsung): but this renewal was
essentially monastic, and its effect upon lay devotees was felt only
gradually and slightly.
Many Chinese monks, ill-satisfied with the books they had, traveled to
India amidst a multitude of perils in order to get others. Fa-hsien
traveled for fifteen years, from 399 to 414, to seek books concerning
monastic discipline there; Hsiian-tsang in the seventh century and,
several years after him, Yi-ching brought back whole libraries which they
translated after returning. Nor did the flow of Indian missionaries stop,
even when the Arab conquest of Persia severed the great pilgrim route by
way of Central Asia; they still came by sea for several centuries.
In the meantime, however, within India itself. Buddhism slowly
declined. It had flourished especially in the northwestern territories, and
the Muslim conquest in Mahmud of Ghazni’s time and in the following
centuries, struck it a fatal blow. But by that time China had absorbed all
of Buddhism that she could take in.

Buddhism arrived in China possessing a history that was already

lengthy, so that both doctrine and practise were well established. Like all
the religious schools of India at the time, it accepted the belief to which
we improperly apply the word “transmigration”. Man and all living
beings, according to this doctrine, are reborn after death into another
body for a happy or an unhappy existence depending upon actions
performed in preceding existences. Whoever has done good is reborn
among the gods or men; whoever has done evil is reborn as animal or
demon. The wheel of transmigration turns ceaselessly, and nobody can
ever escape the consequences of his actions. Existence resembles the
situation of a man suspended by a fragile root above a pit full of fire,
with a venomous serpent waiting above his head; but in this wretched
position a few drops of honey fall from a hive on a branch above his
head and, forgetting all his perils, man struggles to catch them as they
 Chinese Religion in Its Hisiorieal Development 4!

pass. Such is the condition of man entangled in the bonds of sensual

existence.
Existence is sufiering, and from life to life that suffering grows. To get
out of this accumulation of suffering there is but one way, the one that
the Buddha has discovered. It is the way that leads to Nirvana, which is
existence unconditioned, the only mode of existence which is permanent
and which does not lead on to death followed by rebirth. Thus deliver-
ance is possible only for him who believes in the word of'the Buddha and
practises his law, as transmitted by the Community of the faithful. From
that belief comes the profession of faith, the Three Refuges: “I take
refuge in the Buddha, 1 take refuge in the Law, I take refuge in the
Community." To lead a moral life, to abstain from the five sins, the chief
of which are lust and the killing of living creatures (animals as well as
men), is the first step on this path.
But it is only the first step. Good actions lead only to good rewards;
they do not lead to Nirvana, for they do not interrupt the consequences
of actions, they do not cut the roots of evil. What produces the rebirth of
beings after death is their thirst for life. It is this thirst which causes the
production of a new body for a new existence. It is necessary to end this
thirst through detachment and through the renunciation of all perishable
things.
For that, one must understand that all things are impermanent and
that the Me has no real existence. Consequently neither things nor Me
are deserving of attachment. Every thing is impermanent, has but a
momentary existence: this moment's color is not that of the moment
before nor of that after; produced by the preceding and producing the
following one, it is similar but not the same. So it is with all phenomena:
with feeling, for example. Composed beings and things have not even that
ephemeral existence; they have no reality whatever; only their constituent
elements exist. Thus the Me is a composed thing, since if it is examined
one sees that it is neither visual sensation, nor auditory sensation, nor
tactile sensation, nor thought, nor will, nor action, but that it is
composed out of all these elements and of others as well. It has thus no
reality whatever. There is no Me. There is only a series of successive
conditions being produced and destroyed at every moment. At death, the
constituent elements come undone, but not without having produced
another series of new elements which will appear as a new Me, having no
more autonomous existence than the first.
The schools whose ideas had the greatest success in China went yet
farther: they denied the reality of the constituent elements themselves.
According to the doctrine of the Greater Vehicle (that was the name
 42 Taoism and Chinese Religion

which its schools gave themselves, so as to point up their larger

conception of the methods of salvation, those of the rival schools being
stigmatized as Lesser Vehicle), nothing really exists: it is within the mind
of the living being that all phenomena are produced, and it is that being’s
ignorance which leads it to take them for real. Each of us thus creates for
himself a happy or unhappy world, a paradise or a hell, not as he pleases
but in consequence of his earlier actions which do not leave him the
liberty to think what would be agreeable to him. It is enough to realize
the impermanence and unreality of phenomena and of the Me, and one is
delivered. The damned person who could comprehend that hell is of his
own creation would cease to think hell and would be delivered; but the
power of his sins prevents him from seeing this. All beings are always in
Nirvana, but they do not realize it; they need not seek to attain it as an
external object, but to grasp it in the depths of their own being; when
they comprehend it, they will be saved. Yet this comprehension is not a
mere intellectual, reasoned knowledge. We have to go beyond intellectual
knowledge and to apprehend truth directly by intuition in contem-
plation. By repeated exercises in one or more existences, one rises from
degree to degree, even to the highest spheres of contemplation; and since
contemplation is an exclusively pure act, one which produces no retri-
butions—or rather the retribution for which consists in correcting the
consequences of previous actions—one will arrive at Nirvana, the only
permanent reality.
Nirvana is a mode of unconditioned existence, which is in fact neither
existence nor non-existence, thus at the same time escaping imperman-
ence (since it is not existence) and annihilation (since it is not non-
existence). But the Saint in his great compassion, when close to Nirvana,
does not enter it; he remains in the world, or comes back to it during
unnumbered ages, in order to save all living beings. Everyone is called to
become a Buddha some day and to pursue that career of salvation for
himself and for others. The career commences on the day when, in one
or another of his successive existences, he takes the Three Refuges with
faith; it will end after more or less lengthy ages according to how
zealously he continues the practise of the religion thereafter.
In this long and magnificent career of the future Buddha, only the
beginnings have a practical interest: as soon as he has passed through the
lower degrees of contemplation, the Bodhisattva (that is what the future
Buddha is called in Sanskrit) does not backslide again. He is detached
from desire and covetousness, freed of the passions, and is no longer
reborn in our World of Desire, the lowest of the three worlds of Buddhist
cosmology. And if some monks, in China, sometimes made this doctrine
the center of their religious life, the great mass of the faithful were
 Chinese Religion in Its Hislorieal Development 43

content with less and sought simply to assure themselves, for future
existences, either rebirth in heaven among the gods or at the least a
human condition in happy circumstances. For that it was sufheient to
cultivate certain practises, one of the most important of which was the
Gift—that is to say, almsgiving.

Like Taoism, Buddhism distinguished two levels of religious life:

monastic life and the life of the laity. The monk renounced marriage and
the possession of goods of his own, lived by alms, ate only once a day
(before noon), practised meditation, and thus progressed in the way of
deliverance. Chinese monks of the sixth or seventh century were to be
seen striding up and down on the routes of Asia amid a thousand
dangers, to accomplish the most excellent of pious works, “the Gift of
the Law”, in bringing books back to their country, and in translating
them. Others, between the seventh and twelfth centuries, sought salva-
tion in contemplation alone and founded that school of the Dhyana,
ch’an in Chinese, which has become famous in Europe under its Japanese
name, zen. They believed that even in this life they could by contem-
plation attain the highest levels of religious life, and even momentarily
the condition of Buddha.
But lay devotees were content with pious works which would earn
them good rewards. The Indian paradise could not have greatly tempted
the Chinese, with their more sober imagination. But certain Buddhas had
created paradises more chaste than that of Indra: Maitreya the Messiah,
and above all Amitabha, whose paradise is in the West. Whoever, once
in his life, thinks fervently upon Buddha Amitabha will go after death to
that Pure Land of the West, where the soil is of gold and silver, where
the plants bear the seven precious stones as fruit, where a delicious
breeze stirs the jade leaves of the trees into a charming music, where one
is not born but blossoms in a lotus bud, thus at one stroke avoiding birth
and death, and freed from transmigration. Confraternities of the de-
votees of Amitabha were formed very early, and these gathered together
for pious exercises, for prayers in common. Some of them, unsure of
their powers of concentration, had themselves walled up in a little cell
having only a small opening for food; and there they remained without
seeing anyone for weeks or months, meditating in solitude and thinking
upon Amitabha.
Even without pushing devotion that far, the worship of the Buddha
and of the saints is a pious work in itself, productive of good rewards.
The worship of the great Bodhisattvas, future Buddhas of this world or
of another, highly compassionate saviors of living beings, experienced a
great development under purely Chinese names translated from the
 44 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Sanskrit: Avalokitesvara became Kuan-yin, who saves all who call upon
her from all perils—lire, brigands, wild beasts, and above all sudden
death; Kshitigarbha became Ti-tsang, the Bodhisattva who ranges the
hells indefatigably, delivering the damned.

Worship was very simple: adoration and offerings of flowers and

incense; complicated ceremonies were for use by monks, and not for the
laity. But Taoism offered its lay adepts so many great ceremonies with so
great a success that its example dragged Buddhism along. Penitence
ceremonies of the Taoist kind appeared: ceremonies for dead ancestors,
which indeed seem to have been purely Chinese; a festival for deliverance
of all creatures from evil destinies, from hells, from the condition of
famished demons; and so on.
These never had the violent and passionate character of the Taoist
ceremonies. According to tradition, song and music had been forbidden
by Buddha: as a rule the observance consisted of recitations of the sacred
books, with prayers chanted to a simple melody, and offerings of flowers,
cakes, and incense before the statue of Buddha, aecompanied with
gestures by the presiding officiants, which had a symbolic or magical
value. The faithful attended and recited prayers along with the ofiiciants,
but without ever playing the essential role which they had in Taoist
ceremony. Sometimes, however, the ceremony became a bit more lively,
though without leaving this framework; a pantomime represented the
aetions which the narrator reeited. At the ceremony for the salvation of
dead ancestors, a bonze wearing a bonnet in the shape of a lotus flower
and holding in his hand the kliakkliara, the “rod of pewter” as the
Chinese eall it, a staff with sounding rings, acted out in dance Ti-tsang
journeying through the hells and forcing the demons to open the prisons
where the damned are shut up; and, to denote the opening of each door
he smashed a terra-cotta bowl with a blow' of his staff. The dead man
freed by him crossed the infernal river in a boat, and apprentice monks
mimed the movements of the rowers, spicing their chants with jests
which were more or less risque. For the deliverance of the drowned, fleets
of lotus-flowers made of paper were released upon the river, each bearing
a lighted candle so that the drowned could use them as boats to “cross
over to the other shore” and be delivered. These festivals, many of which
are still celebrated today, gave the faithful the deep personal religious life
which they sought, without lapsing into Taoist outbursts.

Of all the good actions which bring good rewards, almsgiving is the
best; and the most fruitful alms are those given to the Community. Thus
donations of land, of houses, of money too, were frequent. A sixth
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 45

century emperor several limes gave himself to the monks as slave of the
Community and then bought himself back at considerable cost. Another
emperor, who died by assassination very young after a most tormented
life, had made the monks large charitable gifts of land and money,
accompanying these with a vow that never, in any of his future ex-
istences, would he be reborn into a family of emperors or kings. By these
repeated generosities from sovereigns and private citizens, the monas-
teries were enriched.

The first converts were initially grouped into lay communities around
a missionary and the small place of worship where, by the simple fact
that he lived there with several images and several books brought from
the West, he had set up the Three Refuges; the Buddha, his Law, and his
Community. The small chapel became a monastery in the third century,
when Chinese commenced to take the vows in great numbers; and the
monasteries became numerous and wealthy in proportion to the growth
in the number of adepts and to their practising the virtue of almsgiving
by bestowing lands, houses, slaves, and money upon the monks. As early
as the fourth century some of them were very large, endowed with
considerable real property, and filled with many learned monks. The
emperors of all the dynasties, emulating one another, exempted them
from taxes, together with their lands and their dependents. This was also
a source of wealth, for many small proprietors made their goods over
or sold them fictitiously to monasteries, on condition that they be
kept on there as tenant-farmers paying a small rent. Thus they succeeded
in being exempted from taxes, from corvee labor, and from military
service.
Each monastery was governed by an abbot, assisted by a treasurer,
wei-ua. and by various dignitaries. Their authority did not extend beyond
the monastery itself, nor did it bear upon others than the monks and
dependents of the temple. But it was all the more etfective in that, until
the seventh century, the emperors granted them a privilege of ecclesias-
tical jurisdiction over those attached to the temple, lay tribunals being
excluded. Those belonging to a temple had the right to be judged by their
own disciplinary rules and not according to the secular code, even for
offenses liable to civil law. But Buddhism never imposed upon its laity
either the subordination or the fixed taxes vis-a-vis the religious chiefs
which the Taoist church required. The influence of the great Buddhist
abbots, often considerable, was never due to anything but their moral
stature. The division of the Buddhist community into monks and lay
members was always far clearer than that between simple adepts and
regular devotees in old-time Taoism. For the Buddhists, the true reli-
 46 Taoism and Chinese Religion

gioLis life was the monastic life, and secular life was no more than a
makeshift.

Buddhism and Taoism struggled bitterly over the centuries for the
conquest of souls in China. Both, indeed, addressed themselves ob-
viously to the same clientele, among whom religious feeling prevailed
over formalistic worship and public worship was only a form of personal
religion; and consequently they collided constantly.
Taoism, which had had considerable success in the Han and Three
Kingdoms periods, did not easily forgive Buddhism for seizing from it a
sizeable segment of its followers. For their part, the Buddhists were
irritated to see themselves constantly represented by their adversaries
as Taoists who had misunderstood the doctrine of their master. The
discussions between them rarely addressed fundamental questions, but
rather points of detail.

One of the most debated points was determining whether the Buddha
had been Lao-tzu’s master or his disciple. At the beginning of the fourth
century, a tao-shih named Wang Fu (or Wang Fou) wrote a “Book on
the Conversion of the Barbarians by Lao-tzu”, Lao-tzu liua-hu dung,
taking up again a legend already known to Lieh-tzu in the third century
B.C., that of Lao-tzu’s departure for the West (that is to say, for the
paradise of the Immortals). Wang Fu related how Lao-tzu, seeing the
decadence of the Chou, had left China, taking with him as disciple the
guardian of the frontier pass, Yin Hsi. Arriving at the Land of the West,
he converted the king of the Hu (Western Barbarians) and the king of
Chi-pin (northwestern India) by his miraculous powers, presenting his
disciple as an Immortal with the rank of Buddha. Later, when Sakya-
muni had entered the world, Lao-tzu had sent the same Yin Hsi to him,
under the name of Ananda, to watch over him. And finally, after the
Nirvana of the Buddha, Lao-tzu had come down himself, under the
name of Mahakasyapa, to preside over the council in which the Buddhist
scriptures were set in order. Thus each religion and each personage was
set in its place: Lao-tzu was the supreme teacher, who watched over the
purity of Taoist law and descended into this world to preach it; Yin Hsi
and Sakyamuni became Immortals of high rank, whom Lao-tzu had
made responsible for preaching this law to the Western Barbarians
because they were not worthy of the painstaking effort with which he
himself had taught it to them. From all this it could be inferred that,
if Buddhism differed from Taoism, it was either because it had been
preached by masters of a lower rank or because the rather unintelligent
barbarians had misunderstood the doctrine.
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 47

This pamphlet was hardly palatable to the Buddhists. Therefore they

related how one of their members. Master of the Law Po Yiian, then
very famous, had refuted Wang Fu’s tale and reduced the author to
silence. Certain Buddhist circles were so moved by this that one believer,
who died about this time but revived, beheld Po Yuan in the hells
preaching the Buddhist doctrine to Yama, the king of the dead, while
Wang Fu was tortured by demons.
The wrangling over this theme resumed in a slightly different form
over the “Dissertation upon the Barbarians and the Chinese”, Yi-hsia
lun, by Ku Fluan (died about 483), concerning which debate went on for
half a century. In it the author contended that, if Buddhism is good for
the barbarians, the Chinese have Taoism, which is far superior. The idea,
not expressed but suggested, was that the two religions were basically
identical and that the differences turned simply upon the fact that the bar-
barians, who were inferior to the Chinese, did not deserve so complete a
revelation. These debates were violent enough to attract the attention of
several emperors who were wavering between Buddhism and Taoism.

The real basis of the respective doctrines was hardly discussed, a fact
which is easily explained. If the precise, concrete Taoist doctrines
regarding immortality and the gods were easy to expound, the Buddhist
notion of Nirvana surely was not, nor indeed, to push the matter
somewhat farther, was transmigration. Since the Me does not exist, what
is it that transmigrates from one life to another? And by the same token,
when the saint escapes transmigration, what remains of him to enter into
Nirvana? These questions, concerning which even the different schools of
Buddhism in India were not agreed, and which could be discussed only
by bringing into play the subtlest resources of so developed a philo-
sophical language as Sanskrit, became almost impossible to express in
Chinese. This could be seen when (a rare event) discussion arose over a
basic issue, the Immortality of the Spirit.
This was a pretty confusion. The question discussed was not whether
anything of man survived after death. On that point all were agreed in
China, despite divergences of detail. For the Taoists, the human souls
(three him and seven p’o) lived on and went to dwell within the Dark
Prisons of Agent Earth. The Confucianists, for their part, called sheu the
spiritual element which lived in the funerary tablet during the sacrifices
to the ancestors. And the Buddhists, who believed in transmigration,
recognized the existence of something that transmigrated, although they
were hard pressed to explain in Chinese what this thing was. The whole
quarrel arose out of the word shen, “spirit”, which each party used in a
different sense. For the Taoists, the spirit was a material element, formed
 4H Taoism ami Chinese Religion

out of the union of the original external Breath, which entered into man
at his tirst respiration, with the internal Essence peculiar to everyone.
Produced at birth, it disappeared at death, when the breath separated
from the Essence. During life it was what governed man, what possessed
awareness, what caused man to act well or badly. The Confucian literati
were hardly concerned with the origin of the shen, or of its role within
man, taking account of it only after death for the purpose of funerary
sacrifices. It is probably because this Confucianist word seemed to them
most adequate that the Buddhists, seeking a Chinese term to designate
that uncertain element which transmigrates from life to life (the Me not
being permanent), defined it sometimes as shih-shen, the Knowing Spirit.
However, as they became aware of the plurality and the unimportance of
the Taoist souls, they had to abandon that word which they had
originally selected.
Thus the word shen had a different meaning in each of the three religions.
Furthermore, “the extinction of the spirit", shen-niich, meant something
different for each of them. For the Taoists, the extinction was expressed
by death; yet, according to them, the purpose of religion was to avoid
death, and the faithful knew how to make their spirit last eternally. The
doctrine of the Extinction of the shen was thus rather a threat raised
against the practises of unbelievers and of the wicked than a fear for the
faithful, who were well protected against this misfortune. Moreover, the
misfortune did not consist in the suppression of all survival, but in the
fact that happy survival in Paradise was impossible, the souls descending
into the hells. For the Buddhists and the Literati, on the other hand, the
Extinction of the Spirit meant the suppression of all survival after death.
Thus Buddhism and Confucianism found themselves allied against
Taoism, even though taking everything into consideration it was the
Confucianists who were the true unbelievers, the only ones for whom
ongoing life after death was a matter of doubt. A dispute like this could
not possibly get anywhere, the discussions dragging on indefinitely
without result.

All these were merely discussions among the religious, interesting

neither the Taoist nor the Buddhist public, and perhaps still less the
Literati. For the mass of the faithful. Buddhism and Taoism were valued
mainly as rules for salvation, and all these distinctions were hardly
perceived. Among the religious, Taoist immortality in the Heaven of
Sublime Purity, defined as being “above form", hsing erh shang, could in
theory merge with life in the Buddhist heaven of Brahma, Fan-t’ie/u a
heaven which is situated in the “formless" world {wu-se-chieh: anipyaci-
 Chinese Relii^ion in I is Uistorieal Develop/nenl 49

hatu) and which is the hnal stage of existence before gaining Nirvana.
Believers did not see so far and were satisfied with immortality, whether
it was in the Taoist Paradise of Hsi-wang-mii or in that of the Buddha
Amitayus, whose name in Chinese means “the Buddha of the Infinitely
Long Life", Wu-liang-shou Fo. Between these paradises, both concrete
and comprehensible (and both alike situated in the West), they made
little distinction. Buddhists like Taoists, they desired above all to be
saved, to obtain salvation whatever it was, a blissful eternity; and the
difference between the two religions was never very clear outside certain
learned circles.
Among the religious, however, the antagonism became ever livelier.
Pamphlets proliferated, ridiculing the doctrines or the ceremonies of the
opposite camp. Sometimes they were able to have the emperor intervene,
making the theologians of the two religions argue before him and
judging between them somehow or other. The emperors of the T’ang
dynasty had the same family name as Lao-tzu, and the Taoists of the
seventh century strove to make capital of this dubious relationship.
Several emperors of that dynasty sought the drug of immortality.
Nevertheless, it was Buddhist monks who were most constantly in favor,
despite a violent persecution in 845, when all the monasteries were closed
and monks and nuns were forced to return to lay status.

At the same time when they were thus locked in opposition, the two
religions were also intermingling. A whole interplay of mutual influences
was carried on between them, modifying both, and more than one idea
passed unnoticed from one to the other. We know' what importance the
idea of revealed sacred books takes on in Taoism. The entire Taoist
literature is an inspired literature, dictated to men by the gods. The hrst
centuries of our era were in China a period of intense spiritual efferves-
cence in which “psychic" phenomena occurred constantly and spread
like a contagion across every stratum of the population.
On this point the Buddhists had no need to envy the Taoists. Right at
the beginning of Buddhist propaganda, in the first years of the third
century, the wife of a certain Ting of Chi-yin, having fallen ill, suddenly
took to speaking Sanskrit and, seizing paper and brush, wrote in
Sanskrit a book of twenty chapters, which a man from Central Asia later
recognized as a Buddhist sutni. Another event is more interesting because
it w'as reported by a contemporary. A Master Scholar of the Supreme
School had a daughter who died in 505 A.D. and who, between the ages
of nine and sixteen years, dictated some twenty Buddhist works in
Chinese which had been revealed to her:
 50 Taoism and Chinese Religion

There were moments when, closing her eyes and seated in medit-
ation, she recited these books; or she perhaps declared that she had
ascended to heaven, or again that a god had given her these books.
She pronounced the words in a very distinct way, as if she had
learned them beforehand; but when anybody was given the task of
writing them down, she stopped immediately, resuming only at the
end of several tens of days or several months.

She thus recited four works at the age of nine, three at ten, two at twelve,
three at thirteen, one at fifteen, and three at sixteen.'
A century and half later, one of the Buddhist monks of the seventh
century, Tao-hsiian, had a series of visions at the end of his life. The
gods paid him visits, conversed with him, and brought him revelations of
all kinds, which he wrote down and which one of his disciples published
after his death, which occurred in 667.“ This is precisely the same way in
which, towards the middle of the sixth century, the famous Taoist writer
T’ao Hung-ching and his disciple saw Taoist Immortals appear to them
and dictate to them revelations which they in turn had received from the
gods or from other Immortals.
A tendency towards a certain syncretism made itself evident. While the
Buddhists did not admit that Sakyamuni Buddha be made into a disciple
of Lao-tzu, some of them made Lao-tzu into a Bodhisattva. Confucius
himself was portrayed by some as a disciple of Buddha come to China to
preach the Law. But these ideas never gained much influence and they
disappeared almost completely during the T’ang dynasty.
If certain Taoist practises were introduced into Buddhism, a number
of Buddhist notions and practises, going the other way, penetrated into
Taoism. Thus in the sixth century Sung Wen-ming imposed celibacy
upon his disciples, after the manner of Buddhist monks, and this practise
spread so widely that in T’ang times the communities of married tao-shih
had disappeared, and all the Taoist kuan were filled with celibate monks
or nuns. Certain Buddhist ideas were even accepted by the Literati,
though they did not go so far as to admit them into Confucian doctrine.
A scholar of the second half of the fifth century, seduced by the Buddhist
doctrine of successive lives, tried to justify this from the Classics in a
little essay entitled “A Treatise on Rebirths”, Keng-sheng lun. Since things
are limited in number, he said, just as the Yi ching says (the Yi clung
enumerates 11,520 things), if the world is to continue to exist, the same

1. For these two anecdotes, see Ch’u san-tsang chi-chi, ch. 5, p. 40. T/K, vol. 55, no. 2145.
2. Peri, BEFEO, xvi, iii, 46.
 Chinese Relif^ion in Its Historieal Development 51

things must return several times, being born and dying, being reborn and
dying again without cease.
By that time the doctrine of transmigration had ceased to be purely
Buddhist; it had won its way into Taoism and was accepted widely
throughout the population. What is more, the Taoist conception of the
gods was transformed under the influence of Buddhism. Whatever their
theoretical significance was, these gods over whom everybody kept watch
within his body, so as to prevent their escaping, could not enjoy any
great prestige. The roles of the highest among them, whose precise
location within the body was relatively vague—the Celestial King of the
Original Beginning, Yikm-shih t’ien-wang, and other Celestial Kings—
were gradually reconceived in an entirely new way, an evolution marked
by the adoption of a new^ title, Buddhist in origin. They were called
Celestial Venerables, t’ien-tsim, an expression which is the Chinese
translation of one of the Buddha's titles but which became so clearly
Taoist that Buddhists abandoned it and replaced it by shih-tsun,
“Venerated of the World". The role of the Celestial Venerables, trans-
formed in imitation of the role of the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas at the
same time, was from then on conceived primarily as a role of teachers
and saviors. The greatest of them all, the Celestial Venerable of the
Original Beginning, Yikin-sliili t’ien-tsuiu teaches the sacred books to the
gods, who pass them on to one another from level to level until they
reach men; it is he who saves the souls locked up in the Dark Prisons of
the hells and lets them escape. The gods of old-time Taoism grew dim
before these new divinities imitated from Buddhism. Huang lao-chiin,
who had been the principal god of the Yellow Turbans and the Taoists
of the Han, the Three Kingdoms, and the Chin dynasties, gave way little
by little to the Celestial Venerable of the Original Beginning, who is
highest in rank in the “Books of the Sacred Jewel”, Ling-pao citing, and
whose importance grew uninterruptedly from the fourth and fifth cen-
turies on.
Out of this jumble of Buddhist and Taoist ideas modern popular
religion commenced to take shape little by little, a religion in which these
ideas were arranged as well as they could be within the framework of
traditional practises. Mythology was transformed; the divinities took on
a particular character under this double intUience. Indeed, for Taoists as
for Buddhists, the gods were men who had obtained a divine status by
their merits. In the Taoist hierarchy, the petty earth gods of the ancient
religion—divinities of rivers, of mountains, and so forth—came to be
ranked below’ the Immortals: they were among the faithful who had not
succeeded in winning immortality and avoiding death but whose merits
 52 Taoism and Chinese Religion

nevertheless deserved some recompense. Having died, they had escaped

the hells and received these divine positions, from which their efforts
would allow them to rise to the rank of Immortal. Likewise the Buddhist
gods were men whose good works had merited the felicity of the
heavenly paradises for a time. For the one group as for the other, the
situation of these gods was only temporary, though with the difference
that the Taoist god left that status as soon as he had acquired new- merits
which allowed him to rise higher, while the Buddhist god lost his
position when his earlier merits were used up.
Thus the notion was gradually established in the Chinese spirit that
divine titles are functions which successive incumbents fill in the course
of the ages. The gods were only men made divine. In heaven, the Lord
on High yielded place to the Jade Emperor; on earth, the earth gods
became gods of walls and ditches, c/Teng-huang, who were historical or
legendary heroes turned into gods. Finally, in the world of the dead, the
Buddhist hell, with its judge of the dead, king Yama, Yen-lo, and his cells
in which the various kinds of sins were separately punished, was
substituted for the Taoist hell of the Dark Prisons, in which all the souls
of the dead were crowded together in darkness, good and wicked
higgledy-piggledy, under the dominion of Agent Earth, Ti-kuan. When
in 592 Han Ch'in, a high official of the Sui dynasty, famed for his equity
and uprightness, was on the point of death, the rumor spread throughout
the capital that he was going to be Yama in hell: that is, he was going to
succeed to that position while the man who had held it till then was to be
reborn elsewhere. A woman told how she had seen great numbers of
guards before Han Ch'in’s gate, as if before a king’s palace; and when
she had asked them who they were, they replied, “We have come to seek
the king!" A sick man even presented himself at Han Ch’in's dwelling
and asked to be presented to the king. “What king?" asked the servants.
“King Yama!" Han Ch’in himself accepted these rumors as a tribute
paid to his justice. “In my life to have been a minister; after my death
to be king Yama—that’s enough for me!" he said when he heard the
reports.

In struggling against one another. Buddhism and Taoism had ex-

hausted their strength. Each was powerful enough to prevent the
triumph of the other but not to secure its own. So when, under the T’ang
and Sung dynasties, Confucianism, long lagging behind both, managed
to establish its definitive doctrine, it found confronting it only worn-out
adversaries which offered no really serious resistance. Confucianism,
having already the advantage of being the official doctrine, had no
trouble in gaining the upper hand over the other two religions. However,
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieu! Development 53

it hardly penetrated into the popular masses, who took from it, as from
the two other religions, only isolated elements in the curious effort of
syncretism through which they labored to create a living religion in
modern times.

5. Confucianism
While Taoism and Buddhism contended for those who desired a per-
sonal religion and those inclined to mysticism, men who by contrast had
a rationalist bent sought with great difficulty to sketch out a satisfactory
atheistic theory of religion. 1 have already spoken above of the origins of
this tendency. Its representatives did not wish the gods to possess a
personal and conscious will, since it seemed to them that such a will must
necessarily be arbitrary and capricious. They brought the gods back to
being magico-religious forces such as they found already in their very
own religion, impersonal and unconscious forces which followed their
constant Way, their tcio, from which nothing could turn them aside.
Their progress w'as slow. In the centuries immediately preceding and
following the time of Christ—during the period of the Warring King-
doms, under the Ch’in dynasty and under the Han—personal religion, so
recently discovered, was a source of constantly renewed joy for religious
minds, and one which they were not disposed to abandon. In the course
of their collective ceremonies they gave themselves over, not without
some excess, to all the debaucheries of an inflamed religious sentiment
which Taoist practises were not made to soothe. These ardors would
have to cool down and these spiritual pleasures fade with the passage of
time before the “Doctrine of the Literati”—that which we call Con-
fucianism—could have any success.
The great epoch of Taoism had been that of the Han and the Six
Dynasties, from the third century B.C. to the seventh century A.D. The
burgeoning of Buddhism had occurred between Kumarajiva and the end
of the T’ang, from the fourth to the tenth century. The Doctrine of the
Literati commenced to expand at the end of the T’ang and had its
apogee under the Sung, in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries of our era.
But it already had a long prehistory which it will be well to recall here.
1 have already explained how a class of literate scribes had been
established during the last millennium B.C. and how, since the princes
and the great used them as a resource in all situations where they needed
educated, honest, and loyal men, they had ended up by filling virtually
all the posts except those exercising the highest responsibilities of the
court. It is impossible to believe that they were perfectly satisfied with
an organization which made them the kingpins of the governmental
 54 Taoism and Chinese Religion

machine while excluding them from most of the highest posts, which
were hereditary in the great families. They dreamed of a society in which
merit alone would bring about the choice of counselors to sovereigns.
But, too traditionalist to be revolutionary in heart, they sought this
golden age not in an uncertain future which they would have had to
make up out of whole cloth, but in the distant past of the sage-kings of
antiquity—in the time when Yao chose as his successor a man of the
people. Shun, because of his merit, setting aside his own son whom he
adjudged unfit. And they never missed an occasion to praise that golden
age to the princes of their day.
While waiting to find the sage-prince who would bring back the good
old days, they sought to define the good government of antiquity, and
that led them to elaborate a theory of royal power which was to have a
great influence in later ages, throughout all the history of China, upon
the conception of the sovereign’s role.
The King, wang (the title which the supreme sovereign of China bore
in antiquity, before taking that of Emperor, Inuing-fi, in 221 B.C.), is the
Son of Heaven, t'ien-tzu, whose authority, divine in its origin, derives
from the Mandate, niitig, given by the Lord on High, or, as it is
ordinarily expressed, from the Mandate of Heaven, t’ien-ming. His
throne is the Majestic Pinnacle, and by his exalted position he is the
Unique Man, Yi-jeu (one of his titles), who serves as intermediary
between Heaven and Men. His role consists in putting good government
into practise and, to do that, he need only see that the rules given by
Heaven are observed; the Five Relations, wu-lim, rules for the relations
among men, familial and individual; the Five Ceremonies, wu-li, rules for
the relations of social groups among themselves and with the gods; and
the Five Punishments, nu-hsing, for those who contravene the Five
Relations and the Five Ceremonies.
To assist him in governing, he must choose his ministers well, and to
do this he examines them by means of the Nine Virtues, chiu-te. He who
practises three of these is capable of regulating his family well; he who
practises six is capable of governing a state well; he who practises all nine
is alone capable of governing the world, and is fit to succeed the
sovereign. And, to make sure that matters proceed properly, there are
the Five Verifications, wu-c/ieng: that is, the examination of celestial
phenomena, of rain, of good weather, of cold, of wind, and so on. If the
sovereign acts properly, Heaven will send the Five Happinesses, wu-fii: if
he acts improperly. Heaven will send the Six Calamities, liu-chi.
These ideas, in which the governmental ethic constantly parallels
religious notions, so dominated all Chinese thought in antiquity that the
literati found themselves impelled to view religious things only from the
 Chinese Religion in Its Historical Development 55

viewpoint of society, which was indeed the viewpoint of the antique

religion itself. Since they persisted in keeping religion within the tradi-
tional framework of group ceremonies celebrated by the chief of that
group, and since in consequence they were concerned above all with
standard ceremonies, those of the royal worship, they found themselves
confronting two problems. On the one hand there was the question of
explaining the effect of the seasonal ceremonies upon the proper progress
of the seasons. How, for example, by going before the cold at the
beginning of winter, did one cause the cold really to come back? On the
other hand there was that of explaining the influence of evil government
upon the withdrawal of the Mandate of Heaven and upon the natural
phenomena which presaged it.
Of these two problems, the second, abstractly considered, was the
more important for the elaboration of a personal ethic; but the first was
the only one which had a practical interest, since the literati were
consulted every day regarding the means of avoiding droughts and
floods. Thus this problem of the relations between rites and natural
phenomena thrust itself upon them and dominated all their speculations.
That caused them to insist upon coercive ceremonies to the neglect of
deprecatory ceremonies, and to reduce the gods to nothing more than
impersonal forces which the sole force of the well-performed rites would
set in action without its being necessary to suppose that any conscious
will was involved. And thus it is, as I have already said, that the Lord on
High yielded place to Heaven, Sovereign Earth to Earth, and so on.

But why and how could these impersonal, unconscious forces inter-
vene to overthrow wicked sovereigns? This other problem is not easy to
resolve. The Literati managed it only by identifying the moral world
completely with the physical world. But this identification itself was not
effected without trouble, and the difficulties they experienced gave rise to
their conceiving various theories—the theory of the Three Powers, san-
ts’ai, the theory of the Eive Elements, wu-hsiug, the theory of the yin and
the yang—all seeking to explain how the world proceeded all by itself
through the play of transcendental, impersonal forces alone, without any
intervention by one or more conscious wills.

Eolklore furnished the literate scribes with an image of the world made
up of Heaven which covers and produces. Earth which bears and
nourishes and, between the two, creatures and things. Out of Man
(represented by the sovereign) they made the noblest of created beings,
the intermediary between Heaven and Earth, beside which they placed
him as one of the Three Powers which govern the world. He is inferior to
 56 Taoisjii ami Chinese Relii^ion

them, since he is created; thus he is not eternal, as they are. But he alone
is conscious; Heaven and Earth are unconscious. They follow their
“Way”, their (ao, which is the regular alternation of the r/// and the
combined with the perpetual rotation of the Five Elements. The world
proceeds regularly as long as Man does not act in a fashion contrary
to this way. Every contrary act reacts upon Heaven and Earth, in
consequence of Man’s position as their equal; this is what causes
the cataclysms, eclipses, floods, and finally the downfall of wicked
sovereigns.
In the other theories, the reaction is eflected less directly. For the Five
Elements theory, what makes the world go is the perpetual double round
of the five substances which make it up, the Five Elements—Wood, Fire,
Earth, Metal, Water—which replace one another constantly in two
difterent but coexisting fashions, producing and destroying one another.
The Five Elements had been derived from a vast collection of numerical
classifications of all things grouped by 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 12, and so on,
which Chinese folklore, like that of so many primitive peoples, specially
fancied. When the scribes made this incoherent classification into a
system for the scientific explanation of the world, they joined some of
these numbers to others by groups of five, which were supposed to be the
most numerous, and these became either the Five Elements themselves in
their particular conditions (colors were the Five Elements of sight,
sounds were the Five Elements of hearing, etc.) or their various prop-
erties. The Five Virtues, the basis of morality, and the Five Relation-
ships, the basis of society, are the Five Elements as seen from the ethical
viewpoint, just as the Five Cardinal Directions (the Chinese took the
center as a fifth cardinal point) are the Five Elements from the cosmo-
logical viewpoint. But the Four Seasons, for their part, were considered
subordinate to the four peripheral Cardinal Points, since the Great Bear
points towards a different cardinal point at each season. Thus they came
under the Five Elements, since the cardinal points were none other than
the Five Elements themselves. Bad government, by unsettling the order
of the Five Virtues, unsettles the rotation of the Five Elements, since
Virtues and Elements are identical, and thus it unsettles the regular
succession of the seasons, since they come under the Five Elements; and
when the succession of the seasons is disarranged, the Celestial Norm is
disturbed. This is what then produces cataclysms. They are supposed to
warn the sovereign that, if he does not reform his conduct, he loses the
Mandate of Heaven, I’ien-niing, and the dynasty falls. In order to have
proper conduct, he must conform to Heaven; and to do that he need
only follow the teachings of the Sage Kings of antiquity. As for ordinary
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieu! Developnienf 57

men, they must prepare themselves to be counselors to the sovereign by

self-cultivation following these same teachings.
The theory of the yin and yang is similar; but it replaces the round of
the Five Elements with the alternation of the two aspects of the
primordial substance: its repose, or r//?, and its movement, or yang. This
theory had emerged from the sphere of the diviners, who used the Yi
ching as their fundamental book: from their search for a scientific basis
of divination and their consequent division of all things into lucky and
unlucky. They carried on this search by analyzing sixty-four hexagrams
which furnished the answers to divination. The sixty-four divinatory
hexagrams, on the sacred level of the divination, are precisely what exists
in the profane world as the “ten thousand things” (more exactly, 11,520
things). To the two kinds of lines, full and broken, which make up the
hexagrams and which are not in themselves either lucky or unlucky, two
aspects of reality in the profane world, the yin and the yang, are
supposed to correspond. After the fashion of the Five Elements, these
two elements succeed one another in an infinite round. The w'orld is
controlled by this perpetual alternation of the yin and the yang, which is
its “way”, tao. It is this alternation which constitutes the world, the
moral as much as the physical world, and at the same time controls it.
Bad government is a troubling of the moral world which upsets this
alternation and which thereby leads at the same time to celestial and
terrestrial cataclysms and to the downfall of evil princes.

The very number of these theories demonstrates that none of them had
fully satisfied men’s minds. In about the fourth century B.C., a family of
teachers in the kingdom of Ch'i (in the northern part of present-day
Shantung), the Tsou, had conceived the idea of fleshing out some of
these by amalgamating them with others and by mixing w'ith them
cosmological notions borrowed from the west, especially from India. The
school of the Tsou seems to have enjoyed a considerable success: its ideas
were widely accepted in scholarly circles, where they became so common
that people forgot where they had originated. We hardly know what
passed over into Confucianism or Taoism from the beginning of the Han
dynasty on, so it is difficult to Judge their owai doctrines by that. Thus
men came to consider these ideas as the common property of all the
schools, no longer ascribing to the Tsou any but a few' particular ideas
regarding the constitution of the world, which had appeared too peculiar
and had not been generally accepted.

But metaphysical speculation interested the Literati only insofar as it

 5(S Taoism and Chinese Religion

served as the foundation for a doctrine of government. And by the end

of the Warring States period, in the third century B.C., the doctrines of
government were ultimately reduced to two typical systems designated
by two opposing formulae (we would call them two slogans, today):
government by men and government by the law.
The doctrine of government by the law was a practical doctrine, that
of the school which has been called the Legalists. That of government by
men was supported especially by the ritualists, and particularly by the
greater and lesser masters of the Confucian school. For them, good
government could exist only when there happened to be a Sage King
who governed by taking Altruism and Equity as his principles of
government, and that only rarely occurred—at the most, once every five
hundred years, says Mencius. By contrast, for the Legalists good govern-
ment exists when the Law is good and the sovereign applies it rigorously
without slackness at any time. The consequence is that, according to the
Ritualists, the foundations of good government are laid through study-
ing the precepts of the Sage Kings as they have been transmitted in the
Classics, since they are the rule and the norm for all ages. For the
Legalists, the Classics serve no purpose since, present-day circumstances
being different from those of antiquity, the precepts which those Classics
contain no longer apply.
Among the learned, those who took as their profession the instruction
of the young and who were called, following the Chou li {Rituals of the
Chou), Instructors, shih, or Teachers, ju, were naturally inclined to the
theory of government by men, since it was based upon the Classical
Books, which were the foundation of all their teaching. The learned
world was thus divided into two rival parties, the School of the Legalists,
fa-chia, and the School of the Teachers, /i/-c7?/V/ (a term usually translated
as School of the Literati), in a struggle which was not only philosophical
but also had its political stakes. Indeed, towards the end of the third
century B.C. the Ch’in protected the Legalists and persecuted the Literati,
while finally—after a half century of uncertainty—the Han favored the
Literati. This debate, which lasted two centuries, had no relation to the
religious history of China, but it explains why the name of Confucius is
connected to the Doctrine of the Literati, Ju-chiao. The schools which
called themselves by his name and by those of his disciples were the
principal adversaries of the Legalists. The name of Confucius served as
the banner, not for a metaphysical doctrine, but for a theory of
government opposed to that of the Legalists.

In Han times the Doctrine of the Literati, which from then on was to
be known as Confucianism, was essentially a doctrine of government
 Chinese Religion in Its flistorieal Development 59

based upon cosmological principles borrowed from the Tsou school and
supported by the teachings of the Classics. The tradition of this cur-
riculum is traced back directly to Confucius, but is no more than the
transmitted secular doctrine of the ancient Sage Kings. Under the Han
the Five Classical Books, which are today a sort of Bible to Con-
fucianism, were the “Book of Changes”, Yi citing: the “Book of Odes”
(or “Classic of Poetry”), Sliili citing: the “Book of Documents”, Shu
citing: the “Springs and Autumns (Annals)”, Clt’un clt’iii: and the “Book
of Rites”, Li citing. This scriptural Canon, which served as the found-
ation for teaching in the schools of the Han, was put together quite early,
at least in part. As long ago as the third century B.C., it is mentioned in
the Tso cltuan and by the philosopher Hsiin-tzu; in Han times its
compilation was attributed to Confucius. Before the Han, the list
contained a “Book of Music”, Yueh citing, though it omitted the “Book
of Changes”, which was then considered a simple technical manual of
divination.

The “Book of Changes”, Yi citing, was a collection of divinatory

patterns, some whole, others broken: the kuci, or “hexagrams”. Sixty-
four figures, each formed of six lines, made the headings of sixty-four
chapters each divided into six paragraphs (one for every six lines)
containing a little formula in verse or prose, a proverb, an allusion to a
famous earlier divinatory precedent, or the like. This was the basic part
of the book, the part which was used for divination. By a procedure
which varied from period to period, one arrived at the choice of one of
the sixty-four hexagrams and derived the divinatory response from the
formulas related to each of those. This technical portion was followed by
explications, attributed to King Wen and the Duke of Chou, and by
small unconnected appendices, the composition of which is attributed to
Confucius. These last have played an important role in the development
of Chinese thought from Han times on, since they are the only portion of
the Classics which deals with metaphysics. From these appendices the
entire vocabulary of philosophy has been borrowed in all epochs. The
original meaning, both of the texts taken together and of their technical
terms in particular is not always easy to understand; but the meaning
which was given them in Han times is relatively clear, and its later
evolution can be perceived well enough through the transformations
which diverse influences, especially Buddhist, have imposed upon their
interpretation.
The “Book of Odes”, Sltilt citing, a collection of verse pieces of varied
origins, court poems on popular themes and ritual hymns, has been
accepted since before Han times as a textbook of governmental ethics.
 60 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

The first part, the “Odes of the Principalities", Kuo feng, made up
originally of little pieces of all sorts on popular themes—songs about the
reunions of young people in springtime and in autumn, nuptial songs,
laments of women forsaken, and so on—was especially considered a
veritable curriculum in morality. Every piece, every line has, besides its
literal meaning, an exegetical interpretation which applies it to the duties
of princes or ministers and to good government. This has made it the
book par excellence of exhortations and remonstrances to the sovereign,
by means of allusions which suggested criticism to any who read it,
though nothing was said overtly.
The “Book of Documents", Shu clung or, as it was called in ancient
times. Sluing slnu played a similar though narrower role. It was made up
of pieces, mainly in prose, written in the style of official documents but in
which reflections upon questions of ethics, of politics, and of good
government (which seem often to have served as preambles to the
genuine documents if one can judge them by a number of inscriptions)
received a particular development. There were harangues by the Sage
Kings, narratives of their exalted deeds, and also simple descriptions of
ceremonies (like the “Charge", ku niing, which describes the transmis-
sion of power from a king to his son), libretti of the grand dances at the
sacrifices to the ancestors of the Chou kings, and so on. All these pieces
were attributed to the Sage Kings of high antiquity, to the first kings of
the Chou, and to various princes who were considered sages. The most
important piece from the philosophical point of view, the one which had
the most considerable influence upon the development of the philoso-
phical and religious ideas of the Literati, is the “Grand Scheme", Hung
faiu a first sketch of a philosophical explanation of the royal power,
enclosed within a general representation of the world which is charac-
terized by the almost complete absence of any belief in personal gods.
The “Springs and Autumns", CITun elTiu, is the Annals of the
principality of Lu, the homeland of Confucius. This is a dry little
chronicle of events relating to the principality and the neighboring lands.
There is no explicit judgment concerning these events; but since ancient
times it has been believed that implicit ethical judgments are to be found
through the manner in which facts or names are expressed or even are
not expressed: the use of a personal name, the omission of a title, and so
on, are censures.
Finally, the “Ritual”, Li ching, which is today called >7 //, described in
detail the principal ceremonies in the life of patricians: banquets, archery
competitions, embassies, funerals, and so on. Instruction was accom-
panied by teaching the formulas and the manner of reciting them, given
by a cantor, sung, who taught the students the texts and the correct
 Chinese Religion in Its Ilislorieal Development 61

recitatives in which they were to be uttered. Tliis work lost some

importance from the Later Han period on, and a collection of'“Records
of the Rituals”, Li chi, compiled in the first century B.C., was preferred to
it.
All these books are works of very diverse date and origin: the most
ancient, the Shu chiiig and Shih cliitig, go back to the ninth to eighth
centuries B.C., while the Ch'iitt ch'iu and the philosophical appendices to
the >7 ching are of the fifth and fourth centuries, and the “Ritual” is still
later.

It was through these books that teaching was carried on. In Han times
it was not a question of a reasoned and orderly teaching, ex cathedra, of
the doctrine illustrated with the help of the Classics. On the contrary, it
was a study of each Book, in the course of which various doctrinal points
were taught in the most incoherent fashion. The explication of the
Classics had no philological character whatever. What has remained of
the glosses from the Former Han period shows that the masters did not
always keep very close to the literal meaning, for which they cared little,
and their efforts or their works did not in any way seek to grasp it better.
It was only with the advance of studies, in about the last years of the first
century B.C., that certain Literati began to take an interest in that literal
meaning. A master is praised for having “left doubtful that which is
doubtful”; he had faithfully maintained the tradition, without adding to
it anything of his own. “To Study the Classics”, hsiu chiiig, was (and has
always remained, for the Chinese) on the one hand to know how to read
the text, or rather to know how' to recite it by heart correctly (that is why
there were so many explanations of pronunciation), and beyond that to
know not so much the literal sense as the philosophical meaning of each
passage, in the more or less arbitrary w'ay that tradition interpreted it.
The text itself was scarcely more than a prompt-book, on which were
hung all the metaphysical, ethical, political, and other theories of the
Doctrine of the Literati. This philosophical teaching was the essential
part of the instruction in each Book.
Confucianism was taught, with the touches peculiar to each school, in
connection with each Classic. In modern times, the various subjects of
instruction were divided among each of them. The >7 t hing supplied the
metaphysics, the Shih citing theoretical morality, the Rituals applied
morality and rites, and so on. In Han times, there was nothing like that.
Each master only taught, and most students only studied, a single book;
and by means of that single Classic metaphysics, morality, rites, and so
on were explained all at the same time. Divination was not reserved to
the Yi citing: the school of the Shih citing in the land of Ch’i had
 62 Taoism and Chinese Religion

developed a system of divination applied to government using the “Odes

of the Principalities”, a kind of “Virgilian lots” (augury by passages
chosen from a classic by chance) with its own special character. A theory
of numbers was similarly grafted upon the C/Tun ch’iii\ and the principal
renown of Tung Chung-shu, in the beginning of the reign of the Emperor
Wu (between 140 and 120 B.C.) was not that he was an excellent master
setting out very clearly the fundamental ideas of the Ch'im cITiu as they
were brought out by the Kung-yang Commentary, but rather that he
knew how to derive from that book either prognostications of the future
or explanations of the present or the past. The precepts of governmental
ethics were found in the >7 chitig as much as in the CITun ch’iu and the
Shill clung. This philosophic teaching was what constituted the major
part of the instruction of each school. Like the texts themselves, that
teaching was considered as deriving from Confucius. Much more, it was
the very word of the master, while the texts were not his own work but
were merely works he had collected, serving as idea-carrying hooks on
which to hang philosophical developments. Oral teaching was thus as
necessary as the written book. It was the complement of the Book, the
orthodox explication without which the disciples would lose their way. It
is this exegesis alone which matters for religious history since Han times
(and even a little before that), rather than the primary meaning of the
texts, which was forgotten as soon as they were accepted as Classics.
For the commentary to be able to perform its role as complement of
the written Book, it was necessary for oral teaching to be transmitted
from master to master without omission or error. Fear of losing
something of the doctrine caused the conservation of explications for
each Book which were often contradictory, deriving from the various
masters who had established the teaching of that book at the beginning
of the second century B.C. Thus there were three different schools for the
Shill ching—that of master Han, that of the land of Ch'i, and that of the
land of Lu; three as well for the Shu clung—that is, for the chapters
whose preservation is attributed to the old man Fu Sheng; and four for
the Yi clung.
Thus, at the moment when the teaching was officially established in
the Han epoch, the various masters were by no means agreed regarding
the explanations of all points in each Classic. In the fear of risking the
loss of some point in the Sage's thought, all their explanations were
gathered together. And w'hen the Emperor Wu, in 124 B.C., created at the
capital a higher school, the Great School, t’ai lisiiclu with its Learned
Masters of the F'ive Classics, wu-ching po-shHu he founded as many
chairs for each Classic as there were various interpretations taught by
famous Literati: not one chair for all the Classical Books, but one for
each particular school of each of the five Classical Books.
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieaf Development 63

We do not know precisely how many chairs he created. In the first

century A.D. there were fifteen chairs for the Five Classics. Each of these
chairs had its own interpretation of its Book, different in certain points
from that of the others. And the masters of one school of interpretation
did not even have the right to adopt an explanation coming from one of
the others; they had to teach precisely what they had learned from their
masters, without any change whatever. In 102 A.D. Hsii Fang, in a report
to the emperor, demanded that punishments be meted out to masters
whose explanations did not conform to the interpretations of the former
masters of their school. The divergences were often considerable: the
collation of the text, explanations, places with which the explanations
were associated—all could difler. And yet, when the students had
finished their studies, whatever the Classic and whatever the school of
that Classic each had chosen, they had all learned the same doctrine. Still
better, they had all learned it in virtually the same way. There was no
dogmatic teaching; the master never set forth a general theory; all was
accomplished by small touches, series of details regarding textual
passages. But the doctrine which the masters suggested rather than
expounded was truly the same in all schools, despite all the divergences
of detail, setting itself forth as that of the sages transmitted by tradition.
The basis of that doctrine was the notion of the interaction between what
we call the physical world and the moral world, a notion the origin of
which I have sketched above.

The Great School played a considerable role in the history of Con-

fucianism and thereby of Chinese religion, since it immediately became
the dispenser of the orthodox doctrine. At the end of the first century B.C.
the First Emperor of Ch’in (that is the meaning of the title Ch’iti S/iih
Huang-ti which he gave himselQ had tried to organize a new order and,
little inclined to favor a doctrine which extolled antiquity, he had
persecuted the Literati, prohibited the teaching of the Classics, and
ordered the destruction of all the ancient books. The Classics, which
were known by heart, suffered relatively little from this Burning of the
Books, nor from the change of writing which occurred in about that
period, following the invention of the writing-brush. But the interruption
of teaching scattered the schools, and the civil war which followed the
downfall of the Ch’in dynasty drove the masters away. Only with the
peace of the Han did they return, but many of them had perished during
the turmoil, and many schools of teaching ended in that time.
Nevertheless, the schools were formed again, first privately, like that of
the master Ch’en who, in the beginning of the second century B.C.,
founded a school of the Shih citing in Ch’u (in the north of present-day
Kiangsu), or that of Fu Sheng who, at about the same time, taught the
 64 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Shu chin^ in Ch'i (northern Shantung). Some feudatory princes, such as

King An of Huai-nan (reigned 164 to 126) and King Hsien of Ho-chien
(died 137), attracted literati, gathered ancient books, created centers of
study and libraries. When the emperor Hsiao-hui repealed the pro-
hibition of the Classics (191), he did no more than officially recognize a
state of affairs which was already established.
It was in these circumstances that the emperor Wu, Hsiao-hui's
grandson, definitively organized public education throughout the empire
in 124 B.C., by establishing the Great School, backed up in each
commandery by schools in which a single master had to teach what he
knew, one or several of the Classics. Little is known about the Great
School of the Former Han; that of the Later Han comprised a con-
siderable agglomeration of buildings. It was a sort of campus city, with
lecture halls, a library, apartments for the masters, and quarters for the
pupils. The number of students there was always considerable: when it
was rebuilt in 130 A.D., 240 buildings were constructed with 1,850 rooms
to accommodate the students; and a few years later there were, aside
from the regular students who lived there, more than 30,000 auditors.
The Great School contributed to stabilizing the teaching of the Classics,
as well as being a center for their propagation. It was under the control
of a rector, f'ai-cITang, a minister of the Rites, who took care to see that
the instruction was consistent with tradition and who judged masters
accused of corrupting the doctrine of the ancients by introducing some
new interpretation. The Learned Masters, po-shi/u did not teach pupils
directly; they were assisted by adjunct professors called Disciples of the
Learned Masters, po-shih ti-tzii, whose number varied from period to
period (at certain times there were up to ten per chair). It was these
Disciples alone who received instruction from the Masters, and they
transmitted it to the pupils.
Each Classic was studied separately; at the end of the first century A.D.,
some students began studying all of them one after the other, like this
unknown personage, whose scholarly career has been preserved in a
fragment of his epitaph:

At fifteen years of age he entered the Great School and learned

the “Rites”; at sixteen he learned the “Odes”; at seventeen he
learned (the Shu chiug)\ at eighteen he learned the Yi chiug: at
nineteen he learned the Ch'uu ch'iu.

Most, however, limited themselves to studying a single book.

The regulation of 156 A.D. ordained the study of two Classics in two
years. The students were examined on these two books at the end of two
years, and those who passed received a title and a stipend. Those who
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 65

failed had to begin the whole two-year cycle again before they could be
re-examined. Those who wished to carry on with their studies then
learned the other three Classics, each of them in two years, with an
examination each time. That made a total of eight years for the Five
Classics together. The examinations were conducted as follows: ques-
tions were inscribed on wooden tablets, which were set up beside one
another, and the candidates shot with bow and arrow to determine
which question they would have to answer. These questions were divided
into two series, distinguished by the size of the wooden tablets: easy
questions were on small tablets and difficult questions on large tablets.

After a period of enthusiasm for the learning thus rediscovered and

reorganized, the bringing together into a single place of masters teaching
differing interpretations of the same Book and with equal authority
brought the incoherence of the tradition brutally to the fore. How was
one to choose among these interpretations, all equally claiming their
descent from Confucius? The divergences were especially serious for
ritual questions, which are not merely theoretical but practical as well.
This was extremely disturbing, for in every particular case it was
necessary to make a choice, and thus to let a part of the tradition fall
away. How could one be sure of avoiding error in making that choice?
By the end of the first century A.D. great writers such as Wang Ch’ung
and Hsii Shen set themselves to composing works in which they high-
lighted the incoherence of the traditions and, still more, the contradic-
tions among the very texts of the Classics. The happy certitude of the
beginnings had disappeared; it seemed that the better the Classics were
studied, the worse the doctrine was understood. Orthodoxy crumbled
away, and nobody knew where or how to find it again.

It was then, towards the middle of the second century A.D., that two
remarkable scholars, first Ma Jung between 140 and 150 and then Cheng
Hsiian between 160 and 201, for the first time composed Commentaries
to all the Classics and thus, also for the first time, succeeded in
establishing a coherent doctrine. Their ideas were no different from those
of their predecessors; but the endeavor to set up a harmonious interpre-
tation of the Classics in their totality demanded that they choose among
the various interpretations of the same passage, sometimes even setting
aside all the traditional explanations so as not to run into contradiction
with those of another book or with another passage in the same book.
From that arose innumerable differences of detail between them and
their predecessors, and these the Literati of later centuries have preserved
carefully, in the process often concealing the profound resemblances
 66 Taoism and Chinese Religion

from us. For in the very basis of the doctrine they neither imported nor
in any way wished to import anything new. Precisely like their pre-
decessors, they intended solely to explain the Sage’s (that is, Confucius’s)
ideas better. For them, as for their predecessors, the physical world and
the moral world are subject to the same rules and the eternal round of
the Five Elements controls the succession of the Virtues of the Dynasties
just as it does that of the seasons of the year. In consequence the
Superior Man has to perfect himself so as to be in fit condition to
perform public functions since, by his Virtue in those functions, he will
assist in the proper working of the Universe.

These ideas, which the class of the Literati tenaciously devoted

themselves to trying to impose upon the mass of the Chinese people for
twenty centuries, allowed almost no place for the individual, a mere cog
in the immense machine of the universe, and concerned itself only with
governmental ethics. Even if one “cultivated oneself”, this was done
bearing in mind the impact which this “cultivation” would have upon
the working of the world, as in the case of a good sovereign who sought
out sages to be his counselors. It was necessary to put oneself in
condition to perform these exalted functions. No individual morality
existed. Its place was in some measure taken by the Doctrine of Filial
Piety, hsiao.
Filial Piety is not merely the natural sentiment that children have
duties towards their parents; it is that sentiment cultivated, ordered,
channeled in its expression, and extended to all of moral life. There is a
code of Filial Piety which strictly imposes certain actions with respect to
parents living and dead, but that is not the essential point. The essential
is that the love and respect due to parents inspire and control all of the
filial son’s aetions. The working of Filial Piety goes beyond the circle of
the family in all directions. It extends to the relations of inferiors with
superiors, of subjects with the sovereign, and even generally of men with
one another, for “he who loves his parents will not dare to hate anybody
else, he who honors his parents will not dare to be insolent to anybody
else.” It attains its supreme point in the perfecting of the self. The “Book
of Filial Piety”, Hsiao clung, composed shortly before the Han period, is
the only ancient Confucianist book which lays down certain ethical
principles of social life for the man who is neither sovereign nor minister,
in his relations with his family and with others.
Those who, more attracted to personal religion, were concerned less
with the problem of man in society and in the universe than with the
problems of individual conscience, of the inward life and of individual
morality, sought through the techniques of the sorcerers and sorceresses
 Chinese Religion in Its llistorieal Development 67

ways of entering into direct and personal relation with the gods who
were relatively close to man, and even beyond the gods- with the
ultimate transcendent reality which they call the Principle, tao. Out of
this tendency would emerge Taoism in its various forms.

The success of Ma Jung's and Cheng Hsiian’s Commentaries on the

Classical Books of Confucianism was immense. From then on one could
take any question which the Classics raised and, if the various texts
relating to it in the various Classics were compared, there would no
longer be a confrontation between contradictory explanations, as had
happened too often before. The two authors have been reproached for
having been influenced too strongly by the Taoism of their time. On the
other hand, by its very nature their work had made obvious how slight
the connection was, in many cases, between the official doctrine and the
Classical Books, and had brought about the recognition of what that
doctrine contained which was foreign to those Classics.
In the third century new Commentaries were composed by Wang Su,
and their bent, less metaphysical and more strongly atheistic, had a great
influence upon the development of Confucianism.
To support their ideas, Wang Su and his disciples also fabricated a
number of apocrypha. Gathering numerous traditions regarding
Confucius, but also introducing passages which they invented, they
created a work which, despite its success, did not succeed in becoming
standard, the “Conversations of the School”, Chia yii. They especially
struggled to reconstitute the chapters, then quite recently lost, of the
“S'/?// citing in ancient characters”. For that task they reassembled
fragments of various texts, inserting their own ideas by the manner in
which they were chosen, classified, and presented, and by the transitions
with which they linked them. And they added a commentary of their
own invention which they put under the name of K’ung An-kuo, a
scholar of the second century B.C., which justified their interpretations.
Thus they managed to introduce their views on many subjects into these
chapters and into their commentary, especially in enlarging the place of
an impersonal Heaven as against the Lord on High, the supreme
personal god, and in settling various ritual questions.
Little by little the reform movement extended to the other Classics. A
number of ideas which had been fashionable in Han times were forgot-
ten. The use of books other than the Yi citing for divination was
abandoned; the Ch’i school’s theories regarding the Situ citing, the most
characteristic portions of Tung Chung-shu’s doctrine, were set aside,
being regarded as superstitious and unworthy of the Sage. Even the most
celebrated authors were smitten by this new tendency, when they had
 68 Taoism and Chinese Religion

fallen in with such ideas, as Cheng Hsiian was in his commentary on the
Yi clung. But this expurgation risked causing the dissolution of the fine
coherence which Ma Jung and Cheng Hsiian had introduced into the
study of the Classics. And during the space of several centuries special
commentaries for each of the Classics were seen to flourish again, so
much so that, aided by the splitting up of China into several independent
states, the official teaching again became totally heterogeneous.

In the seventh century the founders of the T’ang dynasty, wishing to

bring some order into the rites and into public instruction as well as into
administration, had an official edition of the Classics compiled,
accompanied by selected ancient commentaries and by an official para-
phrase, called “correct meaning,” cheng-yi, and designed to bring these
diverse commentaries into agreement. This was the work of K’ung Ying-
ta, a descendant of Confucius. The choice among ancient commentaries
eliminated all those which were concerned with the foretelling of what
was to come and others which had lost ground since the Han. The case is
particularly clear for the Yi ching. Wang Pi’s commentary, which was
selected, had aroused a continuous polemic since its publication in the
middle of tHe third century. Accepted by the Chinese dynasties of the
south at the Great School of the Chin, the Sung, and the Liang, it had
never been accepted in the north, where the Great School of the
Northern Wei had retained Cheng Hsiian’s commentary. Wang Pi, in the
preface to his Chou yi, declares that the Yi ching explains the Principle of
Man, jen-tao\ contrary to Cheng Hsiian’s, his exegesis centered upon
Man and had an essentially philosophical character.
Thus they managed to give the explanation of the Classics in two time-
frames. On the one hand, a certain number of ancient commentaries,
chosen expressly for the purpose, provided the philological explanation
and some basic philosophical ideas, while setting aside all tendencies
which were extreme in any direction and presenting middle-of-the-road
ideas as much as possible. On the other hand, K’ung Ying-ta’s para-
phrase took up both the text and the ancient commentaries again in
detail, harmonizing divergences, discussing doubtful points, bringing the
opinions of other commentators together every now and then to accept
or reject them; and thus, without seeming to do so, it presented the
definitive interpretation of the texts according to the orthodox doctrine
adopted and established by the masters of the T’ang period.
In this new teaching each Classical Book was somehow allotted its
share of the doctrine. Metaphysics was assigned to the Yi clung; political
philosophy was divided between the Shu ching and the Ch’un ch’iu, the
former giving the general principles of government and of relations
 Chinese Religion in Its Historieal Development 69

between princes and ministers, the latter suggesting rules for each
particular case; governmental ethics came under the Shih citing, the
philosophy of the relations among members of society under the Rituals,
especially the Li chi, practical morality under the Hsiao citing. The
totality of the doctrines was no longer studied in connection with one
single Book; a complete cycle of studies was necessary embracing the
Thirteen Classics, or at least the five great Classics.
It was not a new theory which the school of the T’ang produced. It
was a “sum” of all earlier work, a reasoned and reasonable sum which
once again brought more order into the Doctrine of the Literati and
established unity in the mind in the same way that unity had just been
reestablished materially in the empire. The compilation of this enormous
variorum edition produced a veritable revolution in study, by suppres-
sing the obligation to pass through the schools. With these glosses which
explained the text and the tradition phrase by phrase and which one
could be sure gave the orthodox interpretation, it was possible to do
without a master, and anybody could study the Classics quite alone
without fear of falling into error. Thus the schools began to lose their
importance, while that of the examinations grew. Competition in the
examinations became the veritable touchstone of the Literati. And
Confucianism thereby gained in depth; the book penetrated where there
had never been a school; it reached provincial families and humble
scholars whose sons had seen themselves till then as limited to an
elementary education in Confucianism, since they lacked a school. From
this sprang the renaissance of Confucianism which marked the T’ang
period.

Just as the Literati of the Six Dynasties had labored over the works of
Cheng Hsiian, those of the T’ang and the Sung labored over the work of
K’ung Ying-ta. That was what cleared the way for the great philo-
sophical flourishing of Confucianism, particularly—under the Sung in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries—the movement of the Five Masters,
of whom the last and most famous, Chu Hsi, elaborated the theory
which was exalted into official doctrine a century after his death and
which remained so at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Once the first enthusiasm had passed for the work of K’ung Ying-ta,
who had managed to put the Doctrine of the Literati into order, there
had begun—just as in the Han period—the discovery of contradictions
in it. Since the Literati had whole-heartedly accepted Mencius’s adage
that “Human Nature is good”, how was one to explain the “self-
cultivation”, that moral perfecting, hsiu-shen, which the Chung rung.
 70 Taoism and Chinese Religion

attributed to Confucius, extolled? The difficulty was serious and caused

numerous discussions upon Human Nature, hsing. As early as the end of
the T'ang, in the ninth century, the great prose writer Han Yii, sum-
marizing the orthodox doctrine regarding the Tao, Human Nature, and
so on in short essays, tried to explain the existence of evil despite Man’s
fundamental goodness, by a scholastic method of distinction and classifi-
cation. He proposed that Human Nature no longer be considered as one
and the same among all men, but on the contrary as being ditferentiated
into three degrees. In some men, their Nature is entirely good, and they
have no need of teaching to act well: these are the Saints; in others, their
Nature contains some good and some evil, and they need to be taught; in
the last, their Nature is entirely bad, and no teaching will make them act
well. These ideas, piled atop the old problem of the reactions of Man
upon the Universe, upon Celestial Nature, tended to make that problem
into one of morality and of psychology rather than of metaphysics.

This inquiry had to lead back to the Yi chiiig, the only one of the
Classics which tried to explicate the relations of Man with Heaven,
whereas the others confined themselves to describing the results of that
relation. The study of that book, abandoned in the T’ang period, was
brought back into fashion around the middle of the tenth century by Li
Mu, one of the counselors of the Sung founder. And one of the most
famous writers of the following century, Su Hsiin, wrote a new com-
mentary on that Classic, which had a great success.
His contemporary Shao Yung also returned to the study of the Yi
ching, to which he devoted his life; he taught with great brilliance from
1040 to 1077. Strongly influenced by Taoism and Buddhism, he pro-
posed the method which he called “Going before Heaven”, hsien-t'ien.
Popular doctrine consisted, he explained, of “Following Heaven”, hou-
t’ien: that is commencing from the study of external things to attain the
understanding of the Heart or, as we would say, of the human mind. The
true method, on the contrary, begins with the Heart to arrive at the
“traces”, chi—that is, external things. This leads on to the recognition
that the “10,000 transformations and the 10,000 things” (that is, all
phenomena) are born in the Heart and not externally. The Buddhist sect
of the Dhyana {Ch’an-tsung) taught that phenomena are unreal, and that
salvation comes from the realization of their unreal character, which the
sect expressed by one of those brief formulas which it loved: “The Heart
is the Buddha”. This formula means that every man has the Nature of
the Buddha but does not realize it; when he does realize it, he is saved.
Shao Yung borrowed this formula by transposing it into Confucian
terms: he declared that “the Heart is the Great Summit, t’ai-chi". Heart,
 Chinese Religion in I is Hislorieal Developnienl 7J

hsiu\ Nature, hsiu^\ Self, shen: these three ditferent terms of the Buddhist,
Confucianist, and Taoist philosophers simply mask the difference in
viewpoint and are only three ways of laying hold upon the Tao, which is
present simuljtaneously in the world and man. Thus to empty the Heart
of all that is external to it is sufficient to perceive what is spontaneously
within it—that is, the Great Summit. This knowledge is that of the
Superior Man.
Shao Yung’s ideas had an enormous impact and a great influence
upon the Literati of the early Sung dynasty, many of whom were pupils
of his. But those ideas were too full of Buddhist and Taoist notions,
borrowed just as they were, to be readily embraced. They were more
admired than accepted. Their elaboration went on for a century before
the genius of Chu Hsi (died in 1200 A.D.) derived from them a system
which became officially the Doctrine of the Literati, ju-chiao, from the
fourteenth century on.

In order to understand Chu Hsi’s thought fully, it is first necessary to

examine its historical antecedents and to sketch the nature of the
problem which challenged his thought. The central problem of the
Doctrine of the Literati in all ages was one of ethics; and that is probably
what has so often led to the judgment that Confucianism was above all a
morality, which is far from accurate. In the form which this problem
took for the scholars of China, it seems pointless to us. It is indeed a
matter of a very particular ethics, quite different from what we generally
understand by this word, and that is probably why it is so often omitted
from Western accounts of Confucianism. In reality, the problem is the
effect which the good or bad acts of man (and especially the govern-
mental acts of the sovereign, representing humanity) have upon the
orderly progress of natural phenomena (the progress of stars, eclipses,
earthquakes, floods, etc.) and upon human affairs (the deaths of
sovereigns, revolts, overthrow of dynasties, etc.).
In Han times a metaphysical explanation had been given to this
question. It was very well set forth about the middle of the second
century B.C. by Tung Chung-shu, a Master Scholar of the Kung-yang
Tradition of the Ch’un ch'iu, whose ideas enjoyed a considerable vogue
at the beginning of the Emperor Wu’s reign; they seem to have exerted
almost as much influence upon the thought of that time as the theory of
the Five Masters did later upon the thought of the Sung period. The
space between Heaven and Earth is filled with Breath, cV/V, a sort of fluid
in which Man is immersed “like fish in water”. The Breath of Heaven is
the yang, the Breath of Earth is the vm, and these two Breaths by
combining produce the Unity from which all things derive. They do not
 72 Taoism and Chinese Religion

constitute a quality, since (being in opposition) they can never begin to

act together but suceeed one another constantly in such a way that only
one of the two is ever in action at any one time. With this union of the
Breaths of Heaven and Earth, Man (that is, the Sovereign) mixes
through the Breath of his government; this has no difficulty in mixing
with them, since it does not differ from them. The Breath of the yin and
the yang is simultaneously in the world and in Man; in man it produces
love, hate, joy and anger; in the world it produces good and bad weather,
heat and cold. The bad actions of man are thus capable of reacting upon
Heaven and Earth, producing perturbations of the Five Elements,
eclipses, floods, prodigies, and so on. If the cause of the trouble does not
cease (that is, if bad government continues), the perturbations reach to
the moral aspect of the Five Elements (that is, to the Five Virtues) and
thus the people will be troubled and revolts will oceur. The prince who
governs badly will lose the Mandate of Heaven and his dynasty will fall.
These ideas, which had been accepted by the Literati of the Han,
seemed a bit crude to the Literati of later periods. From T’ang times on,
they had been abandoned and a less clumsy explanation was sought, this
time by attacking the problem from the psychological side, the identity
between Human Nature and the Celestial Norm having to serve as a
linking concept between Man and Heaven, between the moral world and
the physical world. The Literati of the end of the T’ang set out the
fundamental facts of the problem as I have sketched it above; but it was
definitively resolved only by the Sung masters. After them, under the
Ming, Wang Yang-ming broke through the last pass and ended by
envisaging only the moral problem itself, that of Human Nature, of good
and evil, and of conscience.

The system of the Sung period, to which Chu Hsi gave its definitive
form in the twelfth century, can be considered a philosophical rather
than a religious system; but it is so tightly tied to the official religion that
it is difficult to separate the two. It served that religion simultaneously as
both metaphysical basis and rational explanation; it maintained the place
of religious beliefs in the minds of most Literati and, from the Literati
class, it spread within popular circles, which it influenced without always
winning them over entirely. It thus has its place in any account of how
Chinese religion developed.
According to Chu Hsi, the universe and every one of its elements are
composed of two principles, which are co-eternal, infinite, and distinct
but inseparable: a normative principle, the Norm, //, and a material
principle, the Breath, ch’i. The Norm is imperceptible to the senses, the
Breath may take a perceptible form. Their union makes up the Great
 Chinese Religion in I is Historieal Development 73

Unity, t’ai-yi, which is also called the Great Summit, t’ai-clii, an infinite
entity made active by the inherent presence of the //, which enables it to
produce all things within itself. The Great Summit, in producing all
things, passes indefinitely through two phases: it emerges from repose to
be active, it ceases activity to return into repose. The phase of repose is
the yin, the phase of activity is the yang', and this perpetual alternation of
yin and yang in its turn produces the Five Elements—Wood, Fire, Earth,
Metal, Water—which succeed one another in an unending cycle. From
the Five Elements Fleaven and Earth are derived, and from them all
creation.
The perceptible world (and especially human affairs) is regulated by
Heaven; as supreme director of the world it is given the titles of August
Heaven, Huang-t’ien, Hao-t’ien, and of Lord on High, Shang-ti. This
does not mean that it is a personal divinity. Heaven, like all things
produced, is made up of a material substance, which we see in the blue
vault, and of the Norm, the //, which is its regulating principle. The //
regulates Heaven as the mind regulates man, and it may be said to be the
mind of Heaven; but its activity is not exerted in the manner of the
human mind. It does not think; it merely applies Goodness, (one of
the great Virtues of Confucianism), and through this Virtue Heaven
constantly and limitlessly creates all beings and things. It does not set the
Virtue of the /c/? in operation voluntarily, intentionally; it does so simply
because that is the mode of spiritual activity of the //, as the Five
Elements are the mode of physical activity of the ch’i. In sum. Heaven
creates the world because it cannot do otherwise, its very Nature being
perfect Goodness; but this creation is not the voluntary act of a
conscious divinity. And its action upon the world maintains this same
character: it raises sovereigns up or casts them down because they act in
conformity to or contrary to the Virtue of Goodness which is the
principle of activity of the Celestial Norm.
On a less elevated plane, the destiny of each man is likewise controlled
by Heaven, which shows itself favorable or unfavorable according to
whether he acts or does not act in conformity to the Celestial Norm.
Heaven’s action makes itself felt directly upon the very mind of man,
inasmuch as the Nature of man is the Norm in him, the // given by
Heaven, and as the peculiar // of each of us is basically identical with the
universal //, of which it is a fragment. But it is a fragment which does not
diminish the universal // any more than the thousand reflections of the
moon on the waves—though they are so many distinct reflections—
diminish the disk of the moon which shines in the sky.
What is the role of the official religion in the world so conceived? It is
double. The rites really work on the material plane, and they help the
 74 Taoism and Chinese Religion

proper progress of the world; on the other hand, they act upon the mind
of every man, reminding him to practise the Virtues which constitute the
Celestial Norm. The universe being one, and the physical world and the
moral world not being essentially different, all man’s actions react upon
the one as they do upon the other. This is what produces the utility of the
official religion as it was established by the sages of antiquity, and
especially by Confucius, in conformity with the Celestial Norm, both to
assist the proper progress of the world and to achieve the moral
development of each individual. By contrast, heterodox religions such as
Buddhism and Taoism are superstitions without foundation and sow
disorder in the world, as they do in human minds.
Such is Chu Hsi's Confucianism which, officially taught for five to six
centuries, has taken its place as the belief of a constantly increasing
number of Chinese scholars.
 BOOK II

The Mythology
of Modern China
t.

s w.t,' f \i.

it
■:# *■
 1. Popular Religion and the Three Religions
The mythology of modern China was moulded down the centuries by the
juxtaposition of originally diverse elements. Within it are found, mixed
in with old indigenous divinities, certain great figures of Buddhist origin
(who also play unexpected roles at times); heroes recently apotheosized;
Taoist personages; and other figures. And since there has never been any
sort of group having special control over religion, to direct or at least to
codify its development, doctrine and mythology developed in uncoordi-
nated fashion, accepting ideas and personages which struck popular
imagination at various times, with some contradiction and overlapping.
It is often said that the Chinese have three religions; Confucianism,
Buddhism, and Taoism. And by that is understood, not that some are
Taoists, others Buddhists, and still others Confucianists, but that each
individual Chinese is a believer in all three religions at the same time.
This is one of the many false ideas which circulate regarding China. The
reality is quite otherwise. The Chinese are no more capable than we are
of believing in three separate religious systems at the same time: for
example, of simultaneously believing (A) as Buddhists, that there is no
supreme deity governing the world, the gods being insignificant creatures
with limited powers, subject to birth and death, and inferior to the
Buddhas who have won through to perfect enlightenment; (B) as Taoists,
that the world is governed by a trinity of personal, omnipotent, eternal
supreme deities, the Three Pure Ones; and finally, (C) as Confucianists,
Reprinted from Mythologie asiatique iHu.strec (Librairie de France, 1928). The reader
interested in problems of modern popular religion, which remains a living force in Taiwan,
Hong Kong, and the Chinese colonies of Southeast Asia, can refer to the very useful
Manuel des superstitions ehinoises, ou Petit indieateur des superstitions les plus eonvnunes en
Chine, by Henri Dore, s.j. (Shanghai, 1926), which was republished in 1970 by the Centre
de puhlieation de /'U.E.R., Asie Orientale (13 rue Santeuil, Paris V®) and which provides a
good list, drawn up by another professional observer, of Chinese popular religions at the
beginning of the twentieth century. The new introduction by Michel Soymie sets forth the
advantages and limitations of this small 250-page work, which can also serve as an index to
Dore’s famous illustrated 18-volume work.
 7H Taoism and Chinese Relief ion

that the supreme power which governs the world is Heaven, impersonal
though endowed with consciousness. The three religions, as defined
systems, have had no more than a historical interest for the past several
centuries. The people practise neither the three together nor each of the
three separately. A popular religion has taken shape in the course of the
ages, and this has borrowed various ideas from all three; but it is clearly
distinct from them and must be considered a separate system.
Yet, although in recent times none of the three religions has had any
real body of believers, all three have had their own clergy: Buddhist
bonzes, Taoist monks and sorcerers, and—for the official religion which
is ordinarily but wrongly called Confucianism—civil servants of all
levels. The members of these clergies were each considered to be people
possessing special powers. Mandarins (this does not refer to particular
officials specifically responsible for religious affairs, but to ministers,
governors, prefects, district officers, etc.) by virtue of their official rank
not only carried out, until the Revolution of 1911, the ceremonies for the
official divinities in their area of responsibility, but also governed those
of the gods whose hierarchical rank in the heavenly apparatus was
inferior to their own in terrestrial administration. Bonzes have marvelous
powers over everything which concerns the souls of the dead, whom they
deliver from the torments of hell, whose sins they redeem, and so on.
Taoist monks have the power to drive away demons and to protect the
living against them; and there are also lay Taoist adepts who are masters
of various spells against evil spirits and illnesses.
Nor should we suppose that the respective spheres of these clergies are
precisely marked out. On the contrary, there are undefined areas in
which bonzes and tao-shih get similar results through different means;
but in many cases their roles are absolutely distinct.
It would be imprecise, moreover, to define them as various categories
of sorcerers, which would bring in a distinctly pejorative implication.
They perform the functions of specialized priests for all the ancient
religions: sacrificers, summoners of the dead, exorcists, prophets, doc-
tors, and so on. They are themselves generally of a religious disposition
similar to that of the laymen who surround them. Nowadays one finds,
here and there, some bonzes who are almost strictly Buddhists, or some
literati who stiek exclusively to the official ritual and dogma; but these
are relatively rare cases. Ordinarily Buddhist or Taoist priests and monks
believe in the popular religion as everybody does. Even in their cere-
monies, while their ritual is exclusively Buddhist, Taoist, or Confucian,
their personal interpretation is often much closer to that of popular
religion than to that of the religious system to which the ritual belongs.
From this point of view there are considerable personal variations
 The Mythology of Modern China 79

today. The most intelligent of the bonzes and of the tao-shih (or those
who have marked tendencies towards mystical meditation) and, among
the literati, those who (even while allowing for a certain facade of
agnosticism) have a philosophical cast of mind, contrive to set up for
themselves a personal system which conforms to the protocol of the
religion (Buddhism, Taoism, Confucianism) they claim to belong to; and
just as popular religion, very malleable and supple, allows all sorts of
individual interpretation, they do not on that account have the feeling of
belonging to a religion different from that of the laity and do not lose
contact with them.
These persons combine life styles which are very different from one
another. Officials were not confined to any particular observance by
reason of their religious functions, except—during the several days
immediately preceding a sacrifice—for a fast, more or less lengthy
according to the importance of that sacrifice. They had no special
costume for religious ceremonies but merely wore their official robe and
cap, with the insignia of their rank, exactly as they did for civil
ceremonies.
Buddhist monks lived communally in great temples, or by themselves
in small isolated chapels. The latter kind were recalled to their mother
establishment for three months every year, from the fourth month to the
seventh. They were recognizable by their shaven heads and peculiar
robes. We know that their rules required them to wear three garments on
top of one another; an undergarment, a sort of loin-cloth stretching from
the navel to the knees, a robe reaching from the shoulders to the knees,
and a cloak called sanghati, a sort of large sleeveless toga draped over all.
In China this garment was replaced by a long-sleeved tunic. It seems,
moreover, that in the beginning Chinese bonzes had worn the ordinary
lay garment, being distinguished only by their shaven heads. A con-
servative tendency, like that which produced the sacerdotal vestments of
Catholic priests, is the origin of their modern costume: they retained the
old-style robe, cross-folded over the middle of the chest, while the laity—
in about the ninth and tenth centuries A.D.—adopted the robe cut round
at the neck, without a collar and buttoned very high at the side, which
has been retained to our time. The ceremonial robe, chia-sha {kas/idya),
is a robe stitched with gold more or less in conformity with the rule: the
piece of material is, as ordained, cut into pieces which are then sewn
together again and the seams marked w'ith a golden braid, from which
comes the popular name, the gold-braided garment. This is worn over
the ordinary garment, draping it over the left shoulder and the neck and
bringing it back again across the chest, passing under the right arm,
which is left free. The upper part is held in place by a metal ring on the
 80 Taoism and Chinese Religion

left-hand side of the chest. A red lacquered coronet representing a

stylized lotus flower serves as a headdress in certain ceremonies.
Definitive entry into the religious life is preceded by a kind of
novitiate, more or less long. The candidate, after having his head
solemnly shaved before the assembled chapter, takes the Three Refuges:
“I take refuge in the Buddha; I take refuge in the Law; I take refuge in
the Community!” Then he undertakes to practise the Ten Prohibitions:
not to kill living things, not to steal, not to commit lewd acts, not to lie,
not to drink wine, not to use perfume, not to sing or dance, not to sit
upon a raised seat, not to eat after noon, not to touch gold or silver.
Thus he becomes slui-mi (sramanera). The definitive ceremony of entry
into the order occurs several years later. Its peculiar characteristic in
almost all sects is the burns which the novices inflict upon themselves.
Each of them comes and kneels before the abbot; a varying number of
little rings of incense are pasted with fruit jam on their shaved heads; and
these are lit and allowed to burn while the novice recites prayers. Hair
does not grow again upon these marks, which remain quite clear. The
monks have many regular ceremonies: first of all, each month, the
reunion of the uposailui, on the fifteenth and the last day, with recitation
of the Rules and public confession, and then other observances at
various periods of the year: that of the avakunhana, yii-kin-p’en, to feed
the famished demons; the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when the
monks separate after the ninety days of communal summer life; and so
on.
In these respects, they hardly differ from Buddhist priests of lands
other than China. But the regimen is not at all strictly followed. The
prohibition upon eating after midday is almost never observed, even on
the uposathci days, except here and there by virtue of individual devout-
ness. Chinese bonzes take an evening meal as the laity do. Otherwise
begging, which is one of the twelve rules for monks, is as limited as
possible, and in general they live on the revenues from temple lands.
Since these lands were given and not purchased, they consider that they
are living by alms and are in conformity with the rule. Only a few, out of
personal piety or sometimes to get the wherewithal to make small
payments of atonement to their temples (for large payments, subscrip-
tion lists are circulated), wander the roads begging, taking with them a
small portable sanctuary or simply a little statue. We know that the
Buddha forbade his monks to cry out or to knock at the doors of houses,
and that he commanded them to announce their presence by shaking a
staff with its upper part covered with metal rings, the khakkiiara, or, as it
was called in China, the sounding wand, sheng-c/iang, or tin wand, hsi-
chang. Today, however, this implement is no longer used except in
 The Mythology of Modern Chino HI

certain religious ceremonies, and mendicant monks announce themselves

either by prayers which they recite in a high voice or by a small bell
which they shake as they walk.
The Taoist clergy is composed not only of monks, tao-shilu or even
nuns, tao-ku, but also of lay masters, shih-kung. But the monks and nuns
are not nearly so important as they are in Buddhism. Entry into the
religious life is not one of the conditions of salvation; it is merely a
convenient way of putting into practise the meticulous Taoist rules of
life. The monks live ordinarily in temples or communities similar to
those of Buddhist monks. Taoist temples are called by a peculiar name,
kiuifu a word which literally means “to look at”. The origin of this term
goes back, they say, to antiquity, several centuries before the Christian
era (the Taoists do not fix the period precisely), to the time when the
Celestial Venerable of the First Beginning, one of the members of the
Taoist supreme Trinity, had descended into this world to teach men the
Way and was living at the royal court under the guise of the great master
Lao-tzu. At that time there was in the west an ardent initiate, the
commander of the Pass, Yin Hsi, who had built himself a grass hut to
“look”. The authors do not agree on what he was “looking at”:
according to some, warned by a supernatural aura out of the east that a
saint was coming, he had built himself this hut by the side of the road so
as to “look” at all who passed, and it was thus that he recognized Lao-
tzu. According to others, he devoted himself to astrology and it was
while “looking at” the stars in heaven that he saw the supernatural aura
announcing the approach of the saint, and thus could go to meet him. As
we know, Lao-tzu had then determined to leave the world behind and,
mounted upon a green ox, was going off to the West. Yin Hsi became his
disciple and, before finally leaving, the master entrusted to him the Book
of the First Principle and its Power, the Tao-te ching, in which he had
gathered a number of aphorisms regarding the True Doctrine. It is from
this “looking” hut that the Taoist temples are supposed to have taken
their name.
Within their temples the tao-shih are subject to rules quite like those of
Buddhist bonzes. There are five fundamental prohibitions, the Five
Prohibitions of the Very High Lord Lao, which are almost the same as
those which the Buddhists require of their lay devotees: not to kill any
living thing, not to eat meat, not to drink wine, not to lie, not to commit
any lewd act or marry; and from these derive a great number of less
important rules. Ordination demands the presence of a certain number
of fully ordained monks and in consequence can only be accomplished in
certain great temples: for all Hopei and Shantung this ceremony is
performed in the White Cloud Temple, Pai-yiin kuan, near Peking. Its
 <S2 Taoism and Chinese Relii^ion

ritual is little known. The member-elect receives the Three Refuges: that
is. The Principle, Tao: the Sacred Books, Chmg\ and the Masters, Shih.
And the abbot takes him by the arm, symbolizing his entry into the
religion by that gesture.
There are three degrees: that of the Master of Marvelous Conduct,
that of the Master of Marvelous Virtue, and finally that of the Master of
the Marvelous Principle, the highest. The disciples must pass through
these in that order, but nowadays all three are apparently passed through
successively on the same day after ordination. The ordinary garment is a
long gray robe with large sleeves (which are sometimes white), and the
tao-shih let their hair grow, tying it up on top of the head, rather than
shaving it as the bonzes do. The ritual garment is made up of 240 pieces
stitched together, divided by ten ribbons which symbolize the three stars,
San-f’cn\ of the Great Bear, with a sash made up of two strands
embroidered with clouds. On their heads they place the “Crown of the
Five Peaks” and on their feet they wear straw sandals.
There are many days of fasting throughout the year: the three days
called hui-jUu on which the Three Agents (Heaven, Earth, Water), San
kiuin, examine the merits and demerits of men—that is, the seventh of
the first month, the seventh of the seventh month, and the fifth of the
tenth month; the eight dates of the solstices (the equinoxes and the
beginnings of the four seasons, which are the days when the eight gods
record good and evil deeds), and for one of these eight festivals they
must perform an absolute retreat lasting ten days, not moving even for
religious ceremonies, but meditating and reciting from the sacred books.
They have, moreover, ten days of fasting each month: the first and the
eighth, in honor of the Great Bear; the fourteenth, in honor of the
Emissary of the Great Unity and the Three Agents; the twenty-third, in
honor of the eight gods, and so on; and finally the last three days of the
month, in honor of the Great Unity. On these days they must abstain
from wine, from the “five sharp things” (leeks, garlic, onions, mustard,
shallots), as well as milk, sour milk, and cheese; they must bathe in a
decoction of peachwood and bamboo; on the preceding night, in the fifth
watch just before sunrise, they purify their garments by fumigating them.
The bulk of the members in the Taoist clergy is made up of lay masters
w'ho live in the world and are married. These are genuine sorcerers who
know certain formulas and practise certain rites passed on from father to
son. Each has his specialty: there are mediums, exorcists, faith-healers,
and so on. The neophyte enters into the community through an initi-
ation, the ritual for which changes from place to place. In Fukien
province, where de Groot saw and described this ceremony, the major
portion of it consists in repeatedly mounting and descending a ladder
 The Mytholoify of Modern Chino H3

which has had its rungs replaced by twelve sabers. The most celebrated
of these lay masters is the chief of a certain Chang family, who bears the
title of Celestial Master, T'ien-shih. He claims descent from Chang Tao-
ling, a personage who is supposed to have lived in the second century of
our era and who, after having received the revelation of books and
formulas upon Mount Ho-ming in Szechuan, is supposed to have
succeeded in making the drug of immortality. Then, after having spent
several more years on earth so as to protect men, delivering the land of
Shu (modern-day Szechuan province) from the demons which infested it,
he went to the summit of Mount K'un-lun in search of two swords
which drive aw'ay evil spirits and such menaces. Finally he drank the
drug of immortality and mounted to heaven in full daylight upon a five-
colored dragon, taking with him his wife and his disciples.
Chang Tao-ling is said to have had a great number of disciples, who
had to pay him fees of five bushels of rice. His grandson Chang Lu, w ho
in about 190 A.D. succeeded in organizing a little independent principality
for himself around Han-chung (Shensi), established a real church there
with a hierarchy which had powers both spiritual and temporal. The
faithful called themselves soldier-demons; instructors, called libationers,
chi-chiiy expounded the sacred books and administered wards; above
them were Grand Libationers; and finally Chang Lu had bestowed upon
himself the title of Prince and Celestial Master. All these people had
charms and talismans of all sorts. To be cured, the sick had to confess
their sins to members of this priesthood, who inscribed the sins upon
three sheets of paper which were burned, buried, and immersed in honor
to Heaven, Earth, and Water. Those who were not cured were treated as
unbelievers. There was also demoniac ill fortune to punish certain of the
guilty.
The conquest of the area by general Ts'ao Ts’ao in 215 destroyed the
administrative part of this structure; but Chang Lu, transported to Ts’ao
Ts'ao's capital, where he was ennobled, lived on there for several years
(at least until 220), continuing to devote himself to studies of alchemy. It
is to Chang Tao-ling and Chang Lu, despite certain lacunae in the
genealogical tree, that the Chang family of the Celestial Masters now-
adays claims relationship; and it is in remembrance of this ancestor that
the family head has his residence at T'ien-mu Shan (Chekiang), Chang
Tao-ling’s birthplace. Only since 748 has the official title of Celestial
Master been definitively recognized as his. He has, so they say, great
power over gods and demons; and according to some, he controls the
promotion and demotion of local gods. His charms and his amulets are
especially potent: his seal is printed upon children's garments or on
paper hung around their necks; in certain regions it is believed that he
 84 Taoism and Chinese Religion

alone, or only talismans made up by him, can deliver people from

possession by foxes.
The mandarins of former limes in their functions as priests of the
official religion, Buddhist monks, Taoist monks and lay masters—each
of these, in the ceremonies he carried out, appealed not only to different
persons but also to categories of beings who, if one holds strictly to the
doctrine of each religion, are really completely different in kind. The
chapters devoted to “Buddhist Mythology” in the Mythologie asiatique
illustree explain clearly what, in that religion, a Buddha, a Bodhisattva,
or an Arhat are; there is no need for me to go over that again here.* The
Celestial Venerables of Taoism were modeled after the pattern of the
Buddhas, and the Taoist Immortals (even though they had been known
well before the introduction of Buddhism) after that of the Arhats,
differing only in subtle shadings. Between these personages and the
divinities of the official religion there was, in terms of pure doctrine, no
point in common at all. Even between official deities and the secondary
gods of Taoism there also existed a difference in kind that was almost
insurmountable.
But these diverse notions, in the course of intermingling to make up
popular mythology, were simplified and somehow normalized: their most
subtle elements disappeared and nothing remained except that which was
comprehensible, or seemed to be comprehensible, at first sight. That is,
much of their essence was distorted. All the supernatural beings to whom
were given the titles of To (Buddha), P’u-sa (Bodhisattva), Lo-han
(Arhat), T'ien-tsun (Celestial Venerable), Hsien (Immortal), Ti
(Emperor), Hou (Empress), Wang (King), and so on, or even the least

1. Translator’s note: Since there is no very succinct discussion of these distinctions in

Mythologie asiatitjue illustree (translated as Asiatic Mythology by F. W. Wilkinson,
London, 1932, repr. 1963), the following rough summary may be useful.
A Buddha (it is a title, not a name, derived from the root-word hiulh, “to wake”) is “an
enlightened one”. The term was first applied to Gautama Siddhartha, whose position is
somewhat unique in Hinayana (“Small Vehicle”, Southern; its devotees prefer the name
Theravada) Buddhism. In Mahayana (“Large Vehicle”, Northern) Buddhism, however,
full Buddhahood is open to all. A Bodhisattva is a “Buddha to be”, literally an
“enlightenment being”, one who is striving for enlightenment; and the term thus applies to
all who are seeking to become Buddhas. In the Mahayana this represents the ideal and
comes to mean one who, out of compassion, puts off his own imminent liberation in order
to work for the salvation of others. Arhats (nowadays commonly called arhants) are
“Nobles” or “Worthy Ones”. In Hinayana this is the highest stage of achievement: they
have attained enlightenment in this lifetime. In Mahayana arhats are portrayed as selfish,
since they work only for their own benefit. (See Charles S. Prebish, ed.. Buddhism: A
Modern Perspeetive [University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1975], and
Christmas Humphreys, A Popular Dictionary of Buddhism [Totowa, N.J.: Rowman and
Littlefield, 1976]).
 The Mylhology of Modem C'liina S5

exalted of all, Shen (God or Goddess), were of the same nature, and were
distinguished from one another by little except the more or less wide-
spread power which they possessed. There is, in truth, no term in the
language to designate them collectively, but that is almost the sole
residue of their primal diversity in origin and kind. On the other hand,
there is a term to designate their supernatural power: it is generally called
ling-yeiu or, in more elevated language, ////g. This term is used uniformly
for all, from great Bodhisattvas down to petty gods; but naturally only
the greatest Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Celestial Venerables, Emperors,
Immortals, and such possess ling-ycu complete with all its powers
(Buddhist theory enumerates precisely ten of them). These are the eye
and ear which see and hear all, the awareness of the past and the future
as of the present, the capacity to take any form whatever, the power to
transport oneself instantly anywhere, and so on. It is by their degrees of
supernatural power that they are differentiated, but they are all ranked
on the same scale. The various titles given them simply mark the grades
of a somewhat fluctuating hierarchy, and when one of them rises in favor
he also rises in grade, so to say, and from being a simple spirit, shen, he is
raised to the rank of Bodhisattva, P’u-sa. Emperor Kuan, one of the
most popular gods of the official religion, is often popularly called P’u-sa
Kuan although he has no right to this title. All that Buddhism could do
with him was to grant him a place as God of the Locality, Ch’ieh-lan-
shen {sanghdrama-cleva), protector of the temple and of its monks. The
little Kitchen God is often called P’u-sa of the Hearth; the Sun and the
Moon receive the title of Buddha in the prayers of their fervent devotees.
But that does not mean that they are made into real Buddhas or
Bodhisattvas; no effort is made to assimilate certain indigenous gods into
some of the various forms of the great Bodhisattvas. This syncretism,
which existed in other times (some have tried to make Confucius himself
the bodily transformation of one of the Buddha’s disciples), had dis-
appeared by the eighth century A.D. There remains only the use of the
titles themselves as simple indications of supernatural power, abstracted
from every other idea connected with it and, in consequence, the
attribution of those titles to the most unexpected personages. Moreover,
titles which were originally in equal degree Buddhist and Taoist are used
constantly for one another; and it is not unusual, in routine con-
versation, to hear the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of a Buddhist temple
styled Immortals, a Taoist term, or, for example, in explaining the
popularity of pilgrimages to one of them, to hear it said that “the
Immortals of this pagoda are endowed with a considerable supernatural
power!” To avoid confusion, it would perhaps be necessary to give the
deities some such collective name as “Beings endowed with supernatural
 S6 Taoism and Chinese Religion

power"; it is simpler to eall them gods. But this notion of godhead is

quite different from those to which the ancient mythologies have ac-
customed us.
Every god, great or small, is a man who, after death, was promoted
for various reasons to the dignity of god. The Buddhist epics give the
successive biographies through innumerable ages of the Buddhas and the
great Bodhisattvas; similar Taoist collections give those of the Celestial
Venerables; and modeled upon these collections of legends were made
for the various gods. Important gods had devoted several successive
existences to acquiring the merits which had brought them promotion;
for the secondary gods a single existence sulficed. The gods who were
protectors of cities had their human biographies: their names, their
countries of origin, and the reasons for their promotion were known.
The god of the Yellow River was a man who, in about the third or the
fourth century A.D., was drowned while crossing the river. The god of the
bore of the Che River is Wu Tzu-hsii, the former minister of a local
prince who, put to death unjustly, took his revenge by seeking each year
to destroy the country and especially its capital, Hangchow, by launch-
ing the waves to assault it. The judges of hell are upright officials of old
times, whose names and death-dates are precisely known. Within the
house the privies have for their divinity a young woman who was
assassinated there, among household objects; the goddess of the sedan-
chair is a young girl who died in her chair during the marriage ceremony,
while being borne solemnly from her parents’ house to her husband’s.
One of the greatest gods, the emperor Kuan, is a general who died at the
beginning of the third century A.D.
These are not legends produced once and for all, which are passed
along and believed in more or less. People become gods daily in China.
In 1915, in a village near Ju-nan (Honan), a young man of a Wang
family, renowned for his filial piety and his good conduct, stated to his
brother one day: '‘Last night I saw a god of the Walls and Ditches. He
told me that he had been summoned back to the abode of the Jade
Emperor and that I had been designated to replace him. I shall die in ten
days." His family made fun of him; but on the morning of the tenth day
he took a bath, called his whole family together, gave advice to each of
them, dictated his last wishes, forbade them to mourn him with funeral
ceremonies after his death and, precisely at noon, lay down, heaved a
sigh, and died. When, pursuant to his instructions, his family conducted
no mourning ceremonies, the neighbors were astonished and word of the
occurrence came to the ears of the subprefect, who made an inquiry and
a report to the president of the Republic. Yuan Shih-k’ai took an interest
in the affair and ordered the prefect to make a fresh inquiry and then.
 The Myl/io/oi^y of Modern China H7

when he received that otficiars favorable report, conferred a posthumous

title upon the dead man. The deceased appeared in dreams to various
persons, and by this it was known that he had indeed become God of the
Walls and Ditches. The story was told to me in 1919 by the deified dead
man's own nephew, who had been present when his uncle died.
Divinity is a responsibility like a public function: the title endures but
those who hold it succeed one another. When one speaks of the God of
Thunder, or of the god of a town, it is a title which one utters; but the
person vested with that title has changed frequently in the course of the
ages. These are functionary gods who receive a position, who lose it, who
are promoted or demoted, and who finally die to be reborn as men on
earth. Only the most highly ranked among them, like the Celestial
Venerables or the Bodhisattvas, have ceased to be subject to birth and
death, so that they occupy their positions in perpetuity. For, thanks to
their merits, they have been rewarded with the gift of the Elixir of
Immortality, or alternatively with one of the peaches of Immortality
from the garden of the Queen Mother of the West, Hsi-wang-mu. On
this point the popular mind has been imbued with Taoist ideas, and the
legend of Kuan-yin shows clearly that even a Bodhisattva does not ow'e
his eternity of salvation to his own merits, but that his body must also,
after its apparent death, be immortalized by eating the peaches of
Immortality.
Divinity is so much an office that some delegate it to others. The great
gods, who have many temples and statues, cannot reside in all of their
images at the same time. The power of being in many places at the same
time is so incomprehensible that, even though it is accorded to
Bodhisattvas by tradition, they are hardly seen as using this power
except on particular occasions, in order to come to the aid of living
creatures. To give life to each of their statues and images, they choose
from among the souls of the just: these are charged with representing
them, have the right of taking all or part of the offerings, and must
report to them regarding all that occurs in their temple. Sometimes,
when a temple is abandoned, an evil spirit takes possession of a deserted
statue and, if it succeeds in gathering up the faithful again, it appro-
priates the offerings until the god whose place it has usurped punishes it.
Popular religion is far from uniform: if certain fundamental ideas are
to be encountered from one end of China to the other, the details vary
infinitely from one place to another. The mixture of the three systems
was not carried out identically everywhere and, according to region, one
or another among them has taken a stronger role. The great Buddhist
temples of Chekiang maintain a predominant Buddhist influence in that
region. The presence of the grand official ceremonies at the capital on the
 <V(V Taoism ami Chinese Religion

one hand and the tomb of Confucius on the other have given the ideas of
the literati a preponderant influence in the north. Szechuan in the west
and Fukien in the east are particularly Taoist. And so it goes.
These divergences are especially noticeable in matters of the beliefs
and the external aspects of festivals. They are less obvious in the
mythology and, although the relative importance of each of the gods is
not always identical from one province to another, the pantheon is very
nearly the same, at least in its main outlines, throughout the entire
empire. There is an extraordinary swarm of gods and spirits of every
kind, a countless throng. There is naturally no question of describing
them all. The pages I have here would scarcely suffice to set out a list of
them, as one can see by simply glancing at Father Dore’s eighteen-
volume Recherches sur les superstitions en Chine. I have chosen those,
great and small, who have seemed to me most alive in the religious
sentiments and the worship of present-day people, and I have tried to
describe them as the masses most ordinarily envision them. It is necess-
ary to remember, moreover, that this is only a matter of mythology, but
that—if one wished to draw the picture of popular religion in its
entirety—it would be necessary to make place also for those ill-
characterized obscure powers, generally impersonal, which have often
played the principal role in the religious life of the Chinese in all ages,
and have been more significant than the individually characterized
members of the pantheon.

2. The Supreme Gods

A. THE JADE EMPEROR, YU-HUANG

The world is governed by a supreme god, sovereign master of all others,

the Jade Emperor, Yii-huang, or Jade Emperor Lord on High, Yii-huang
Shang-ti, or—as he is called popularly—Sire Heaven, Lao-T'ien-yeh.
The two names show the hybrid character of popular religion very well,
since the first is borrowed from Taoism and the second from the official
religion. The title. Jade Emperor, is indeed that of the second of the
Three Pure Ones, the supreme triad of Taoism, which dwells in the
highest of the twenty-six heavens, the Ta-lo heaven. The three personages
of this Triad (in which some have wrongly believed that they recognized
the trace of a distant influence of Christian ideas regarding the Trinity)
are not three sovereigns who reign together. The first, the Celestial
Venerable of the Original Beginning, Yiian-shih T'ien-tsun, governed to
start with, but he long ago resigned his responsibility to his disciple, the
 The Mythology of Modern China H9

Celestial Venerable Jade Emperor, who is thus the current supreme god
and who in turn will pass the position on to the Celestial Venerable Jade
Dawn of the Golden Gate, Chin-ch’iieh Yu-cITen T'icu-tswu the third
person of the Triad.
But the god of popular religion is not the Taoist god, instructor rather
than sovereign of the world. His associates are forgotten and he himself,
heir of the old Emperor from on High in antique mythology who
bestowed investiture upon the kings, is far from practising Taoist Non-
action. On the contrary, he directly and personally manages heavenly
and earthly affairs. To give an account of how this divine figure was
formed—why the ancient Lord on High, by transforming himself,
survived the almost total disappearance of the religion and mythology of
antiquity—would require us to know the history of popular religion
during the first ten centuries A.D. better than we do. By the tenth century
the modern figure had been fully formed.
It is in this role as supreme god regent of the universe, as the emperor
in China was sovereign of gods and men, that the Jade Emperor is
presented in the curious visions of two emperors in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. The Chen-tsung emperor of the Sung dynasty himself
recounted his. A first time, “the twenty-seventh day of the eleventh
month of last year (11 December 1007), when it was near midnight and I
was going to bed, suddenly the bedchamber was lit up and I saw gods
with headdresses of stars and silken garments who said to me: ‘On the
third of next month, you must set up a place for Taoist worship for a
month in the audience hall of the palace to await the descent of a
heavenly scripture, the favorable spell of great success, in three para-
graphs.' I arose, but they disappeared immediately.” He had a series of
other dreams during the years that followed, and his ministers took care
that their prescriptions were carried out immediately. In 1012, the gods
brought him a letter from heaven. “In the tenth month, I beheld in a
dream a god who passed me a letter from the Jade Emperor, saying:
‘Previously I ordered your ancestor Chao to transmit a heavenly letter to
you; now I have ordered him to pay you a visit again.’ On the morrow I
dreamt again that the following words from the Celestial Venerable had
been passed to me: ‘Let my seat be on the West, and let six seats be
prepared for my entourage!’ On that same day there was set up, in the
Hall of the Extension of Mercy, a place for Taoist worship.
“During the first quarter of the fifth evening thereafter, I first noted
a strange perfume; a moment after, a glow filled the hall, making
the lamps and the torches grow dim, and I saw that the Trans-
cendent Immortal Celestial Venerable had arrived. 1 greeted him.
Suddenly a yellow cloud arose; after a moment this dispersed and went
 90 Taoism and Chinese Religion

up the western steps, and I saw the followers on the eastern steps. The
Celestial Venerable seated himself; there were six persons who
accompanied him and who were seated after him. I wished to greet these
six persons; the Celestial Venerable stopped me and gave me the order
(from the Jade Emperor), saying first: d am the Humane Emperor, Jen-
liuang, one of the Nine Emperors (who in Taoist mythical history were
the hrst sovereigns of the world, in the beginnings). I am the First
Ancestor of the Chao family (to which the emperors of the Sung dynasty
belonged). 1 have descended again into this world to be the Yellow
Emperor, Huang-fi. Everybody asserts that he was the son of Chao-t’ien,
but that is false: his mother, deeply moved by the thunder, dreamed of a
heavenly man and gave birth to him. In the time of the Later T’ang
(923-935), having received an order from the Emperor of Jade, I
descended again on the first day of the seventh month (1 August 927) in
order to govern this world below entirely and to be the chief of the Chao
family (that is, to be the founder of the Sung dynasty, 960-976); it is now
a hundred ages.’ With these words, leaving his seat, he mounted upon a
cloud and went away."
Consequent upon these remarkable favors which the Jade Emperor
had granted him, the Chen-tsung emperor set up a statue to him in one
of the palace buildings (1014) and conferred upon him the title of Most
High, Creator of Heaven, Bearer of the Scepter, Regulator of the
Calendar, Incarnation of the Tao the Jade Emperor, Grand Emperor of
Heaven. A century later, in 1115, one of his successors, the Hui-tsung
emperor, transformed the two last titles into Supreme Emperor, Jade
Emperor of High Heaven, Great Emperor of Heaven, thus confusing
him with the Supreme Emperor of the official religion; but this inno-
vation was not maintained. It is to Chen-tsung that the Chinese literati
usually attribute the “invention" of the Jade Emperor; but it is clear
that, even though that emperor had so clear a vision of his ancestor’s
bringing the god’s order to him, that god must have already existed in his
rank as supreme deity in popular belief. And it is yet more necessary if in
fact, as scholars believe (though without compelling reason), the emperor
was a dissimulator and had purely and simply dreamed up his visions to
deceive the people; for false visions demand the support of a well-
established belief far more than true visions do: the revelations would
have been of no interest if they had emanated from an unknown god.
The Jade Emperor is represented seated on a throne, in the imperial
costume for a great ceremony. He is dressed in a long robe embroidered
with dragons; on his head he has the bonnet {mien) of emperors, shaped
like a mortar-board, from the front and back of which hang thirteen
pendants of colored pearls strung on red cords; and in his joined hands
 The Mytholoffy of Modern Chino 91

he holds the imperial ceremonial tablet {kuci). His face has that aspect
drained of expression by which Taoists sought to convey majestic calm.
Long side-whiskers, a drooping moustache, and a goatee frame his
countenance.

B. THE FAMILY AND COURT OF THE JADE EMPEROR

The Jade Emperor has a whole family. One of his younger sisters is the
mother of Yang Chien, a very popular god under the title of Second
Lord of Quality, Erli-lang, who drives away evil spirits by having the
Celestial Dog, T’ieu-kou, pursue them. The goddess Horse-Head, Mci-
t'ou niang, who looks after silkworms, is one of his secondary wives. One
of his daughters, the Seventh Young Lady, Ch’i-ku-niang, is called upon
by young girls who wish to know beforehand whom they will marry.
After prostrating themselves and burning incense, the young woman
seeking advice seats herself with her head veiled, while her companions
continue to burn incense and to pray, and either the face of her husband
or scenes from his life pass quickly before her eyes.
The Jade Emperor's palace is in Heaven. Popular imagination has not
sought to place it more precisely; those who require more precision in
these matters agree, like the Taoists, that he dwells in the highest of all
the heavens, the heaven called Ta-lo, from which he controls the entire
universe, the levels of the lesser heavens, the earth, and the levels of hell.
It is in Ta-lo that he has his palace. And this palace has a gate-keeper,
Wang the Transcendental Official, Wang Ling-kiuin, who—long lost
among the throng of innumerable Taoist divinities and lacking in any
definite personality (he was simply one among the twenty-six generals of
the Celestial Court)—suddenly became very popular at the end of the
fifteenth century. The tao-shih Chou Ssu-te, who claimed to have derived
all his magical powers from this god and his revelations, had taken
advantage of his credit with the Yung-lo Emperor (1403-1425) to have
an official temple raised to him west of Peking, the Temple of the
Celestial General, where sacrifices had to be made on the day of the
winter solstice. In the middle of the temple had been set up a statue of
the god which had been miraculously discovered on the seashore; every
three months the embroidered silken garments in which it was dressed
were changed, and every ten years the whole wardrobe was burned and
entirely replaced. It is said that during his life Wang, who was a man of
prodigious strength, exerted himself to protect the people from the
exactions of unjust mandarins and evil spirits. As a reward, he received a
seal from the Jade Emperor. He stays at the gate of the celestial palace,
his gnarled staff' in his hand. He turns away troublesome intruders and at
 92 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

the same time holds himself ready to go at once and carry out the
missions as righter of wrongs which the Jade Emperor entrusts to him,
by executing the guilty parties whom the emperor points out. This is why
his statue is placed at the entry to the temples of Yii-huang and, in
general, to many Taoist temples. He is represented standing at the gate
of the celestial palace, dressed in his armor and with his gnarled staff in
hand.

C. CELESTIAL ADMINISTRATION AND MINISTRIES

Most important, the Jade Emperor has a court, ministers, generals,

guards, and an army of officials. Just as on earth the emperor confers
responsibilities upon earthly mandarins, so he confers responsibilities
upon gods, his own mandarins whom he entrusts with specified func-
tions. These must come and account to him for their mandate every year
at a fixed date, generally on New Year’s Day. They go up to his court to
render him homage and present to him their reports on their steward-
ship, and he grants them promotion or punishes them according to their
merits. It is in all respects a complete heavenly administration.
The Taoists have systematized this on the model of the empire’s
administration and have devised a whole series of celestial ministries: a
ministry of Thunder and Wind, of the Waters, of Fire, of Time, of the
Five Peaks, of Literature, of War, of Wealth, of Works, of Epidemics, of
Smallpox, of Exorcisms, of Medicine, and so on. Each has its own
presiding officer, with his assistants and his army of subordinates, as
earthly ministries had in imperial times.
But this organization is far from having been universally accepted in
detail by popular religious sentiment. If certain of these ministries—that
of Thunder, for example, or that of Wealth—seem to have been accepted
at least in certain regions, most frequently certain gods alone have been
recognized, while others have been excluded. We understand the connec-
tions between popular religion and Taoism over the centuries too poorly
to see clearly in which cases the tao-shih, for reasons of symmetry, have
created new divinities around popular gods so as to flesh out their
Celestial Ministries, but without success, and in which cases, by contrast,
popular religion has arbitrarily chosen or rejected some of the tao-shih
creations. But, whatever the reasons have been in each particular case,
the result is that the formal Taoist framework hardly represents the
living religion today. This latter is less regular, and less heavily bureau-
cratized; but it is still very hierarchical, and each of the gods has his
defined place in it as men do in human society.
All the gods have as their sole purpose man and his material and
 The Mythology oj Modern China 93

moral welfare, which is one of the necessary conditions for the proper
working of the world. But according to whether their functions put them
more or less directly into relation with human society, they can be
divided without too much difficulty into three categories: gods of nature
(rain, wind, thunder, mountains, waters, and so on), gods responsible for
the living (social groupings and individuals), and finally gods responsible
for the dead.

D. HEAVEN AND THE SUPREME EMPEROR IN THE IMPERIAL WORSHIP

When the common people speak of Sire Heaven, it is always under the
form of Yii-huang that he is represented, as a personal divinity, a very
powerful heavenly emperor who governs the world as the earthly
emperor not long ago governed the empire, and whose officials are the
gods. But in certain scholarly circles, influenced by the “Five Masters”,
the great Confucian masters of Sung times, in whose theories all the
generations of scholars have been trained for seven centuries, the
primary role is given to an impersonal power which is simply called
Heaven, T’ieiu and into which is absorbed the Supreme Emperor of
antiquity, the personal celestial sovereign, and the prototype of the Jade
Emperor.
This Heaven is not the material and visible sky, but its essence. It is a
concrete way of designating the Active Principle, L/, which moves all
things. Likewise it produces all things. “There are men who ask hes-
itantly: ‘What does Heaven mean?’ The four seasons succeed one
another and all things are produced. What could be more clear!” One
must not conclude from this that Heaven is a creator. There are two
principles, the Active Principle (L/), the prime mover, and the Passive
Principle (C/iV), an elusive and rarefied matter which has existed in all
times. The union of these two constitutes what is called the Great Unity,
TUn-yi. It is through this union that elusive matter, C//7, transformed in
accordance with two modes, that of repose ( r/7?) and that of movement
{yang), which succeed one another indefinitely, produced the Five
Elements: Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, Earth, and all things in general.
It is clear that in this system no personal divinity is necessary. And
indeed the last of the Five Masters, the man who has had the greatest
influence upon the formation of the modern Chinese mind, Chu Hsi, says
explicitly that there is none. “Some ask (an opinion of the phrase from
the Shih-ching): The Supreme Emperor causes intelligence to come
down upon the people.’ Heaven gives birth to beings and they develop
according to their nature (thus bestowed by him): upon those who are
made well descend the hundred felicities; upon those who are made ill
 94 Taoism and Chinese Religion

descend the hundred calamities. In these conditions, how could there

really be a lord and master up there in the blue?” Nevertheless, Heaven
has still retained, if not something anthropomorphic, at least a certain
awareness which causes it to control not only the physical world but also
the moral world. Certain expressions from the Classics, which cannot be
refuted since they are the work of the Sages of antiquity, require the
acknowledgement that it knows all. “Heaven knows things without ears,
without eyes, without heart, without thought ... It sees and understands
through the people; it manifests its majesty through the people.”
It is this awareness which, despite its entirely special character, justifies
the sacrifices which the Emperor had to make to it each year at the
Temple of Heaven, a great enclosure planted with trees situated in the
southern suburbs of the capital, nan-cliiao, in the middle of which was
erected, on the one hand, the Altar of Heaven, a round, three-leveled
mound adorned with marble balustrades and, on the other, the Temple
in which the Harvest was prayed for, CITi-nien miao, situated a little
north of the Altar of Heaven and connected to it by a paved pathway.
The sacrifice on the Altar of Heaven at the winter solstice, which was
called simply the Suburb Sacrifice, chiao, was one of the most important
ceremonies of the ofiicial religion. All those who took part in that
sacrifice, including the Emperor, had to prepare themselves beforehand
by fasting: during the last three days (in earlier times the fast lasted ten
days), they retired into the Palace of Fasting, apart from women, and
abstained from certain foods, from music, and so on.
When the day came, a sumptuous procession went to fetch the
Emperor two hours before daybreak and took him to the Temple of
Heaven. At the head came elephants, then a troupe of musicians, singers
and instrumentalists, then flag-bearers, with the banners of the twenty-
eight constellations of the zodiac and the Five Planets, of the Five Peaks
and the Four Rivers, and so on. Behind them were teams of dancers
carrying peacock plumes, of armed dancers, of bearers of fans and
parasols; and behind these came princes and high officials, each group set
ofl' from the one ahead by a company of soldiers. The Emperor, dressed
in a costume embroidered with dragons and wearing a bonnet with pearl
pendants, boarded a tremendous sedan-chair carried by thirty-six men
and, preceded by exorcists, made his way from the Palace to the Temple.
The sacrificial victims had been slaughtered and cut up into great
cauldrons since the previous evening and all had been prepared: the
throne of the Supreme Ford of August Heaven, Huaug-t’ien Siumg-ti,
on the highest level of the mound, together with those of the Imperial
Ancestors arranged to right and left, and also the tablets of the Sun, the
Moon, the Wind, the Rain, the Peaks, the Rivers, and so on. As soon as
 The Mythology of Modern China 95

the Emperor arrived he aseended the mound and a t’uneral-pyre was lit
before the throne of the Supreme Emperor, whom the smoke invited to
descend and be present at the ceremony. Then the Emperor himself,
prostrate, offered incense, rolls of silk, and disks of blue jade. After that,
having prostrated himself three times, he made a libation, kneeling, to
the Supreme Emperor and then to each of his Ancestors. Finally he was
brought a piece of roasted meat, which he offered in the same way.
During this time, at the foot of the altar, the singers, accompanied by
flutes, chanted the official hymns composed by the Bureau of Music, and
the dancers traced their patterns to the sound of gongs and stone chimes,
armed military dancers first and civilian dancers carrying peacock
plumes last. After the ceremony, the Emperor prostrated himself nine
times to make his farewells and descended from the altar. One of the
victims as well as the rolls of silk and the disks of jade were burned
before his eyes, on a funeral pyre set in a corner of the enclosure. Then
the procession formed up again to take him back to the palace. Even
after the 1911 Revolution the sacrifice was still carried out by a person
delegated by the president of the republic; but Yiian Shih-k’ai, perhaps
guided in this by his ow n ulterior thoughts of restoring the monarchy for
himself, was the last chief of state who had it celebrated. After his death
(1916) it was broken off, perhaps for the first time since the beginnings of
Chinese civilization.
The spring sacrifice, w'hich was carried out in the Temple where the
Harvest was prayed for, was less solemn, but the offerings, almost
identical, were likewise accompanied by music and songs, as well as
military and civilian dances. The Emperor's throne was set in the middle
of the Temple, with the same tablets to right and to left as for the chicio
sacrifice. The Emperor, in the prayer which was burned, announced the
imminent beginning of work in the fields and asked that rain and good
weather come in time and in such a way that the harvest would be good.
Like everything connected with the worship of Heaven, this ceremony
has not taken place since the second decade of the twentieth century.
The official religion, always tending tow'ards symmetrical construc-
tions, also had sacrifices to the Earth, //, as representing the yin principle
by opposition to Heaven, which represents the yang principle, both of
them distinct from the Earth God, she, a territorial divinity inferior to
this supreme pair. This god had a square altar with two levels in the
northern suburbs of the capital (even numbers and the North are yin),
and his great festival was at the summer solstice, with ceremonies similar
to those of the winter solstice to Heaven, except that the victims were
buried rather than burned. The dates chosen also had a symbolic
meaning: the summer solstice is the time when the yang principle reaches
 96 Taoism and Chinese Religion

its apogee, just as the winter solstice is for the yin principle; but it is also
the moment when the contrary principle, brought to nothing for an
instant, will begin to grow from day to day, diminishing the one which
triumphs on that day. The sacrifices were intended to assist this growth,
and thus to assist the regular alternation of the principles which is the
prime cause of the proper functioning of the universe.

3. The Gods of Nature

A. THE SUN AND THE MOON

The gods of Nature play only a rather weak role in Chinese religion. It is
true that the Emperor officially worshipped the Sun and the Moon; each
had an altar in the open air, like that of Heaven, but with a single storey,
in the suburbs of the capital, the Sun on the east side and the Moon on
the west. The sacrifices took place every two years, in the odd years of
the sixty-year cycle for the Sun, which is the quintessence of the Active
Principle, yang, to which the odd numbers belong, and in the even years
for the Moon, quintessence of the Passive Principle, yin, to which the
even numbers belong. They occurred respectively in the morning at
sunrise in mid-spring, and in the evening at sunset in mid-autumn, for
the same reasons. The offerings consisted of a group of three victims, an
ox, sheep, and pig, with wine, pieces of silk and jade, red (for the Sun)
and white (for the Moon). Music and military and civil dances ac-
companied the ceremonies. But, like much of what belonged to official
religion, this was a dead cult, which people continued to perform out of
habit, without attaching any religious importance to it. The Sun and the
Moon also had their Buddhist and Taoist divinities, but those were
catalogue divinities, to whom nobody prayed. True, one rather often
finds likenesses or statuettes of the woman in the Moon, CITang-o or
Heng-o, sitting on the three-legged toad; but these are simply trinkets or
drawings to which people almost never attach any religious meaning
nowadays.
Ch’ang-o was the wife of a hero in mythological times, Yi the
Excellent Archer. One of her husband’s most celebrated exploits was as
follows: one day when the ten solar brothers, ascending the sky all
together, threatened to set the earth aflame, he shot nine down with
arrows. The Queen of the Immortals, Hsi-wang-mu, had one day
presented him the drug of immortality as a gift; but his wife robbed him
of it while he was away and began to drink it. She had not finished when
he returned and, seized with fear, she fled. Thanks to the drug she had
 The Mythology of Modern China 97

taken, she was able to rise up towards heaven; but since she had not
taken the whole dose, she had to stop halfway there and remain in the
Moon. Yi himself ascended a little while afterwards to the abode of the
Immortals and became regent of the Sun.
The worship of the Sun and the Moon, though not very frequent, goes
on nevertheless as a matter of personal devotion. Its devotees set up a
lacquered red tablet for them or simply glue a strip of red paper to a
wall, upon which the two names are placed side by side. They prostrate
themselves before this tablet while burning incense on the three feast
days of the Sun, which are the first of the second month, the nineteenth
of the third (his birthday) and the nineteenth of the eleventh, according
to the Book of the Holy Sun Prince. During the rest of the year, worship
consists simply of reciting a prayer in verse.

B. THE OLD WOMAN WHO SWEEPS HEAVEN CLEAR

The Old Woman Who Sweeps Heaven Clear (Sao-clTing-niang) is, as her
name shows, responsible for cleansing heaven after rain, by driving away
the clouds with sweeps of her broom. She is represented as a woman,
sleeves rolled up, holding a broom in her hand. A simple piece of paper
is cut out so as to reproduce the silhouette of a sweeper-woman, is kept
ordinarily in the women’s apartment, and is taken out after rain and
hung under the roof-top so that the slightest movement of breeze shakes
it and makes it really sweep the air. Her broom not only sweeps the
clouds away but also gathers them up, at least in certain regions where it
is hung up in the same way, when drought has lasted too long, so as to
make the rains come.

C. SIRE THUNDER AND THE MOTHER OF LIGHTNING

The god of Thunder, Sire Thunder (Lei-kimg), is one of the ancient

divinities whom modern religion has retained almost unmodified. In the
beginning, he was perhaps an owl: he has kept the beak, the wings and
the talons, but has taken on the form of a man colored blue all over; his
ugliness is proverbial. He is dressed merely in a loin-cloth, and carries a
string of drums; in his right hand he holds a wooden mallet with which
he makes them resound so as to produce the thunder-roll, and in his left
the dagger with which he strikes the guilty whom he is ordered to punish.
The Taoist monks disintegrated him into a collection of divinities
forming the Thunder Bureau. The president is Ancestor Thunder {Lei-
tsu), who is put in the place of honor in temples and chapels of Thunder
and in whose name printed pardons are drawn up. Sire Thunder is one of
 9(S Taoism and Chinese Religion

his subordinates, together with several others. But popular religion did
not confirm this distinction, and today it recognizes, as before, only a
single god of Thunder, who is called sometimes Ancestor Thunder,
sometimes the Bodhisattva Sire Thunder. He has a whole family, and
there are numerous tales about the misadventures of the little, inex-
perienced Thunders: the one who, caught in the cleft of a tree and unable
to free himself without help, owed his release to a passing woodcutter;
the one who, still clumsy, did not manage to take off and ended by
getting himself beaten by the staff of a peasant who was annoyed by the
noise of his thunderings during his unsuccessful efforts; and so on.
Sire Thunder makes the noise but not the lightning: that is produced
by the Mother of Lightning (Tien-mu) with the help of two mirrors. The
story is told that, while in his palace playing a game with a Jade
Daughter, the Lord King of the East missed his aim. The game consisted
of throwing little sticks which, after touching the earth with their tip,
rebounded and dropped into a large vase with a narrow opening. Heaven
began to laugh and from its open mouth lightning issued forth. The
goddess is represented standing upon a cloud, holding her two mirrors
above her head. In Peking, she is usually considered the Thunder God’s
wife.

D. THE RAIN AND THE WIND

In their bureaucratic classification the tao-shih also subordinated the

gods of the Rain and the Wind to Ancestor Thunder. These are
divinities very ancient in origin, who have retained the titles Master of
the Rain (Yii Shih) and Count of the Wind (Feng Po) which were given
them in antiquity. They are represented standing upon clouds: Yii Shih
as a warrior clad in yellow armor, bearing a vase full of water; Feng Po
as an old man with a white beard dressed in a yellow cloak, wearing a
red-and-blue bonnet and holding in his hand either a fan which he
shakes or a sack filled with wind. These spirits, who have their place not
only in the Taoist worship but also in the official religion, have almost
disappeared, however, in popular religion. In Peking, for example, the
Master of the Rain is still known: popular portrayals show him holding
in his hand a cup from which he makes water gush with the point of his
sword. But the Count of the Wind is forgotten and is replaced as the
divinity who produces the wind by an old woman, Madame Wind {Feng
p’o-p’o), who travels upon clouds seated on a tiger, and carrying in her
arms the sack which contains the winds.
Furthermore, when drought is too protracted and rain is needed, it is
not generally these divinities who are invoked. The ceremonies for
making rain fall vary from region to region. In many places, the statue of
 The Mytholof^y of Modern China 99

the local God of Walls and Ditches is brought out of its temple and set
up in full sunlight until the rain falls, which they say does not take long.
The story is told in a number of places of the prefect or subprefect who,
in a time of prolonged drought, goes to find the god and says to him:
“Both of us are in charge of governing this district; let the two of
us expose ourselves to the sun, and may the head of the one who is
responsible be the one to explode!" Then he has the statue carried into
the marketplace and stands beside it; after some time, the head of the
statue bursts. That is the last vestige of a more barbarous ritual of
ancient times; rainmaker-witches were made to dance in the sun until
rain came or they died. This custom, which originally had the purpose of
making rain fall through the sorceresses’ own power, was understood,
from the first century A.D. on, as a torture inflicted upon the spirit who
possessed them. As manners became more gentle, it was easy to go from
that to torturing the god, not through an intermediary, but directly in his
statue. This method was, moreover, only one among a great number of
rain-making techniques. One of the strangest is that called “laughing at a
dog", which is practised in western Szechuan. According to a widely
known proverb, when a dog is laughed at, the weather cannot remain
good. A dog is dressed in a complete wedding costume and is seated on a
sedan-chair ornamented with embroideries and flowers. Then he is
carried slowly in procession through all the streets of the town, while
everybody looks on and laughs at him.

E. THE DRAGON-KINGS, LUNG-WANG

But especially, across all of China, it is beings of quite a different kind

who are addressed to produce rain; dragons, four-legged monsters whose
bodies are covered with scales, who can ascend to heaven and walk upon
clouds, and who produce rain. In central and southern China, there is
usually a great procession. A dragon made from a skeleton of wood
covered with paper or cloth is carried by men or youths who dance
along, following a child who dances backwards carrying the dragon
pearl. Or sometimes a clay dragon is carried on a stretcher around which
youths dance. Sometimes it is merely a flag on which a dragon is pictured
and which is carried behind all sorts of flags bearing inscriptions asking
for rain; and a water-bearer follows who from time to time dips a willow
branch in one of his buckets and sprinkles the road and the passersby,
crying out, “See the rain coming!" In Szechuan there is a similar
procession, but it is the dragon which is sprinkled with water; every
house has a tub set out in front of the door, and the children sprinkle the
dragon as it passes.
Dances and processions of dragons are very ancient ceremonies for
 100 Taoism and Chinese Religion

getting rain. In the time of Confucius, the inhabitants of Lu, his

homeland, already were miming, in the fourth month of the year, the
dragon who comes out of the river. For that observance, two bands of
six or seven men, one of adults, the other of adolescents, performed a
ceremonial dance in the middle of the stream of the river Yi, which they
crossed at a ford and then went out of the river to go and sing on the
rain altar. In other places, in the third century B.C., the image of a winged
dragon was made to ward off drought.
In modern beliefs, strongly tinged with Buddhist ideas, dragons
constitute an immense population governed by the Dragon-Kings, Lung-
Waug. Each of these has a scaly body and four legs armed with claws;
the head is topped with horns, and the center of the skull is raised in
a mountain-shaped hump. These dragons are capable of going up to
heaven as well as of plunging into the waters, and of enlarging and
shrinking their bodies at will. Like the miga of Hindu folklore, to which
missionaries and believers have likened them since the first days when
Buddhism was preached, they possess a marvelous pearl, which pictorial
representations rarely fail to set before them in the form of a great ball.
When, as is frequent, they are represented as a facing pair, the pearl is set
between the two heads confronting one another. They have also bor-
rowed from the miga the power of taking human form when they wish,
and they take advantage of this to go and walk about among men, most
often to marry or to abduct young girls.
Their sovereign, the Dragon-King, is enormous: he is one // (about five
hundred meters) long. This became clear when the First Emperor of
Ch’in, on the advice of his magicians, having himself embarked upon the
sea to search for the Isles of the Immortals, which his envoys had seen
without having been able to reach them, tried to frighten the Dragon-
King by having the drums beaten on his vessels by his soldiers. The noise
attracted the Dragon-King, who appeared on the surface of the waves,
five hundred feet long. The Emperor had him riddled with arrows, so
that his blood reddened the entire ocean. But the following night, the
Emperor dreamt that he struggled with the Dragon-King and was
defeated. On the following day he fell ill, and died seven days later.
But it is quite rare for the dragon-kings to be pictured otherwise than
in human form. That is what, in the legends, they ordinarily prefer, and
it is only when killed or defeated that they resume their monstrous guise.
The theater seems to have had the major part in creating the standard
popular image of the dragon-king: large, with a long beard, long
moustaches, and tremendous eyebrows, the face covered with multi-
colored paint forming spots and stripes beneath which all human aspect
disappears. Their statues give them simply the appearance of huge
 The Mythology oj Modern China 1(11

bearded mandarins, sitting comfortably, and distinguished only by

slogans and inscriptions from numerous other divinities of a similar
iconographic type.
Some of the Buddhist books translated into Chinese enumerate eight,
some ten dragon-kings (ndga). But from the time when, for the Chinese,
the dragon-kings had become the kings of the seas, their number had to
be fixed at four, since for the Chinese the earth is surrounded by Four
Seas, one on each side, at the cardinal points of the compass; and these
Four Seas surround it with a continuous belt like the River Ocean of
Flomeric mythology. This is the system of popular folklore that the
Taoists adopted. They have four dragon-kings for the Four Seas: the
Dragon-King who Releases Virtue, Kuang-te, for the Eastern Sea; the
one who Releases Goodness, Kuang-li, for the Southern Sea; the one
who Releases Favor, Kuang-jun, for the Western Sea; the one who
Releases Generosity, Kuang-tse, for the Northern Sea. But these names
are hardly more known among the people than those of the ten Buddhist
Nagaraja. The only truly popular names are those which have been given
them in the novel Journey to the West {The Pilgrim Monkey, Hsi-yu-ehi)
and which, although related to the Taoist names, are quite different from
them. The dragon-kings are brothers and have the same family name.
They are called Ao Kuang (Eastern Sea), Ao Ch’in (Southern Sea), Ao
Jun (Western Sea), Ao Shun (Northern Sea). Each governs one of the
Four Seas, he of the Eastern Sea being the chief of the other three, under
the orders of the Jade Emperor, to whom they must render homage, like
all the gods, once a year. In the third month they ascend to the Fleavenly
Court, and that is why the third month is a month of great rains.
There is hardly any room for the great dragon-kings in Chinese
popular religion. At the most local dragons, each in its lake or its river or
its whirlpool are sometimes a little more important in their territory. It is
not these mythological creations which interest Chinese peasants, but
rather the animal endowed with supernatural power who lives in the
water but is capable of rising to heaven, heaping up the clouds. He is the
dragon who makes rain.

4. The Gods in Charge of Administrative Bodies

To help him in governing the earth, the Jade Emperor has chosen divine
officers of all kinds. There is a whole hierarchy of gods, as there is a
whole hierarchy of earthly officials; there are divine ministries, there are
divine administrative districts. Those who occupy the various divine
positions, named by the Jade Emperor, go every year to give him reports
 102 Taoism and Chinese Religion

on Iheir administration, and on that occasion they receive from him

rewards and punishments, promotion and demotion.

A. THE GRAND EMPEROR OF THE EASTERN PEAK

The greatest of terrestrial gods is the Grand Emperor of the Eastern

Peak, T'ai-yiieh ta-ti, the god of T’ai-shan, the great mountain of
Shantung. In the official catalogues, as well as in Taoist books, he is not
alone: he belongs to a group of mountain divinities, the gods of the Five
Peaks, who since the beginning of the eleventh century have all borne the
title of Saint-Emperors, Sheng-ti. He is the first of them, and the others
are the god of the Southern Peak, Heng-shan (in Heng-chou-fu, Hunan);
the god of the Western Peak, Hua-shan (in T’ung-chou-fu, Shensi); the
god of the Northern Peak, Heng-shan (the name appears identical to
that of the Southern Peak, but in Chinese it is written with an entirely
different character, and is another mountain, in Ta-t’ung district,
Shansi): and finally the god of the Central Peak, Sung-shan (in Ho-nan-
fu, Honan). But these are patternings of scholars and monks infatuated
with symmetry. Since antiquity the only truly honored worship was that
of the Eastern Peak, just as in our day it has remained the only truly
popular one.
The Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak is generally considered as
somehow a regent over earth and men under the Jade Emperor’s
authority. But his main role is to preside over human life. It is he who
sets birth and death, and he has scribes to keep registers of these. In the
temples consecrated to him numerous inscriptions recall this role to
mind:

To all beings he brings life.

His power presides over the workings of life.

In the first centuries of the Christian era, he had even become the god
of the dead: it is from his mountain that men’s souls depart to be born; it
is to his mountain that they return after death. The place to which they
return had even been precisely localized: it was the hillock Hao-li,
southwest of T’ai-an. According to others, the souls departed from this
little hill, where they received their destiny at birth, and returned after
death to the hillock She-shen. These ideas have left a trace in present-day
beliefs regarding the infernal world: one of the ten kings who govern the
ten sections of that world still bears the title Ford of the Department of
the Eastern Peak {T’ai-shan fu-chun). This title, however, which in the
twelfth century seems really to have designated the god of T’ai-shan, is
no longer attributed to him nowadays; and nobody today thinks of
 The Mythology of Modern China 103

considering this petty infernal god and the (hand Emperor of the
Eastern Peak as a single personage. Only among poets is he still spoken
of as presiding over the dead: in popular faith he has become a far more
important divinity. All earthly matters are entrusted to him by the Jade
Emperor, who relies completely upon him; the hells come under his
control for this reason, but they are only a portion of his vast
jurisdiction.
Ele also has an immense administrative apparatus under his orders. A
thirteenth century inscription enumerates sixty-five offices which come
under him; his temple at Peking, Tung-yiieh-miao, today includes more
than eighty of them. Running through the list, one realizes how varied
this god's powers are. Ele is in charge of everything that concerns life on
earth, human and animal (it is of course impossible that it should be
otherwise, since birth as an animal is one of the punishments for a guilty
soul, and since, if these births did not fall under his control, the god
could not follow the whole career of souls through their successive
existences): he is in charge, not only of birth and death, but also of
destiny, fortune, honors, posterity, and so on. There is also a bureau for
the registration of births and one for registration of deaths, a bureau for
the four kinds of birth (or, at Peking, four bureaus, one for human
births, one for births among quadrupeds, one for births by way of an
egg, one for births for the sake of transformation), a bureau for fixing
high or humble social position, another for fortune, another for deciding
the number of children. The good or evil acts of men also keep a series of
bureaus busy: bureaus for thieves, for those who unjustly appropriate
others’ goods, for abortions, for poisonings, for unjust acts, for merit,
for filial piety, for loyalty, for freeing living things, for putting living
things to death, for reading sacred books, for acts hidden from one’s
conscience, and so on. Other bureaus are responsible for adjusting the
destiny granted at the moment of birth to the merits or demerits
acquired in the course of existence, for rewarding good actions, for
exacting retaliation for evil actions, for speedy retribution, for prolong-
ing life, for recording happiness, for diminishing happiness, and so on.
Eive or six bureaus are especially in charge of human officials; others are
responsible for divine officials, gods of the Walls and Ditches, earth
gods, gods of the Mountains, and so on; still others for monks, bonzes or
tao-shih. There are some for abandoned souls who get no sacrifices; there
are some for demons, for those put to death unjustly, for revenges
demanded, for the hells; certain bureaus are responsible for sending out
various diseases. Einally there are bureaus for natural phenomena, a
Department of the Waters, the Rain and the Wind, the Eive Cereals, and
so on.
 104 Taoism and Chinese Religion

For the enormous labor which the keeping of these registers repre-
sents, an immense staff is necessary: this is recruited from among the
souls of the dead. The thirteenth century inscriptions which I have
mentioned give the name and place of origin (in their last terrestrial
existence) of all the directors of these bureaus. These directors themselves
have in their service subordinate employees, scribes, bookkeepers, and so
on. Sometimes the dead are not adequate to these multifarious tasks and
it is necessary to take the living. That was the situation with Shen Seng-
chao, a fifth century Taoist holy man. Generally he lived like everyone
else, carrying on his ordinary pursuits; but every thirty days precisely,
when evening came, he donned a yellow cap, put on a rough garment
and, after having carried out certain ceremonies in his room, performed
the functions of secretary in one of the bureaus of the Eastern Peak.
Whenever there was anything to record within this administration, he
was supposed to set his seal upon it. He was thus aware of many
supernatural things, and he could sometimes predict fortunate or un-
fortunate occurrences for people; his predictions always came true.
Moreover, the dead men named to a task do not always have all the
necessary experience, and sometimes they must be sent back among the
living to carry out a sort of training program. This is what a certain Li
Hsiian-chih once explained to his younger brother in these terms: “I am
a ghost and this is my story. I have been appointed bookkeeper of the
Eastern Peak. My predecessor having been promoted to a higher rank,
the king of the Eastern Peak wished to name somebody to replace him,
but since there was nobody sufficiently qualified, he summoned me and
said to me: ‘Your abilities make you worthy of this post, but you have
not studied enough. Go among men and learn from Pien Hsiao-hsien.
When your studies are finished, you shall return and I will name you to
the post.’ It is for fear that people might be frightened to see a ghost that
I have taken the form of a living man. In less than a year my learning
was done, and for two years now I have held the post of bookkeeper of
the Eastern Peak.”
The Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak is ordinarily portrayed
sitting, in imperial costume; his statues are as impersonal as possible and
he is hardly distinguishable from the Jade Emperor. In fact, in common
people’s houses there are rarely images and still fewer statues of so grand
a personage. They are satisfied to hang his seal, or amulets in his name,
on their walls, which is enough to ward off evil spirits.
Like almost all gods, he has a family; but in reality only his daughter,
the Princess of Multi-colored Clouds {Pi-hsia yikin-cliiin), is known and
worshipped. She is the protectress of women, together with her Buddhist
disciple, Kuan-yin (Avalokitesvara), and is also the patron saint of foxes.
 The Mythology of Modern China 105

animals endowed with supernatural faculties, capable in certain condi-

tions of taking human form and mingling with men. 1 shall speak later of
her role as protectress of women.

B. THE GODS OF ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICTS

Each administrative district has its protective god, who is in charge of

the inhabitants. Such gods, who bear various names today, are the
descendants of the old earth gods in the ancient religion, the hierarchy of
which, like that of princes, extended downwards from the Royal Earth
God to earth gods of villages, passing through those of principalities,
those of districts, and so on. Official religion still worships these under
their old name o( she, at fixed dates. In popular religion, earth gods are
called ch’efig-huang shen, literally “gods of the Walls and Ditches”, in
administrative subdivisions of all levels, or at a lower level those whose
jurisdiction, whether large or small, does not extend throughout an
administrative subdivision are called simply t'u-ti shen, literally “gods of
localities”.

/. Gods of Wcdls and Ditches (ch'eng-huang)

The God of the Walls and Ditches is the god who plays the most
important role in the religious life of Chinese towns and cities, of which
he is the declared protector. He is not the founder; a special worship is
often rendered to the founder under names which vary from place to
place (one of the most common such names is simply Ancestor of the
Village, she-tsu). This god is the one whom the Jade Emperor has put in
charge of governing a subdivision. He is the modern substitute for the
ancient earth god, she, which he has replaced and which has disappeared
almost completely from popular worship, surviving merely in the official
religion. The earth god was originally the most important of the feudal
gods, the personification, not of the earth as producer of harvests, but of
the fief itself as a delimited territory having a valid existence under the
suzerainty of the Son of Heaven; and as such he protected the people of
the territory and the lord’s family. There was thus a whole divine
hierarchy of earth gods, called she, mirroring the human hierarchy of
princes. When the feudal world disappeared in the course of the third
century B.C., the hierarchy of princes being replaced by one of officials,
the princely earth gods became provincial earth gods, which governors,
prefects, and subprefects worshipped regularly. But the life of this purely
administrative worship gradually ebbed: the she have indeed continued
within the list of official sacrifices and, from top to bottom, from the
Emperor (or today the President of the Republic) to the notables of the
 106 Taoism and Chinese Religion

village, regular oflerings are made at fixed dates to the she. But this is an
obsolete observance maintained only out of habit and interesting only to
scholars enamored of archaic ritualism. In living religion the cITeng-
huang, newly-come but of uncertain origin, have replaced the she in all
respects. It is now they who protect the town and the administrative
district where they have a temple; it is they who are asked to grant peace,
happiness, wealth, good harvest, and so on to the whole population. As
the viceroy of the Two Hu (Hupei and Hunan), Wu Jung-kuang, said at
the beginning of the last century, “The God of the Walls and Ditches
truly presides over the administration of a region; he grants happiness to
the good and misfortune to the wicked.”
The God of the Walls and Ditches is not the ancient god under a new
name. Even though nowadays he comes close to being so identified, he is
in fact quite a different thing, and Buddhist and Taoist ideas have
powerfully affected his shape. Like all gods of the present-day pantheon,
the eh'eng-huang are considered officials of the Heavenly Court, men
who through their merits have managed to obtain this appointment after
their death for the space of an existence; but this is a recent general
interpretation of this worship within the modern religious system. In
reality, their origin goes back much further.
They seem to be the liveliest of those spirits to whom the people of all
ages offered “irregular worship”: that is, worship not recognized by the
public power and against which, from Han times on to the first centuries
of our era, the mandarins were already taking measures, razing temples
and prohibiting sacrifices. Local heroes, great personages having their
tombs or funerary temples nearby, officials who had left an honored
memory behind gradually became protectors, patron saints of the popu-
lation. The temple of the eh’eug-huaiig of Wu-hu at T’ai-p’ing-fu
(Anhwei) claims to date back to 240 A.D. In 555 it was noted for the first
time that a god of the Walls and Ditches received sacrifices from a
mandarin, when the general of the Northern Ch’i, Mu-jung Yen, re-
sponsible for defending the town of Ying (modern Wuchang in Hupei),
addressed official prayers to the local eh'eng-huang.. as well as taking
various practical measures. In about the same period Hsiao Chi, king
of Wu-ling (a prince of the Liang imperial family, who reigned over
southern China), also made offerings at the temple of a god of the Walls
and Ditches. His sacrifice has remained famous because of a miracle
which occurred at the time: a red serpent appeared suddenly and coiled
itself around the victim’s head. Probably by that time the temples of
eh’eng-huang were already spread throughout the empire, for the author
of the History of the Northern Ch’i, who wrote a half-century later,
recounts the fact without feeling the need for an explanation.
Three great writers of the eighth century, Chang Yueh in 717, Chang
 The Mythology of Model ti China 107

Chiu-ling in 111, and Tu Mu in 842, when they served as provineial

mandarins, offered sacrifices at Ching-chou, Hung-chou, and Huang-
chou respectively. The prayers they composed on these occasions have
been preserved in their collected literary works. Chang Yiich requested
happiness for the people of his region in general terms and asked that
wild beasts might not devour those under his charge nor insects consume
the harvests. Chang Chiu-ling, more insistent, asked that a flood abate
and that torrential rains cease so that the crops not be lost. Tu Mu
prayed for rain, asking for an end to the three-year drought which
devastated his district. In 751 Chao Chii-cheng, governor of Soochow
(Kiangsu), rebuilt the temple of the local ch'eng-huang and composed an
inscription for him. His contemporary, Tuan ChTian-wei, likewise re-
established the c/Tcng-huang at Chengtu (Szechuan) and erected a stele;
and the governor Li Te-yii also offered a sacrifice to him in about 830.
Even though, according to a writer of that period, Li Yang-p’ing,
these gods were not enrolled on the register of official sacrifices, the
establishment or displacement of an administrative center was almost
immediately followed by the construction of a temple to the God of the
Walls and Ditches. The temple at Hsiang-shan (Chekiang) was built in
706, the same year when the subprefecture was created. The Feng-hua
temple (Chekiang) was founded by imperial order in 865 by the governor
of Ming-chou, Li Chung-shen: it had been a little more than a century
since the seat of this department had been set up in this subprefecture
(738). The temple at Ting-hai (in the Chusan Islands, Chekiang) was
constructed in 916, only seven years after the subprefecture had been set
up. There are many more examples.
Moreover, growing by degrees, the worship soon attained higher
levels. In about 934-36, the king of Wu-Yiieh (a petty kingdom occupy-
ing northern Chekiang) conferred the title of king upon three gods of the
Walls and Ditches of his states, those of his capital Hangchow, of Yiieh-
chou (Shao-hsing-fu), and of Hu-chou. The emperors of the Sung
dynasty accepted this worship and maintained these gods in their titles,
even raising them sometimes: the god at Hangchow', their capital, thus
received a promotion in 1172. Under the Mongol dynasty the title of
king was bestowed upon the God of the Walls and Ditches of the new
capital, present-day Peking. The Ming dynasty began by imitating those
which had preceded it. The founder, T’ai-tsu, bestowed the title of
Emperor upon the cITeng-hucing of the capital (then Nanking); that of
king upon those of Kaifeng and of some other localities; the titles
of marquis and of count upon the gods of the prefectures (///) and
subprefectures (hsien): but in 1370 all these titles were cancelled and the
mere designation of God of the Walls and Ditches of such and such a
prefecture or subprefecture sufficed. Repeatedly, various scholars, con-
 108 Taoism and Chinese Religion

cerned with orthodoxy and religious purism, attacked these cults as

modern corruptions of good doctrine and as not having existed in
antiquity, and sought to have them excluded from the official religion,
but without success. It was not until the 1911 Revolution and the coming
of the Republic that they lost their place in state ritual. But official
recognition, though important, is not essential to the worship of these
gods: they are first of all popular gods, and their worship is deeply
rooted in the religious sentiment of the people.
Each district has its God of the Walls and Ditches, whose title varies:
the old titles bestowed in bygone times have been preserved in current
usage despite adverse decrees and ordinances. Often historical per-
sonages, ancient or modern, fill these posts; but along with them
are numerous local heroes, real or imaginary. At Peking it is Yang
Chi-sheng, a Ming official, who was executed in 1556 at the age of
forty. At Nanking it is Yii Ch’ien, minister of War under Ming T’ai-
tsu, who repelled the Mongols after they had seized the Ying-tsung
emperor (1449) but, having refused to exert himself to free the captive
emperor, was executed when that emperor returned in 1457. At Soochow
(Kiangsu) it was for a long time the prince of Ch’un-shen, minister of the
kingdom of Ch’u in the third century B.C. and protector of the philoso-
pher Hsiin-tzu who with Mencius is the most famous of the Confucian
masters of that epoch. The capital of this prince’s fief is supposed to have
been at Soochow. Nowadays he is no longer God of the Walls and
Ditches of the whole town but merely God of the Locality, T’u-ti, of the
eastern quarter. In Ningpo prefecture (Chekiang) it is Chi Hsin, who was
a general on the side of Liu Pang, king of Han, the founder of the Han
dynasty, while he was still struggling for supremacy with Hsiang Yii,
king of Ch’u, who gave his life for his master in 203 B.C. Liu Pang, who
had besieged the town of Yung-yang (near Kaifeng) for a long time,
found himself in turn surrounded by his rival’s troops and, lacking
provisions, was nearly reduced to surrender. Chi Hsin offered to take Liu
Pang’s place. He mounted the royal chariot, closing the curtains about
him, and went towards the enemy camp, proclaiming that the king of
Han was surrendering. While the whole enemy army, cheering, was
concerned only with him, his master was able to flee unobserved with
a few dozen horsemen. When Chi Hsin, coming before Hsiang Yii,
descended from the chariot and was recognized, Hsiang Yii, furious at
having been tricked, had him burned alive. In this case there is no
connection between the hero and Ningpo; his choice as cITeng-huang is
also necessarily anachronistic, for Ningpo is a new town. It was at the
beginning of the ninth century that the district seat of Yin was es-
tablished at the location of the present-day city with a rather small
walled area. It developed quite rapidly and, three quarters of a century
 The Mythology oj Modern China 109

later, a local chief named Huang Ch’cng, whom the dissolution of the
T’ang empire had brought to the fore, protected it with a long earthen
wall. Only in 916 was the temple of the God of the Walls and Ditches
constructed, fifty paces southwest of the walled enclosure, by the gover-
nor, Ch’en Ch'eng-yeh. The god of Kweilin is Chang Tung-clTang, an
officer of the Yung-ming emperor (1648-62) of the Ming dynasty whom
the Manchus put to death in 1659.
Furthermore, if the function of cli’eng-huang was unalterable, the
person who filled the post changed frequently. The god of Hangchow,
the capital of Chekiang province, is nowadays Chou Hsin, a mandarin of
the early Ming, who was put to death in 1412 and was ofiicially raised to
this dignity some years later. Before him, the town already had a cli'eng-
huang who, under the Sung dynasty, had received the title King of
Eternal Steadfastness, though we know neither his actual name nor in
what era he lived. His temple had originally been on Mount Feng-huang;
but the Sung emperors having set up their palace on this hill when the
town became their capital, the temple was transferred first to Mount
Pao-yiieh (1139) and then to Wu-shan, where it still remains in modern
times, simultaneously serving the prefecture and the two districts into
which the prefectural city was divided until 1914.
The reasons why the holders of these divine positions were chosen are
quite various and sometimes hard to discover. Chou Hsin rightly became
protector to the inhabitants of Hangchow, since it was in trying to
protect them from the exactions of a dishonest official that he was
exposed to the accusations which brought about his death. Su Chien
rightly became the protector of Nanning (Kwangsi), which he defended
against the barbarians in 1075 and beneath the ruins of which he was
buried. But there is no comprehensible link tying Chi Hsin to Ningpo.
Sometimes the link is very tenuous: the God of the Walls and Ditches of
Lin-an district (Chekiang) in the tenth century (1 do not know whether
or not it is still the same today) was a child some ten years old, the little
fan-bearer for Ch’ien Liu, king of Wu-Yiieh (907-32). The king had had
him put to death in a fit of anger, since in fanning him the boy had
struck him on the shoulder with the long handle of his fan. A while later,
the child reappeared to him, and the prince, frightened, cried out, “1 have
slain men without number, and this little boy is haunting me!" So, in
order to placate the spirit, the king had him named god of that district.
Often the official adoption of a deity must have been no more than the
recognition of a more or less ancient popular cult. Thus it was that in
908 Ch’ien Liu, king of Wu-Yiieh, recognized the former governor P'ang
Yii as god of Yueh-chou, granting him the title of Marquis. P’ang Yii
had died some three centuries earlier, but the people had raised a temple
to him long before Ch’ien Liu did.
 /10 Taoism and Chinese Religion

The festival of the God of the Walls and Ditches is one of the chief
popular festivals. It consists of great processions, in which all the
townspeople take part. At the head of the parade, following the heralds
responsible for clearing the roads where the god is to pass, come gongs
and drums, then groups of children and men bearing sticks of incense,
followed by bearers of flags and parasols. Behind them is the statue of
the God of the Locality carried in his sedan-chair, going first so as to be
sure that all is in order. Sometimes instead of the statue there is a leading
citizen dressed up as the God of the Locality, with a long white beard
and knotted stall'. Behind the God of the Locality is borne, in a large
cooking-pot, the vinegar with which the marchers sprinkle the streets so
as to purify them as they pass and, farther back, the great incense
burner. Then comes the god’s cortege, his employees represented by
costumed men or children, his horse, his two henchmen. Ox-head and
Horse-face, his executioners, and finally the God of the Walls and
Ditches himself—that is, his statue—in a grand sedan-chair. This
procession is joined by various others, trains of penitents such as the
Red-robes (red was the color of the clothing worn by those condemned
to death), who go slowly along, the cangue around their necks, hands
chained, with gongs and banners, or groups of men dressed up as
demons. Some join in to fulfill a vow: children or youths costumed like
ancient imperial runners, a little flag in hand, who come to burn a
thanksgiving letter for the cure of an illness, some closed up in a little
cage like criminals in expiation of some unknown wrongdoing, so as to
obtain health.
The god of Walls and Ditches has an entire administration under his
orders. The most famous of his subordinates are Master White {Pai lao-
yeh) and Master Black {Hei Icio-yeh), who perceive everything that goes
on within the constituency, the former during the day and the latter
during the night. These are represented as two tall, thin fellows wearing
high conical caps, the one dressed all in white and the other in black.
There also are Ox-head and Horse-face, but these are more properly
representatives of infernal powers. In addition, all the gods of the
Locality and of the District fall under the control of the god of the Walls
and Ditches.

//. Gods of Localities (t'u-ti)

Below the gods of the Walls and Ditches, and subordinate to them, are
the gods of the Locality, t’u-ti. These are minor gods, each responsible
for a more or less extensive territory. Almost every neighborhood, every
street of a city or village, every hamlet, has at least one of them and
 The Myiholoi^y ofWfodern China III

sometimes several; eaeh temple, each public building, has its own. In
Szechuan, the t'u-ti of the oflicial yanien is buried in the middle of the
chief pavilion of the hall of justice. He is called the Investigative Ciod of
the Locality, and he hears and registers evidence and judgments, in order
to make his report every year on the official conduct of the mandarins.
There are gods for each bridge, gods for the fields, and so on. The most
important are those of villages. But in many areas, although they have
officially only the title of God of the Locality, /’//-//, they are commonly
called “God of the Walls and Ditches" {ch’eiig-hiuing) and, even though
this title is etymologically improper, it corresponds precisely to the role
of the god patron of the village, the same as the gods who are patrons of
administrative cities.
The gods of the Locality are sometimes famous personages. In the
thirteenth century, when the capital of the Sung dynasty was at Hang-
chow, the official Grand School having been set up in the house where
the general Yiieh Fei had lived, he was worshipped as God of the
Locality. For the same reason, a great Buddhist temple in Hu-chou had
a great writer of the sixth century, Shen Yiieh, for its God of the
Locality. Nowadays (or at least a few years before the fall of the Manchu
dynasty), the God of the Locality for the Han-lin Academy, Han-lin
yiicifu at Peking was the famous Han Yii, one of the greatest poets of the
T'ang dynasty, who lived between the eighth and ninth centuries.
The role of these gods is comparable to that of the gods of the Walls
and Ditches, but subordinate to them. They keep the register of all
persons in their area. That is why people go to them to announce the
occurrence of any death: on the evening after the death a group of
women from the family go oti', preceded by a man bearing a lantern, to
the god's pagoda, burning incense and silver-paper money, and then they
return to the house, weeping all the while.

C. FAMILY GODS

Still one degree lower, each household has its gods, charged with the
protection of the buildings and inhabitants. There are not only, as I have
already indicated, a god of the Locality but also gods of the different
parts of the dwelling. In antiquity only five of these were known, the so-
called Five Sacrifices which, only yesterday, were all the official religion
recognized: the exterior door, a double door, men; single interior doors,
hiy passageways of the house, hsiang: the central drain-basin, chung-liiy
popularly called God of the Place, f'u-fi: the hearth, or kitchen, isao.
We cannot say precisely whether popular religion accepts or rejects
this list. Everybody, or almost everybody, knows who the gods of the
 /12 Taoism and Chinese Religion

“Five Sacrifices” are; but the God of Interior Doors and the God of
Passageways no longer have any place in religious concerns and, even
though their names are still uttered when the list is recited, they are
virtually forgotten, as if they had never existed. Moreover, if certain gods
have thus disappeared from popular religious awareness, there are others
which did not exist or, more precisely, have left no trace in the rituals
written down in ancient times. There are gods of certain areas of the
house—the Bed, the Latrines—as well as others, such as the gods of
Wealth, who are generally responsible for the house and the family
which lives in it. Finally, to complete the review of all the family’s
protectors, there must be added the Ancestors, whose worship goes back
to the most remote antiquity.
Not only have the number and the functions of the family gods
changed down the ages, but so have their respective ranks. Today the
most important of them is the Kitchen God, Sire Hearth, as he is
ordinarily called. In ancient times, however, he was rather contemptu-
ously considered “a cult for old women”, according to a saying attri-
buted to Confucius himself. In those days it was the God of the Drain-
Basin, chimg-liu, who held the highest rank in nobles' houses and princely
palaces. His place was in the gate-gutter set in the center of the dwelling,
which was at the spot dividing the second from the third court of the
palace (princes’ palaces were made up of three successive halls for
reception and audience, each at the back of a great courtyard; and the
living-quarters for the prince and his women stood behind the door at
the rear of the third court). People so feared olfending the God of the
Drain-Basin by smashing his gutter that driving a chariot through this
gate was forbidden, on penalty of having the charioteer beheaded, the
horses slaughtered and the chariot-pole broken on the spot. The collapse
of feudal society was fatal to this aristocratic god. He lost his precedence
when, in about the third and second centuries B.C., the complicated and
expensive patrician rituals gave way to simpler plebeian customs; and the
more popular Kitchen God gradually overtook him. He has regained
some signihcance only in regions where, completely transformed, he has
been merged with the God of Wealth.

/. The Kitchen God

The Kitchen God and his wife have their picture in every house. This is
not a statue, but a simple, crudely-colored sketch in which the god is
usually represented as a white-bearded old man in a mandarin’s costume,
seated on an armchair. By his side stands his wife, feeding the six
domestic animals: horse, cow, pig, sheep, dog, chicken. At other times
 The Myilio/of^y of Modern China 113

she is simply sealed beside him in ceremonial costume, and the six
domestic animals, if they are shown, are either crouched at her feet or
arranged around her and her husband. Sometimes they have beside them
two helpers, the Wood-gathering Youth and Sir Water-carrier. This
drawing, printed in strident colors, is pasted up in the niche which serves
as his shrine, above the cooking-stove. This is a small structure made up
of a few bricks with a roof imitating the glazed tiles (the whole thing
hardly a foot high and about as wide), open towards the south because,
the Kitchen God being the head of the family gods, he who governs the
house must be positioned as the Emperor in the audience-chamber and,
more generally, as the master of any house is positioned in a reception-
room.
Throughout the year an empty wine-cup and a pair of chopsticks are
set before this little shrine. On the first and the fifteenth of each month at
about six o’clock in the morning, before breakfast, the head of the family
burns two red candles and a few sticks of incense, but without offering
rice or wine. The offering is, however, not very solemn, since he is after
all only a petty god. The father of the family prostrates himself once,
lights the candles and the incense-sticks, usually without saying any
prayer, and then goes on about his business, returning only when they
have been almost consumed. Then he prostrates himself again and waits,
kneeling, until they have gone out by themselves. He then rises and, the
ceremony having thus been carried out, the family takes its morning
meal.
Only three times a year is the Kitchen God offered a meal: on his
birthday, which is the third day of the eighth month, then on the twenty-
fourth of the twelfth month and the twentieth of the first month, at his
departure for and return from his annual voyage to heaven, when he
goes to the court of the Jade Emperor to report all that has occurred
during the year in the house for which he is responsible. In almost all
families, the twenty-fourth of the twelfth month is the most important
festival, since it is the day of his departure and the family is anxious
to give him a pleasant remembrance so that he will make a favorable
report.
The Kitchen God and his wife each keep a register in which they enter
all the family’s actions, he concerning himself with the men and she with
the women: all that happens of good or of ill must be impartially noted
there. On the last day of each month he takes his registers and goes to
report to the God of the Walls and Ditches. Every New Year’s Day he
reports to the Jade Emperor or, as he is vulgarly called. Sire Heaven
(Lao-T'ien-yeh), the sovereign of the gods, while his wife does the same
to the Holy Dame Jade Empress, Yii-huang sheng-niu. The Kitchen God
 114 Taoism and Chinese Religion

is in tact an official of the Heavenly Court, which gives him the title
of Family Steward, so like all officials he must go and pay homage to
the sovereign every year. The Jade Emperor takes cognizance of his
report and, depending upon whether good or evil is predominant, he
increases or diminishes the family’s share of happiness for the following
year.
Belief in the Kitchen God and his journey to heaven is ancient. A
Taoist author of the end of the third and the beginning of the fourth
centuries A.D., KO Hung (born in about 250, died between 328 and 331 at
the age of 81), quotes earlier works in which it is mentioned, adding
however that, “for himself, he has not been able to verify whether the
facts are true or false.” The only difference between these ideas and those
of modern times is that, since at the time when these works were written
worship of the gods of the Walls and Ditches had not yet been estab-
lished, there was no intermediary between the Kitchen God and Heaven,
so that he aseended to heaven every month, rather than only at the
year's end, as today: “During the night of the last day of each month,
the Kitchen God ascends to heaven to present his report on men’s
shortcomings.”
On the evening of his annual departure, the twenty-fourth of the
twelfth month, a eomplete dinner of six dishes is offered to the god.
There is, in addition, a special cake, a ball of unsugared rice flour stuffed
with red-bean jam. After his dinner all is prepared for his voyage. A tiny
paper sedan chair is set in front of his niche, carried by two paper
statuettes of men. The father of the family prostrates himself, then peels
off the god’s picture and puts it in the sedan chair. After that he places
the sedan chair on a tray which he carries from the kitchen outside the
main gate of the house, which is wide open, since he must leave through
it so as to honor the god. During all the time he is carrying the god he
must keep his head turned towards the south, which is quite difficult and
requires him at times to walk backwards. As soon as the father has gone
out of the house, several handfuls of straw’ are thrown on the ground in
front of him. That is where he sets the sedan chair, always turned
towards the south, together with silver paper simulating ingots of silver,
which is meant to pay the expenses of the voyage to heaven. Then he
says: “Kitchen God, in going up to heaven, keep our faults to yourself! If
we have been disrespectful in serving you, be a little indulgent!” And he
burns the sedan chair, while the children shoot oft' firecrackers, after
which he goes back into the house. The kitchen stove is then extin-
guished and must remain so while the Kitchen God is away, which is for
a month. During that time, cooking is done on small portable stoves
which are moved every day and extinguished every evening. The Kitchen
 The Myilioloj^y oJModcrn China 115

God returns only a month later, on the twentieth of the first month. On
that day a new picture is purchased and a meal is prepared like that of
the departure, for he comes back in the evening just before dinner. He is
welcomed with firecrackers, the new picture is placed in the chapel, then
the candles are lit and the offerings are presented. The family eats them
the following day.
While the Kitchen God is away, nobody takes his place, since his wife
ascends w ith him to pay homage to the wife of the Jade Emperor. There
is nobody to write down misdeeds committed during this time, which is
fortunate indeed, since during the New Year feasts many people gamble
and drink more than is good for them; but owing to the god's absence,
sins committed at this time of the year are not laid to their account.
Along with this advantage there are drawbacks, if not in the departure of
the Kitchen God himself, at least in that of other gods, for it is not he
alone who goes at year's end to pay homage to Sire Heaven. All the gods
who have official responsibilities and are mandarins of the Heavenly
Court, such as the God of the Walls and Ditches, also have the same
duty at the same time. During this general absence of gods, the evil
spirits are unleashed and free to do anything. The illness devils are also
on the loose in these days. In his youth when he was still a student, Kuan
Shih-jen (who died as Minister of Personnel in 1109 at the age of sixty-
hve) one Nev\ Year's Day morning met a very ugly and ferocious-
looking troupe of demons passing along the street in front of his family's
house-gate. He asked who they were. “We are the demons of pestilence.
On the first day of the year, we spread illnesses among men."—“Will
you come into my house?"- “No. When for three successive generations
a family accumulates virtue, or indeed when it is about to be exalted, or
when its members eat no beef, any one of these three reasons is enough
to prevent us from entering!" And suddenly they disappeared.

//. The Gale Gods

The exterior gate of the house is a double gate. Thus it has two gods, so
that each panel bears a particular picture; for if there were but a single
god whose image occupied the middle of the gate, it would be repre-
sented by a half on each panel and would be cut in two when the gate
was opened. Nowadays it is generally Ch'in Shu-pao and Hu Ching-te,
two generals of the T'ang emperor T'ai-tsung, who play this role. They
took over the place of Shen-t'u and Yii-lii, the two gods of the panels in
antiquity and until about the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. These
latter two were properly speaking the guardians of the gate through
which ghosts leave the world of the dead to go and wander among men.
 116 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

at the northeastern extremity of the world. According to the Classic

of Mountains and Seas (Shan-liai clung), a small miscellany of works
on mythological geography composed in about the fourth and third
centuries B.C., these guardians stood on a mountain at the foot of a
colossal peach tree with a trunk three thousand // (about twelve hundred
meters) around. In the branches of this tree was the Gate of Ghosts; and
the guardians bound wicked ghosts with ropes of rattan, throwing them
to the tigers for food. It was the mythical Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti,
who had the idea of hanging their peachwood effigies on the doors, as
well as pictures of tigers to drive away evil spirits. In those times, pictures
of the gods were placed on interior doors, while images of tigers were
placed on exterior gates of houses, a usage which continued on into the
first century A.D.; but later on, in about the twelfth century A.D., in Sung
times, the pictures of the gate gods were placed on each panel of the big
outside gate. Moreover, they have not entirely disappeared: in Szechuan,
they are especially gate-gods during mourning periods. As soon as
someone in a house dies, the images of the gods are carefully scraped off
the ordinary doors and the four characters of their names are pasted up
on the two panels of the entry-gate.
The modern replacements of those gate gods are historical personages
who held high military posts at the court of the T’ang dynasty, in the
beginning of the seventh century. It is related that the T’ai-tsung
emperor, having one night heard a demon making a noise by throwing
bricks and tiles at the door of his palace apartments, fell gravely ill. The
two generals Ch’in Shu-pao and Hu Ching-te offered to mount guard at
his door. They did so for several nights in succession, and the demon
dared not approach, so that the emperor recovered. He then had the
portrait of each of his two generals painted and had one pasted up on
each panel of the entry-gate. The demon no longer dared come, and the
Emperor could sleep in peace. But some time afterwards the din began
again at the small back door, a door with a single panel. This time it was
Wei Cheng who mounted guard and drove the ghost away.
Nowadays the two generals are widely replicated: they are painted
standing up on the doors of public buildings, of temples (except for
Buddhist temples, which have their own special gate gods), of palaces, of
private houses. The common people merely paste up a crude color-print
picture on each panel of their main gates. The gods are almost always
portrayed in military uniform, helmeted and clad in full armor, with little
flags on the shoulders which were the insignia of rank before the
Manchu dynasty, armed with a saber or halberd and, in order to frighten
the demons still more, they are given ferocious countenances and big
beards. More rarely, they are in civil mandarin costume. Sometimes the
 The Mythology of Modern China 117

image of Wei Cheng is also placed upon the back, single-panel door, but
this custom is less frequent.
Ordinarily no worship is offered to the gate gods; their image is hung
up, and that is all. They are nevertheless vigilant gods, thanks to whom
evil spirits do not enter houses. Many stories portray them in the role of
guardians. Long ago in Hangchow, a slave of a rich family regularly
went out at night to get drunk. One evening his master heard a great
noise outside the gate and coming near, found the slave senseless. He
had him picked up and borne back to his bed, but he died almost at once.
Before dying, he had time to say that he had been assailed by his long-
dead sister-in-law’s shade which, carrying her head in her hand, had
attacked him for vengeance. Long before, indeed, when he was quite
young, he had helped his brother kill his wife, who had been surprised
with a lover. The dead woman had told him that she had lain in wait for
him a long time, accompanied by the shade of her lover, but always the
gate gods had prevented them from entering. On that evening, having
caught him outside, she had taken advantage of that fact. Finally, the
images of the gods are needed; mere inscriptions will not do.

Hi. The God of the Locality of the House

The significance of the Locality God {t’u-ti) of the house, preponderant
in former days, is rather slight nowadays; in practise, people hardly
bother about him, except in areas where he is confused with the God of
Wealth. Within the house he has the same role as the other gods of the
Locality in their jurisdictions; his peculiar role is to keep the register of
births and deaths. When a certain Yin T'ing-hsia was taken away by two
emissaries from hell, the God of the Locality of his house intervened and
demanded to see the warrant. “There must be a mistake here,” he said.
“Every time a man is born into the Yin family, I receive notification
from the Eastern Peak how long he will live. Thus I know that Yin
T'ing-hsia is to live seventy-two years. But he is now only fifty years old.
How has he come to be arrested?” And, after verification, it was
established that there had been an error; and Yin returned to life.
This god is, in general, the protector of the family. In earlier days, in
the region of Mount Yiian-heng, the common people used to celebrate the
sacrifice to the Earth God in the second month, drinking all day long, so
that when evening came they were completely drunk. A man of that
region, returning to his home on the evening of this festival, fell into a
ditch amid the fields. His body remained there unconscious, but his soul
did not notice this and, continuing on its way, arrived at his house. It
tried to push open the closed door and was astonished to find that it
 I IS Taoism and Chinese Religion

would not budge; but it managed to get in through a crack in the wall.
The man’s wife was on her bed playing with her children and, from
time to time, crying insults at her husband who had not come home. The
soul cried to her, “1 am here!” but she did not hear, so in the end it
asked itself, “Am 1 dead?” Passing near the corner reserved for the
Ancestors, it saw the man's father and grandfather, who were seated
there. Weeping, it went up to greet them, when the father said, “Have no
fear! I'll call the God of the Locality.” An old fellow with a white beard,
a linen robe and straw' sandals like a peasant’s suddenly appeared; he
took the soul to the place where the man's body had remained stretched
out. There he ordered it to seize its own body while he called the man by
name several times over. The dead man awakened and got up. Just at
that moment some neighbors sent by his wife, who had finally become
frightened over his absence, arrived with lanterns and took him home.
This role as supervisor of the registers of birth and death for the family
causes the god to be considered, in some regions, as giving long life to
those who honor him, while his wife is responsible for spreading
domestic happiness within the house. This is why, in western Szechuan,
they are called God of the Locality of Long Life (C/Tang-sheng t'li-ti)
and Noble Dame of Happiness {Jui-ch’ing fu-jen).

iv. The Lord and Lady of the Bed

The house being above all the place where one stays at night, wherever
one must go in the daytime, the bedroom is its most important part. So it
has its pair of protective divinities, the Lord of the Bed, CITuang-kung,
and the Lady of the Bed, C/Tuang-niu, to whom offerings are presented
on the last day of the year, or on the day after the full moon in the first
month, the day after the Feast of Lanterns. At that time women who
wish to have a child try to get a stub from one of the wax candles which
have been used to light the dragon carried in procession through the
streets, and this they light on the edge of the bed. The gods are offered
cakes and fruits with a cup of tea for the Lord and a cup of wine for the
Dame, though offerings and dates change from one area to another.
This pair are not two gods of the Locality; only married people
sacrifice to them or have their picture. They are the personification of the
bed as a power presiding over the conception of children. In many places
young married people, upon entering the marriage chamber, prostrate
themselves in honor to these gods. It is ordinarily the bed itself which is
addressed; but sometimes a picture is hung up, in which they are
represented sitting side by side, in official costume, with their tablets of
rank in their hands.
 The Mythology of Modern China /19

V. The Goddess of the Latrine-Diteh

One particular place in the house, the latrine, has its particular divinity:
she is called the Third Dame of the Latrine-Ditch, K'en^-san-ku, or more
simply the Third Dame, San-ku. Again, she is known as the Purple
Dame, Tzu-ku, or even the Seventh Dame, Ch'i-ku, a name which
appears to be a corruption of the one before but which is generally
considered a false interpretation of another C7/V, supposed to have been
her family name. Dame ClTi. In life, towards the end of the eighth
century, she was, according to the most widely accepted legend, the
second wife of a district officer. The legitimate wife, a certain Dame
Ts'ao, in a fit of jealousy killed her by throwing her into the latrines on
the day of the Feast of Lanterns. Later on the Heavenly Emperor, taking
pity on her, made her the divinity of that place.
Women, and especially the young girls, of the house make offerings to
her in the latrines on the fifteenth day of the first month, the anniversary-
day of her death. They make a crude image of her out of a large ladle:
the bowl serves as a head, on which a human face is sketched; to the
handle they attach willow-branches to make the body, and then they
dress it with a few rags. When that is done, they burn incense and call to
it, saying, “Your husband is away; Dame Ts'ao has gone; little Dame,
you may come out!" (Little Dame is a polite appellation for a wife of the
second rank.) If one of the women present is a medium, she soon goes
into a trance; they say that the Dame has come, and they interrogate her
on all sorts of subjects: the crop for the next year, the culture of
silkworms, marriages, and so on.
The worship of the Purple Dame is very ancient. It can be traced back
beyond the T'ang era: as early as that, women invited her down on the
evening of the Feast of Lanterns and asked her to foretell the future. In
the same month and the same way Dame Basket and Dame Broom were
interrogated, represented by an old basket and an old broom dressed up
with rags. These spiritualist seances were widespread in about the
eleventh century among scholarly families at the Sung court. It was not
enough for them to call upon the Purple Dame in the first month; she
was summoned throughout the whole year, and she commonly came
without being asked. Sometimes it was a spirit other than the Purple
Dame’s who came down, and the seances then took on a more refined
character.
An eleventh century writer tells us that, in about 1035, when the wives
and daughters of one of his father's friends had “the Purple Dame come
down”, one of the young girls went into a trance, and the spirit which
took possession of her declared that she was one of the wives of the
 120 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Emperor on High, Shang-ti. She wrote remarkable literary compositions,

which were even published and much appreciated. Her handwriting was
very beautiful, but of a style quite different from that of earthly
calligraphers. During the seances she played the lute and sang; voice and
music were of a gripping charm. At one time she showed herself, though
only down to the waist, the lower body being concealed by a sort of mist.
The visits ceased after the young girl was married.
Another legend, modern in origin, tells of three goddesses, three sisters
who keep watch together over the household garbage pail. This story is
widespread in certain regions, having been popularized by the Romance
of the Investiture of the Gods {Feng-shen yen-yi). The legend originated in
a false interpretation of the title K’eng-san-ku, which was understood as
meaning “Three Dames of the Latrine-ditch”. Other ancient legends
made the Purple Dame a daughter of the mythical emperor Ti K’u, or
even identified her with that emperor himself; but these have been long
forgotten, if indeed they ever had any currency beyond certain circles of
spiritualist scholars in the fifth and sixth centuries. Nowadays this
divinity is always feminine; she is not in any way a God of a Locality; she
does not preside over the latrine-outhouse, but only over the excrement-
tub itself.

v/. The God of Wealth

The God of Wealth {Ts’ai-shen) has considerable importance in popular
religion nowadays. Every family possesses at least one scroll bearing
the two characters of his name, Ts’ai-shen, pasted up on the door of the
main living room in the house. Wealthier people have a painting or even
a statue. On his birthday, the sixteenth day of the third month, a cock is
offered to him, its blood being rubbed on the threshold. In addition,
many families offer him a meal on the second and sixteenth of each
month. Sometimes two gods of Wealth are distinguished, the Civil God
and the Military God, both of whom are portrayed side by side in the
same picture. In addition to them or in their place, other pictures are
often hung or pasted up: representations of the Cash Tree, which has
leaves of small coin and fruit of ingots, with children around it gathering
all that falls from the tree and cramming it into sacks; or the Casket of
Jewels, never emptied, where ingots grow again as soon as they are taken
away; or again simply the characters designating Wealth.
The God of Wealth is important enough for the tao-shih to have made
him president of one of the heavenly ministries, the Ministry of Wealth,
with a whole array of officials: The Celestial Venerable Who Discovers
Treasures {Chao-pao T’ien-tsun), the Celestial Venerable Who Brings
 The Mythology of Modern China 121

Treasures {Na-chen T’ien-tsun), the Messenger Who Discovers Treasures

{Chao~pao shih-che); the Immortal of Commercial Profit (Li-shih hsien-
kium). There is also the God of Wealth Who Increases Happiness
{Tseng-fu ts'ai-shen), who sometimes, as in Kiangsu, is a distinct god,
and sometimes, as in Peking, is confused with the God of Wealth. Unlike
the bulk of the secondary gods who clog the heavenly ministries of the
Taoists and whose names generally do not emerge from books nor go
beyond the walls of a few temples, these personages are well known to
everybody. Popular religion is undecided about their respective ranks,
however. Depending upon the place, one or another among them is more
particularly adored, being given personal names and even variant titles in
addition to their formal titles.
At Peking the main god is the God of Wealth Who Increases Hap-
piness. He has been identified, following the Romance of the Investiture
of the Gods, with the sage Pi-kan. According to legend, Pi-kan’s relative,
the tyrant Tsou-hsin, last emperor of the Yin dynasty, had him put to
death so as to examine his heart and see whether a sage’s heart really has
seven openings. He is said to be followed by a servant, He Who Gathers
Treasures and Goes to Seek Wealth {Chu-pao chao-ts’ai), as well as by
'‘the two immortals Ho and He”, Ho-He erh hsien. At his side he also
has Generalissimo Chao of the Dark (that is. Northern) Mound, Hsiian-
t’an Chao Yiian-shuai. In Szechuan it is the same Chao, not Pi-kan, who
is the God of Wealth Who Increases Happiness and who is considered to
be Military God of Wealth, while the Civil God is Kuo Tzu-yi, a general
of the T’ang period who elsewhere is generally made God of Happiness,
Fu-shen, and not God of Wealth. In Kiangsu, Chao receives the title
Bodhisattva of the Dark Mound, Hsiian-t’an p’u-sa, and is made Civil
God of Wealth, while the Military God is the emperor Kuan. Moreover,
it is the Bodhisattva of the Dark Mound who is the chief god of Wealth,
and the God of Wealth Who Increases Happiness is portrayed as a
young man who follows and serves him. In Fukien, the most widely
prevalent title is Blessed God of Wealth, Fu-te Ts’ai-shen. Elsewhere we
find the title God of Wealth of the Five Roads, Wu-lu ts’ai-shen, which is
explained in various ways.
The legends of these personages vary, moreover, as much as their
titles; but they offer only slight interest. In some regions the god who
derives his title from the Dark Terrace (and who is called Bodhisat-
tva in the Buddhist manner or Generalissimo in the Taoist) is con-
sidered to have been a Muslim; thus they avoid offering him pork
and give him beef. This rather widespread belief—in Peking, in
Kiangsu, in Szechuan—has won him the surname Muslim God of
Wealth.
 122 Taoism and Chinese Religion

vii. Ancestors

Aside from these various gods, eaeh family has its recognized protectors
in the persons of its Ancestors, who receive regular worship. Each of
them is represented by a wooden tablet on which are inscribed the words:
“Seat of the soul of ..with the name of the deceased and his titles, if
he had any. Often the dates of birth and death are added, to the right
and left in small characters. The tablets are arranged in a small sanctuary
which is called the funerary Tabernacle Temple, tz’u-t'cing, placed at the
right of the Family Tabernacle. In front of it is set a small incense-burner
between two candles, but the candles and incense sticks are lighted only
for ceremonies. All Chinese families (except Christian and Muslim ones)
have their tabernacle of tablets and worship their Ancestors: it is one of
the services imposed by Filial Piety. The Emperor set the example. There
was in the palace the temple of the Ancestors, called the Grand Temple,
t'ai-niiao, where he went at fixed times to carry out ceremonies in their
honor. In addition he conducted a similar worship of Ancient Emperors,
founders and good emperors of past dynasties, whose tablets were kept
in a special temple.
Ritually, there are four collective ceremonies, one at each season of the
year; but this rule was hardly observed except in imperial worship and,
sporadically, among peculiarly orthodox scholarly families. Among the
people, the four seasonal festivals have been submerged almost every-
where in the mass of regular and occasional annual festivals. Ordinarily,
a small collective ceremony is carried out twice a month in front of the
Ancestors’ Tabernacle on the days of the new and the full moon, the first
and fifteenth of the Chinese month. The father of the family merely
lights two candles and some sticks of incense after having prostrated
himself. But besides this more serious oflerings are made at each festival,
the number and importance of them varying from family to family, each
of which has its own particular customs. A rich family from K’un-shan
district (Kiangsu), which I once knew well, regularly offered a piece of
cake on New' Years Day for the departure and return of the Kitchen
God (the twelfth and first month); apricots for the festival of sweeping
the tombs, cITing-niing (the second month); medlars and plums for the
fifth of the fifth month and green beans for the summer solstice; new rice
in the seventh month, at the feast of the CITeng-lniang: a moon-cake at
the mid-autumn festival (eighth month); a bouquet of chrysanthemums
for the ninth of the ninth month; a crab for the tenth of the tenth month
and blood oranges for the winter solstice (eleventh month). In addition,
every marriage and birth was announced to the Ancestors by an offering.
The anniversary days of the last three Ancestors’ births and deaths are
 The Mythology oj Modem China 123

each marked by the presentation of a complete meal to that particular

ancestor, whose tablet is then brought out of the Tabernacle and set
upon the offering-table. This meal is set out formally. Sticks of incense
and candles are lit. the father of the family prostrates himself. When the
candles are burnt out, he prostrates himself again, together with the
whole family. After that, the tablet is taken away and the meal is eaten.
In these cases, care is taken to give the deceased those dishes which
pleased him in life: to a grandmother who had taken a vow of fasting,
only meager foodstuffs are offered; for an ancestor who was a opium-
smoker, the pipe and lighted lamp are set out, and so on.

v//Y. The Family Taheniacle (Chia-t’ang)

Every family has a small tabernacle where the statuettes or pictures or
tablets of several familial divinities are placed; and this is called the
Family Tabernacle (Chia-l’ang). But this custom varies widely from
region to region and from one family to another. Almost everywhere,
though, there is pasted up in the center-back of the house an inscribed
paper strip as a tablet in honor of Heaven, the Emperor, and the Ancient
Masters. One of the most common formulas is: “Seat of the Spirits of
Heaven, of Earth, of the Sovereign, of Parents, of Masters"; but others
are used as well. In Szechuan this inscription occupies the center of the
Tabernacle; to left and right are the four tablets of the Ancestors, the
three personal tablets of the three nearest Ancestors (father, grand-
father, great-grandfather), and the collective tablet dedicated to the first
Ancestor of the family and at the same time to the five generations which
preceded the great-grandfather. Below this and in front of the tablet of
Heaven is the God of the Locality. The incense burner, filled w'ith the
ashes from the sticks of incense burned there, must never be emptied. In
Fukien a little statue of Kuan-yin occupies the place of honor, with the
tablets of the Kitchen God and the God of Wealth (which is confused
with the God of the Locality) to her right and left. In front of her and in
the middle is a statuette or a tablet of K’e Sheng-weng, a special divinity
in Fukien province. In Kiangsu, Kuan-yin usually occupies the place of
honor, but the peasants rather often replace her with the Ferocious
General, Liu Meng-chumg-chihu so that their fields may be protected
against insects, and in that province, hardly any but poor families set up
their ancestors' tablets there. Ordinarily the Ancestors have a separate
sanctuary. A small incense burner, or a bowl, filled with cinders so that
sticks of incense may be set up in it, together with two red candles which
are lighted only for ceremonies, is placed in front of the Family
Tabernacle.
 124 Taoism and Chinese Religion

ix. Gate Gods, the God of the Loeality,

and Other Gods in Buddhist Temples

Like public buildings and private houses, Buddhist temples have gods
who guard their entry-gate, a God of the Locality to protect the halls
and the monks, a Hearth God in the kitchen, a god of the Latrines, and
so on. But for these functions they have gods that are peculiar to them,
Buddhist personages who differ from the gods of lay dwellings, with
special names and titles. The gods of the Gates are Sniffler and Snorter;
the God of the Locality bears the title God of the Sangharama (that is,
of the monastery, Ch’ieh-lan-shen)\ the Kitchen God and the God of the
Latrines themselves are special Buddhist gods; finally there are gods who
are protectors of the four directions, called the Four Kings; a god who,
though not a gate god, is responsible for policing the entry; and so on.
To understand what all these personages do, we need an idea of the
overall layout of Buddhist monasteries.
In a general fashion we know how these temples are arranged in
China. The plan is borrowed from that of palaces or houses of the great
and has no resemblance to that of temples in India or Central Asia.
There are ordinarily three groups of buildings separated by courtyards.
At the entry, the Front Hall is usually a simple pavilion with four large
statues of the Four Heavenly Kings, guardians of the four directions,
along the walls. In the middle, back to back, sit Maitreya, the future
Buddha with his fat paunch {Ta-pao mi-lei), looking joyously towards
the entrance, and Wei-t’o, the doorkeeper, his gnarled staff in hand,
facing the courtyard. At the back of that court is the Great Hall, divided
by a wall into two unequal parts. In the front and larger part against the
wall is an altar, usually with three colossal statues, together with smaller
ones facing the entry. In front of the altar are tables loaded with incense
burners, offerings of flowers, and other gifts. The arrangement and
choice of personages on the altar varies from one temple to another. One
of the most frequent places Amitabha at the center, between Sakyamuni
and Bhaishajyaguru {Yao-shih-wang), each accompanied by two dis-
ciples, and to the right and left of the altar the two Bodhisattvas
Manjusri (Wen-shu) and Samantabhadra (P’u-hsien). At times Sak-
yamuni occupies the central place, between Amitabha and Vairocana.
At other times there is a single Buddha between two Bodhisattvas;
Amitabha between Avalokitesvara (Kuan-yin) and Mahasthamaprapta
{Ta-shih-che); or Sakyamuni between Manjusri and Samantabhadra. In
the rear is another altar, against the wall, with other statues, ordinarily
including a Bodhisattva. This is often the Kuan-yin with a thousand
arms or another form of Kuan-yin, or perhaps Manjusri, or Maitreya.
 The Mythology of Modern China 125

Sometimes there is a group of Bodhisattvas acting as a counterpart to

the Buddhas of the front. All around the hall arc statues arranged the
length of the wall: the Eighteen Arhats and the Twenty-four Dcvas for
example, or quite a different series, with special niches for the diverse
forms of Kuan-yin, of Ti-tsang, or of other Bodhisattvas, as well as small
niches for the God of the Locality and so on. Finally, the Back Hall is
often divided into several chapels. In the center is the chapel of a
Buddha or a Bodhisattva with, to right and to left, the chapel containing
the funerary tablet of the temple founder, the chapel of Meditation or
that of the Explication of Classics, depending upon the sect, and still
others. Behind and all around these main buildings are the monks’ cells,
with the dining room and kitchens, apartments reserved for guests, and
also special chapels of many kinds.
The Great Hall is the place where devout men and women above all
go to pray; there they find almost all the beings whom they wish to
address. In fact, the number is not great: there are hardly more than
four popular Bodhisattvas in China, out of the throng that the books
mention. These are Kuan-yin (Avalokitesvara), Wen-shu (Manjusri),
P’u-hsien (Samantabhadra), and Ti-tsang (Kshitigarbha); and even Ti-
tsang is somewhat specialized in matters infernal, according to popular
belief. He is easily distinguished since he is ordinarily dressed as a bonze,
Wen-shu and P'u-hsien are recognized by the lion and the elephant on
which they are respectively seated, and Kuan-yin is characterized by the
fact that, in almost all her forms, she carries a tiny statue of Amitabha in
her headdress. Popular piety has given these four great personages, who
are ever ready to come and help those who appeal to them, four places of
residence at the four extremities of China, thus forcing Buddhism into a
purely Chinese framework. Kuan-yin resides in the east, on the island of
P'u-t’o (off the Chekiang coast), the name of which is an abridged
transcription of the Sanskrit name of her residence, Potalaka. Wen-shu is
in the north on Wu-t’ai-shan (Shansi); P'u-hsien in the west on O-mei-
shan (Szechuan); and Ti-tsang in the south, on Chiu-hua-shan (Anhwei).
And there are famous great pilgrimages to these places, which are called
the Four Mountains of Great Renown.
The protector gods are gathered together in the first building of each
temple. Two personages who are familiarly known as the two generals
Sniffler and Snorter, Heng Ha erh-chiang, are often painted on the gates,
or sometimes they have statues to the right and left of the entry. They are
ferocious in appearance, the former placed on the west side (the left as
one enters) with his mouth closed, the latter opposite him with mouth
wide open; and both carry staffs in their hands. They are the former
guardians of the gates in Buddhist temples in India. According to one of
 126 Taoism and Chinese Religion

the chapters on “Various Matters” in one of the Vinaya translated into

Chinese, Buddha himself showed Anathapindada how they should be
represented. Anathapindada, having given his garden, Jetavana, to the
community, thought that it would be suitable for the garden to be
decorated with paintings and went to ask Buddha’s advice: “O excel-
lent,” responded the Buddha. “You must paint two Yaksha holding
statfs on the two sides of the gate!” Here, as for the gods of the doors in
houses, a single original personage has been divided in two. This is the
Yaksha Guhyaka, mentioned in other canonical texts, who is also called
The Strong Man Who Holds the Thunder in his Hand, Vajrapanibalin,
Chin-kang-li-shih. In about the T’ang period the Chinese, cutting the
name in half, made Chin-kang (Vajra) the name of the Yaksha with the
open mouth and Li-shih (Balin) that of the closed-mouth Yaksha. It is
said that, the mouth being “the door of the face”, this symbolically
indicates that his protection is the same, whether the gate is open or
closed.
These modern names, which are in no way Buddhist, are popular in
origin. They were adopted by the Romance of the Investiture of the Gods,
which contributed to their spread along with the legend which the book
attributes to them and which seems to have been the author’s invention.
They were, as he tells it, two heroes who fought for King Tsou of the Yin
against the King of Chou. The first had the power to emit two jets of
white light through his nostrils, which sucked men in and killed them;
and the second had the power of blowing a fatal yellow gas out through
his mouth. After their death, they were made guardians of temple gates.
During the last centuries, however, they have been largely replaced in
this task by the Four Heavenly Kings, T’ien-wang. These are four well-
known Buddhist gods: Vaisramana for the north, carrying a banner in
his right hand and a stupa in his left; Dhrtarashtra for the east, carrying
a kind of lute; Virudhaka for the south, trampling a demon under his
feet; and Virupaksa for the west, carrying a jewel in the form of a shrine
in his right hand and a serpent in his left. The very Chinese custom of
placing them at the entry to temples to guard the gates seems not to go
back much farther than Ming times. Before that they were arranged at
the four cardinal points of the compass around a stupa, or again they
surrounded a group of statues; but nobody thought of thus gathering
them together in the first building.
Today this has become almost universal, and the former guardians
have had to yield their place almost everywhere; but their name, Chin-
kang-li-shih (Vajrabalin) has remained partly attached to their funetion,
and the Four Heavenly Kings are often called by the title of Four
(Bearers of the) Thunderbolt, Ssu Chin-kang. The Taoists borrowed
 The Mytholoi^y of Modern China 127

these eolossal figures while giving them the purely Chinese names of Li,
Ma, Chao, and Wen, and plaeed them sometimes at the entry to their
temples in a position similar to that at Buddhist temples. I^opular
religion adopted one of them, Vaisramana, under his Taoist name, Li
(that is, Li T'o-t'ey Li the Tower-Bearer). But the group of four divinities
would be completely forgotten if again the Romance of the Investiture of
the Gods had not saved it by adopting it under a disguise. They are the
four Mo-li brothers (Mara, but the name is taken as a family name and
not as signifying “demon”), partisans of the Shang who had been
defeated and killed after various doughty deeds. The eldest, Mo-li
Ch’ing, was armed with a saber which produced destructive waterspouts
and whirlwinds. The second, Mo-li Hung, carried a closed parasol; when
he opened it, the sun and the moon were hidden, heaven and earth were
darkened, and rain fell. The third, Mo-li Hai, had a lute, the sounds of
which harmonized precisely with the elements controlling the winds (we
know that, in Chinese philosophy, the Five Sounds, the Five Flavors,
the Five Cardinal Points of the Compass, and so on, were considered to
be related to the Five Elements, so that to act upon the one set had
immediate repercussions upon the others). Finally the fourth, Mo-li
Shou, carried a purse containing the monstrous Striped Sable {hua-hu-
tiao) which, unleashed, devoured men. After their death and the defini-
tive victory of the King of Chou, they received divine posts as protectors
of pagodas and regulators of the wind and the rain. The author of the
Ronuinee of the Investiture of the Gods seems to have drawai these
popular interpretations of the Four Kings' attributes from the folklore of
his time. Dhrtarashtra’s lute can be found unchanged in Mo-li Hai's
hands: and Mo-li Hung’s parasol seems to me an ignorant misinterpre-
tation of Vaisramana’s furled banner. The two others are less easy to
grasp. The author’s role consisted less in the invention of characters
themselves than in using them fancifully in his tale of the war between
the Shang and the Chou.
Wei-t’o, also used as an entry guardian, is portrayed as a young man
dressed in a general’s armor and with a helmet on his head, standing but
leaning upon a gnarled staff with both hands. He is a god of lesser
importance, one of the thirty-two heavenly generals who come under the
Four Kings. Among the people, however, he is often called by the title of
Bodhisattva, and the bonzes have long sanctioned this usage by making
him a genuine Bodhisattva, but one still rather advanced along the way
and destined ultimately to become the Buddha Lou-chih (Rueika), the
last of the thousand Buddhas in our world period {kalpa). This identified
him with Yaksha Vajrapani, to whom this prediction properly belongs.
The history of this deity is also conspicuous for a series of misadventures.
 128 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Even his name is due to an error, to the confusion of two Chinese

characters which resemble one another though they do not have the
same sound. His name is in fact a false transcription of Skandha. In
addition, there was a monk of the seventh century who, haunted by
hallucinations in the last year of his life, heard in his reveries numerous
divinities who, though they did not show themselves to him, visited and
conversed with him; and through this Wei-t’o received, through a word
play on the first character of his name, a purely Chinese family name and
became Heavenly General Wei.
The Heavenly General is set with his back to the statue of Mi-lo
(Maitreya), the next Buddha; and he sits, or rather squats, with right
knee raised and the hand leaning on it holding a string of prayer beads,
his face laughing with the mouth wide open. This is the form which has
normally been given him at least since the Mongol era, when he
accompanies the representations of the Sixteen or the Eighteen Arhats.
These, who are supposed to await his coming to enter into Nirvana, have
a good time with him in the Heaven T’u-shih-t’a, where he presently
resides, as all the Buddhas of all time have always done before their final
existence. But it is not known why or when this peculiarly ugly symbol
was chosen to greet visitors at the entry of Buddhist temples.
The God of the Locality, Ch’ieh-lan-shetu or in more respectful style
Ch’ieli-lan p'u-sa {CITieli-lan is the abbreviated transcription of the
Sanskrit word scinghdrania, which means “monastery”), often has a
special chapel (ordinarily in one of the secondary buildings of the first
courtyard, to the right as one enters); but this is in no way firmly fixed,
for in other cases he must be satisfied with a niche in the Front Hall or
the Main Hall or elsewhere. In the Kung-ch’ing temple at T’ien-t’ai-shan
(Chekiang) he has a large special chapel where sick pilgrims go to spend
the night so that he can show them the appropriate remedy in dreams.
This God of the Locality is most often nameless. In some regions he is
said to be Kuan Yii, the general who helped found the Shu Han dynasty
in the third century and who has elsewhere become, under the title
Military Emperor, one of the most powerful gods of official and popular
religion. On the other hand, it is not uncommon to see separate niches
for the lay God of the Locality, I’u-ti, independent and distinct from
those of the Ch’ieh-lan-s/ien.
Every part of the temple has, moreover, its special god. The god who
presides over the kitchen is Wei-t’o, the same who is already one of the
entry guardians. In the washroom is placed the image of the Arhat
Bhadra, one of the Sixteen Arhats who are waiting in this world for the
coming of Maitreya. The monasteries of India must already have had
each of their buildings protected by numerous divinities, but the Chinese
have added still more, no doubt in imitation of private houses.
 The Mythology of Modern China 129

5. Gods of Professions, Trades, and Guilds

Each profession has its protective divinity whom the members worship:
this is often the inventor of the calling, the first person to devote himself
to the profession. The custom is very ancient: in antiquity, blind
musicians who sang and played instruments in religious ceremonies
worshiped the Blind Old Fellow, the ancestor of their profession, and
K’uei, the one-legged animal from whose skin the Yellow Emperor had
made the first drum.

A. CIVIL MANDARINS

Officials have their gods, who are not the same for civil as for military
officers. The former have as their patron mainly the God of Literature,
Wen-ch’aug ti-chiiiu or simply the Emperor of Literature, Wcu-ti, and his
two followers, the constellation K’uei-hsing and Red Dress, Cliu-yi. They
also worship Confucius, though he cannot quite be considered merely an
ordinary patron of a calling.

/. Wen-ch 'ang and His Followers

Wen-ch’ang is a constellation of six stars near the Great Bear. When it
shines brightly, literature prospers. The god of that constellation, so it is
said, descended several times among men, and his seventeen successive
lives are recounted in detail in special works which are widely known: the
Biography of the Emperor of Literature {Wen-ti pen-ehuan) and the Book
of the Transformations of the Emperor of Literature (Wen-ti hua-shu).
Following the ninth of his existences, during which he had been a certain
Chang Ya, the Jade Emperor made him responsible for keeping the
registers of men’s titles and honors and for making the distinction
between good and bad scholars, rewarding the former and causing them
to rise, and punishing the latter.
At the beginning of this cult there seems to have been a very ancient
worship of a local thunder god among the barbarian peoples of northern
Szechuan. Its center was at Tzu-t’ung, a place the name of which the god
had long borne. In this area on Mount Ch'i-chiu there was, until the first
centuries A.D., a rough wood-plank temple where the people of the area
went each year to offer to the Thunder ten weavers’ shuttles, which then
disappeared, carried off by the god. This temple still exists, moreover,
though rebuilt in the ordinary manner: it is called the Temple of
Supernatural Aid, Ling-ying miao. The god had appeared, it is said (and
this legend has merged into the series of Wen-ch’ang’s existences), in the
form of a snake so as to frighten the Count of Ch’in’s daughter. She had
 130 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

been sent to the land of Shu (the ancient name for Szechuan) to marry its
prince and to prepare the conquest of that country; but the god had
crushed her by making the mountain fall down upon her and her
entourage. Protector of the region, he had a temple at the provincial
capital, Chengtu; and an inscription from the end of the second century
A.D. tells how the temple of the god of Tzu-t’ung, destroyed by a tire
along with several others, was restored in 194 by order of the governor.
The T’ang emperor Hsiian-tsung passed through Tzu-t’ung when the
rebellion of An Lu-shan forced him to flee Ch’ang-an, his capital
(nowadays Sian, Shensi), and take refuge at Chengtu (756). He bestowed
the title of Minister of the Left upon the god. About a century later, in
881, another emperor of the same dynasty was again obliged to flee to
Szechuan before another rebellion, that of Huang Ch'ao, and as he
passed through he gave the god of Tzu-t’ung the title of king. It was still
as the local protector that he appeared in the year 1000 on the wall of
Chengtu, then the refuge of the rebel Wang Chiin, to announce that the
city would be taken on the twentieth of the month by the imperial forces.
How did this local Szechuan god come to be confused with the god of
the constellation Wen-ch’ang which presides over literature? We know
only that this confusion was officially recognized in 1317 by the Yiian
emperor Jen-tsung, when he elevated the god to the rank of “Benevolent
Emperor responsible for official salaries, of the constellation Wen-ch’ang
which furthers the primordial transformation”, Fu-yikiu k’ai-hua Wen-
ch ’ang ssu-lu hung-jen ti-chim.
Most scholarly families have his tablet or more rarely his picture or
statue, and worship him. He is ordinarily represented in a mandarin’s
costume, holding a scepter {jn-yi) and having behind him a male and a
female servant who accompany him. To his left and right are his
assistants, K’uei-hsing and Red Dress. K’uei-hsing is the god of the four
stars which form the chariot of the Great Bear. He is represented with a
hideous face and in quite a remarkable posture, standing erect on the
right leg with his left leg raised behind him, brandishing a writing brush
with his right hand above his head and with his left holding an official
seal out in front of him. The upper part of his body is usually naked and
he is clad only in a loin-cloth and a scarf which floats about his
shoulders, though sometimes he wears a short jacket. Most frequently,
he is standing upon a fish. It is said that in his lifetime he was so ugly
that, after his success in the doctoral examination, the Emperor, seeing
him, refused him the audience which was customarily granted to the first
candidate on the promotion list. In despair he wanted to throw himself
in the water, but an enormous fish (^w), having caught him on its head,
brought him back to the surface and prevented him from drowning.
 The Mythology of Modern China 131

Sometimes the hsh has a human head; sometimes the god is mounted on
his back as if on a horse, but even in that situation his arms and legs are
given the traditional position as nearly as possible.
He is the one who hands out literary grades. He was invoked for
success at the examinations and, when a young man graduated, he was
given a picture or a tablet of the god. One of the most widespread ways
of representing him is by writing the character which forms his name in
such a way as to sketch roughly the god's attitude, one arm and one leg
raised and with his hsh under him. As for Red Dress, Chu-yi, he is given
the appearance of an old man with a long beard, dressed in a red robe:
he is the protector of ill-prepared candidates, making them succeed
through luck.
All these gods, but especially Wen-ch'ang, are prayed to because of the
examinations. In a thirteenth century tale which Father Wieger trans-
lates, a candidate sees the Emperor of Literature in a dream, seated on a
throne in his temple and supervising the correction of a certain number
of compositions which, put into furnaces, all come out brilliant. Among
them he recognizes his own, which the operation had changed com-
pletely, and he learns it by heart. On the next day the building where the
compositions had been left burns up and the test must be retaken. The
candidate then writes down the composition he had seen in his dream
and passes successfully.
It was natural that Wen-ch’ang, God of Literature, wrote a great deal.
His works, revealed through the intermediary of the divination-brush in
spiritualist seances, are countless, and large collections of them have
been made up. One of the most widespread of these little tracts is The
Lamp of the Dark Chamber, a small recent treatise on all sorts of moral
and religious subjects (infanticide, filial piety, respect towards Heaven,
and so on), which begins with a detailed account of his successive lives as
told by himself.

//. Confueius
Finally, there are few scholars who do not have a tablet of Confucius
(K'ung-tzu), or more rarely a picture or statuette. They place these, not
in the great hall where the tablets of teachers and pictures of the God of
Happiness are, but in the study or library, and there they worship him
privately. When it is a statuette, he is usually represented sitting down, in
imperial costume since he is “the unthroned king”, or sometimes simply
in a scholar's dress. One of the most widespread pictures is supposed to
be a reproduction of a painting by the celebrated painter Wu Tao-tzu
(eighth century A.D.). The original has long been lost, but there exist a
 132 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

certain number of sculptured stone slabs which are supposed to bear an

engraved reproduction of it; rubbings of it are very common. There are
also other famous portraits which have likewise been carved in stone,
and rubbings of them are widespread.
The official religion also requires public worship of Confucius by all
officials. In every headquarters of an administrative area, from provinces
down to counties, there stands a temple of Confucius, K’ung-tzu miao, or
more correctly a temple of Literature, Wen-miao, arranged like a prince’s
mansion with its three buildings each having a courtyard in front of it.
Confucius, as we know, is never represented in these temples by a statue,
but by a funerary tablet, except in the family temple situated near his
tomb at Ch’ii-fu (Shantung); the founder of the Ming dynasty ordained
that this should be so in 1382.
The main hall, Ta-cITeng lien, is at the back of the second courtyard.
There the tablet of Confucius, the Model and Example for Ten Thou-
sand Generations, Wan-shih shih-piao, occupies the place of honor
behind the central altar, facing south. The tablets of the Four Saints,
Ssu-hsieru likewise facing south, flank it: his favorite disciple, Yen-tzu,
and his grandson, Tzu-ssu, are on one side, and his two disciples Tseng-
tzu and Mencius on the other. To right and left on secondary altars, half
of them facing east and half west, are the Ten Wise Men, Shih die, who
are also ten of his disciples. Two great buildings on each side of the
courtyard each contain the tablets of seventy-two famous disciples from
all periods since the beginnings and up to our day: the seventy-two Sages
of the Eastern Wing and the seventy-two Sages of the Western Wing.
Finally, Confucius’s ancestors have their tablets back in the third block
of buildings.
Quite near the Temple of Confucius at the capital is the former
Imperial College, Kuo-tzu cliien, with its circular pond, its pavilions for
doctoral examinations, its classics graven on stone, and so on. It is
almost a prehistoric survival in modern China, the former house where
young noblemen were initiated before being admitted to adult society. Its
great festivals are those of the middle of spring and of autumn, the first
day marked by the character ting in the sixty-day cycle. The head of the
administrative area—governor, prefect, district officer—presides over
the ceremony in person or assigns a proxy to preside in his place; and all
civil and military officials present at the headquarters are required to
attend. There are, moreover, many students, and certain secondary
functions in the ceremony are assigned to them. All those who attend
must prepare themselves by a two-day fast. Offerings are presented to
Confucius first, then to his four assistants, then to the Ten Wise Men
whose tablets are in the main hall of the temple, and finally to the two
 The Mythology of Modern China 133

rows of seventy-two disciples who have their tablets in the wings to right
and left. The sacrifice is accompanied only by civil music and dances.
Aside from these two great festivals, small offerings are made twice a
month, at the new and at the full moon: fruits and vegetables on the first
day and incense on the second. At the capital it is the Emperor himself,
or at the least an imperial proxy, who presides over the spring and
autumn sacrifices. The Republic has further increased, if that were
possible, the honors paid to Confucius; and the President, like the
Emperor in earlier days, continues to offer him ritual sacrifices either in
person or through a proxy. The ceremony does not differ from those in
the provinces, except perhaps in solemnity.
This is not the place to give a detailed biography of Confucius. The
most ancient work in which it is found, the Historical Records composed
by Ssu-ma Ch’ien in the late second and early first centuries B.C., already
gives no more than a rather brief legend; but the fact that it is lacking
in fantastic elements is inadequate to guarantee its authenticity. The
standard modern work is an illustrated biography. Scenes of the Saint's
Relies. The prototype of this seems to go back to Mongol times, but
popular taste has caused the works to be replaced repeatedly by others
that are later and newer, while the earlier ones were forgotten. The one
that is most widely circulated today is a set of woodblock engravings
which reproduce the 112 stones carved in 1592 at the Temple of
Confucius at Ch'ii-fu (Shantung). I shall merely give a brief summary of
the traditional legend.
According to that legend, Confucius was born in 551 B.C. and died in
479. He must indeed have lived in this period, at the end of the sixth and
the beginning of the fifth centuries B.C., but the precise dates are far
from certain. He is said to have descended from the royal family of the
Yin, who had preceded the Chou on the Chinese throne. His father had
married when he was very old and died soon after Confucius was born,
so that it was his mother who raised him at ChTi-fu, the capital of the
principality of Lu, his homeland (southwestern Shantung). When he was
a child he is said to have found his main amusement in imitating ritual
ceremonies as best he could, together with his playmates. When he grew
up, he entered the service of the Prince of Lu and performed various
functions at his court: he became Director of Public Works in 503, then
of Justice in 501. At about this time, accompanying his sovereign at an
interview he had at Chia-ku with his northern neighbor, the Prince of
Ch’i, Confucius saved his master—on the pretext of conforming strictly
to the rites of princely interviews—by demanding that armed dwarfs and
dancers who had been ordered to attack him be dismissed or, according
to some, executed by quartering. But several years later the people of
 134 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Ch’i, fearing that under Confucius’s good government the country of Lu

might become too powerful, sent his prince a present of young singing-
girls who gradually turned him aside from his duties towards the state, so
that in the end Confucius resigned.
He decided to leave his homeland and began to travel through the
petty feudal states which then made up the Empire, seeking a wise prince
who would be willing to take him as minister and allow him to put into
practise the good government of the sage-kings of antiquity. In the
course of his peregrinations he had many adventures, some of which are
especially famous. Once, as he passed through K’uang, going from the
state of Wei to Ch'en, the people of the place mistook him for Yang Ho,
the steward of the greatest family in Lu, from whom they had suffered a
short while before, and they held him for five days, until one of the
disciples who accompanied him succeeded in calming them down.
During all this time Confucius remained quietly seated, playing on the
lute, without allowing himself to be troubled by threats. Another time,
when he was passing through the state of Sung, the minister Huan-t’ui
sent men who cut down the tree under which he was sitting with his
disciples. Here again he refused to be frightened: “Heaven has produced
the virtue which is in me. What can Huan-t’ui do to me?” He is also
supposed to have made a journey to the capital (nowadays, Sian), where
he had a famous interview with Lao-tzu, who was then in charge of the
archives.
After twelve years had passed thus, sensing the approach of old age, he
returned to his homeland and set up a school at the capital, where he
taught the doctrine of the ancients. It was then that he chose the pieces
of verse and prose from which he made up two anthologies, the Book of
Odes {Sliih dung) and the Book of Documents {Shu eliing)\ that he
composed his chronicle of the state of Lu, the Springs and Autumns
{Ch’un-clTiu)\ that he wrote the brief philosophical treatises on a divi-
natory manual, the Book of Changes {Yi cliing): and in sum that he
carried out all the literary works which an ancient tradition attributes to
him, regardless of likelihood, being unwilling to admit that the Master
who is the Model and Example for Ten Thousand Generations did not
leave a single line behind. In 481 a prodigy warned him of his approach-
ing death: a unicorn appeared and was killed by peasants. He died
indeed, two years later, and was buried near Ch’ii-fu.
By the fourth century B.C. he was famous enough to be the frequent
object of all sorts of attacks. Nevertheless, it was only in Han times that
Confucius attained supreme rank among the masters of thought in
China. The troubles of the third century B.C. had ruined all the rival
philosophical schools, leaving none but the Confucians and the Taoists;
 The Mythology of Modern China 135

and the latter, being completely speculative, did not have the practical
interest of Confucianism. From that time on, his fame only grew from
century to century.
The worship of Confucius is said to go back to the very day after his
death: his family had a funerary temple built for him where offerings
were made at fixed dates and where his relics were kept. Ssu-ma Ch’ien,
in the second century B.C., 350 years after the Master’s death, saw his
chariot, his robes, and his ritual vessels there. This temple, often
reconstructed, developed gradually and became quite extensive, and it is
now the most important and wealthiest of the temples of Confucius. It is
also the only one which conserved the ancient custom of having statues
of the Sage and his disciples while, in all official temples in the capital
and the provinces, statues have had to be replaced by simple funerary
tablets. This temple long remained unique and, when they were passing
by Ch'ii-fu, several of the Western Han emperors offered sacrifices to
Confucius. But in 58 A.D., when schools were established in every
commandery of the Empire, chapels of Confucius were set up in those
schools too.
From the beginnings, the set of seventy-two Disciples was associated
with Confucius. In the middle of the third century, one of the emperors
of the Wei dynasty (Three Kingdoms Period) detached Yen-tzu from the
group of seventy-two to associate him more closely with Confucius,
beginning those changes in the number and position of the disciples
which ended in the modern arrangement of twice times seventy-two: one
group to the left, one to the right. Ten Wise Men, Shih che, were set
apart in 720, and then Tseng-tzu and Tzu-ssu were picked out of this
group and set beside Confucius and Yen-tzu in 1267. Mencius was added
to them in 1330, the period when their ranks and places were definitively
established, while a series of new disciples replaced them and the number
of Wise Men was restored to ten—among whom, for the first time, a
modern man, the philosopher Chu Hsi, who lived in the twelfth century,
was introduced. An edict of 739 had set the list of seventy-two Disciples
who had the right to sacrifices in the Temple of Confucius, with their
ranks. Gradually additions were made, especially in 1530 and in 1724
and especially scholars of the Sung period (Chang Tsai, Ch’eng Yi, Ssu-
ma Kuang, Eli Tsu-ch'ien) or of the Ming (Wang Shou-jen—the philo-
sopher known by the surname of Yang-ming—and Huang Tao-chou) or
even more recent men such as Lu Lung-ch’i (1630-92) and T’ang Pin
(1627-87). Moreover, the list is not closed; and in 1919 the President of
the Republic, Hsii Shih-ch’ang, introduced two new personages into the
temple of Confucius: Yen Yiian and Li Kung, both of whom lived in the
seventeenth century.
 136 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Like all the gods of the official religion, Confucius climbed all the steps
of the hierarchy one by one: he was duke in the first year A.D., king in
739, reduced for a while to the rank of duke in 1075, emperor in 1106.
He even kept his rank and title through a special exception made in his
favor when the first Ming emperor abolished all the titles of kings, dukes,
and so on, which had been bestowed upon mountains or rivers, gods of
the Walls and Ditches, or officials of former dynasties who had been
admitted into official worship. But this was only for a while and, on 4
December 1530, the Shih-tsung emperor stripped him of his status,
giving him simply the title Perfect Sage Ancient Master {Chih-sheng
Hsien-shih), which he has kept until our day.
Most of the other official gods have received new titles and ranks in
various epochs. Neither Confucius nor the God of the Eastern Peak
(whose title of grand emperor is not official) has had to yield his. It seems
that in recent times the highest honor that could be imagined for them
has been to put them on the same footing as Heaven, which likewise has
no hierarchic title.
This lack of titles has tended to accentuate the distinction which
scholars continue to make between Confucius and the other gods of the
official religion, all of whom have more or less exalted titles. He is
perceived as being somehow special in nature, and this impression is
reinforced by the fact that his temples are the only ones where there are
no statues. This has contributed to giving him that position apart which
caused his cult to be officially preserved after Yiian Shih-k’ai’s death,
when the other official cults (Heaven, Earth, Sun, Seas, Mountains and
Rivers, and so on) were abolished. Must one go so far as to say, as
certain Europeanized modern Chinese do, that he is not really a god?
The dispute seems to focus upon words rather than things. In Chinese,
which has no common general term to designate beings superior to men,
the question cannot even be posed, for one cannot tell what term to
use. Designations for Buddhas, Bodhisattvas, Immortals, or local gods
cannot be applied to him. But on the other hand, neither can he be called
a kuei (the soul of a dead person), on the same footing as a common
man. He is certainly a being superior to men. The fact that he lived a
purely human life is of no significance in China, where all gods have
passed through an earthly existence. He is a Sage, Sheng, and this
expression, whatever its primitive meaning may have been, has become a
religious title attributed to many others besides him. One must also dis-
tinguish between two quite different things. On the one hand there are
the honors paid to Confucius by students at schools which, copying the
honors rendered to living masters (greetings, offerings on the first and
fifteenth of each month, and so on), do not seem to have, in the minds of
 The Mythology of Modern China 137

the participants, any truly religious character and scarcely go beyond a

simple homage to the Master of Ten Thousand Generations. On the
other hand there is the official religion (the former imperial worship), in
which he appears as a truly divine protector of the State and a dispenser
of peace and good government. I do not know what forms of words
presidents of the Republic or officials have used in addressing him these
last years when they sacrifice to him; but until the end of the empire the
imperial formulas were real prayers asking his help to govern well or
even, as for example the Ch'ien-lung emperor did in 1751, asking much
happiness forever, with an expression borrowed from a sacrificial ode in
the Shih citing. When there was some serious matter at hand, the
character of the prayer became still clearer, as when K’ang-hsi, in 1695,
after an earthquake which had devastated Hopei, had him sent a special
sacrifice and “for the sake of the people prayed for happiness”, or again
in 1697, announcing his triumph over the Oirat Mongols and their chief
Galdan in the preceding year, declared that now the frontier had been
pacified, “thanks to the efficacious aid of the Perfect Sage Ancient
Master”. These are formulas similar to those used in the sacrifices to
Heaven, in which the desired vagueness and generality are in large
measure due to the requirement that, in these prayers which are pieces
belonging to a set literary genre, only expressions taken from the Classics
are to be used.
Insofar as our term “god” can be applied to the personages of Chinese
mythology, it is thus clear that Confucius has been, at least until quite
recently, a god (not of individuals, but of the State), to whom one prayed
and from whom one expected “happiness”. But we must add that his
influence is not of a religious sort. The worship paid him represents the
smallest part of that influence, which is due above all to the fact that
his doctrine, as it has been fixed by centuries of commentaries, is
wonderfully adapted to the Chinese mind. It has always been flexible
enough to change together with that mind, so that even in these days
when “Western sciences” penetrate everywhere, it can still, and without
difficulty, remain the basis for Chinese national education.

B. MILITARY MANDARINS

Military mandarins rendered a worship of their own to Kuan-ti, and one

of the god’s festivals, that of the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month, is
reserved to them. On that day they set up an altar with the god's statue
accompanied by his son and his squire, and place two tables to right and
left, the first carrying a bow and arrows and the second halberds. Then in
the corners of the hall they place banners on which his titles are
 I3(S Taoism and Chinese Religion

inscribed: on one side the Great Emperor Who Assists Heaven and on
the other the Great Emperor Who Protects the State. In front of the altar
on each side are two red paper horses. When everything is ready, a pig is
offered to him, and in the evening the two horses are burned in his
honor.
Military mandarins also worship publicly three times a year, on a
propitious day in the second months of spring and autumn and on his
birthday, the thirteenth of the fifth month; but this worship is not
peculiar to them, and civil mandarins of the district are also present. The
Great Sacrifice is olfered: pork, mutton, beef, with a complete meal,
wine, and rolls of silk. Less important olferings are also presented twice a
month. The ofificial temples of Kuan-ti, temples of the Military Saint,
Sheng-wu-niiao, are composed of two groups of buildings, each with a
courtyard in front of it. As in the temple of Confucius, the principal
building is for the god and the one behind for his relatives. But its
arrangement was modified in 1916 by the president of the Republic,
Yiian Shih-k’ai, who seems to have taken the temples of Confucius as a
model. An assessor. General Yiieh Fei, was put at Kuan-ti’s right, facing
south. Then two rows of twelve tablets for twenty-four Exemplary
Warriors were placed at his side, facing east and west. These replaced the
six oflficers who had served as followers for Kuan-ti till then. They are
generals from all periods, among whom is found the name of Hulegii, the
Mongol conqueror of Persia and Baghdad (1257). The statues of Kuan-ti
have been kept on the main altar, but the new official tablet, from which
the title of Emperor has disappeared, has been put in front.

C. THE PEASANTS

The peasants have no particular god who serves as their patron. The
official religion is above all an agrarian religion, and almost all the most
important festivals are intended to promote good harvests. Thus all the
gods are concerned with them. And not merely all gods, but all officials
as well, insofar as they have religious functions along with their civil
tasks. The peasants need not ask the gods individually to grant them aid
and protection; for the mandarins are officially in charge of praying to
the gods on their behalf. With the Emperor and the mandarins, the
peasants are the only persons to whom the official religion gives a role in
its ceremonies; but that role is entirely passive: they are never the ones
who carry out the rites, they are the ones for whom others carry out
those rites.
The origin of their special situation is very ancient. Already in
antiquity they did not have the right to render any worship themselves.
 The Mythology of Modern China 139

Princes and officials rendered it for them. These latter were charged with
marking (through a ceremony performed for the entire community) the
opening of work in the fields; with advising the earth gods of plowing
and of the harvest; with asking for a good crop; with praying for rain
when it was late; and so on. Farmers individually made neither prayers
nor sacrifices, just as individually they owned no fields. They worked, in
common by groups of eight families, a certain stretch of land which was
allotted to them to sustain their family, in exchange for which they paid
their tithe. Even though this archaic organization had completely dis-
appeared by almost the very moment when the authors described it,
towards the beginning of historical times in the last centuries B.C., the
official religion—and in general the attitude of the Chinese authorities
towards the peasants—retained something of it. The emperors and, at
the beginning of the Revolution, the president of the Republic, made
public sacrifices for agriculture each year, just as the kings of antiquity
had. 1 have described the most important of these above: the great
imperial sacrifice to Heaven in the southern suburb of the capital, mm
chiao. There were many others: the emperors prayed for rain, for snow,
for the harvest, and so on. And after them, all local officials (governors
of provinces, prefects, subprefects) carried out similar ceremonies at
times fixed by the calendar.
There is more. The work in the fields must not begin without an
express order from authority. In theory, it is the year’s first clap of
thunder that gives the signal. In Kiangsu villagers await it impatiently
and, as soon as they hear it, the chief of the village writes officially to the
district officer to announce the fact. When the latter has received a
sufficient number of notices from villages in his area, he sends a
representative into each community bearing the official poster to fix a
favorable day for beginning work in the fields. The notice is worded in
the following or similar terms (I noted the poster which I give here in
early 1914 in a Kiangsu village):
The time when the insects are afraid (this is the name of one of
the twenty-four half-month periods into which the year is divided)
has come. All ye farmers, apply yourselves to working in the fields.
Now I, district officer, have fixed the seventeenth day of the third
month as the propitious day for beginning work. Let every man
obey without opposition, so as to avoid the calamities of water,
drought, and insects!
The official religion observed this opening of work in the fields by a
solemn festival in the first month of spring, the Festival of Plowing. The
Emperor himself took the yellow plow yoked to a yellow ox (yellow was
 140 Taoism and Chinese Religion

the imperial eolor under the Manchu dynasty); the head of the Ministry
of Finance stayed at his left hand with the whip, the governor of Hopei
at his right with a sack of seed-grain. The Emperor personally turned the
first furrow, then the princes and ministers took his place, and the work
was concluded by peasants. It was the grain from this field, situated
south of Peking, just across from the Temple of Heaven, which served
thereafter for all the imperial sacrifices of the year.
The sacrifice of the winter solstice on the altar of Heaven, that of
spring at the temple where one prays for the Harvest, and the Festival of
Plowing were the great imperial festivals at the beginning of work in the
fields. After these had been carried out, the district officers gave the
orders to the villages. But the officials did not stop there: until the end of
the empire they also had to offer sacrifices regularly to the gods of the
Earth and of the Harvest, she-cln\ in spring and autumn, in every
headquarters town of the area.
At the capital, worship was carried out by the Emperor himself or an
imperial proxy. There was no temple. The place of worship was a hillock
in the open air, in a courtyard surrounded by a low wall, situated inside
the Palace enclosure to the right of the audience-chamber, complemen-
tary to the Temple of the Ancestors, which was situated on the left side.
In a large courtyard there was a square promenade, extensive but only
slightly raised and surrounded by three stone tiers, with a staircase of
four steps in the middle of each face. The top was covered with earth of
five colors corresponding to each of the five cardinal points: green to the
East, red to the South, white to the West, black to the North, and yellow
to the Center. The god’s stone tablet was placed there facing north
(because this god is the representative of the yin principle, to which the
north corresponds).
For the sacrifice the Emperor did not stand on the actual mound of
the Earth God, as he went up onto the Altar of Heaven for the chiao
sacrifice. He remained outside the circumferential wall, on the north side
so as to face the tablet, and those attending were behind him or on the
other sides of the courtyard, also outside the wall. Only at the beginning
of the ceremony did he go up for a moment to invite the spirits by
prostrating himself and offering incense; but immediately afterwards he
returned to his place, which he did not leave again. During the offerings,
music and songs appropriate to the sacrifice, as well as military and civil
dances, went on continuously. When the offerings had been completed
and carried in front of the tablet by special officials, the Emperor retired.
Similar sacrifices (but without dances) were carried out in each provincial
capital and each headquarters town of prefectures and subprefectures by
the mandarin of the area (or a delegated subordinate).
 Ihc Mytholoify of Modern Chino 141

Other ceremonies to Heaven or to the gods of the Earth and Harvests

took place in summer to get rain; they were performed in the north to
ask for snow; or again in cases of extraordinary events. Whatever the
occasion was, the people took no direct part. It was officials who acted in
the name of the entire area.
Even aside from the ceremonies of the official religion, peasant
worship tends to be practised in groups. It would clearly be absurd for
an individual to ask rain for his field alone, while it is natural for all
the villagers to ask it for the whole village. Thus it is by group that
appeals are made to all the popular divinities who watch over each
agricultural enterprise or deal with each incident of agricultural life. Liu
the Heavenly Prince was appointed by the Jade Emperor as responsible
Steward of the Five Cereals (wheat, barley, millet, sorghum, rice). He
protects crops and wards off drought, and his worship is very widespread
in Kiangsu. He has caused the ancient god of cereals. Prince Millet, Hoii-
chi (who is the only one the official religion w'orships as God of Harvests,
associating him with the Earth God), to be almost entirely forgotten.
There do exist little statues portraying Prince Millet in a form which
mingles man and plant, but these are trinkets displaying artistic fancy
rather than religious objects. For cotton, a crop of foreign origin, it is he
or she who first introduced it into China to whom worship is addressed.
At Canton he is called Huang Shih, and likewise in Fukien. At Sung-
chiang-fu (Kiangsu), where this crop dates only from the beginning of
the fourteenth century, legend and name are easily transformed; Old
Lady Huang is worshipped; she is said to have brought cotton from
Kwangtung to Kiangsu and to have taught how to grow and weave it.
According to others, she is supposed only to have imported from Canton
the machine for removing the seeds from it; she has her main pagoda in
her native village, Wu-ni-ching, near Shanghai. Against hail, Hu-shen,
the god who makes it fall, is appealed to; and a sacrifice is offered to him
on his birthday, the first day of the seventh month, accompanied by
theatrical presentations, as a sort of insurance.
One of the most dreaded calamities is the invasion of locusts who
devour the crop while it is still unripe and leave nothing behind them.
Against them the Great King Pa-cha, destroyer of locusts and other
harmful insects, is invoked. “The locusts are summoned to his court and
chained up,” says a very popular inscription in his honor; he closes them
up in his gourd and thus destroys them. He is represented with the face
of a man and a bird's beak, naked to the waist, wearing a bell-shaped
skirt under which bird feet show. In his left hand he has a saber and in
his right the gourd in which he confines harmful insects. He is not called
upon at the very moment when the danger of the pests is feared: that
 142 Taoism and Chinese Religion

would be too late. Every year after the harvest, especially if it has been
good, the village people have a sorcerer come at common expense to
thank the Great King Pa-cha for the protection given and to ask that it
be continued. The ceremony takes place in the open fields, where the
sorcerer sets up a tent in which he hangs images of the Jade Emperor, the
Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak—the one the supreme lord, the
other the earthly regent under the former’s orders—and that of the
Emperor Kuan, destroyer of wicked spirits. Then to the right and left of
this trio, and on a lower level, the God of the Locality, the Great King
Pa-cha, the God of Wealth, and so on. He recites incantations while
beating on a drum or a gong and burning incense; and then to all who
have paid to have him come he distributes amulets consecrated by
incense and the recitation of formulas. This is a very curious case: the
popular survival of a very important rite which the official religion has
rejected as lacking in dignity.
In antiquity, after the harvest, in the first month of winter, there
occurred a great festival of the ingathering of the crops, to conclude the
work in the fields and to mark the moment when the earth must be
disturbed no longer, as the Plowing Festival had opened them in spring,
breaking the winter prohibition. It is called Pa-cha, an expression of
unclear meaning, though it is traditionally interpreted as signifying “the
feast in honor of the eight kinds of spirits who are sought out”.
This was, above all, a festival for the end of the harvest: its establish-
ment was attributed to the Divine Husbandman, and the main spirit was
the First Harvester; after him were worshipped the First Plowman, the
First Dike-maker, the first Canal-digger, and the First Builder of Watch-
huts. Also prayed to were the spirits of cats who eat rats, to those of
tigers who eat wild boars—in a word, all the spirits which, by protecting
the various stages of the growing process, assisted in making the harvest
abundant. It was an enormous masquerade. The spirits of cats and tigers
were played by men or children masked and costumed. The festival
ended with a sumptuous feast in which all the offerings were consumed
and in which the old men had the leading place, in honor of the year’s
old age. The sacrifice was accompanied by formulas designed to put
everything back in order for the following harvest and to ward off
devouring insects: “Let the lands come back into service, let the waters
return into their canals, let the insects not appear, let the weeds return
to their marshes!” One aspect of the festival, the expulsion of harmful
insects, alone has survived. Popular religion personalized this by attribut-
ing it to a special being charged with this task, the Great King of the Pa-
cha festival or, as it is understood today, the Great King Pa-cha.
It went farther: from the twelfth or thirteenth century on, popular
 The Mythology of Modern China 143

religion endowed this divinity with a complete set of personal documents

and titles. He is the Ferocious General Liu, Liu Metig-chiang-chun, or
indeed High Constable Liu, Liu T'ai-wei, to whom sacrifices have been
offered in Shantung and Hopei since Sung times, and who has been
identified with various historical personages according to time and place:
Liu Yi or his brother Liu Jui, two generals from the middle of the twelfth
century, or their contemporary Liu Chien, who committed suicide when
Kaifeng was taken by the Mongols; or personages who are more or less
real, such as Liu Ch’eng-tsung, of whom it is told that, being in charge of
Chiang-huai (which is approximately modern Kiangsu) and seeing lo-
custs swarming upon the lands that he administered, he drove them away
by charging them, saber in hand. The worship of General Liu was
officially prohibited at the end of the seventeenth century or the begin-
ning of the eighteenth, but it lasted among the people. In certain areas he
became a personage distinct from Great King Pa-cha, who is made his
lieutenant; in others, these are diflferent titles for the same divinity; in still
others, the new title made the older one disappear, and it fell into
oblivion.
In addition to a general god of Animal Husbandry, whose picture is
pasted up on the walls or doors of stables, there are particular gods for
each sort of breeding. They are the personifications of the kinds of
animals themselves: the god of ox-stables, who is called King of Oxen,
Niu-waiig, is a buffalo; the God of Pigsties, called the Transcendent Pig,
Ling-chu, is a pig; Dame Horse-head, Ma-t'ou Niang, is a silkworm.
Modern popular religion, with its custom of having personal divinities,
has given a body, a name, and a legend to the objects of this worship.
Dame Horse-head is a concubine of the Jade Emperor, a reminder of
the ceremony in which the Empress, followed by the young women of
her harem, went at the beginning of the third month to the Mulberry
Avenue in the Palace to begin the gathering of leaves herself after an
offering. The Dame was, so they say, a young woman who, in high
antiquity, lived with her parents in Szechuan. One day her father was
abducted by pirates; the girl, in her filial piety, lamented unceasingly and
refused to take nourishment. At the end of a year, her mother, desperate,
made a vow to give her daughter in marriage to anyone who would bring
back her husband. Their horse heard this promise. He ran away from the
stable and, several days later, returned carrying his freed master on his
back. But when the father learned of his wife's imprudent vow, he
refused to carry it out and, when the horse showed his anger, killed it
with an arrow', skinned it and hung its hide to dry at the door of his
house. Soon afterwards, when the girl passed near the horsehide, it arose,
wrapped itself around her and took her away. Ten days later, the hide
 144 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

was found hung upon the branch of a mulberry tree: the girl had become
a silkworm. The Jade Emperor took her to heaven and made her one of
his concubines.
The gods of oxen and pigs are a little less far fetched in their origin.
Rather than being considered human beings transformed into animals,
they are considered animals who are capable of changing themselves into
humans. We know that the Chinese accept such transformation as an
altogether natural thing: foxes and tigers can, in certain conditions, take
human form (they are the best known, but not by any means the only
animals who enjoy this power). Foxes, according to the peasants of
Kiangsu, pray to the rising sun every morning, and they breathe its rays;
they kneel down on their hind legs, put their front legs together, and
prostrate themselves. When they have done this for several years, they
can take human form, and they take advantage of this fact to mingle
with men. Similar ceremonies permit serpents to become dragons;
wolves, badgers, and a number of small wild animals are also capable of
transforming themselves. Domestic animals such as oxen and pigs do not
usually have this faculty; but the King of Oxen and the God of the
Pigsties had acquired it somehow.
The author of the novel The Investiture of the Gods undoubtedly found
these animal-gods picturesque, for he gave them place among the
defenders of the tyrant Tsou-hsin of the Yin against his adversary the
king of Chou who, having already received the Mandate of Heaven, was
struggling to dethrone Tsou-hsin. The King of Oxen had taken the form
of a giant sixteen feet tall (that is the traditional height of the Buddha
and as such enjoys a special prestige in folklore) with two horns on his
forehead and the mouth and ears of a buffalo, dressed in a red robe,
protected by a breastplate and helmet, and armed with a three-pointed
halberd. He challenged the king of Chou’s warriors and killed all those
who came against him until Dame Nii-kua succeeded in passing a
miraculous ring through his nose and thus made him resume his buffalo
shape. As for the God of the Pigsties, he had a black face with big ears
and very long lips, and he was dressed in black (Chinese pigs are black).
He too killed many Chou warriors, but in the end was put to death by
the hero Erh-lang, the Jade Emperor’s nephew, whom he had swallowed.
Both gods are nowadays generally represented in mandarins’ costumes,
the one accompanied by oxen, buffalo, and horses, the other by pigs; and
their picture is placed at the doors of stables to ward off sickness. At
their festival, offerings are made and hrecrackers are set off in their
honor.
Rich peasants still keep a number of festivals before the altar of the
God of Wealth. These are the “birth days”. The year begins with an
 The Mythology of Modern China 145

important series: the third of the first month is the birthday of pigs, the
fourth of ducks, the fifth of oxen, the sixth of horses, the eighth of rice,
the ninth of vegetables, the tenth of barley; the twelfth of the third
month is the birthday of wheat, and so on. Depending upon their work,
peasants choose certain of these days to make offerings and burn incense,
usually before the altar of the Family God of Wealth; a great many,
however, do nothing at all.

D. SAILORS: THE EMPRESS OF HEAVEN (T’IEN-HOU)

The protector of sailors is a goddess who in recent centuries has taken a

considerable place in the Chinese pantheon, thanks to the favor which
the Manchu emperors accorded her, the Empress of Heaven, T’ien-hou,
also called Saint Mother of the Heavens, T'ien-shang Sheng-nny or, more
intimately. Grandmother, Ma-tsu-p'o. Her worship originated in Fukien
and was carried from there throughout all of China. The sailors of that
province have her picture on almost all their boats, in a little tabernacle
placed on the port side, and morning and evening they offer incense to
her. Before leaving harbor for a voyage they make offerings to her on the
boat, and often the crew and passengers go to her pagoda and burn
incense sticks in her honor. Business men involved in import or export,
contractors in ocean transport, emigrants, and mere travelers sacrifice to
her either regularly or occasionally.
The Empress of Heaven was a girl born on the island of Mei-chou,
near Hsing-hua, who lived in the eighth century according to some and
in the tenth century according to others. She was peculiarly devoted to
Kuan-yin and refused to marry. Her four brothers carried on ocean
trade, each in command of his own boat. One evening, when her
brothers were away on trips, she fell into a cataleptic fit and when, after
a long effort, she was successfully revived, she complained that she had
been summoned back too soon. What she meant was not clear, but
several days later, three of her brothers returned alone. A tempest had
struck their ships and they had thought themselves lost until a girl
appeared and guided them to shelter; only their eldest brother had not
been saved. Then her words were understood: it was she who had gone
to the rescue of her endangered brothers. Soon afterwards she died.
The worship of the Empress of Heaven came into being suddenly at
the end of the eleventh century and developed rapidly in the course of
the following century. According to an inscription made in her honor in
1228 in her temple at Hangchow, a supernatural glimmer appeared by
night above the beach at Mei-chou, and the inhabitants simultaneously
dreamed that a young girl said to them: “I am the goddess of Mei-chou,
 146 Taoism and Chinese Religion

1 must be lodged here!” Following this miracle, they built a temple on

the seashore. The goddess began to become famous later by saving a
high official, Lu Yiin-ti, in a terrible storm when he was going on an
embassy to Korea (1122): she came down upon the mast of the vessel
and guided it to safety. Upon his return the following year, the Hui-
tsung emperor bestowed upon her temple the name “Temple of the
Fortunate Crossing”, Sliun-clii niiao, a title which was by the way
commonplace, since it was routinely given to all temples of marine gods
at that time.
In 1155, for an unknown reason, the goddess received the official title
“Princess of Supernatural Favor”, Ling-Inn fu-jen; and from that time on
official honors came to her unceasingly. She showed herself especially
helpful in the droughts of 1187 and 1190 and otherwise she helped
repeatedly in capturing seagoing pirates, so much so that in 1192 she was
promoted in rank, her grade as Princess { fu-Jen) being changed to that of
Queen ( /c/), and several years later (1198) that title was in turn replaced
by Saint Queen (Sheng-fei). In 1278 the Mongol Emperor Khubilai
Khan gave her the title of Queen of Fleaven, accompanied by twelve
honorific characters. This title Queen of Heaven was retained under the
Ming dynasty and the beginning of the Manchu dynasty, and was
replaced by that of Empress of Heaven {T'ien-hou) by the Ch’ien-lung
emperor in 1737. And not only did her official cult develop thus, but her
popular worship also spread more and more. In the middle of the twelfth
century she had only a single temple, at the place where she had
appeared for the first time. In 1156 a second was built to her, a little to
the northeast, near the River Mouth Bridge, and two years afterwards
a third, about a league to the southeast, near White Lake, Pai-liu.
And from that time on the temples multiplied (almost always con-
structed, it seems, following a dream), so much that in 1228 the author
of a Hangchow inscription could say that she was not only wor-
shipped at Mei-chou, but received sacrifices throughout Min (Fukien),
Kuang (Kwangtung), Che (Chekiang), Huai, and Chiang (Kiangsu and
Anhwei)—that is to say, indeed, in all the maritime provinces of the
Sung empire. In our day, her cult has passed beyond even these limits,
and temples are found in almost every seacoast city, as far as Shantung
and Hopei. More than that, traders from Fukien who have emigrated
and set themselves up in other provinces consider her a personal patron
and often build temples to her as a place for their associations to
gather.
The Empress of Heaven is represented as a woman seated upon the
waves or on clouds, or sometimes simply on a throne. She is clad in a
long robe with a girdle like that worn by officials, and on her head she
 The Mytholof'v of Modern China 147

has an imperial cap with pendants or sometimes a simple ceremonial cap.

In her hand she holds a tablet, the insignia of rank for great oflicers in
the sovereign's presence, or sometimes a scepter, ///-r/. In fact, despite
her title of Queen or Empress of Heaven, neither the ollicial religion nor
popular religion has ever thought of making her the wife of the Emperor
of Heaven (Eord on High, or Jade Emperor, or Sire Heaven). She is a
high feminine dignitary of his court, equal in rank to the masculine
Emperors (//), such as Kuan-ti and so on; and like them she is sub-
ordinate to the supreme god.
Two personages who help her see and hear all that goes on in the
world are associated with her as subordinates. Their names are signifi-
cant: Thousand-li Ear and Thousand-li Eye.' They are represented
usually with head stretched out, the hand making a screen for the ear or
the eyes, so as to take in sounds better or to see the details of distant
scenes. The former has red hair and two horns; the latter has a blue face.
The romance The Investiture of the Gods recounts their service in the
army of the tyrant of the Yin dynasty.

E. TRADESMEN AND ARTISANS

Aside from mandarins and peasants, the official religion sanctions no

professional cult. The other professions have moreover always been
classed at a less exalted level in the traditional hierarchy. They have often
had to make do w ith less important divinities.
Tradesman naturally have the God of Wealth as their patron. They do
not on that account add more pictures than most families have, but they
do offer more frequent worship, making regular offerings twice a month,
on the second and the sixteenth. On those days they present, to
whichever of the gods of Wealth they have adopted, a complete meal,
which is afterwards distributed to their employees and clerks. The choice
of god is usually controlled by regional customs, but sometimes also by
particular devotions. Other factors may also play a part. It is clearly the
name of the God of Wealth of the Five Roads which has caused the
hotelkeepers of Peking to adopt him.
Goldsmiths place in the center of their shop windows the statuette of
Mi-lo (Maitreya), the future Buddha, under the usual form of a fat monk
with a laughing face, chubby-cheeked, pot-bellied, half naked, holding a
string of prayer beads in his hand. He was indeed, so it seems, the first
goldsmith, since in ancient times he fled from the palace of Shih-chia (the

1. The // is a measure of length, variable in value from province to province as well as

historically; it is about half a kilometer.
 14H Taoism and Chinese Religion

Buddha Sakyamuni), taking with him ingots of gold and silver and,
seeking asylum on earth and hiding himself among men, lived by making
jewels out of these metals and selling them. Shih-chia had to send after
him the Immortal Lii Tung-pin, who devoted himself to the search,
disguised as a beggar, and finally found him, seized and bound him with
a magic cord, and brought him back. Goldsmiths also have in their
houses the image of a personage seated on a chair, with his feet on an
ingot. They call him Hua-kuang and sometimes give him the title of Fo
(Buddha). Finally, many of them worship Tung-fang Shuo, a magician
of the second century B.C., because he was the incarnation of the Planet
of Metal (Venus) and consequently presides over everything dealing with
metal work. Merchants of Jade and precious stones also have for their
patron Pien Ho, who in antiquity discovered a marvelous jade which he
presented to two kings, only to see them misjudge it, declare it false, and
punish him each time by the amputation of a limb.
Carpenters and joiners, and often also blacksmiths and potters, have
as their patron Lu Pan, the artisan of genius who knew how to make a
wooden falcon that could fly and many other marvelous things, and
whose legend was already popular several centuries before our era. His
two wives, one red and the other black, are the patronesses of lacquer-
makers (red and black lacquer). They are worshiped twice a year, on the
thirteenth day of the fifth month and the twenty-first day of the seventh
month.
Butchers pray to to Fan KTiai, an imaginary personage, who is said to
have been the friend and right arm of the founder of the Han dynasty
and who is supposed to have begun making his living by skinning and
cutting up dogs to sell as meat. In other regions it is Chang Fei, one of
the three sworn brothers of the Peachtree Garden in the Romance of the
Three Kingdoms: he was making a living by selling pork when he joined
up with Liu Pei, the founder of the Shu Han dynasty (Szechuan), and
with Kuan Yi'i.
It would be impossible to review all these gods of professions. Each
calling has its special protector, who varies from region to region. The
protector of weavers is the God of the Shuttle, whose birthday falls on
the sixteenth of the ninth month; that of gardeners is the God of the
Garden Trees; that of brush-makers is Meng Then, a general of the end
of the third century B.C. who is said to have been the inventor of the
writing brush; that of paper-makers is Ts’ai Lun, the inventor of paper in
the first century A.D.; that of tailors is the mythical Yellow Emperor,
Huang-ti, the inventor of ceremonial vestments; that of cobblers is Sun
Pin, a general of the fourth century B.C. who, having had his toes cut off
 The Mythology ofModen] China 149

in punishment for some mistake, eoneeivecl of making himself leather

boots so as to hide his deformity; that of winemakers is likewise the first
person to make wine, Yi-ti, who discovered it and took a cup to the
mythical emperor, the Great Yii, in the course of his labors in draining a
China covered by an immense Hood, or as the people of Peking call
him simply—Sire Immortal who Created Wine; that of distillers is Tu
K’ang, a more or less authentic personage, to whom the discovery of
alcohol is attributed, several centuries before our era.
Even the most disreputable occupations have their protectors. Barbers,
men of a low class who, before the Revolution of 1911, did not have the
right to present themselves for the examinations, have for their patron
Ancestor Lo, whose festival falls on the thirteenth day of the seventh
month. He is the first of the barbers, to whom a manual is attributed:
What Must Be Known about Hairdressing {Ching-fa hsu-chih). In Fukien
they seem to have substituted or added to this personage the Immortal
Lii Tung-pin. This is, they say, because he descended to earth in the
Ming period to shave the head of an emperor who had so sensitive a skin
that nobody could avoid hurting him. The legend is evidently recent,
since it was not until the seventeenth century that the Manchu con-
querors required the Chinese to shave their heads, and since in Ming
times, in which the narrative is set, they kept their hair long. Since their
patron attained the rank of doctor, they fasten to the stove on which
they heat water a little reproduction of a red pole; halfway up it are hung
special ornaments which doctors have the privilege of setting up at their
door. Public storytellers have for their patron Ts’ang Chieh, the legen-
dary inventor of writing; most troupes of actors in Peking have Yi'ieh
Fei, a twelfth century general; at Amoy (Hsia-men) the prostitutes have
Kuan-yin and, in certain parts of Kiangsu, P’an Chin-lien, a young
widow of sinful ways who was surprised in the act and killed by her
father-in-law. Even thieves have their patrons, who are famous ancient
brigands. Most often, it seems, it is Sung Chiang, who stirred up a very
serious rebellion in the territory lying between the mouths of the Yangtse
and Yellow rivers in 1121, and whom the novel Shui-hu-chuan (Water
Margins) immortalized by making him its hero. Others appeal to an
older personage, the Brigand Chih, famous because of the visit Con-
fucius made to him.
Every profession, every calling, even the least mentionable, can thus be
passed in review. Each has its god, or its gods, who are not always the
same in all the provinces of the immense Chinese republic. Even secret
societies are banded together into religious brotherhoods. The list of all
these divinities' names could extend almost indefinitely.
 150 Taoism and Chinese Religion

6. Gods Charged with Looking A fter Men Individually

A. KUAN-TI

In his role as regent of the terrestrial world for the Jade Emperor, a role
which has been his for a long time, the Grand Emperor of the Eastern
Peak is now being supplanted by a divinity of recent origin, though he
has taken on prodigious stature, the Emperor Kuan, Kuan-ti. He is not
represented, like the Emperor of the Eastern Peak, surrounded by an
extensive bureaucracy responsible for registering everything, but rather
as a sort of paladin ever ready to intervene against all those who trouble
people’s peace: foreign enemies, domestic rebels, sorcerers or evil spirits
of all kinds, injurious animals. No demon dares resist him; every evil
spell is broken as soon as his name is uttered; even the simple sight of an
actor playing him at the theater puts ghosts to flight. He occupies an
important place in present-day religious life, a fact which is all the more
interesting because his cult is relatively modern. He shows how much
Buddhism has transformed the religious ideas of the popular masses. The
conception of the Eastern Peak, a divinity of ancient formation, was
patterned on the example of the emperor and his administration; that of
Emperor Kuan, a recent divinity, is patterned on the model of the
Bodhisattvas, whose title is often given to him.
Emperor Kuan is a fully historical personage, who lived in the third
century A.D.: General Kuan Yii, who served the founder of the Shu Han
dynasty in the period of the Three Kingdoms and who died miserably
at the age of fifty-eight, in 220 A.D., massacred by order of the rival
Wu emperor after the city of Chiang-ling, where he had taken refuge
following a defeat, was captured. It is impossible to narrate the god’s
legend in detail here. It comprises the greatest part of the most famous
and most popular of Chinese novels, the Romance of the Three King-
doms. The most celebrated scene, that most often represented in the
theater, is the “Oath of the Three in the Peach Garden”. Liu Pei, the
future emperor, founder of the Shu Han dynasty (Szechuan, one of the
Three Kingdoms, the other two being Wei, in the Yellow River Valley
and northern China, and Wu, the lower Yangtze Valley and southern
provinces), lived in poverty with his widowed mother and made his living
by making shoes and mats. One day, he saw a poster calling upon men of
courage to fight against the Yellow Turban rebels. After having read it,
he went away sighing, when he heard somebody calling him and saw an
extraordinary man, a colossus with a leopard’s head, a tiger’s beard,
round eyes and a voice like the rolling of thunder. This was the wealthy
butcher and wine-merchant Chang Fei, who suggested to him that they
 The Mythology oj Modern China 151

join together and respond to the governor’s appeal. Tliey went into a
tavern to discuss their plan and, while they were drinking, there entered a
man of fearsome appearance who announced his intention of joining
them. Liu Pei and Chang Fei invited him to sit down by them and, when
he had told them his name, Kuan Yii, and recounted his history, they
apprised him of their plans, after which all three went to Chang’s house.
Behind the house was a small peach garden, the trees all in bloom. They
went there to talk, and, at Chang Fei’s suggestion, swore together to be
brothers always, offering to Heaven a white horse and to Earth a black
bull. Then they went off to the governor’s city, taking with them a band
of young men as their entourage.
It is not known why or in what form a popular cult of Kuan Yii was
established and developed; but it was already widespread enough in the
seventh century for Buddhism to adopt it. He was, so said the monk
Shen-hsiu, the God of the Locality, Ch’ieh-km-shen, of certain temples.
His vogue must have increased still more during the following centuries,
so much that the superstitious Hui-tsung emperor, under the influence of
his Taoist favorites, incorporated him into the official religion with the
exalted title King of Military Pacification, Wu-ciu-wang (1102). The
success of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the San-kuo-chih yen-yi,
of which he is one hero, brought his glory to its highest point. The Ming
emperor Shen-tsung (1573-1619) raised him to the rank of Grand
Emperor, which made him equal to the Eastern Peak, with the title
Righteous Grand Emperor Who Assists Heaven and Protects the State.
The Manchu dynasty raised him still higher. He was said to have
defended the entry to the imperial apartments by himself during the
conspiracy of 1813, in which the Chia-ch’ing emperor very nearly lost his
life. So this prince and his successor, Tao-kuang, were particularly
devoted to him. The former bestowed upon him the title of Military
Emperor, Wu-ti, and the latter ordained that honors were to be rendered
him matching those of Confucius. Temples were raised to him in all
administrative cities and, up to the end of the empire, officials had to go
there in formal procession each year to make offerings on the thirteenth
of the first month and the thirteenth of the fifth month, the days of his
festival. In addition, innumerable local temples and chapels were built to
him throughout the land.
His official role was to protect the empire against all attacks from
without and all rebellion within, and also to take care of military officers,
who rendered him a special worship. Popular religion saw in him
particularly a great killer of demons, a god who broke evil spells. He is
called the Grand Emperor Who Overcomes Demons, Fu-mo ta-ti, and
many anecdotes concerning this are told.
 152 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

When a very wealthy person died young, a tao-shih appeared and

promised to call him back to life, adding however that, according to the
rules of hell, in order for a dead man to return to life, a replacement was
needed who would die in his place. When none of the dead man’s wives
agreed to sacrifice herself, an old servant otfered himself. A great devotee
of Kuan-ti, he went first to the temple to pray for the success of the
incantations. In the midst of the ceremony there was a clap of thunder,
and the tao-shih fell, struck dead. His body bore the following sentence
in large characters: “Condemned by Heaven, as corrupter of religion,
destroyer of the law, who by changing body lusted after fortune; and
executed immediately in accordance with the order received!” The
magician had wished, not to revive the dead man, but to take his place
by sending his own soul into his body; and Kuan-ti, warned by his
believer’s prayers, had intervened to punish him.
In another story, a man from Peking named Yeh, having gone to wish
a happy birthday to one of his friends who lived in the suburbs, towards
evening met a traveler who claimed to be his friend’s cousin, and said
that he too was going to pay him a visit. Arrived at their hotel, they were
very handsomely received and, after dinner, lodged together in a room
where a servant was provided to wait upon them. In the middle of the
night Yeh awoke to see the cousin, seated on his bed, devouring the
servant and throwing the gnawed bones on the ground. Frightened, he
invoked the Grand Emperor Who Overcomes Demons, and immediate-
ly, with the noise of gongs and drums, Kuan-ti appeared, brandishing his
sword, and threw himself upon the demon; but the latter changed
himself into a large butterfly and escaped the god’s sword by flying away.
Suddenly a clap of thunder resounded, and Kuan-ti and butterfly both
vanished.
Even the appearance of an actor made up as Kuan-ti was enough to
break magic spells. One day, a servant riding a horse came to a company
of famous actors from Peking and invited them to play at a hostel near
one of the city gates. They left immediately and, as the night was falling,
arrived in front of a great house, brilliantly illuminated and filled with
people. A servant, ushering them in, told them that his mistress had
ordered them to sing only love songs, and above all to avoid any piece in
which a divinity appeared. They had barely arrived when they began to
perform. The spectators (men and women seated, according to ritual, in
separate places) formed an extraordinarily impalpable audience, who
spoke or laughed or showed their opinion only in low voices. The players
were astonished, but still more irritated, as the night passed and they had
to sing without a break and with nobody offering them refreshment.
Finally, exasperated, they played, regardless of the recommendations at
 The Mythology of Modern China 153

the beginning, a mythological piece, and Kuan-ti entered the scene,

sword in hand, to the noise of drums. At that very moment, everything
disappeared— lights, spectators, even the house - and the actors found
themselves in an abandoned place before the tomb of a young woman of
wealthy family who had died recently. It was she who had invited them,
and they had played the whole night before an audience of the dead who
had been able to take on the temporary appearance of the living; but at
the sight of the actor costumed as Kuan-ti, they had had to revert to
their true condition.
In another tale, a fox who had taken on human form encountered
mischance. He was magically carrying through the air a man with whom
he had formed a friendship when, passing inadvertently over a theater
where Kuan-ti was on the stage, he lost his power and let his friend fall
into the midst of the spectators.
Kuan-ti does not restrict himself to acting; he speaks and writes a
great deal. That is, he is one of the gods who appears most frequently in
spiritualist seances. He handles the divination-brush, chi-pi, a sort of
red-lacquered peachwood fork, the movements of which, by sketching
characters, give the oracle. In all classes of society there are many groups
of devotees who meet regularly around a medium before some god’s or
some spirit's statue. Thus they form a religious association, each member
of which in turn is responsible for keeping the statue in his house. At
each seance they begin by burning several sticks of incense and present-
ing offerings. Then, after prostrating themselves, they invite the spirit to
descend by a verse prayer of this kind:
Let the expansion of the Breaths of Righteousness fill Heaven and
Earth!
Let the incense which we raise penetrate the Gate of Heaven!
Let the Golden Raven (the Sun) surge on in his flight, like the
thunderbolt in the clouds!
Let the Jade Rabbit (the Moon) shine resplendent, like a chariot
wheel!
Let the Southern Star and the Northern Bushel descend together!
Let the constellation Tzu-wei with its five colors.
Let the constellation Tzu-wei amidst its lights opening the correct
way
Into the grotto of the Fishermen's Spring invite the Immortal!
“We, disciples, before the incense-urn, we thrice bow so as to
invite; we invite A Certain One to come down among us. May the
divine soldiers (fetch him) as quick as light according to the order
received!”
 154 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Then the medium and his assistant stand up, each holding one tine of
the divination-brush fork. After a moment the god comes down into the
brush, which they say gets heavy, and the medium's right arm begins to
contract as though he were trying to pull the instrument away from his
assistant. Suddenly the brush rises violently and falls upon the tray
prepared for writing (ordinarily a lacquered tray spread with grains of
rice); it makes several disordered movements and then calms down and
begins to sketch the strokes of characters, cursive or abridged or even
regular. Ordinarily the first signs give the spirit’s name; if not, those
present ask it insistently, so as to avoid entering into communication
with evil spirits. Once the name is known, the conversation begins. The
assistant quickly reads the characters as the brush writes them, then
he dictates them to one of the associates who serves as secretary and
writes them down at once. Ordinarily the oracle is in the form of regular
verse.
Most spiritualist groups have their own familiar spirit, the one whom
they invoke and who customarily comes at their prayers. But sometimes
unexpected manifestations occur. Most commonly these are evil spirits
who, getting hold of the brush for a moment, use it to write nonsense or
obscenities. Sometimes also there are very important gods who take the
place of the regular spirit. Among the great divinities who appear most
willingly, Kuan-ti is one of the most frequent. Sometimes he merely gives
advice on particular facts, such as ordinary spirits give, though naturally
this is enhanced by his more profound knowledge concerning the affairs
of the other world. He gives information about the situation of a dead
relative’s soul, indicates what ceremony must be carried out for his
salvation, and so on. But often he also gives oracles of a general
application: expositions of future life and transmigration with detailed
descriptions of the hells and anecdotes regarding retribution for acts
done in the course of existences, or perhaps charms against sickness,
against unlucky influences, and against evil spirits. All of this is carefully
written down and piously preserved by the group which has received the
message. Sometimes the text is published in the form of small treatises;
certain of these may sometimes enjoy a considerable vogue, at least
locally, until another small work comes along to replace them in popular
favor.
Kuan-ti is represented as a giant nine feet tall, with a beard two feet
long, a face red as a jujube tree, eyes like those of the phoenix, and
eyebrows like silkworms. His statues generally portray him standing
beside his horse, clad in his cuirass and armed with his halberd; more
rarely he is on horseback. He is accompanied by his son, who carries his
 The Mythology of Modern China 155

seal, and by his squire with halberd in hand. Another rather frequent
kind shows him in the garb of a military mandarin, but unarmed, seated
upon a bench, stroking his long beard with one hand and with the other
opening the Springs and Autumns Chronicle (Ch’un-ch'iu) of Confucius,
that rule of conduct for statesmen during 10,000 generations, which he is
said to have been able to recite entirely from memory; his son and squire
are standing to his left and right.
How was the model of Kuan-ti established? It is as difficult to tell this
as to follow the vicissitudes of his cult before the time when he suddenly
appeared in the official religion. Ancient statues do not exist, as is the
case for all non-Buddhist divinities. What is certain is that tradition had
already imposed this model upon the author of the Romance of the Three
Kingdoms, since he explains it with an anecdote. Kuan-yii, quite young
and not yet having left his native land of Hsieh-liang (modern Hsieh-
chou in southwestern Shansi), one day heard one of his neighbors and
his daughter lamenting. When he asked them the reason for their tears,
he learned that, although the girl was already betrothed, the mandarin’s
uncle wished to make her his concubine; and the mandarin, supporting
his uncle, had insulted the father when he came to ask justice of him.
Angered, Kuan-ti immediately took his sword and ran straight off to kill
the mandarin and his uncle; then he fled westwards to take refuge in the
mountains. But he had to go through the Tung-kuan pass, guarded by a
military post, and he feared he might be recognized and arrested. He
stopped near a spring to consider this difficulty, when, seeing his own
face in the water, he perceived that it was entirely changed. It had taken
on a red color which made him impossible to recognize. At once he took
to the road again and went through the pass without the slightest
difficulty.
It was probably from the theater that this model emerged and passed
over into the novel and into statuary. In any case, in our day it is the
theater much more than sculpture which has established it definitively
and spread it among the people. Kuan-ti is indeed one of the most
popular theater heroes, since easily half of the pieces in the repertories of
itinerant troupes are taken from the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in
which his adventures have a great place. This theater influence upon the
popular conception of Kuan-ti is so strong that in stories his appearance
is very often accompanied by the noise of drum and gongs, not because
people believe that he has had heavenly musicians follow him, but simply
because on stage he always makes his entrance amidst the clamor of
these musical instruments, as indeed every personage playing a military
role does.
 156 Taoism and Chinese Religion

B. THE SUPREME LORD OF DARK HEAVEN (HSUAN-TTEN SHANG-TI)

Antiquity had set five lords beside and below the Lord on High, Shang-
ti, master of Heaven and Earth. Each of these lords was master of a
section of Heaven designated only by a title taken from the color
corresponding to the cardinal direction which he controlled: Lord Green,
Ch’ing-ti (East); Lord Red, Ch’ih-ti (South); Lord White, Pai-ti (West);
Lord Dark, Hsiian-ti (North); and Lord Yellow, Huang-ti (Center).
They have disappeared almost totally from modern mythology; scarcely
more than the Lord of the North, Lord Dark, has survived in a new
form. He has become the Supreme Lord of Dark Heaven, Hsiian-t’ien
Shang-ti, also called Dark Warrior Sacred Prince, Hsiian-wu Sheng-
chiin, or True Warrior Sacred Prince, Chen-wu Sheng-chiin, or finally—
his oflhcial title—Sacred Helpful Prince of the North Pole, Pei-chi yu-
sheng chen-chiin. He controls the northern part of the heavens and of the
world, is also the regent of the element Water among the five elements,
and drives evil spirits away.
He is represented ordinarily as he appeared to the Sung emperor Hui-
tsung, when the latter had him summoned up by his favorite, the tao-shih
Lin Ling-su, in 1118. The conjuration occurred at noon, in the palace. In
the middle of the ceremony the sky suddenly darkened and, amid
thunder and lightning, a great snake and an enormous tortoise appeared.
The emperor prostrated himself and offered incense; then he prayed that
the god condescend to appear in person. In another thunderclap tortoise
and snake disappeared, and a colossal human foot was seen before the
palace gate. The emperor prostrated himself again and asked that the
god be willing to show himself entire. He then saw a man more than ten
feet tall, with a serious face surrounded by a halo, hair undone and
flowing down his back, feet bare. He was dressed in a black robe with
large sleeves that reached the ground, with a golden cuirass over it and a
girdle of precious stones; in his hand he carried a sword. He remained
standing for a few moments and disappeared.
The emperor, who was a renowned painter, is said to have taken
advantage of these brief moments to make the god’s portrait, and this
has served as a model for all modern images. An armed squire is
ordinarily placed behind him, carrying his black banner. The god himself
is placed on the back of the tortoise which the snake coils around and
which floats upon the waters; this is appropriate, since he is regent of the
North and Water is the element corresponding to the northern region.
The tortoise and snake on which he rests are interpreted in quite
different ways by the various Chinese authors. For some they are two
heavenly officers placed under his orders; according to others, they are
 The Mythology of Modern China 157

quite the opposite, enemy demons which he has vanquished and which
he tramples under foot. In fact, the intertwined snake and tortoise are
the god himself in his original form, more ancient than the anthro-
pomorphic modern personage. He can be found as early as Han times as
a symbol of the northern side of the world, in the little funerary rooms of
the second century, in which they stand opposite to the Red Bird, symbol
of the South, and are set off against the White Tiger (West) and the
Green Dragon (East).

C. THE MOTHER OF THE BUSHEL (TOU-MU)

In Sagittarius is situated the palace of a goddess assigned to watch over

the registers of Life and Death, the Mother (of the Constellation) of the
(Southern) Bushel, Tou-niiy or, to give her complete title, the Grand
Princess Holy Mother of the Constellation of the Bushel.' “Above she
controls the catalogues of the Nine Heavens: in the middle she assembles
the lists of the gods: below she directs the registers of men’s destinies.”
The Taoist books allot important olfices to her, though they have not
become so popular as those of the Eastern Peak. She has a husband.
Lather Bushel: her nine sons are stars: the two oldest are the gods of the
South and North Poles, so the former sets the date of birth and the latter
of death. This goddess is a rather heterogeneous mixture of ill-assembled
Buddhist and Taoist ideas. The tao-shih give her the Sanskrit name Mo-
li-chih (Marici), which is in fact the star that precedes the rising sun, but
without keeping for her either her Buddhist role or her Buddhist
appearance. On the contrary, she is given the face and the eight arms of
Candi, that one of the six manifestations of AvalokiteWara who is
concerned especially with human beings, rather than with gods, demons,
and so on. It seems, moreover, that it was because of this special role of
Candi’s that the tao-shih adopted her image to portray their goddess of
the Bushel, who had an analogous role, being also assigned to deal
especially with human beings. Candi, in the form of AvalokiteWara,
became despite her name a male character, though the Tantric sects,
giving her an entirely different role, left her feminine.
She is worshipped with fasting on the third and twenty-seventh of each
month, and the worshipper hopes thus to get from her, not precisely
prolongation of life (since its duration was fixed at birth) but the entire
allotted span without any shortening of it. What is more, during a
dangerous illness, offerings and prayers are often made to her for a cure.

1. The Chinese give the name of Bushel to two constellations: the Northern Bushel is the
Great Bear, the Southern Bushel is Sagittarius.
 J5(S Taoism and Chinese Religion

The Bushel Mother is represented seated upon a lotus, the crown of a

Bodhisattva on her head. She has three eyes (the middle one, set
vertically in the middle of the forehead, is—among Buddhists and,
following them, Taoists—the eye of supernatural vision, which lets her
see night and day what goes on in all the worlds) and eight arms with
different functions. She is, as I have just said, a simple Taoist replica of
Candi’s iconographic pattern.

D. THE THREE AGENTS (SAN-KUAN)

The fate of every man also depends upon three divinities who have many
devotees and who hold rather an important place in the people’s moral
and religious life. These are the Grand Emperors Three Agents, San-
kuan ta-ti, or more simply Three Agents, San-kuan, or yet again Lords of
the Three Worlds, Sa?i chieh kiing. They are the Agent of Heaven, T’ien-
kuan, the Agent of Earth, Ti-kuan, and the Agent of Water, Shui-kuaiu
who keep the register of good and evil acts. To each of them is attributed
the power of bestowing a particular favor. The Agent of Heaven gives
happiness; the Agent of Earth pardons sins; the Agent of Water protects
from misfortune. They are personifications sprung from an ancient
Taoist ritual going back to the Yellow Turbans, the main outlines of
which I have sketched in the introduction apropos of Chang Tao-ling.
The sick confessed their evildoings by writing on three papers, which
were burned for Heaven, buried for Earth, and submerged for Water.
The political power of the Yellow Turbans was shattered at the end of
the second century A.D., but the influence of their religious ideas endured.
Purification by confession to Heaven, Earth, and Water gave birth to the
worship of the Three Agents, who were the three officials assigned to
watch over the performance of the rites and the rewarding of devotees.
This new form seems to have arisen from Taoist circles and spread
among the public in the beginning of the fifth century, under the
influence of the Celestial Master K’ou Ch’ien-chih.
The devotees of these gods offered them incense and cakes in the form
of tortoises (the tortoise is a symbol of longevity) or in the form of links,
doing this twice a month, on the first and the fifteenth. But ordinarily
people merely made offerings to them on their three great feasts: the
fifteenth of the first month {shang-yikin), of the seventh month {cliung-
yilan), and of the tenth month {lisia-yikiii), which are respectively the
birthdays of the Agent of Heaven, of the Agent of Earth, and of the
Agent of Water. The most important is the first, because it coincides with
the Feast of Lanterns which, since the eleventh century, has habitually
(at least in certain regions, such as Chekiang and Fukien) been connected
 The Mythology of Modern China 159

with the Agent of Heaven. The Feast of Lanterns is one of the greatest
popular festivals of the year. Eaeh family makes an offering to the Three
Agents, and the richest and most devout invite a tao-shih to carry out a
ceremony. During the daytime the streets of towns and villages are
overrun by mountebanks w'ho dash about in all directions, as well as by
disguised, masked youths and children. When evening comes, a colored
lantern is lit at the door of each house and other lanterns are hung up
almost everywhere as well; children push ball-shaped lanterns, which can
be rolled along without being extinguished: a dragon is paraded spark-
ling with light amidst the firecrackers. There is a general illumination
during the whole night; it has really no connection with the feast of the
Agent of Heaven, recalling ancient ideas of quite a different kind.
Likenesses of the Three Agents are sometimes found: they are seated
or standing side by side in mandarins’ costumes, each with his tablet in
hand. But most commonly there is a picture only of the Agent of
Heaven. He is standing, and holding between his hands a scroll which he
is unfurling and which shows the inscription, ‘The Agent of Heaven
grants Happiness." This iconographic type appears to come directly out
of the theater; every performance, indeed, begins (or rather began until
recent times) with an entry by the Agent of Heaven who parades
solemnly upon the stage while successively unfurling various inscriptions
of good wishes to the spectators. These likenesses on paper are found
everywhere: there is hardly a house that does not have them. The Agent
of Heaven is quite often confused with the God of Happiness. More
rarely, small statuettes are seen. They portray the Agent of Heaven
sitting in mandarin costume, holding in his hand the scroll of wishes for
happiness.

E. THE THREE STARS (GODS OF HAPPINESS)

These are three stellar divinities, “the Three Stars" {sun hsing), the gods
of Happiness for each individual: the Star of Happiness, Fu-hsing: the
Star of Dignities, Lu-hsing\ and the Star of Longevity, Shou-hsing. There
is also another series of Seven Gods of Happiness, Ch’i-fu-shcn: but
those seem to have had more success in Japan than in China itself. It is
generally agreed that the Star of Happiness is Yang Ch'eng, an otJicial of
the sixth century A.D. He was mandarin at Tao-chou, an area where the
men were very small; and the emperor at that time, w'ho loved to
surround himself with dwarfs as buffoons and comedians, had so many
Tao-chou people sent to his court each year that all the families were
grief-stricken. Yang Ch’eng wrote a request to the emperor on this sub-
ject, and the emperor, moved, left the inhabitants of Tao-chou in peace.
 160 Taoism and Chinese Religion

But the same function is attributed to others as well, especially to Kuo

Tzu-yi, the general who saved the T’ang dynasty after An Lu-shan’s
rebellion in the middle of the eighth century. It is related that one
evening, the seventh of the seventh month, as he was going to bed, he
suddenly in a ray of light saw a woman sitting on a bed. He greeted her,
saying, “Today is the seventh of the seventh month; you are surely the
Heavenly Weaver-Maid. I pray you, grant me happiness and wealth.”
She then replied that he was the God of Happiness. This is a scene which
popular imagery frequently represents. The God of Happiness is very
often confused with the Agent of Heaven and is pictured like him,
standing in the costume of a civil mandarin, holding in his hand a slogan
promising happiness, such as; “The Agent of Heaven brings Happiness
as a gift.”
When he is accompanied by a child, they say that it is Kuo Tzu-yi
taking his son to court. He is often surrounded by fluttering bats,
symbols of happiness (the word for “bat” is pronounced /h, exactly like
the word “happiness”).
The Star of Dignities, Lu-lising, often called simply the Star of
Officials, Kuan-hsing, is a person named Shih Fen, originally from Ho-
nei, who when he was quite young threw his lot in with that of the
founder of the Han dynasty when the latter was passing through Shih
Fen’s native village after having conquered it (205 B.C.) and who died in
124, aged over a hundred, full of honors and wealth. He and his four
children each enjoyed a stipend of 2,000 shih of grain (under the Han
official stipends were paid half in grain and half in money, the whole
being figured in measures of about three cubic feet, called shih and
equaling roughly 25 liters), so that he was called Sire Ten Thousand
Shih, Wan-shih-chim. According to others, this would be the star K’uei.
Still others consider that it is the constellation Wen-ch’ang, and that it is
the Grand Emperor of Literature who is designated by this name; he has
indeed, at other times, received the title of Trustee of Dignities and
Emoluments of the Living and the Dead.
The God of Longevity, Shou-shen, is also called the Old Man of the
South Pole; he is the god of the beautiful star Canopus of the Ship Argo.
It is he who decides the date of every man’s death. When the physio-
gnomist Kuan Lu had ascertained that Chao Yen would not live beyond
the age of twenty, he advised him to go, on a specified day, into the
southern part of a certain field, to the foot of a large mulberry tree,
taking with him a jar of wine and some dried venison. There he would
find two men playing checkers, to whom he was to offer wine and meat
and, when they spoke to him, he was merely to bow without saying
anything. The boy did as he had been told, and the two players drank his
 The Mythology oj Modern China 161

wine. When the party was finished, one of them said to the other: “We
have drunk his wine, should we not thank him for it?” “The official
document regarding this child’s life is finished. What shall we do?”
replied the other. The former took the document and, after having
examined it, inverted the order of the words “ten” and “nine” so that,
instead of the nineteen years of life that had been set down for him, he
made ninety years. Then both vanished. When he had come back, Kuan
Lu explained that one was the God of the North Pole, who fixes births,
and the other the God of the South Pole," who fixes deaths. The God of
Longevity has an enormous bald skull which rises with prominent bumps
very high above his face. He is generally standing, one hand supporting
him on the gnarled staff of the Immortals and the other holding a peach,
the fruit which gives immortality; at his feet are often put a mushroom
and a tortoise, symbols of long life.
The three gods of Happiness are often represented together, the God
of Happiness in the middle, with the god of Longevity at his left and the
god of Emoluments at his right. Sometimes they are indicated symboli-
cally: a pine tree (longevity) under which are a deer (emoluments) and a
bat (happiness). Occasionally a mushroom and a crane are added, other
symbols of longevity. Otherwise, among families who do not belong to
the scholar class, the God of Emoluments is often replaced by the
Immortal Who Gives Children, who is placed at the right of the God of
Happiness, as a balance to the God of Longevity placed at the left. There
are also Taoist portrayals of the Six Gods of Happiness, who are the six
stars of the Southern Bushel (Sagittarius): that is, the three just named
and three less well-known other stars, under the headship of the Star of
Longevity. These are sometimes clumped together as counterparts to
images of the Seven Gods of the Northern Bushel (the Great Bear).
Finally there are Buddhist pictures of Seven Gods of Happiness; but this
last group is more popular in Japan than in China.

F. THE EIGHTEEN ARHATS AND THE EIGHT IMMORTALS

There are groups of personages, some Buddhist, others Taoist, whose

role is to protect religion and to instruct men. The first are the Eighteen
Arhats, Shih-pa lo-hatu or sometimes, enlarging the number, the Five
Hundred Arhats; the second are the Eight Immortals, Pa hsieu.
It is related that the Buddha commanded certain of his disciples to
2. We should not lake north and south pole in an astronomical, but rather in a
topographical sense. The north and south poles are not stars near the theoretical
prolongation of the earthly axis but constellations situated, one to the north (the Great
Bear) and one to the south (Sagittarius) of a Chinese viewing the sky.
 162 Taoism and Chinese Religion

remain in the world without entering into Nirvana until the future
Buddha Maitreya’s coming, in order to protect the Law. The original list
included only sixteen saints when, in the twelfth century, the famous
monk Hsiian-tsang translated the little book which deals with them. It
was in China, in about the tenth century, that two others were added.
They are usually represented as monks in various poses and with various
attributes, sometimes alone and sometimes surrounding Maitreya with
the Big Belly. This is a group which has had, in China, more success in
art than in religion. Except for Pindola and Bhadra, who are in some
degree the object of a monastic cult, nobody pays any attention to them,
either together or separately.
The Taoists imitated the Buddhist series as best they could by bringing
together eight famous Immortals. This is a heterogeneous grouping of
personages who have nothing in common. Just as the Arhats are in
charge of protecting the Buddhist Law, they are the protectors of
Taoism, traveling through the world to convert and save men. Each of
them has his legend, which often comes to very little. Regarding the first
of them, Han-chung Li, it is said only that he was the master of the
second, Lu Tung-pin. Of Chang Kuo-lao we know that he rode a white
donkey which he folded in two like a piece of paper and put into a little
box when he was done with it. Lan Ts’ai-ho was a street singer, or
songstress (the legend is reticent regarding the sex, making it sometimes
hermaphroditic, and sometimes a young woman) who, dressed in rags,
wandered along singing and then one fine day ascended to heaven. Han
Hsiang-tzu was said to have been the nephew of Han Yii, one of the
greatest poets of the ninth century, and it is claimed that pieces of verse
have been found in his uncle’s works which are dedicated to him and
which praise his magical power. That power was shown one day when,
still a child, he caused a peony to burst into flower instantaneously
before the eyes of his uncle, who was urging him to give himself over to
the study of the Classics. Ts’ao Kuo-chiu is described as the brother of
a Sung dynasty empress; in the eleventh century, he retired into solitude
to flee the debauches and crimes of his elder brother and was visited
by Han-chung Li and Li'i Tung-pin, who taught him. Regarding the
Immortal Damsel Ho, Ho hsien-ku, it is said only that she lived a long
time in the mountains and was converted by Lii Tung-pin, who gave her
a peach of immortality. Finally, Li with the Iron Crutch, T’ieli-kuai Li,
was an ascetic who was taught by Lao-tzu himself; he was able to send
his soul on voyages for several days. One time when he was gone in this
way, bidding a disciple to watch over his body for six days and to burn it
on the seventh if he had not returned, the disciple learned suddenly that
his mother was ill and burned the body before the date that had been set.
 The Mythology of Modern China 16J

When the soul returned, it had to seek out another body. It eould find
only that of an old beggar, ugly and ill, who had just died of exposure,
and with that body it had to be content.
The only one whose legend is somewhat developed is Lii Tung-pin,
who has been put into the theater in a famous piece, the Dream of the
Bow I of Sorghum Wine. Lii Tung-pin, a young student on his way to take
the doctoral examination at the capital, stops at an inn where he meets a
disguised Immortal. After having talked with him, he goes to sleep and
in a few' moments dreams a long life of eighteen years. In it, he is
successful at the examination and marries the daughter of one of the
ministers; then, put in charge of subduing rebels, he returns victorious
but finds his wife in a lover's arms. In his rage, he is about to kill her,
when an old servant persuades him to spare her, and he merely
repudiates her. Later, condemned to banishment for some misstep
during the expedition, he wanders miserably with his children, deprived
of all resources, and in the end is killed by a brigand. At that moment he
awakes and, understanding the vanity of worldly pleasures, is converted
and soon becomes an Immortal.
Like the Eighteen Arhats, the Eight Immortals are hardly an object of
worship. Li with the Iron Crutch often serves as a sign for druggists, but
he is not one of their regular patron saints. Hardly any of them except
Lii Tung-pin is popular. He appears frequently in spiritualist seances to
point out remedies or exorcisms; the great collection of his revealed
works is quite widespread.
But if these Immortals have remained outside any cult, they have often
inspired artists. Their character has been established at least since the
Mongol period. Han-chung Li, dressed in a large cloak, often untidily,
waves a plumed fan; Lii Tung-pin is a young man in a scholar's robe
with a saber in a shoulder strap on his back and a fly swatter in his hand;
Chang Kuo-lao is mounted backw'ards on his donkey (sometimes also in
the right direction), with a phoenix feather in his hand; Lan Ts'ai-ho is
an ill-dressed adolescent, with one foot bare and the other shod, and
holding a flute; Han Hsiang-tzu is a child with hair still done up in little
buns on the sides of his head, carrying a bouquet of flowers or a basket
of peaches; Ts'ao Kuo-chiu is a mature man in official costume and cap,
holding the tablet of a high dignitary related to the imperial family. Ho
Hsien-ku (Ho the Immortal Damsel) is a young girl in elegant garb,
carrying an enormous lotus flow'er on her shoulder. Finally, T'ieh-kuai
Li (Li wdth the Iron Crutch) is an old, ugly beggar, bald and bearded,
lame and supporting himself on an iron crutch, carrying a gourd, his
forehead girdled with a golden ring which Lao-tzu gave him to hold back
the few locks of hair he still has. The Immortals are often posed on
 164 Taoism and Chinese Religion

various aquatic animals, in memory of a voyage they undertook across

the sea, each having a particular mount, and in the course of which they
had to contend with the son of the King-Dragon of the Eastern Sea.

G. TAOIST AND BUDDHIST GODS WHO PROTECT WOMEN

If the family altogether as a grouping has a series of protective divinities,

women have their special patron saints who are concerned especially
with them and their needs. Varying from region to region, this patron
saint is of Taoist or of Buddhist type. If the former, it is the Princess of
Multi-colored Clouds; if the latter, it is “the Bodhisattva Who Listens to
Noises"—that is, to the complaints and prayers of living beings: Kuan-
yin p’u-sa (AvalokiteWara) in a very particular and unexpected feminine
form, the “Kuan-yin Who Brings Children" {Sung-tzu Kuan-yin).

i. The Princess of Multi-eolored Clouds

The Princess of Multi-colored Clouds, Pi-hsia yuan-elnm, who is often

called simply Sacred Mother, Sheng-niu, or Lady Mother, Nai-nai niang-
nicmg, is generally considered to be the daughter of the Grand Emperor
of the Eastern Peak, which also earns her the title, especially in the north,
of Lady of T’ai-shan, T’ai-shan niang-niang. Her cult is ancient, her
legend being traceable back to about the Han period. It is said that of
old she appeared to King Wu of Chou. He saw her in a dream, weeping
on a road, and she told him that, though she was the daughter of the
God of the Eastern Peak and married to the son of the God of the
Western Sea, she could not go to her husband’s house. This was because
she had to travel through the principality of Ch’i, because her retinue
would be accompanied by wind and rain, and because the presence of the
sage-prince of Ch’i, T’ai-kung, prevented the land of which he was lord
from being thus ravaged.
When the king awoke, he recalled his dream and had T’ai-kung come
to his court, so as to let the goddess pass through. According to other
accounts, her husband is Mao Ying, the eldest of the three Mao brothers
who attained immortality in the first century B.C. on Mount Mao, near
Nanking. In Fukien, keeping her title of Princess of Multi-colored
Clouds, and even the same functions, her too-remote relationship with
the Eastern Peak seems to have been forgotten; she is given the family
name of Ch’en, and various legends are related concerning her, though
they are of no particular interest.
The cult of this goddess is very popular throughout China, where she
 The \fylh(>l()^y of Model u China 165

is the protectress of women and children: she is indeed the one who
bestows children and presides over their delivery. She is represented with
a special hair style made up of three birds with their wings extended, one
in front and the two others on the sides of her head. She is accompanied
by two assistants, the Lady of Good Vision, who holds an enormous eye
in her hands and preserves children from sore eyes, and the Lady Who
Brings Children, Sung-tzu niang-niang, who holds a newborn baby in her
hands. In addition, she has a retinue of six secondary divinities who take
care of the various phases of infancy: the Lady Who Promotes the
Beginning of Pregnancy, Princess Who Mysteriously Nourishes and
Strengthens the Form of the Embryo; the Lady Who Speeds Birth,
Princess Who Causes the Rule to Be Followed and Protects Infancy; the
Lady Who Bestows Birth, Princess Who Grants Joy and Protects
Delivery; the Lady of Smallpox, Princess Who Guarantees Tranquility
and Kindness for Infancy; the Lady Who Guides the Ignorant, Princess
Who Guides and Directs Infancy (this last is sometimes confused with
the Lady Who Brings Children); the Lady of Suckling, Princess Who
Gives Food and Nourishes Infancy. All six of these are not always at her
side; sometimes only the Lady Who Promotes the Beginning of Pregnancy
and the Lady Who Brings Children accompany her. The Princess, her
two assistants, and her six followers make up a group which is collec-
tively called the Nine Ladies; many temples are built for them through-
out China, popularly called the Lady’s Temples, Nai-nai-niiao, to which
women and often men as well make pilgrimages to petition for children.
One of the most famous is that of T’u-shan, where the pilgrimage on the
eighth of the fourth month is very popular.
A devotee, after preparing herself by taking only a meager breakfast
(that is, without meat or hsh, without garlic or onion seasoning, and
without wine), then rinsing out the mouth (which is one of the most
important Taoist purifications, obligatory before any prayer), goes to the
Lady’s temple. She prostrates herself before the altar wdiere the statue of
the Sacred Lady stands between her two attendants, burns incense and
silver paper, then prostrates herself again while praying along the
following lines; “O Lady! have pity upon us, unfortunate without
children!” In the meantime the temple guardian beats upon a stone
chime so as to attract the goddess’ attention and make her take note of
the prayer which has just been made to her. Then she rises and goes
away to place a string around the throat of one of the children who
surround the Lady Who Brings Children, one of the attendants of the
Princess of Multi-colored Clouds, or in other temples, the Lady Who
Guides the Ignorant, so as to link that divinity to her and force her to
follow. Sometimes, too, some women take along one of the pairs of
 166 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

children’s sandals made of paper, which are hung as a votive oSering

around the statue.

a. Kuan-yin

Kuan-yin for the most part plays the same role as the Sacred Mother,
except perhaps for things concerned with deliveries; for the rest, she is
thought of as bringing children and healing them. The chief difference is
that the worship is Buddhist and the temples are run by bonzes and not
by tao-shih. She is not, we must hasten to add, the only Buddhist
personage who is specially addressed in asking for children. At Canton,
it is the Mother of Demons, Kuei-tzu-mu (Hariti), who occupies her
place; and her statue, surrounded by statuettes of children, which comes
in the series of the twenty-four Deva, is always covered with votive
offerings of all kinds, paper shoes and such, brought by women who go
there to pray. But this a local phenomenon and, in almost all of China,
the Buddhist “Child-Bringer” is Kuan-yin.
The name Kuan-yin or Kuan-shih-yin is a bad Chinese translation of
the name of the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara. It was produced through
a confusion between the Sanskrit words isvara, “lord”, and svara,
“sound”, “noise”. Avalokitesvara is one of the two assistants of the
Buddha Amitabha, the sovereign of the Pure Land of the West; the
other, Mahasthamaprapta {Ta-sliih-chili), plays no role in popular re-
ligion. He made a vow not to become a Buddha before he had saved
every living being: “If, in working for the salvation of all beings, I feel
one single instant of discouragement, may my head burst into ten
pieces!” He is the Truly Pitying and Truly Benevolent, Ta-pei ta-tz’u. He
is portrayed with a thousand eyes and a thousand arms for saving the
damned, a horse's head for saving animals, eleven heads among the
Asuras (demon adversaries of the gods), carrying a scepter among the
gods, and so on. These are the Six Avalokitesvara, each of whom is
especially involved with the living beings engaged in each of the six ways
of birth and death; but they are not six distinct personages, they are six
forms he takes all at the same time using his supernatural powers in his
great compassion for all beings. He takes many other forms as well:
Chinese iconography has lists of the Seven Kuan-yin, of the Thirty-three
Kuan-yin, and so on.
Nevertheless, it is none of these normal Buddhist forms which became
popular in China: it is a feminine form called Kuan-yin Bringing
Children, Sung-tzu Kuan-yin, or more commonly the Lady Who Brings
Children, Sung-tzu niang-niang. What is called the sex change of
AvalokiteWara, a man in Indian Buddhist literature and a woman in
 The Mythology of Modern C'hino 167

popular Chinese religion, has been discussed at great length, and scholars
have sometimes sought to uncover the inllucnce of a great indigenous
pre-Buddhist goddess who would thus have survived by taking on the
cloak of a Buddhist name.
The popular portraits representing Kuan-yin the Bringer of Children
seem to me to supply the solution to a problem which, to tell the truth,
hardly exists except for a European accustomed to the precise forms
and clearly defined personages of classical literary mythologies. These
representations frequently bear the title “Bodhisattva in white garments,
Kuan-yin who brings children”. But the expression “Bodhisattva in
white garments” is not a term due in any way whatever to the artist’s
whim. It is the name of a set form of Kuan-yin, a feminine form of
Tantric origin. In fact, it is the Chinese name of the gentle aspect of Tara
which the Tibetans usually call the White Tara, while the Chinese have
precisely translated the Sanskrit name of Pandaravasini (clothed in
white). She is represented dressed in a white robe, holding a white lotus
flower, so as to symbolize the purity of heart which, having expressed the
desire to become Buddha, remains firmly attached to that vow. We know
that in the Tantric books Buddhas and Bodhisattvas appear in multiple
forms, gentle and terrible, masculine and feminine, which have symbolic
significance. The gentle forms are those which show themselves to men
so as to teach them and preach the Law to them. They symbolize the
Word: that is, the magical formulas which make up the basic part of the
Tantric books. The terrible forms are those which repel and destroy
demons; they symbolize Thought. Furthermore, the masculine forms
show the personage in his helpful activity for all beings, the feminine
forms his ecstatic meditation {samddlii). AvalokiteWara, the gentle
masculine form, has as his counterpart the ferocious AvalokiteWara with
the Horse’s Head, Ma-t’ou Kuan-yin (Hayagriva). For the feminine form
he has Tara, whose gentle aspect is Kuan-yin Clothed in White (Pan-
daravasini) and whose terrible form is the Tibetans’ Green Tara, which
the Chinese call simply Tara and who is paired with Hayagriva.
Kuan-yin Clothed in White was introduced into China in about the
middle of the eighth century with the translation of the Ta-Jih ching: but
that is probably not where painters or people generally went to seek her.
She is indissolubly linked to the apparitions and the miracles of the Isle
of P’u-t’o^ in the Chu-shan archipelago (Chekiang), especially those of
the Wave-Noise Grotto, C/Tao-yin tung: and even though the texts speak
particularly of a more recent period, 1 would rather believe that the rapid

3. The name of the island of P'u-t'o is an abbreviation of Potalaka, the name of an abode
of Avalokitesvara's in the Southern Sea.
 I6H Taoist)! and Chinese Religion

development of the monastery on that island, founded at the beginning

of the tenth century, contributed to the spread of this particular type of
Kuan-yin. It was indeed from that time on that it is encountered among
religious painters.
Pictures of Kuan-yin Clothed in White are mentioned in the works of
Hsin-ch’eng and his contemporary Tu Tzu-huai, as well as among those
of Ts’ao Chung-yiian and Wang Ch’i-han, painters of the Five Dynasties
period (tenth century) who are known only through unreliable cata-
logues. But setting these aside, towards the end of the eleventh century
one of the greatest Sung dynasty painters, Li Kung-lin or—as he is
commonly known by his surname—Li Lung-mien, produced a charming
little sketch of her in Chinese ink. By a fortunate chance, an admirer had
this reproduced on stone in 1132 as a pious work, after the artist’s death,
at the beginning of a copy of a sacred book. Later pictures are very
numerous.
Popular religion seized upon this Kuan-yin Clothed in White—whom
art had already removed from the framework of Tantrism—and took
her away from Buddhism itself to make the Kuan-yin Who Brings
Children, whose images are so widespread. All the broad currents of
Chinese religion contributed to this formation, which cannot be very
ancient. Taoism played a large part, and the influence of the Princess of
Multi-colored Clouds, already clearly established from the Mongol
period on, certainly made itself strongly felt. In this popular Kuan-yin,
who is asked to bring children, little remains of the Tara Pandaravasini
which is its prototype; and the change of role is so considerable that,
without the survival of the old title preserved by numerous images as
evidence which clearly establishes the relationship, one might hesitate to
connect the one to the other. It seems that incomprehension of the
Tantric terminology is at the origin of this transformation: Pandara-
vasini—that is, Kuan-yin Clothed in White—belonged to the ‘Treasure
of the Womb” World, T’ai-tsang-cliieh (Garhhakokidhatu), and the
literal interpretation of that symbolic expression was enough to trans-
form this Kuan-yin of feminine form into a goddess who gives children
and protects women.
But that was a development belonging exclusively to modern popular
religion; thus the Kuan-yin Giver of Children created by popular religion
never really penetrated into Buddhism. It could have been justified easily,
since the Bodhisattvas can take on all sorts of appearances and since,
moreover, an often-remembered passage in the Saddluinuapundcirika
spoke of Avalokitesvara as being able to grant children to those who
prayed to him. But, even though in practise the bonzes accepted this and
gave it a regular explanation, the statue is rarely seen in their temples;
 The Mythology of Modern China 169

and if it is somelimes encountered, it is somehow as a foreign guest, in

the same way that Kuan-ti or Wang the Transcendent Ofiicial will also
be encountered there. It is outside the Buddhist temples that we must
seek its representation, in those innumerable, crudely colored images
which are pasted up on walls or burned while they are invoked.
For this truly new personage, a special legend was necessary. The
Tantric origin of Tara, born of a ray of light emitted by AvalokiteWara,
could not become popular and moreover everything that the sacred
books said referred to AvalokiteWara the man. The elements of a legend
were found relating to a feminine form of the Bodhisattva in one of the
collections of revelations by Tao-hsiian, a visionary monk in the middle
of the seventh century. Tao-hsiian, a friend of the pilgrim Hsiian-tsang,
had been one of the most learned and eminent monks of his day; but
in his old age he became mad and believed himself surrounded by gods
who came constantly to visit and converse with him. They made rev-
elations on all sorts of religious subjects, which he hastily wrote out
with a trembling, often illegible hand. One of his disciples collected and
published those which could be deciphered, and what remains of them is
quite odd. It is Tao-hsiian who is responsible for introducing Wei-t’o
into all the temples in China as guardian: that name is due to a faulty
transcription of a Sanskrit word. He seems also to be responsible for the
story of Kuan-yin, the third daughter of a king of times past; her name
was Miao-shan. The legend, forgotten for centuries in the mish-mash of
these revelations, reappeared in the Mongol period, when the Taoists
seized upon it and adapted it to their ideas. Much earlier they had laid
claim to Kuan-yin as belonging to them: a Buddhist writer of the sixth
century spoke of a tao-shih who had made a statue of Lao-tzu between
two Bodhisattvas, Kuan-yin and Chin-kang-tsang. And one of the Taoist
works of which M. Pelliot discovered manuscript fragments at Tun-
huang mentions, in an enumeration of the Grand Immortals, the Grand
Immortal of Pu-ta-lo-chia (Potalaka), who is clearly Kuan-yin, beside
the Grand Immortal Indra and the Grand Immortal Huo-li-t’o, who is a
masculine counterpart of Hariti, the Mother of Demons.
The most widely known book today is a fairly recent edifying novel
entitled The Complete Life of Kiicm-yiu of the Southern Sea {Nan-
hai Kuan-yin eh'iian-ehuan). In its present form it is properly neither
Buddhist nor Taoist, but belongs clearly to popular religion. Once upon
a time, in the land of Hsing-lin, situated between India and Siam, there
was a king named Miao-chuang who, having turned fifty years of age
without having children, made great sacrifices to the God of the Western
Peak (Hua-shan), lasting eight days. Thereafter, his wife had three
daughters in succession, named Miao-ch’ing, Miao-yin, and Miao-shan.
 170 Taoism and Chinese Religion

When they had grown up, the king decided to marry them otf and then
to choose his successor from among his sons-in-law. The eldest married a
scholar, and the second a general; but the youngest, Miao-shan, refused
to marry and asked to enter a convent and lead the religious life. At first
the king refused and locked her up; but in the end he allowed her to go
to the Monastery of the White Sparrow. To disgust her with the
monastic life, however, he ordered that she should do the cooking and
the washing for the whole convent, which housed 500 nuns. The Mother
of the Great Bear, Tou-mu, taking pity on her, ordered a dragon to sink
a well for her and furnish her with water, a tiger to bring her wood for
her fire, the birds to gather vegetables for her, the Kitchen God to cook
the food, and the God of Ch’ieh-lan to sweep the kitchen, so that her
work was done by itself.
When the king learned of this prodigy, he ordered that the monastery,
with all its devotees, be burned down: it was put to the torch, but Miao-
shan extinguished it with a new miracle and her father, furious, ordered
that she be brought to the court to be decapitated. While the prepara-
tions for the ordeal were being made, the queen, wishing to save her
daughter, built a marvelous pavilion next to the road to tempt her; but
Miao-shan refused to enter it and was led to the execution ground.
There, the executioner’s sword being miraculously broken upon touching
her throat, she was strangled. Then the Jade Emperor ordered the God
of the Locality to take the shape of a tiger and carry her body on his
back into a pine forest. Her soul went to the infernal world, the kings of
which came respectfully to meet her. As soon as she arrived she began to
recite the sacred books and immediately pain and suffering ceased
everywhere, so that King Yama, finding that he could not carry out his
responsibility of punishing the wicked from then on, decided to send her
back. She was taken back to the pine forest, where she found her body
again.
After several new trials, the Buddha appeared to her, had her eat a
Peach of Immortality, then led her to the Isle of P’u-t’o (Potalaka), on
the Chekiang coast. There, after nine years of meditation, she received a
visit from Ti-tsang, who enthroned her as Bodhisattva by having her
ascend a lotus throne in the presence of the King-Dragons, the gods of
the Five Peaks, the ten Kings of the Hells, the Eight Immortals, the gods
of Thunder, and other gods. But during this time the Jade Emperor had
punished King Miao-chuang by ordering the God of Epidemics to send
him an incurable ulcer. Physicians declared that the only remedy would
have to be accomplished through the hands and the eyes of a living
person. Miao-shan then tore out her eyes and had her hands cut off and
sent them to her father, who was cured and converted immediately, while
 The Mythology of Modern China 171

Miao-shan miraculously recovered her hands and her eyes. Now that all
had thus ended happily, the Jade Emperor rewarded Miao-shan by
sending the God of the Planet Venus to her to bestow upon her the title
of Truly Pitying and Truly Benevolent Bodhisattva, while her sisters,
who had been converted, became the Bodhisattvas Mafijuki and Saman-
tabhadra.
Kuan-yin the Giver of Children is usually pictured as a woman
entirely covered with a great white veil, which conceals even her hair. She
is seated upon a lotus flower, holding a child in her arms. To her right
and left, her two usual attendants are shown standing. These are the
Young Man of Excellent Abilities, Shau-ts’ai t'ung-fzu, and the Daughter
of the King-Dragon, Lung-wang nii: a bird is bringing her prayer-beads
to her, and a willow-branch is in a vase beside her. Often she is placed
upon the P'u-t'o rock. Sometimes also the white vestment is partly
covered with an embroidered robe, or it may disappear entirely and be
replaced by a Chinese woman's dress. In this case it is simply the role-
model of the Princess of Multi-colored Clouds and her followers which
has been adopted, imposing the name of Kuan-yin upon it. In almost
every house there are crudely colored pictures or statues of her; in
Fukien these are even given the place of honor in the family sanctuary,
between the Kitchen God and the God of the Locality. On her birthday
festival, the nineteenth of the second month, and for the most devout
families also on her two other festivals, the nineteenth of the sixth and of
the ninth months, women give her skimpy plates of offerings, with sticks
of incense.
Aside from these regular festivals, they ask her especially that they be
given children. But as no statue is to be found in most temples, it does
not matter which of the Avalokitesvara the women pray to, regardless of
the form (always masculine in Chinese temples, except for Kuan-yin
Clothed in White) in which it is represented. As they do for the Princess
of Multi-colored Clouds, after having burned incense, they leave a little
shoe as a votive offering, or sometimes people will take away one of the
shoes already left. Some also make vows to abstain from meat, either
perpetually or on certain days, which vary according to their pieties.

H. IMMORTAL CHANG WHO GIVES MALE CHILDREN

Aside from the two great divinities who protect women, there is yet
another personage who is especially asked to give boys, the Immortal
Chang, Chang-hsien. Like a number of popular deities, he emerged
through the transformation of an old ritual from antique religion. Thus
each of the three fundamental springs of modern Chinese religion—
 172 Taoism and Chinese Religion

ancient religion, Buddhism, and Taoism—has contributed to popular

devotion on a peculiarly important point: the continuation of the family
and of its worship.
In antiquity, at the birth of a boy, a mulberry-wood bow was hung at
the left of the door. Several days later, when the child had been formally
accepted by the head of the family, the bow was taken down so as to
shoot six wormwood arrows towards heaven, earth, and the four car-
dinal directions, so as to ward otf all calamities. This ceremony, which
has gradually been lost in almost all of China, seems to have been long
preserved, though modified, in certain parts of Szechuan, where it was
personalized in the Immortal Chang. (The name is due to a play on
words: the expression chang-kimg, “bend a bow”, has the same sound as
Chang kung, “Sire Chang”.)
It is indeed in Szechuan that we see this cult emerging for the first
time. According to a famous anecdote, the widow of the king of Shu
(Szechuan), placed in the harem of the Sung dynasty founder after the
conquest of her husband’s kingdom at the end of the tenth century, had
kept her first husband’s portrait. When the emperor one day asked her
who it was, she replied in fright that it was the picture of the Immortal
from the land of Shu, Chang who gives children. The anecdote is by no
means unquestionable but, in about the middle of the following century,
Su Hsiin (who lived from 1009 to 1066 and was a native of Mei-shan in
Szechuan), wrote a poem attributing the births of his two sons, the great
writers Su Shih and Su Che, to sacrifices he had made to the Immortal
Chang. A little later, it is again a poet native to that province, Li Shih
(middle of the twelfth century), who mentions the popular paintings in
which the Immortal Chang is portrayed drawing his bow.
The focus of his cult seems to have been a temple on Mount Ching-
ch’ang, in Mei-shan subprefecture; and the eulogies of Su Hsiin, who is
famous in his own right and especially because of his sons, contributed
greatly to the expansion of that cult outside its land of origin. The new
god indeed gradually came to be honored throughout the empire. At the
beginning of the Ming, the poet Kao Ch’i (who was executed at the end
of the fourteenth century, at the age of thirty-nine), having no child,
received the image of the god from a tao-shih among his friends and
thanked him in verse. But he had not forgotten the provincial origin of
the god he called the Immortal of Chengtu.
The Immortal Chang is represented as a middle-aged man drawing a
bow or a crossbow with which he is shooting towards heaven: the
likeness of the Heavenly Dog fleeing on a cloud is often shown in the
corner of the picture. His fundamental role is indeed to protect children
against the Heavenly Dog (the “dog star” Sirius), who controls one of
 The Mythology of Modem China 173

the thirty dangerous passages of their life and who devours them. Aside
from this, he is asked to give ehildren, though the final relie of the rite
from which he emerged—he brings only boys. This is why his picture is
hung up on the wall of newlyweds' bedrooms. Often he is accompanied
by his son, Chien-t'an, who carries in his arms the child which he gives
to his devotees. Some find it more suitable to have the child given to
the mother by a woman, associating him with the Lady Who Gives
Children, Sung-izu niang-niang, who is also one of the followers of the
Sacred Mother (which is also one of the titles given both to her and to
Kuan-yin). At other times it is he himself, in a scholar’s gown and
without his bow, who is presenting the child. He is also given the place of
God of Emoluments in the Triad of Happiness.
In temples or chapels dedicated to him (Temples of the Hundred Sons
are consecrated, varying from place to place, either to the Sacred Mother
or to Chang the Immortal, like the Chapels of the Hundred Sons which
are often included among the numerous halls in temples of the gods of
Walls and Ditches), statues of his son and the Lady Who Gives Children
often stand behind him, and along the walls to right and left are ranged
the Twelve Spirits of the Cycle, shih-erh yikiu-chky each of whom
presides over one of the twelve years and watches over children born
during his year. The goddesses of Smallpox and of Measles are also often
found in his temples, as well as in those of the Sacred Mother.
In certain regions, moreover, he is identified with Chang Kuo-lao, one
of the Eight Immortals, and it is the latter’s image, mounted upon his
white donkey, which is hung up in the house.

I. GODS OF ILLNESSES AND HEALING GODS

The tao-shih have a Ministry of Epidemics composed of the five gods

who preside over the epidemics of the five cardinal directions and the
four seasons. But these are divinities who are objects of worship only
among Taoist sorcerers, who give them various names and titles accord-
ing to the regions and the schools to which they belong. It is the same for
the Ministry of Medicine and that of the Expulsion of Baleful Influences,
whose members are hardly known except to doctors and exorcists.
Among the people the divinity of Smallpox, Tou-shciy is one of the
most feared. He is said to be especially responsible for punishing
infanticide (frequent in certain provinces where many girl children are
drowned at birth) and for denying any posterity to those guilty of it. His
image is often found in little chapels set up at crossroads in open
country, and also in a great number of temples. In certain regions this
divinity is a goddess, and she is placed among the followers of the
 174 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Princess of Multi-colored Clouds, with her son, the God of Black

Smallpox, Pan-slien, beside the two goddesses of Measles, Slia-s/icn and
Chen-sheu. In other temples, the god is a male. In both cases the images
are characterized by an eruption of pustules on the face. There are also
the Goddess of Plague, the God of Asthma, the Generalissimo of the
Five Dynasties, a god of boils who seems to be peculiar to Fukien, and
many others. All these gods are beseeched as much to protect against the
maladies which they give as to cure them, but they are addressed only in
isolated cases or those which are not severe, or sometimes in anticipation
of disease, after consultation with a medium or sorcerer who has
counseled making an offering to them.
In great epidemics these gods are far too powerless to be really useful.
In many regions, especially in Hopei, the New Year’s festivals are
celebrated again, regardless of what time of year it is: the deceived spirits
will believe that the year is ended and a new one has begun, so that the
time fixed for the duration of the sickness is past; and thus it will end
immediately. But at the same time people flock to the great temples. In
the cities they go especially to the temple of the God of the Walls and
Ditches, the designated protector of the inhabitants, and the god re-
sponsible to the Jade Emperor for their welfare. The local officials will
have gone there not long previously to make official sacrifices: and
sometimes the ancient idea that sovereigns or officials are responsible for
misfortunes suffered by their subjects or those they control has curious
manifestations. I have already told the story of the subprefect who set
himself beside the statue of the god of the Walls and Ditches in the full
glare of the sun, so as to determine, through the resistance of his own
head or the statue’s, who was responsible for a calamity. This is told
pretty much everywhere. Ordinarily it concerns a drought (and this is the
original form, for the exposure of sorcerers or sorceresses to the sun was
one of the ways to make rain fall); but sometimes it is also for an
epidemic, since the mandarins’ responsibility is the same for whatever
kind of calamity occurs. The people make collections to offer a festival to
the god; a troupe of actors is brought in to perform in the god’s temple
for several days. They go also to the temple of the Eastern Peak, the
hierarchic superior of the God of the Walls and Ditches, or to that of
Kuan-ti, who drives away evil spirits. Or again they go into the great
Buddhist temples to appeal to the compassion of the Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas, the Truly-Pitying and the Truly-Benevolent who have
vowed to save all living beings. In certain regions this is the Buddha
Bhaishajyaguru, Yao-shih-wang Fo, whose name means Buddha King-
Master of Remedies, who then sees devotees, who are few ordinarily,
thronging the bases of his altars; for his vow to “cure the diseases of all
 The Mythology oj Modern Chino 175

living beings”, which in reality means “the disease of ignorance”, is

taken literally by the crowd. But he is not the only god who is prayed to.
People also go and burn incense and recite prayers before the statues of
Kuan-yin or other Bodhisattvas, often making vows to go on pilgrimage
as soon as the peril is over.
If none of these etforts is effective, there remains the recourse of
holding a procession. Sometimes a god has commanded this through the
agency of a medium, and he has also indicated the place from which it
must start, the route it must follow, the offerings that must be presented
to the chief god and to his followers. It is almost always the local
protector-god who is paraded thus. Villages parade the patron saint to
whom the main temple is dedicated, often Kuan-yin of P’u-t’o in
Kiangsu or Chekiang, or sometimes another Bodhisattva, and in such
cases the temple is managed by a bonze. Or the god may be a Taoist
divinity or a local hero whose temple is administered by Taoist lay
masters. In cities, it is the God of the Walls and Ditches. His procession
hardly differs from that of his annual festival except in certain special
touches. At the head are borne charms to destroy demons, and most
often some of the temple mediums walk in front or behind, their hair
loosened, swords in hand; and they go along the whole route dancing
and pursuing the epidemic-demons. The rest is made up of troupes of
notables, each with a lighted stick of incense in his hand, preceding and
following the statues, then a cortege of statues with gongs, tam-tams,
parasols, and banners, and finally bands of mummers disguised as
demons of all kinds. The whole thing differs from the annual procession
only in the number participating.
In the villages of Kiangsu and northern Chekiang, prayers to the
patron saint of the village are preceded by the ceremony of “imposing a
soul” upon the statue. They think that if the god does not protect his
believers and allows the epidemic to decimate them, this is because his
statue is no longer alive and consequently does not know what goes on
around him and does not report it to the god. The ceremony is designed
to give it a soul. A procession is carried out in utter silence in the middle
of the night, through the streets and across the fields. Statues of dried
and lacquered earth are made, hollowed out with a hole in the back
covered by a flap. At the moment of leaving the temple the priest, bonze
or tao-shHu opens this flap; then the statue is paraded about in his
palanquin while the priest follows along reciting prayers in a low voice.
A soon as he hears the cry of a living thing, bird, insect, or any animal
at all, he immediately shuts the flap again and leads the procession back
to the temple, where the ceremonies begin. They say that at the moment
when the priest closed the flap he seized the soul of the being which cried
 176 Taoism and Chinese Religion

out; that being falls dead, and his soul, shut up in the statue, makes it
live. It sees and hears, and it can warn the god. From that moment on, it
is worth while to carry out ceremonies.

7. Gods of the Other World

If the gods who are concerned with the living, picked at random from
various mythologies and lumped together incongruously by popular
religion, make up a rather incoherent pantheon, it is not the same for
those who govern the dead. Even though modern Chinese ideas on this
point likewise derive from a mixture of Buddhism and Taoism with
certain old native notions, just as Taoism itself borrowed the general
framework of its infernal world from Buddhism, the whole structure is
relatively well ordered and systematic.

A. THE TEN HELLS AND THEIR KINGS

There are ten FI ells, or Earthly Prisons, ti-yii, governed by ten personages
who are called the Yama Kings of the Ten Tribunals, Sliili-den Yen-
uY//?g, or more simply the Ten Kings, Shih-waiig, without any other
designation. Each is the master of a particular hell in which, as in
Dante’s circles, certain set sins are punished by fixed penalties.
It was Buddhism which supplied the background for the infernal
world, bringing along with it the ancient Indo-Iranian god of the dead,
Yama, so that today, when he is almost forgotten in the land of his
origin, he has his statues in countless Chinese temples. The world of the
dead as the old Chinese religion pictured it was too vague, and what was
known of it was too limited and aristocratic, to prevent the thoroughly
moral conception of the Buddhists and their precise descriptions from
quickly replacing it. By the sixth century A.D. the new belief was so
popular that, when Han Ch’in, a minister of the Sui, died (592), the
rumor spread that he had become King Yama in the hells.
If the Buddhist books brought with them a consistent overall view of
the hells, they varied considerably as to details. They disagreed especially
regarding the number and location of the places of torment. According
to some, there are eight hot hells and eight cold; according to others,
there are eighteen hells in all; still others assert that there are eight large
hells, to each of which sixteen small ones are attached, which makes 136
hells in all; and so on. These discrepancies did not satisfy the Chinese, a
positive-minded people, who insisted upon being exactly clear about the
infernal world where they would have to go some day and upon familiar-
 The Mythology of Modern China 177

izing themselves in advance with all that went on there. Thus a long time
ago the Taoists, while copying the grand outlines of organization of the
Buddhist hells, fixed the number of infernal judges at ten (the sovereigns
of the eight hells, plus a king who judges at arrival and divides souls
among the different places of punishment, and another king who judges
at departure and directs souls along the different ways of transmig-
ration). Moreover, their system was adopted in a Buddhist book, now
lost though it was very popular in its time—and a forgery to boot, the
work of a Chengtu bonze: the Book of the Ten Kings, Sliih-watig citing.
Nowadays the general public, and indeed all those who are not formally
monastic, whether Buddhist or Taoist, draw their notions regarding the
hells and the infernal judges from comparable modern works of spiritual
improvement. The most complete is the Yii-li ch’cto-chuctn, which de-
scribes the hells and their subdivisions in detail; another work, also very
widely available, narrates how a young pure-living scholar, mistakenly
arrested, descends to the hells, his conversations with the infernal kings,
the scenes he was allowed to observe, and finally his return to earth,
where he comes to life again after several days of apparent death. Here
we must add the chapter of the famous novel. Journey to the West {The
Pilgrim Monkey), where the T’ang emperor T’ai-tsung’s descent to the
hells is recounted.
The chief of the Ten Kings is not only sovereign of the first hell but
also head of the nine other kings and supreme master of the infernal
world, subordinate of course to the Jade Emperor and his earthly regent,
the Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak. Originally, so it is said, it was
Yama himself, Yen-lo-wang or Yen-wang, who had once occupied this
post. But he proved himself too merciful towards the criminals who
came to him. Too often he allowed them to return to earth for several
days to carry out good deeds and thus redeem their sins, so that the
other judges never had anybody come before their tribunals, and the
wicked were not punished. The Jade Emperor, to chastise him, demoted
him from his leading rank and sent him to govern the fifth hell.
Nowadays it is Ch'in-kuang-wang who occupies this post. It is to him
that the dead are brought in the first place; he examines their imperfec-
tions in toto, and the souls whose merits and demerits he finds balance
one another are sent back to be reborn into this world without punish-
ment. He has the guilty taken to the Terrace of the Mirror of the
Wicked, Hsieh-ching t’ai: they are set before an immense mirror in which
all their victims appear to them—living creatures they have put to death,
and so on. Then they are led to the other kings who must, each in his
turn, judge and punish them. He is also the one who sends back to earth,
as famished demons, the souls of suicides, until the span of life allotted
 17H Taoism and Chinese Religion

them by Heaven and which they themselves have shortened has been
completed, unless they have a serious excuse to offer: loyalty towards a
prince, filial piety, chastity for young women and widows, and so on. On
returning they are sent straight off to the City of Those Who Die by
Accident, Waug-ssu-ch’eug, from which there is no way out to rebirth.
However, it is widely believed that they are allowed to come back and be
reborn on earth if they have found a substitute. This is why the souls of
the drowned seek to drown those who pass over rivers, the souls of the
hanged to persuade all those within their reach to hang themselves, and
so on. It is generally believed—even though all religious tracts, Taoist as
well as Buddhist, do what they can to eradicate the idea—that the same
fate awaits not only suicides but also all who have died, even by
involuntary accident. The first king is the chief judge, though he does not
punish anyone directly. Still he holds dishonest monks for a while,
having them shut up in a dark dungeon and requiring them to finish
reciting all the prayers they neglected during their lives after having
promised to say them.
The second king, Ch’u-chiang-wang, punishes dishonest go-betweens,
male and female (these are, of course, absolutely necessary inter-
mediaries in bringing about a valid marriage in China); faithless trustees;
ignorant doctors; those who have wounded or mutilated people or
animals; and so on. In the sixteen special sub-hells which he has under
his jurisdiction, punishments are varied. There is a jail of the starving
(the Buddhist pretci), which for symmetry is balanced by a jail of the
thirsty; there are others where the dead are sliced up like butchered
animals, where they are devoured by wild beasts, where they are lashed
to a scorching pillar, where they are plunged into a pool of ice, and so
on.
In the third hell, Sung-ti-wang punishes lying mandarins and all those
who betrayed their superiors, women who were shrewish to their hus-
bands, slaves who injured their masters, disloyal employees, condemned
persons who have escaped justice, as well as forgers, slanderers, and
those who sell family burial grounds. Some have their knees pulverized,
others their hearts or eyes torn out, their feet or hands cut off; others are
suspended head down, or flayed, or buried in vermin, and so on.
The fourth hell, that of Wu-kuan-wang, is the one where miserly rich
people who do not give alms are punished, as well as those who know
the formulae for curing disease but do not divulge them; swindlers,
counterfeiters, makers of false weights and measures, or merchants who
use fake coins and weights, those who shift the boundaries of fields,
blasphemers, those who steal from pagodas, and so on. The damned are
swept away by a torrent, or they are made to kneel on sharpened
 The Mythology of Modern China 179

bamboos or to remain sealed on nails. Some are clothed in iron

garments; others are crushed under wooden beams or under rocks;
others are buried alive; others are made to swallow quicklime or boiling
drugs. In this hell is also the Lake of Foul Blood, into which women who
die in childbirth are plunged, never to emerge. Popular belief is harsher
than Buddhist or Taoist theories, which tried in vain to struggle against
this idea. People sometimes tried to justify this harshness by explaining
that, if a woman died in childbirth, she must have committed very
serious crimes, if not in this life then in an earlier one.
The fifth hell is that of King Yama, Yen-lo-wang. There the greatest
religious sins—killing living things, unbelief, the destruction of pious
books, and so on—are punished. Monks who have been negligent of
their vows, and especially hunters, fishermen, and butchers are chastized
there. Likewise lust, seduction, rape, and everything concerned with
prostitution receives its punishment there. The guilty are first sent to the
Terrace from which to look at the village, Wang-hsiang-t'ai\ from there
they see the misfortunes that have befallen their family since their death,
caused by the demerits they accumulated. Then each is led to one of the
sixteen particular hells. There some, seated upon an iron chair and
bound to an iron pillar, have their chests opened and the heart plucked
out, cut into bits and tossed to animals, while others are sliced into pieces
under a huge chopper, and so on.
In the sixth hell, the king of Pien-ch'eng punishes all sacrilegious
persons: those who curse heaven, earth, the wind or the rain, heat or
cold; those who lack respect for the gods, melting their statues down to
make coins or to sell the metal, depositing garbage near temples or
facing the Great Bear; those who weave or who print upon cloth
designed for profane use the names of gods or merely those of dragons
or of phoenixes; those who keep obscene books. Punishments consist of
being crushed by a roller, or sawed between two planks, or flayed alive
and stuffed. Some are plunged into a pool of mud and filth; others are
gnawed by rats or devoured by locusts; others have lighted torches thrust
into their mouths, and so on.
The seventh hell is that of the king of the Eastern Peak, T’ai-shan
chiin-wang, the heir-apparent {t'ai-tzu) to King Yama. The name retains
the memory of a time (about the beginnings of the Christian era) when
popular religion made the God of the Eastern Peak, presiding over Life
and Death, into the sovereign of a world of the dead stretching out
beneath his mountain. But this is only an onomastic survival. Nowadays
the king of the seventh hell is considered quite a different divinity, despite
the resemblance of titles. It is he who chastises those who violate tombs,
who sell or eat human flesh or use it to make medications, who sell their
 180 Taoism and Chinese Religion

fiances as slaves, and so on. Some are plunged into cauldrons of boiling
oil; others are devoured by beasts: dogs gnaw at their limbs; their skin is
pulled off and given to pigs for food; vultures tear at them, mules crush
them under foot; others have demons open their bellies to reel out their
intestines, and so on.
In the eighth hell, that of the king of P’ing-teng, are punished mainly
those who have lacked filial piety. The damned are crushed under chariot
wheels; their tongues are torn out; they are buried in latrine-pits; nails
are driven into their heads; they are cut up into ten thousand bits, and so
on.
The ninth hell, the domain of the king of Tu-shih, is that of in-
cendiaries, of abortionists, of obscene painters or writers, and of those
who look at or read their works. Among its sixteen little hells, there are
some where the souls are consumed by wasps, ants, scorpions, and
snakes; in others, they are ground up in a grain-stack; or demons cook
their heads in a stove, or they take the brain out and replace it with a
hedgehog, and so on. The City of Those Who Die by Accident also
comes under this king, and here are sent all those who have killed
themselves without reason. Their punishment consists in eternally renew-
ing their suicide, never to be reborn. Here are also relegated all souls
who, having committed serious crimes in the hells, are punished by death
and, after execution, cease to be souls, kuei, but become the shades of
souls, cliien, incapable of being reborn. The City of Those Who Die by
Accident is a place from which none emerges: whoever is shut up there
no longer has, like the other damned souls, the hope of seeing his
anguish end and of returning into this world.
Finally, the tenth king is the King Who Makes the Wheel (of
Transmigration) Turn, Chuan-lun wang. Like the first, he commands no
place of punishment. It is he who sets transmigrations upon exit from the
hells. He has twenty-four offices in which countless employees keep the
accounts of reincarnations. As in the case of the Eastern Peak, it is spirits
of the dead who perform these tasks. He judges, according to actions
done before, the fate of the soul: whether it is to be reborn as man or
animal, what its rank and its happiness are to be, and so on. Then the
soul, leaving the tribunal, is led before Dame Meng, Meng-p’o niang-
niang, who prepares the Broth of Oblivion. Dame Meng is a woman who
lived under the Han dynasty and who, having refused to marry and
having all her life practised the prohibitions upon killing living things
and eating rich foods, obtained immortality and was placed at the exit
from the hells to perform this function. She lives in a huge building, with
a main hall, where she sits as at a tribunal, and many secondary
chambers. It is in these that the bowls of broth are prepared beforehand.
 The Mytholo}fy of Modern China IHf

Demons separate men's souls from women's, they make them drink
willingly or by force, so that all memory of the hells is obliterated at the
moment of return upon earth to be reborn in one form or another. Once
the bowl of broth is swallowed, the soul is led to the Bridge of Sorrow,
K’u-cITu-ch’iao, over a river of vermilion-colored water. There the two
demons, Life-Is-Not-Long and Death-Is-Near, await it and cast it into
the waters of the river, which carry it towards a new birth.
Great mural paintings in Buddhist temples represent the Wheel of
Birth and Death, Shcng-ssu-Iun. This is a scene in which are pictured
rebirths among the various species of living things, requiting good or evil
actions performed in the preceding existence or existences. According to
most Buddhist books, there are six ways of rebirth, liu-ch’ii (gati): three
good ways—birth among the gods (great merit), among men (middling
merit), among the Asura (weak merit), and three bad ways—birth in the
hells (great demerit), among the famished demons (middling demerit),
among animals (weak demerit). Certain works count only five ways of
rebirth which are the same but for the Asura; thus there are three bad
ways and two good. It is this last system which the Hindu painters
adopted and which is described in the Books of Discipline (Vinaya) as
being that which Buddha himself had ordered painted above certain
doors of the monastery.
A circle must be made in the form of a wheel. In the middle, set
the hub, then make five spokes to separate the representations of the
five ways. Below' the hub is hell and, on the two sides, famished
demons and animals; above must be painted men and gods. The hub
must be colored white and, on this background, a Buddha must be
painted and, in front of this Buddha, three figures: a pigeon to
symbolize covetousness, a serpent to symbolize anger, a pig to
symbolize ignorance. On the rim must be represented the twelve
causes that produce birth and death. Outside must be the great
demon Impermanence, hair disheveled, mouth open, arms extended,
embracing the Wheel.
Chinese painters generally conform to the ritual model: often, however,
they insist upon having the portrayal of the extreme ways balance one
another, that of paradise in the upper part with its gardens and pavilions
where the gods walk about, opposite that of hell in the lower part, with
its tribunal before which the damned are brought and its courts of
torment where they are punished. In this case the portrayals of the ways
of Famished Demons and of Animals are necessarily both set off to the
same side so as to make a counterbalance to the way of Men. But this
arrangement often gives way to a symmetrical division into six in which
 IH2 Taoism and Chinese Religion

sometimes, though rarely, the Asura, appearing again, contend with the
gods. In popular imagery, the division into six ways has taken the upper
hand, owing to the symmetrical arrangement which it allows; but the six
ways rarely conform to the Buddhist tradition. Besides the hells, gods,
human beings, and animals, which do not change, the Asura are often
found replaced by Chinese terrestrial divinities and Pretas (famished
demons) by human beggars. Or sometimes animals, birds, fish, and
insects are set oft' in special compartments.

B. THE LIFE OF SOULS IN THE HELLS

Such is the world where the souls of the dead go after death. But they do
not remain there eternally; they merely pass varying lengths of time there
between two earthly existences. Only the souls of the greatest criminals
or those of suicides go into a particular corner of the hells, from which
they never emerge to be reborn. Yet their miseries are not eternal, for
these souls will be destroyed when that provisional and temporary end of
our world occurs which, according to the Buddhists (and, imitating
them, the Taoists), separates two of those long periods called chieh
{kalpa).
For Chinese today (except for some scholars who literally apply the
famous formula which is attributed to Confucius:—“You do not know
life, how can you know death?”—and which has long been interpreted as
a profession of agnosticism), every man, every living being passes
through a series of existences in this world, separated by sojourns in the
hells, or in various divine tasks. The old Hindu idea of successive rebirths
imported by Buddhist missionaries since the first or second century of
our era has been imposed upon the Chinese mind but has suffered a
singular change in character. The term metempsychosis, which is some-
times applied to this theory, is absurd in Hindu Buddhism, since that
doctrine denies the existence of a personal soul, of a continuing Me, and
only accepts the existence in each individual of successive instantaneous
Mes, distinct from one another and one being born from the other as
time unfolds. Yet this term metempsychosis is nearly accurate when
applied to Chinese popular religion; for there indeed a soul (if not in the
Christian sense of the word, since for the Chinese souls are material and
not purely spiritual) passes from body to body with each new existence.
To that existence it brings its merits and its demerits, which contribute
to determining its rank and its “happiness” in each life; and it brings its
shortcomings and even its habits. It is sexually set, and whoever is a man
remains so always from life to life, just as a woman never becomes a man
 The Mythology of Modem China JdJ

in a later life. And even if transgressions lead on to rebirth as a dog,

horse, snake, or other animal, the soul of a man becomes a male animal,
the soul of a woman a female animal. Those who have lived virtuously
are reborn almost immediately on earth as men and women; for them
this is a reward, since modern Chinese, far diflerent from the ancient
Hindus, who despaired at the idea of an indefinite series of lives and
deaths, are happy with this idea. Sometimes the souls of righteous people
receive divine office because of their merits. This is not seen as an
advantage, far from it, and most people prefer to hope that they will be
reborn into a good family, wealthy and endowed with “happiness”. But
the actions of the preceding life mark the newborn. In Kiangsu, when an
infant is born one-eyed, it is said that he was lecherous in his former life;
if he has a harelip, it is because he insulted people without motive; if he is
dumb or stammers, it is because he was given to contradicting, and so
on.
A living man has two groups of souls, the three hun and the seven p’o.
That is an ancient belief, since it is found mentioned by Ko Hung, one of
the great Taoist writers at the end of the third century A.D. Nowadays
everybody accepts the existence of all these souls. For example, a person
who is frightened cries out (I take this passage from a play recently
performed in Shanghai); “How frightened I am! My three hun don't stay
in place and my seven p’o are in total confusion!” But each of these
groups is considered as a whole, the hun not being dissociated from one
another (nor the p’o), so that in effect everything goes on as though men
had simply two souls. They are not alike and have distinct qualities and
attributes. After death, they part. The p’o remain with the body in the
mortuary chamber, which they cannot leave because of the gate gods,
while the hun, led away by the henchmen of the god of the Walls and
Ditches, whose summons warrant serves as a pass with the gate gods,
begin their voyage to the underworld and future rebirths.
When the hour of death comes, indeed, the god of the Walls and
Ditches, who keeps the register of all inhabitants in his district, sends two
of the infernal kings' emissaries to seize the soul and bring it before him.
These are the demons Ox-head, Niu-t’ou {Gosirsa) and Horse-face, Ma-
niien (Asvaniukha). They are the souls of those who in life ate beef or
maltreated their horses and who, in the other world, receive this form
and function as punishment. And that is why they are portrayed in all
temples of the Walls and Ditches with a man's body and the head and
feet of an animal, sometimes costumed as mandarins' attendants, one
carrying the axe and the other the trident, sometimes naked to the waist
and bearing instruments of torture. However, this role as guides of the
 1S4 Taoism and Chinese Religion

dead is not exclusively reserved to them, and it is rather often admitted

that these are two attendants in human form. They go to carry the god’s
arrest warrant to the dying, and the soul follows them at once.
Everybody is very fearful of these demons who come to arrest the soul.
In a “New Theater” piece recently played in Shanghai, The Three
Doubts, a servant is seen roused from sleep by somebody who knocks on
the door late in the evening, when his master is ill, and he refuses to go
and open up. “It is midnight. Why should anybody be knocking at the
door? ... I get it! Probably my master is in agony, and king Yama has
sent two demons who have come to take my master’s soul away. I shan’t
open it!”
In several areas, especially in certain parts of Kiangsu, it is not
conceded that demons, even equipped with an official order, can on their
own lay hands on a living man and arrest his soul. They are obliged to
get help from the soul of a living man, whose body suddenly falls into a
catalepsy while the soul leaves it for some moments and goes off
following the demons. It is that soul which seizes the dying man’s soul
and hands it over to the emissaries, after which it returns to its own
body, which then awakens. As for the emissaries, no matter how they
have taken the dead man’s soul, they convey it to the Temple of the
Walls and Ditches, where it is to make its first stop during the forty-nine
first days after decease. The god makes a brief inquiry as to its conduct
by examining his registers, where he has noted the monthly reports of all
the kitchen gods and, depending upon how it has behaved, he either
leaves it free or punishes it more or less severely, with the cangue or the
bastinado.
On the thirty-fifth day after death, the dead person’s soul is taken back
to his house one last time to see his relatives. According to some, it is the
Buddha Shih-chia {Scikyannmi) who guides it: since he is not dead but
entered into Nirvana, he is not a spirit, kuei, and in consequence,
through his supernatural power, he can pass from the world of the living
to the world of the dead and back, as no spirit can, even one armed with
an official commission, such as the gods of the Walls and Ditches or the
infernal gods. He leaves the Pure Land of the West, where he resides with
the Buddhas A-mi-t’o {Amifdbha) and Ju-lai (Tathdgata), as well as the
Bodhisattva Kuan-yin (Avalokitesvara), boards the Precious Raft which
is the Ship of Benevolence (the same vessel by which Kuan-yin comes to
the help of those who invoke him), invites the soul to board this raft,
and thus transports it from one world to the other. When evening comes,
he leads it back to the temple of the God of the Walls and Ditches. Thus
on this particular day, bonzes especially are invited in, at least among
rich families in Kiangsu. Many, how'ever, do not see the Buddha as
 The Myllwlogy of Modern China IH5

intervening in this last visit of the soul to its family: it is simply taken
there by infernal messengers.
On the forty-ninth day, the dead person’s stay with the God of the
Walls and Ditches comes to an end; he is then led before the infernal
gods, the ten kings Yama, to be judged. But first the God of the Walls
and Ditches sends the soul itself or a report about it to the Jade Emperor
or to the Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak: it has to be ascertained
whether the soul’s allotted lifespan has actually run out or whether death
has come about before its time, either by accident or as a result of
suicide; for in that case, it could not enter into the hells before the time
destiny had established. Once it is shown, according to the heavenly
registers, that all is in order, the soul definitively passes through the door
which separates the terrestrial world from the infernal world. This is a
pavilion which belongs half to the God of Walls and Ditches and half to
the infernal kings. On one side it is called the Pavilion where criminals
are led, and on the other the Pavilion where criminals are sought out.
The attendants of the God of Walls and Ditches lead the soul there on
the forty-ninth day and hand it over to the infernal attendants, who
bring it to the first of the Ten Tribunals. The soul is not in fact judged
for all its sins together: these have been catalogued, by the Buddhists as
well as the Taoists. Ten lists have been compiled, which have been
divided among the ten kings Yama, as well as the punishments which
correspond to them. The dead pass before the ten kings successively so
that each of them pronounces sentence proportionate to the punishable
sins over which he presides.
The ten hells are represented in detail in almost all temples of gods of
Walls and Ditches. Each occupies a niche on the two sides of the second
court of the temple, just in front of the main sanctuary. There the
infernal kings are portrayed in mandarin costume, seated behind a
tribunal table with the scroll of paper before them on which they write
the sentence, surrounded by their scribes and clerks of court, judging the
dead, whom their henchmen bring to them in chains, or wearing the
cangue as criminals, and who remain before them on their knees as the
accused do before earthly judges. These representations are sometimes
large mural paintings and sometimes decorative compositions in which,
around the large statues of the Yen wang, innumerable little statuettes
portray the damned and the demons who torment them. In large cities,
the throng which on certain days fills the courts of the temple halts
before the ten hells to comment upon the punishments and the sins
committed. It is probably for children and even adults, especially among
the common people, the most striking and clear moral teaching they will
ever receive.
 1(S6 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Only after having borne all the punishments inflicted upon it can the
soul be reborn, unless its family has redeemed its shortcomings by
appropriate ceremonies and thus delivered it. But people generally agree
that it is not reborn before the twenty-eight months of mourning have
passed, the minimum time it must spend in the hells. During these two
years and four months, if the soul has no punishments to suffer or if
these have been ransomed, it leads an existence like that of men on earth.
From the time of its arrival the family has taken care to provide it with
a house, furniture, clothing, and money. This is a two-storied house of
paper with several chambers, which in theory represents the dead
person's dwelling. The family strives to reproduce his room realistically
by putting paper furniture into it. In certain regions, it is large enough
for a man to enter. In wealthy Kiangsu families, it can sometimes be as
much as ten or even twenty feet high, including the roof. Life-size
servants made of paper are placed in it, with the name of servants who
have died in service written on their chests. On the evening of the forty-
ninth day, or sometimes of the hundredth day, bonzes consecrate the
house by putting into it a yellow paper on which they have inscribed as
many red dots as the times they have read the Book of Great Mercy { Ta-
pei clung) for the benefit of the dead person, either on that very day or
during the three days before it. Then bundles of silver paper are placed
all around, representing ingots, to make up a treasure for the dead, and
the servants set this afire in the middle of the courtyard. All the time it is
burning, people avoid touching it, for fear of disarranging something
and causing it to arrive in the other world in bad condition. One must
neither extinguish the fire nor even touch the ashes before the next day.
This is the house where the dead person must live in the infernal plains
where, with other souls, it makes up cities and towns around the palaces
of the Yama Kings. There each one continues his earthly life: some are
field workers, others merchants, others receive more or less important
positions as infernal officials.
When the time of stay is ended and the period for rebirth approaches, the
soul appears before the King Who Makes the Wheel Turn (Sakravartircya),
the tenth of the kings of hell, who appoints births and, according to the
soul’s merits or its shortcomings, he dispatches it into the body of a child
or an animal. Some declare that they recall the sensation of falling into a
dark dungeon, then of an almost immediate return into the light, but in a
body become very small and incapable of speaking. An eighteenth cen-
tury story, translated by Father Wieger, details the impressions at the
moment of birth: “Everything was confused for him; his body was tossed
about by the wind. Suddenly, going through a vermilion door, he fell
into a lake ten thousand fathoms deep; he felt no pain, but felt that his
 The Mythology of Modern China IH7

body was becoming light and small and was no longer the saine. When
he had ceased falling, his eyes were closed and could not open; in his ears
he heard voices like those of his father and mother. He thought himself
the plaything of a dream.” When the soul is reborn in animal form, the
sensation is still more disagreeable.
Such is the fate that awaits souls after death. But for many souls fate is
harsher still. All those who died before finishing the lime fixed by
destiny, not having been summoned by the regular warrant and having
no infernal attendant to guide them, cannot find the road to the hells and
to transmigration, and their souls remain wandering and famished upon
earth. It is for these souls that great ceremonies are carried out on the
fifteenth day of the seventh month. The Buddhist ceremony of the
avalanihana, yu-lau-p'eu, and the Taoist ceremonies of the Chung-yiian
(on the day when the Earth Agent remits men’s sins) are designed to give
wandering souls food and to make them reenter the way of transmigra-
tion. The rites of the avalanihana were explained by the Buddha to his
disciple, Maudgalyay^Tia {Mu-lien), in order to let him save his mother
from infernal torment, and consist of great offerings accompanied by
prayers said at the doors of houses in the evening. The abandoned souls
are not the only ones who benefit from this, for on the first day of the
seventh month hell is opened and the souls of the damned come back to
earth to take advantage of the offerings lavished by the piety of the
living, returning only on the last day of the month.

C. THE BODHISATTVA TI-TSANG (KSHITIGARBHA)

To deliver the souls of the dead from torment, the aid of Ti-tsang is
implored (the name is the Chinese translation of Kshitigarbha’s Sanskrit
name). A Bodhisattva who received from the Jade Emperor the title
Instructor of the Dark Regions, he travels unceasingly across the hells to
succor the damned. Incalculable ages ago, Ti-tsang was a young
Brahmin who, converted by the Buddha of that time, vowed that he too
would one day become a perfectly accomplished Buddha, but not before
having saved all the beings sunk in sin, having brought them over beyond
the regular round of life and death, and having guided them to the
Happy Lands. During innumerable lifetimes he sacrificed himself to
accomplish his vow. Among other meritorious acts, in one of his
existences he was a pious young woman whose impious mother liked to
kill living beings and eat them. At the mother’s death, the young woman
prayed for her salvation w'ith such concentration that she found herself
transported to the gate of the hells, where a demon revealed to her that
her mother, plunged into the deepest and most agonizing pit, had just
 IH8 Taoism and Chinese Religion

been saved by her prayers. At the time when the present Buddha,
Sakyamuni, was alive, he one day expounded Kshitigarbha’s merits in a
great assembly held in the heaven of the Thirty-three Gods, and he ended
by addressing himself to Kshitigarbha in these terms: “From this time
forward I confide to you the throng of gods and men, presently living or
to come, so that, by virtue of your supernatural power, you will not let
them fall into evil births for a single day or a single night.”
Thus, while the other Bodhisattvas are occupied especially with men
during their earthly life, Ti-tsang has made himself responsible for
watching over the greatest sinners during their life in the hells. Fie has
even adopted six different forms in order to fill this role better, one in
each of the forms of births: hells, famished demons, animals, Asura,
men, and gods. These forms are called the Six Ti-tsang. They are not
forms which he takes successively in particular cases, when he wishes to
save some soul in each of the six ways: they are particular forms he has
through his supernatural power, which permit him to be present in
several places at the same time, all six assumed simultaneously so that he
is always present in each of the six ways of births.
Fie is ordinarily represented standing up, less often seated, dressed as a
bonze with shaven head. In his right hand he holds the khakkara, that
metal staff with littfe sounding rings attached to its top which the
Buddha ordained that all his monks should carry and should shake at
the doors of houses to announce their presence when they go to beg their
food. With this he opens the gates of the hells. In his left hand he carries
the precious Pearl, the brilliance of which lights up the dark roads of the
infernal world and instantaneously calms the sufferings of the damned.
Often, rather than the costume of Flindu bonzes, he is dressed in the
Chinese bonze’s robe, and on his head is the crown they wear in certain
ceremonies. In this case, he is portrayed sometimes standing, sometimes
seated on a throne, sometimes seated on a lion. Often he is not alone, but
accompanied by two saints; one of these. Mu-lien (Maudgalyayana),
carries the metal staff and the other holds the precious Pearl. Sometimes,
though the image is less popular, he is portrayed in the customary pose
and costume of Bodhisattvas, seated on a lotus throne and clad in light
sashes and jewels; the right hand holds the precious Pearl, and the left
hand a lotus in full bloom, with a banner rising from its heart.
The Chinese like to imagine him traveling unceasingly through the
hells and, each time he passes, delivering the damned so as to allow them
to be reborn. Many people among those who have died and later been
resuscitated have encountered him. Moreover, one need not believe that
he is at war with the infernal gods and must struggle against them; they
 Ihc Mythology of Modern China IM9

are under his orders and must obey him. What is the power of a god
before that of a Bodhisattva? His mission was acknowledged by the Jade
Emperor, who bestowed upon him the title of “Instructor of the Dark
Regions”, Yu-ming chiao-shih. On his birthday, the twenty-fourth day of
the seventh month, all the infernal gods come to pay him homage,
followed by their assistants, and on that day he lavishly distributes
favors to the damned.
The ceremony is generally carried out on the hundredth day after
death. One or several bonzes come to the house and, before the dead
person's temporary tablet, they invoke Ti-tsang, at each word striking
the little fish-shaped wooden bell and, at the beginning of each verse, the
bronze bell.
O Bodhisattva of the shadows, whose excellence is beyond telling.
Whose true Bodies of Transformation are in every place at once.
So that those who are upon the three (bad) routes among the six
ways (of rebirths) may hear the marvelous Law,
And so that the ten classes of beings born in the four kinds of births
are bathed in your Benevolence,
You whose precious Pearl lights the roads of the heavenly Palaces,
Whose metal staff opens the gates of the Hells,
Deign to guide the soul of the deceased.
So that upon the terrace made of the lotus flower (that is, in the
Paradise of Amitabha) it adores the Very Merciful.
When the hymn is finished, they burn incense while reciting a prose
prayer: “Adoration to the Heavenly Officers of the Three Worlds, to the
kings and princes of the Earth, of Water, of Humanity. Make the soul of
the deceased progress so that it comes to the Western Paradise!
Respectfully, I consider that it is hard to escape from being reborn so
as to die in the two ways of man and god, save through a moment of
respectful adoration. If the soul of the deceased can in no way come
hither, in the baskets of our Buddhist Religion there is a magic formula
(nianfra) to call him up. 1 am going to pronounce it.” And they invite the
soul in these terms:
Shaking this little bell, I invite thee:
Soul of the dead, do not be unaware; hearing from afar, attend!
Mayst thou be sustained by the power of the Three Jewels!
This day, I pray thee, come hither at once!
Then they recite the magic formula in Sanskrit and light sticks of
incense before the temporary tablet, saying: “With a concentrated heart I
 190 Taoism and Chinese Religion

pray that the perfume of this rod of ineense may penetrate all the worlds
of phenomena {dhaniuidhdtu), so that the messengers of the hells may
bring the soul here!” And they end with a final appeal to the soul: “Three
times I pray the soul of the deceased to come; come back and be seated
to listen to the text of the sacred Book!”
The ceremony ends with the reading of the Book which destroys the
hells, and with invocations to Amitabha, master of the Pure Land of the
West (Sukhavati), where the soul is invited to be reborn, and to Ti-tsang,
who will assist it to go to that Paradise. The hells are represented by a
square bamboo structure on which are stretched sheets of paper or cloth,
set up in the middle of the chamber or courtyard. A bonze, costumed as
Ti-tsang and carrying the Sounding Staff in hand, dances successively
before each of the facades during the recitation of the book and, when
dance and reading are finished, he smashes a rice bowl with a blow of the
Staff, thus symbolically destroying the infernal gates and so liberating the
soul of the deceased.
The prayers to Ti-tsang are perhaps not necessary. Some say that only
the wicked are, at the hour of death, seized by Ch'eng-huang’s emissaries
and taken before the infernal judges to be punished according to their
sins, while the good see Kuan-yin come to them and lead them away
upon a lotus flower raft to the Western Paradise. Or perhaps it is the
Grand Emperor of the Eastern Peak, Tung-yiieh ta-ti, who sends them
one of his followers, one of the golden youths to men or one of the jade
girls to women, and this one, carrying a banner, leads them off to the
Lands of Happiness. But it is better to err on the side of precaution than
of negligence; the dead person may have secretly committed serious
faults. A scholar, dead in consequence of an error by a clerk in one of the
infernal bureaus, revived afterwards and recounted his voyage to the
infernal world in a work with a title that is untranslatable in its concision
but can be paraphrased: “On the Consequences of Deeds done in
previous lives for return to life in this world through transmigration”. He
declares that, from what the king of Ch’in-kuang (the first hell) said to
him upon sending him back, of a thousand souls who appear before him,
only one or two are worthy of going to the Heavenly Palaces, T’ien-
t’ung, and several others deserve to be sent to the various hells; but
almost all, being neither very good nor very bad, are sent back directly to
be reborn in this world as human beings or as animals. He himself,
during the several days that he remained saw only three who ascended to
Paradise, and some forty who were condemned to various infernal
ordeals (again, about ten of these got a bad human birth as a remission
of their penalty), while seven hundred and fifty-two had to take up
human existence again.
 The Mythology of Modern Chino 191

D. THE PARADISE OF AMITABHA

The Paradise to which the souls delivered by Ti-tsang go is the World of

Delights of the Western Region, Hsi-fang chi-lo shih-chich (in Sanskrit,
Sukhdvati, the Happy Place) or again the Pure Land, Ch’ing-ching f’ly
where the Buddha Amitabha' reigns as a consequence of a vow he made
when, for the first time, unnumbered ages ago, he uttered the Thought of
Illumination {p'u-t'i-hsiiy bodhicitta).
As we know, to enter upon the way towards becoming a “perfectly
accomplished Buddha", certain conditions are necessary: a Buddha must
be living at the moment and, converted by him, the neophyte must
pronounce the vow to become some day, in a future existence, a Buddha
who will save living beings. It is this vow which opens the career of the
future Buddha; through it he can receive the title of Bodhisattva; thanks
to the power of that vow he can, across ages without number, finally
attain the end he had in view. But this vow is accompanied by conditions
which the Bodhisattva imposes upon himself before entering into
Nirvana or which must be fulfilled at the very moment of entry into
Nirvana. It is through his vow that the Bodhisattva Kshitigarbha {Ti-
tsang) became the savior of beings born into evil ways, into hells, as
demons, as famished souls, and so on; in consequence of his vow,
AvalokiteWara labors incessantly and without discouragement for the
salvation of all living beings. It is by the virtue of his vow that the
Buddha Amitabha could make all living beings capable of rebirth into
his Paradise of the Western Pure Land.
Innumerable ages ago there was a king who, having understood the
Law and being converted, abandoned his kingdom to become a monk.
Having joined the Buddha of that time, he made a vow' that he too
would in time become a perfectly accomplished Buddha. Then he added:
“I vow that I shall not take a Buddha Land which is impure. I
pronounce this vow that, when I attain to Bodhi, in my world there shall
be no birth, neither in the hells nor among famished demons, nor among
animals, and that all beings shall be freed from birth, from death, and
from sorrow, that all beings shall be the color of gold, that being born by
transformation they shall enjoy a life that will last eternally, that this
world shall be pure and unsoiled." Thus before the Buddha he made
forty-eight vows about the world of purity where he wished to go to
obtain Nirvana. It is to the eighteenth of those vows that men ow^e the
power to go and be reborn in this paradise: “I vow that if, in the world

1. He is often designated by the name Amida, which is simply the Japanese pronunci-
ation of the Chinese transcription A-mi-t 'o of the Sanskrit Amitabha. There is no reason to
use this form when dealing with Chinese religion.
 192 Taoism and Chinese Religion

of the other Buddhas, there are living creatures who, having heard my
name and performing excellent works, vow to be reborn in my world at
the end of their life, in conformity with their vow, they shall assuredly
attain being born there, except for those who have committed the five
unpardonable crimes (having killed their father, mother, or a child,
having injured a Buddha, having caused a schism in the Religion), or
who have insulted Buddhas, or who have sullied the Law!” When he had
finished, the Buddha predicted to him in what conditions his vows would
be accomplished. His sons too, having uttered the vow to be Buddhas
in their turn, also received predictions: the eldest would become the
Bodhisattva AvalokiteWara, the second the Bodhisattva Mahast-
hamaprapta, and so on, and they would, with the Buddha Amitabha,
dwell in that Pure Land of Sukhavati and assist in saving living beings.
This Pure Land of Amitabha is situated west of our world at an
incalculable distance: it is separated from our world by several million
other worlds like ours, over which as many Buddhas preside. We need
not seek, as some have, for a symbolic or mystical interpretation of this
western localization of the Paradise of Amitabha. Aside from the fact
that it has its precise counterpart in the Eastern Paradise of the Buddha
Bhaihsajyagururajavaiduryaprabhasa (Yao-shih-wang liu-li-kuang), al-
most forgotten today in China, though it had its hour of popularity
until about the end of the T’ang dynasty, it is quite literally in the west
that everybody places and has always placed it. In about 535, after the
death of the holy monk Bodhidharma (the name is usually shortened by
the Chinese into Ta-nio), founder of the Dhyana school {CITan in
Chinese, Zen in Japanese), which has more monasteries today than any
other, the pilgrim Sung Yiin, who was coming back from India, met him
in the Onion Mountains, on the border of what is now Chinese
Turkestan. Ta-mo went away barefoot, carrying one sandal in his hand,
and headed towards the West, returning to the Paradise of Amitabha.
This paradise was described at length in the Buddhist books, and
popular imagination needed add nothing to it. ‘Tn this world, O
Sariputra,” explained the Buddha, “there is for living beings neither
physical pain nor mental pain, and the sources of happiness are in-
numerable. This world is beautified with seven tiers of terraces, with
seven rows of trees and garlands of bells. It is closed in on all sides,
magnificent, sparkling with the glitter of the four gems—gold, silver,
beryl, crystal. In this world are lotus pools with their banks made of the
seven jewels; they are filled to the brim with water that is clear, calm,
pure, fresh, sweet to the taste, sweet to the touch, fertilizing, capable of
preventing famine, the source of which is covered with golden sand. On
the four sides of these pools are magnificent and shining tiers of the four
 The Mythology oj Modern China 193

gems and, all around, marvelous and shining trees brilliant with the
seven jewels. In these pools grow lotus llowers, blue, yellow, red and
white, as big as cartwheels. In this world a heavenly music is always to be
heard. Three limes a day and three times by night it rains mdmldrava
Howers. Every day at dawn, the beings of this world go to give flowers to
the Buddhas of other worlds, and they return to their world at meal
limes. In this world, there are marvelous birds of various colors, who
sing with charming voice three times a day, and in their song swells up a
sound which celebrates the five Virtues and excellent doctrines. When the
men of this world hear this sound, they think of the Buddha, of the Law,
and of the Community. And do not say, O Sariputra, that these birds are
born through sin. Why? In this world of the Buddha, even the name of
the three evil ways is unknown: how could they exist in reality? These
birds are produced by the transformation of the Buddha’s light, so as to
spread the teaching. In this world, the wind, sighing sweetly, shakes the
trees of precious stones, as well as the garlands of bells, and produces
sounds as charming as musical instruments playing a concert; and those
who hear these sounds think of the Buddha, of the Law, and of the
Community. And moreover, the beings born in this world do not turn
back. O Sariputra, it is not by virtue of good actions of little importance
that one may be born into this world. If virtuous men and virtuous
women constantly recite the name of Amitabha throughout one day, or
throughout two days, or for three days, or for four days, or for five days,
or for six, or for seven, without having their minds distracted, Amitabha,
accompanied by Bodhisatlvas, will appear before them at the last
moment of their life; when they die their heart will not be troubled; they
will obtain birth in the Pure Land of Amitabha.”
There are reborn for eternity the souls of the just, the souls of those
who have invoked the name of Amitabha, even if only one time yet with
all their heart, and finally the souls of those who, already fallen into evil
ways, have been saved by the intervention of Ti-tsang. The just see the
Buddha himself coming to fetch them at the hour of death, accompanied
by Bodhisatlvas, obedient to the nineteenth of his forty-eight vows. “All
beings who vow to become Buddhas, who practise meritorious works,
who with a perfect heart utter the vow to be born in my world, if when
the hour of death may approach for them I do not appear before them,
accompanied by the throng of my followers, may I not become a
Buddha!” And statues are made of “Amitabha going to seek out (the
dead)” with arms disproportionately elongated, to show that he stretches
them out towards the souls of the just. These souls go into the lotus of
the pools in this world and, when the flower opens, they acquire
existence by transformation, thus avoiding birth and in consequence
 194 Taoism and Chinese Religion

death. The souls of the just pass into lotus flowers, which open im-
mediately; others remain closed up in the lotus bud for a longer or
shorter time, giving themselves over to meditation until they are entirely
purified and the flower which holds them opens in its turn. In this world
there is no defilement; there are no more sexes, and all living beings dwell
there eternally, mingling the purest pleasures with adoration of all the
Buddhas and meditation.
It is enough to have thought with concentration about Amitabha just
once to be saved, so his worship has spread very widely. Some fifty years
ago Edkins saw, in a great temple, monks who had themselves shut up
for several months in a dark room so as to give themselves over more
completely to meditation and to the repetition of Amitabha’s name.
“About a dozen monks had been shut up voluntarily for a certain
number of months or years, during which they were supposed to repeat,
night and day without interruption, the name of Amitabha. During the
daytime they all had to perform this duty; during the night each of them
rested in turn, dividing themselves into groups of watchers in such a way
that the invocation did not cease for an instant until morning. They
could be released for the asking, but only after they had spent several
months in this reclusion. Most of the recluses seem to be young; some of
them come to the bars of their cage to observe strangers; but during this
time they do not cease repeating the Buddha’s name." Lay people often
form associations to adore the Buddha.

E. THE IMMORTALS AND THE QUEEN MOTHER OE THE WEST, HSI-WANG-MU

Such is the fate of men after death. But not all men die. There are some
who, after having practised Taoist doctrine their whole life, manage to
escape death and to obtain eternal life, cITang-slieng. For that there are
various procedures. Some attain it by alchemy, by making the elixir of
long life; others by asceticism, abstaining from cereals or more generally
from cooked food, and by regulating their breathing; some, after having
lived as hermits in the mountains, have seen Immortals bring them the
Peach of Immortality; and so on. Ordinarily, the man who attains this
degree of sanctity leaves his coarse body, which remains like an empty
skin, thus liberating the subtle body which he has made for himself
through his practises and which, endowed with supernatural powers, is
capable of flying, of walking upon clouds, of crossing water and fire, and
so on. He has become an Immortal, hsien. To the vulgar it seems that he
has died, but in reality it is quite otherwise. It is the Abandonment of the
Body, shifi-cliieh: death is necessarily followed by rebirth, but the man
 The Mytlioloffy of Modern China 195

who has performed the Abandonment of the Body continues to live

without having to be reborn. He has left the cycle of transmigrations;
and if for any reason he has to take up a human life on earth again, he
does not on that account reenter the cycle; but, his life finished, he
returns among the Immortals. There are, moreover, signs by which it can
be recognized that the Abandonment of the Body is not common death:
the skin is very light, it does not decay; sometimes indeed, upon opening
the cofhn, one finds no trace of a corpse.
The Immortals go to live on K’un-lun, the mountain in the middle of
the world around which the sun and the moon turn, where the Queen
Mother of the West, Hsi-wang-mu, reigns with her husband. Lord King
of the East, Tung-wang-kung. The first is a very ancient divinity; she was
originally the goddess of epidemics, living to the west of the world and
commanding the demons of pestilence. From the Han period on, she
became the goddess who protects from epidemics and cures them.
Towards the end of the first century B.C. a sort of panic spread
throughout the north of the empire: a terrible epidemic was announced,
from which only those who placed on their doors certain charms of the
Queen Mother of the West would be protected. It was perhaps in
consequence of this affair that the habit was formed of drawing her
image on the top of houses and funerary temples, as was generally done
at the end of the first century A.D. This custom gave birth to her consort,
the Lord King of the East. The latter is indeed no more than a creation
of the urge to symmetry. In w'ell-oriented houses (with the entry to the
south), the ridgebeam of the principal chamber running from East to
West, the image of Hsi-wang-mu all the more naturally occupied the side
corresponding to the region where she dwelt, the West. The fact that this
side was v/// meant that the image of a woman was most appropriate; but
the other end of the beam was left without an image. The East being
yang, it was the picture of a man that was placed there, and thus was
born the person of the Lord King of the East, whose role has remained
quite shadowy.
Long ago Hsi-wang-mu also became the goddess who gives long life. It
seems indeed that she played this role in the Romance of Mu the Son of
Heaven, the most ancient Chinese historical romance (fourth century
B.c.) which has come down to us in part. This character gradually
became more clearly fixed; she became the one who cultivates and
watches over the Peaches of Immortality in the garden of the Lord on
High. Thus, in about the third and fourth centuries A.D., the author of
the Secret Life of the Han Emperor Wn described her; and poets of the
fifth century show both her and her husband feasting the Immortals on
 196 Taoism and Chinese Religion

K’un-lun. Little by little this trait of her character took the lead over the
others, especially from the time when the authors of the Investiture of the
Gods and the Journey to the West took it up again and developed it.
The Queen Mother of the West and the Lord King of the East
maintain the list of Immortals, govern them, reward or punish them in
accordance with their deeds in this new world, which resembles ours
except that there one enjoys a perfect felicity. The gardens of Hsi-wang-
mu are situated on the summit of K’un-lun. There grows the Peach tree
whose fruit confers immortality. There is her nine-storied jade palace
surrounded by a golden wall. The male Immortals live in the right wing,
through which the River of Kingfishers flows, the female Immortals in
the left wing, surrounded by the Lake of Pearls. When they arrive, they
go to greet the Queen of the West, then the Lord of the East, and are
then led off to pay homage to the Three Pures. After that they live in joy
and festivities, removed from pain and death, while carrying out the
various functions of the palace. If they commit grave crimes, they are
excluded for a while. They then descend to be born upon earth until,
their transgression atoned for, they return to resume their rank.
The ancient descriptions of Hsi-wang-mu make her out as a monster
with tiger’s teeth and a panther’s tail, and wearing a crest on her head;
and she excels at roaring. Now of all these traits she has kept only her
headwear. She is ordinarily portrayed as a beautiful young woman in
court costume, with a crest on her head; she is often accompanied by a
peacock, sometimes even seated on the bird. These are, however, rep-
resentations of fantasy. The cult of Hsi-wang-mu has been dead for a
long time, surviving only in folklore, and above all in poetry.
 BOOK III

The Society and Religion

of the Ancient Chinese
and of the Modern Tai
 1

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 L Peasant Life
Studying the geographic distribution of social and cultural forms in the
eastern portion of the Asian continent, one observes that they are
disposed in great parallel zones, in each of which the fundamental
elements are essentially different. These are, from north to south:
(1) Farthest north, the zone of the non-agriculturists, of nomads who
raise animals and wTo, in their various areas and time periods, are called
Huns, Mongols, Tungus, and so on.
(2) Then the vast domain of Chinese civilization, with its dependencies
Annam and Korea, a civilization which is fundamentally agrarian and
sedentary.
(3) Farther south, in the southern provinces of China and the northern
part of Indo-China, from Tibet to the China Sea, a zone of many
differing barbarian tribes, Lolo, Miao, Tai. All, despite differences of
language and culture, have in common the fact that society is based
upon a sedentary agricultural life and a feudal order, each district
constituting a religious unit governed by hereditary lords, and religion
being always a group affair, never that of the individual.
(4) Still farther south, in the mountains, on the edge of the Indo-
Chinese plains, populations scattered in small groups, also agricultural,
but of a language and civilization entirely different from the foregoing
(the languages w'hich they speak belong mainly to the Mon-Khmer
family). Their groupings, basically anarchic, do not go beyond little
villages independent of one another, and among them religion is an
individual or family affair in which the community does not intervene.
(5) Finally, in the Indo-Chinese plains, the states of Hindu civilization:
Burma, Siam, Laos, Cambodia, and so on.

Chapters 1,2, 3, and 4 are the texts for meetings held at the Toyo Bunko in Tokyo on
18-25 April 1929. Chapter 5 is reprinted from the Bulletin de !'Association des Amis dc
rOrient, no. 6, Paris, December 1923.
 200 Taoism and Chinese Religion

This division is not anthropological, nor ethnological, nor linguistic.

The populations grouped within each of these five geographic zones are
not homogeneous from any of these points of view. It is simply a
classification based upon social structure and the fundamental elements
of civilization. Its interest is that, however far back one goes in history,
the same division seems to have existed. It was merely simpler, since in
antiquity the sphere of Chinese civilization was less extensive than today,
and moreover Hindu civilization had not yet made its appearance in
Indo-China.
Between aneient Chinese civilization and that of the Tai, the Lolo, and
the Miao there exist so many points of contact, resemblances so striking
that one is led to envisage the existence, in prehistoric times, of a
common culture for these populations. I shall show you certain typical
traits of this common culture in the eourse of these lectures. But to begin
with I must say that, whatever judgment one may hold regarding these
eomparisons, the basic existence of the common culture is a certainty. It
is proved by the great number of linguistically related words which are
found in Chinese, in Tibetan, in Lolo, in Burmese, in Siamese, and so on.
To cite only one example, the numeration is common in all these
languages. We cannot conclude precisely from this that the languages are
related, but it can show that in prehistoric times these languages, and in
consequence the eivilizations of these diverse peoples, had a profound
influence upon one another. There is perhaps no linguistic apparen-
tation, but there is certainly a eultural one.

Unfortunately I cannot compare Chinese eivilization to that of all the

barbarian tribes of the south: Lolo, Miao, Tai. Most of these are too
poorly known to lend themselves to a precise comparison. I shall limit
myself to several populations belonging to the Tai family, populations
which I have been able to study personally for ten years during my stay
in Indo-China.
The Tai group of peoples is, as you know, the one the Siamese belong
to: on the borders of Yunnan and Burma they are the Shan or, as the
Chinese call them, the P’o-yi; in the territory of French Indo-China they
are the Laotians, as well as small, less numerous groupings which
distinguish themselves by the names Blaek Tai {Tai-lam) and White Tai
{Tai-khao). Shan, Siamese, and Laotians were eonverts to Buddhism; the
Tai of Kwangsi were strongly influenced by the Chinese, and those of
northern Tonkin by Annam. The Black Tai, as well as those of the White
Tai who live south of the Red River in the mountainous massif along the
borders of Tonkin, Laos, and Annam, have been protected from these
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 201

intluences by their remoteness and the very difficult character of their

land. These are the people I am going to describe for you.

They live in little valleys amidst precipitous, forest-covered mountains.

Imagine their villages fenced in by a hedge of spiny bamboos within
which the huts are scattered without any order around the lord’s hut.
These are wooden shanties built on pilings, shared by the families and
domestic animals, the latter below among the pilings, the family above,
separated from the animals by simple bamboo laths. The guest who has
clambered up the ladder leading to this level finds himself in the receiving
hall, opposite the corner reserved for ancestor worship. In the back are
small rooms where the family members crowd together. At the other end
of the house is another large room, the kitchen, with its ladder. Each
house has its little garden, which is both an orchard with bananas, betel
nuts, and fruit trees, and a kitchen garden with beans, cucumbers, and so
on. The immediate surroundings of the village are often cleared of
vegetation; there fruit trees are planted and buffalo are pastured; there
are the rice fields if the terrain lends itself to them; there, usually quite
close to the village, are the sacred places where sacrifices are made to the
various protective divinities.
The Tai cultivate the valley floor and the lower slopes of the moun-
tains, rarely going above 700 to 800 meters; farther up, the mountain is
uninhabited, unless Man (the Chinese call them Yao), Meo (Miao), or
Lolo are settled there. In many areas the terrain does not allow creation
of permanent rice fields; and when some exist they are few and belong to
the chief of the village and to the leading citizens, his relatives. The
inhabitants go into the forest to make clearings, which they call rai or
hcii, depending upon the dialect. There they grow mountain rice, maize,
cotton, all that they need, and live on the harvest, augmented by the
produce of hunting and especially of fishing. After having looked over
the site and laid it out, the family chief and his clan cut down the large
trees and root out the stumps, then towards the end of the dry season
they set the felled timber afire; sowing is carried out in the ashes as soon
as possible after the first rains. After three years, or sometimes four or
five, the soil is exhausted, the crop becomes too scanty, and they have to
go and prepare another rai somewhere else, abandoning the site to the
forest, which quickly invades it again. Sometimes the clearing is close
enough to the village so that the trip can be made morning and evening;
but usually it is far away and, when the work becomes urgent, the whole
family leaves the village and, having built a temporary hut in the
clearing, live there until the end of the harvest. On returning to the
 202 Taoism and Chinese Religion

village, during the bad season, the women weave cloth; the young men
who have nothing to do during this season visit with the young girls who
are working the cotton in the small garden below the house, liaisons
develop during the evenings, and these have their conclusion in the
spring festivals, when in the third or fourth month couples of youths and
girls go out to sing together.

Such is the everyday life of the Tai. Today I should like to show you
how the precise understanding of how these peoples live, a pattern which
differs only slightly from the ways of the Lolo, the Moso, the Miao, and
so on, can, even without comparing precise facts, help us to understand
the life of ancient Chinese peasants.
The great plains of northeastern China, where Chinese civilization
took shape, are today well-cultivated plains where a very dense popu-
lation is crowded, leaving not an inch of arable land unused; the channel
of the Yellow River passes between enormous dikes which in times of
peace the Chinese government watches and maintains carefully; great
commercial cities serve as markets for the peasants. It was not the same
in antiquity, and the picture which we can reconstruct with the aid of
precise data supplied by the Shi/i ching is quite dilferent. Uncultivated
fields, marshy woodlands, copses of elm and chestnut, took up much of
the land, and princes went to hunt small and big game there. Extensive
pasture land fed large herds of domesticated cattle and horses, which
were then bred in considerable numbers. Only small portions of the land
were cultivated, those most conveniently situated, and millet was the
main crop grown though rice was also grown south of the Yellow River,
and sorghum, as well as a little wheat, north of it. The tortuous course of
the Yellow River hampered the creation of systematic irrigation, and
that made it impossible to extend regular tillage, especially rice growing,
which developed in these regions only much later, after dikes and canals
had become more numerous.
In this poor and ill-exploited area the population was small and
scattered; the peasants clumped together in small groupings of twenty-
five families in miserable pounded-earth huts. Of course we do not know
the density of the population in this great plain six or seven hundred
years before the Christian era; but it is possible to get some idea of it
from that of Han times. The census of 2 A.D. (the second year yikm-shih)
shows scarcely thirty inhabitants per square kilometer (that is the
population density of Shensi today), and this was after two centuries of
peace under the Han. The population was obviously far smaller six or
seven centuries earlier: it probably did not exceed fifteen inhabitants per
square kilometer.
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 203

Even though not lost in the marshy bush as the present-day Tai are in
their mountainous bush, the aneient Chinese were eertainly quite
scattered.
What was the life of ancient Chinese peasants like? It differed from
that of the barbarian Tai peasants, which I have just described, in that
from the time w hen most of the odes in the Sftih ching were written, some
six to seven centuries B.C., the Chinese certainly practised regular agricul-
ture in permanent fields. Otherwise the two ways of life are close to one
another at many points, except that the Chinese usually act less individu-
ally and more by constituted groups. The Tai, who make their rai by
families, go to work separately in the forest as soon as the public
ceremonies opening work in the fields for the village are over and,
according to their wish and the circumstances, settle on their rai or
remain in the village. Among the ancient Chinese, however, all move-
ments were religiously controlled.
In the third month, after the first peal of thunder, and when the work
in the fields had been opened through the ritual plowing of the Sacred
Field by the king and the lords, the “fire” had to be “brought out”, ch'n-
huo. That is, after having extinguished the one in the house (the origin of
the Festival of Cold Food, hau-shih), a pure fire was produced by the use
of a drill, kuatt, a pyre of elm and willow wood was lit on an open space,
hiio-chifu which had been prepared in the open air during the previous
month. The people then left the house, che, in the village, //, to go and
live in the huts, ///, in the open fields, “temporary dwellings where spring
and summer are spent, and which are abandoned in autumn and
winter”, according to the definition in the Shuo n e/?.
These huts were common to several families: each group of three
families called itself a “dwelling”, wu, probably because these three
families lived together in the same hut during summer. In the ninth
month, when work in the fields was finished, the harvest was in, and
autumn drew' towards its close, the fire was “taken in”, nci-huo. The
ceremony was the same as that for coming out, though in the opposite
direction. The ceremonial fire for the house was of acacia or maple
wood. The peasants settled in the village for the Harvest Festival and for
the winter, and soon, at the time of the shortest days, they closed
themselves into the houses, chc\ sealing the doors with clay.

At the tenth moon, the cricket

Enters under our beds;
We fill up the chinks, we smoke out the rats.
We close up the windows, we seal up the doors.
Ah! my wife and my children!
 204 Taoism and Chinese Religion

It is because of the year which changes.

Let us enter this house and dwell in it.‘

These fields where the peasants went to work did not belong to them,
for they were not proprietors of the soil. A particular system attrib-
uted to antiquity is described in several ancient works; the Kung-ycmg
chuaiu the Ku-lkmg chiiaiy the Chou li, and especially the Mencius.
Unfortunately all of these date from the fourth or third centuries B.C.,
which is to say a time when this regime was in full decline. Briefly
described, the system involved dividing the fields into squares one // to a
side, the dung. These were in turn divided into nine equal lots of a
hundred mu each, which eight families cultivated in common, each
keeping for its subsistence the produce of one lot, ///,- and handing over
the produce of the ninth lot to the king or the lord. Periodic allotments
were made according to the needs of the population.
Naturally this system affected only the peasant class: lands allocated to
officials as emoluments were hereditary, as Mencius says. The official did
not become a member of a clung: he was (at least for his lifetime) the
holder of his land and, at least at the end of the Chou dynasty, he could
probably sell it. Chinese scholars have not always clearly seen the
differences that existed in antiquity (from this point of view as from
many others) between the various classes in society; and that has
obscured recent discussions on this subject. For the ching system has
been the object of significant discussions in these last years, and the very
existence of that form of organization has been thrown into doubt. Some
scholars, having—a little arbitrarily in my opinion—set aside all the
ancient texts on this question, except for a single passage of Mencius,
which is considered the unique source of all the others, declare that the
description contained in that passage is that of a utopian system rather
than of a real one. Others, starting from an entirely different viewpoint,
insist that, since the extent of the land allotted to a family is five or six
times smaller than that which modern economists consider necessary to
provide for a single man in the most fertile and well-exploited country,
the system could never have worked in reality.
I cannot discuss so complex and important a question in detail here.
Mr. Hashimoto has examined it exhaustively in Toyd gakulio in
1922-1925. It will suffice for me to say that the arguments brought
forward against the reality of this system do not seem to me very
convincing. The contention that the ching lands were inadequate to

1. SC, Kuo feng, xv, i, 5.

2. Cf. the Chinese character ching this shows nine squares—the central square
cultivated for the lord and the eight peripheral squares.
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 205

support their people is meaningless, since on the one hand we know

absolutely nothing about what area measures in ancient China mean,
and on the other hand no comparison is possible between the needs of a
modern Western peasant and those of a Chinese peasant, even a modern
one, and far less those of an ancient one. The philological argument
seems little stronger. To start with, the comparison of related passages
from the Mencius, the Kitng-yaiig chitan, and the Kit-liang chitcin is far
from being so conclusive as some insist; and furthermore the Chou li is
set aside more because of an inveterate Confucian prejudice among
Chinese scholars than for scientific reasons, since this work has never
been subjected to a complete and detailed critical study.
Moreover, the discussion seems somewhat frivolous. Certainly it is not
useless to employ radical criticism upon the rare texts dealing with this
question. But given the poverty of the documents and the ineradicable
prejudice that puts the Chou li off limits, everything rests upon a single
passage of Mencius, which is uncheckable if it really is unique; and, since
this text contains some contradictions, objective discussion is entirely
preempted by the following purely subjective problem. Do you find it
more in conformity with the personal notion you have created of
Mencius’s character that he should have imagined a nonexistent system
out of whole cloth while attributing it to antiquity so as to make it easily
acceptable to the prince of Teng? Or do you rather believe that, speaking
of a highly important question of social politics which he took very much
to heart, Mencius would not have taken pains to inform himself precisely
and would have committed errors in describing a system which actually
existed in his own time but which he didn’t know well? The choice
between these two hypotheses can only be an arbitrary one. Yet it is this
dilemma which, more or less consciously, dominates the whole thinking
of Chinese scholars and which has beclouded the critical senses of the
two parties in this whole discussion. In my opinion, it is impossible to
study the ching system separately, all by itself. What must be studied is
the whole of peasant life in all its complexity and in its historical
development; and the question of the ching is merely one element of
that.^

But the ching system fits so well into this whole complex of peasant life
that it is hard to consider it a writer’s invention.
In the period to which the poems of the Shih ching lead us, the Chinese

3. See Maspero’s articles on land systems re-edited by Paul Demieville in Melanges

posthiones sur les Religions et I'Histoire de la Chine, vol. iii, and Etienne Balazs, La
Bureaucratie Celeste, Gallimard, Bibliotheque des Sciences humaines, pp. 139-95.
 206 Taoism and Chinese Religion

had passed beyond the stage of cultivation by temporarily clearing the

land and they cultivated permanent fields. The epoch of the first clearings
was a thing of the past:

Thick were the thorn-bushes;

But they cleared away the spiky growth.
Why did they do this task of old?
So that we might plant our millet and our panicled millet.
So that our millet might be abundant.
So that our millet might be luxuriant.*^
But this time “of old" was perhaps not so very remote: cultivation
through temporary clearing was still practised commonly enough in
about the eighth century B.C. SO that the authors of the Yi clung gave as
an example of good luck the fact of having gotten a crop of the second
or third year—that is, the full yield of the clearing, without having had
to make the effort of clearing the ground.And several centuries later the
ritual retained a clear trace of the time when only cultivation through
clearing was in use: the winter hunt, slwu, was carried out by burning the
brush, probably because it originally accompanied the fire which cleared
the land. The link between hunting and clearing appears plainly in the
legend of Yii the Great and his cultivation of the lands. The labors of the
various heroes succeed one another:^ Yii makes the w'aters flow, then Yi
burns the brush in the mountain and the marshes, teaching men to hunt
and to eat meat; after him, finally. Sovereign Millet Hou-chi proceeds to
sow grain and teach men agriculture. The order in which the heroes
instructed men, first in hunting, then in agriculture, has been admired;
and the memory of the successive stages which prehistoric Chinese
society went through has been sought in it. But the men of antiquity did
not seek so far. Yi was the Forester, yii, of the emperor Shun: he
“watched over high places and low places, herbs and trees, birds and
four-footed animals".^ In this function the same emperor had made him
responsible for seeing to fire, chang-huo, and he had discharged this task
“by burning the mountains and the marshes, so that the wild animals
took flight and hid”.^
Thus, in the time when that legend was shaped which the scribes of the
middle Chou dynasty transformed into history, the forest was seen only
as a place to burn for clearing and hunting. If fire was thus indissolubly

4. sc, Hskio-ya, vi, v, 1.

5. Yi ching ( YC), hexagram xxv (W’u-wang), second line.
6. Shu ching (ShiiC), Yi chi chapter.
7. Ibid., Shun-t'ien chapter.
8. Mencius (MN), iii, iv, 7.
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 207

linked to the ordering of the world after the great waters, hun^-shui, had
flowed away, this is because fire was the chief element in clearing the
land, the preliminary condition for all agriculture. In prehistoric times,
when the Chinese still carried on only temporary cultivation by clearing
bits of the bush, they had to set fire to “mountain and marsh” before
sowing, as Yi had done in mythological times before Hou-chi. Finally
the custom of carrying the fire out in spring and carrying it back in
winter, and of abandoning the village in summer to live in huts amidst
the fields seems to me the last vestige, consecrated by religious tradition,
of the time when, rather than cultivating the fields around the village, the
peasants had to go far away to clear a bit of bush. The regular and fixed
chiug which the texts of the end of Chou describe to us—not without
normalizing and systematizing it—was the heir of the primitive clearing
and preserved some characteristics of it; communal life and work.

You see how barbarian social facts can make us understand Chinese
realities; they allow us to glimpse a past more remote than that of the
texts and thus to explain certain features which evolution has rendered
unrecognizable in the historical period.

2. Spring Festivals
Among all the peoples of southern China, Tai, Lolo, Moso, Miao, the
return of spring is marked by one or several festivals, the major feature
of which is the absolute license of relations between youths and girls, and
more rarely between married men and women. The ancient Chinese
knew a similar custom, of which the Shih citing has preserved traces. In
both cases this ceremony is intermingled with marriage customs though
without having received a regular and formal place among the rituals.

In the eighth and ninth Black Tai months, that is in about March to
April, when the first rains are about to fall and the work of the fields
about to commence, there takes place the pilgrimage of Tham-le, near
the village of Nghia-16, in Yen-bay province, Tonkin. Here is a spacious
grotto which is the dwelling place of spirits. In ordinary times nobody
goes in for fear of offending the spirits; but during these two months
young men and women go there in groups, on certain fixed days, the fifth
and the tenth, the fifteenth, the twentieth, and the twenty-ninth or the
thirtieth, to sing together. They come from very far away. Children do
not yet go there, nor do married people go any more, but young men and
young women from twelve to fifteen years old go there regularly each
 208 Taoism and Chinese Religion

year until they are married. They usually start out in separate groupings,
young men on one side, young women on the other, dressed in their
finest, laughing and singing all along the road, the groups growing at
each crossroad with new recruits from other villages. Upon reaching the
grotto, the girls go immediately to take their places inside and stand
some distance away from each other, saying nothing. During this time
the young men tight torches and then they in turn enter, and pass and
repass before the girls, lighting them up with the torches so as to see their
faces in the semi-darkness. Those who have been there before usually
seek out their partner of the previous week (or even, at the first meeting,
the previous year's partner); those who are coming for the first time
choose a girl they do not know but consider pretty.
When a young man has found a girl who pleases him, he takes his
place before her and begins to sing. After more or less time, if the girl is
content with him, she leaves him there, still without saying a word, and
goes away, out of the grotto to pick a tropical-almond leaf or some other
large leaf which she brings back to her place. She places it on the ground
and sits upon it. That is her reply: she accepts the young man. If two
young men contend for the same girl, both sing before her, either
together or one after the other, and she chooses between them. The
rejected aspirant goes off to sing elsewhere. Fights are rare, for the spirits
of the grotto would chastize the guilty severely. The young man who is
accepted extinguishes his torch and sits down beside the girl on the leaf;
they link arms and begin singing, interrupting this every now and then to
kiss. Their songs consist of alternating couplets, in which the young man
begins and the girl replies, traditional love songs which are passed on
from generation to generation and are rarely improvised. The following
songs will give an idea of the setting.
A young man asks a girl to let him hold her arm, which means to sing
with her:
I beg you, let me hold you by the arm, my sister, my young sister.
Do not push my hand away. I am ugly, but when I put my hand on
your shoulder, do not push it off. I beg you, let the ginger tree be
planted near the cardamom; I beg you, let the cardamom be planted
beside the ginger tree. I beg you, let me lean against your side for a
moment, before your husband does. I, I am getting close; you, don’t
draw away! Oh, I am coming close! don’t pull away!
The young woman lets him sing this way for a long time. Then, when
she has let him sit down beside her, he begins a series of love songs, to
which she responds with declarations of humility.
I, I say that I am ugly, that I am very ugly; I am like the
latticework with which the Annamites cover the bottom of their
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 209

boats. I am as black as a savage. A face like mine is not worthy of a

lord's son, not at all.
May your beautiful body go and lean against a daughter of lords,
against somebody else.

Or perhaps she fears gossip:

If I give myself, 1 shall have a bad name in the village; if I am
your mistress, I shall have a bad name in the district, O my beloved.

The young man speaks of his love, of his wish to marry her; he will not
let her get away and will know how to find her again and will pursue her
by all means. But she still makes objections:

THE YOUNG MAN

As for me, I shall strive to take you away so that we can live in
one and the same house; I shall seek to take you away, little flower,
so that we can dwell in the same place, one and the same place so
that we can chat together, the same place so that we can exchange
words of affection.
THE GIRL
I rely upon nothing but my destiny and my fate. If my destiny is
opposed to yours, there is no way out; if my fate is opposed to
yours, everything is impossible. When stick is against stick, the more
delicate is broken in the middle; the weaker of us two will be broken
in half.
THE YOUNG MAN
If in dying you become water, I shall die and become a fish. If in
dying you become a rice field, I shall die and become rice. If in dying
you become wine that is sucked in through a tube, I shall die and
become a bamboo tube. If in dying you become indigo, I shall die
and become a napkin to be dyed with it. If in dying you become a
melon, I shall die and become a bamboo branch, a branch of yellow
bamboo to twine around you. If in dying you become a horse, I
shall die and become a saddle. If in dying you become a deer, I shall
die and become a buck; I shall buy the forest to sleep beside you, O
my beloved!
THE GIRL

The blackbird cannot avoid perching; men who have but one life
cannot avoid marrying; fish who live in the blue water of the deep
cannot avoid getting caught in the nets; girls cannot avoid becoming
daughters-in-law. When they have been given in marriage, they
cannot avoid the husband’s house, O my beloved!
 210 Taoism and Chinese Religion

The songs continue thus for a long time, two or three hours, until both
have sung all those they know. But as the time goes by, the tone changes.
The young man becomes more and more eager, and the girl resists less
and less. The couples speak less of the difficulties of future marriage than
of the pleasure of the present moment. They turn more and more
towards obscenity, the interruptions become more frequent, and they
end up by the young people’s coupling.
The processions to Tham-le are made only on twelve days, divided
throughout the Tai eighth and ninth months. But they open up a longer
period of sexual license, w'hich hardly ends until summer, when the work
of the fields recalls the young people and forces them to separate.

The ancient Chinese also knew the spring festivals. It was M. Granet’s
great virtue that he brought to light their importance for interpreting the
verse pieces of the Kuo feng portion in the Shih ching. It is remarkable
that it required a foreigner to take up Chu Hsi's ideas on the interpre-
tation of this first part of the Shih ching and, by developing them
according to the principles of modern sociological method, to give them
a definitive form, after so many Chinese scholars had studied these texts
for so many centuries and provided excellent commentaries upon them.
Granet’s Fetes et Chansons aneiennes de la Chine is the absolutely
indispensable book for any study of the Shih ehing that is not strictly
literary, and also for the study of ancient Chinese society generally. And
its value will be better and better recognized as that initial surprise
caused by the novelty of its interpretation is dissipated with the passage
of time. I shall use this work a great deal in the explanation I shall give
you, which will be based principally on some songs from the Kuo feng.
These songs are unfortunately not, it seems, popular songs themselves,
but at every point they borrow the themes of peasant songs, of which
they thus give us an idea.

The period around the spring equinox was a time of prolonged

festivals for the peasants of ancient China. When the first peal of thunder
announced the imminent return of fine weather, men, leaving the villages
where they had remained closed up during winter, marked the change in
their pattern of life by an immense festival. The king had already opened
the new season by the ehiao sacrifice. But that was a ceremony of
universal significance. Before the most ordinary tasks and actions could
be performed, a series of ceremonies was necessary to open up each of
them particularly. Today I shall leave aside the work in the fields. Spring
was not merely the time when vegetation first appeared. In social life too
it marked the beginning of a new period, in which peasant families,
which had remained separate, each in its house throughout the winter.
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 211

were brought together again by small groups in the communal huts

of summer, and in which marriages, forbidden during winter, were
arranged. The sacrifice to the Go-between Kao-mei opened this matri-
monial period. Social life resumed in all its forms, though each manifes-
tation of this renewal furnished the occasion for a ceremony; and when
everything was entirely reestablished, that fact was announced to the
earth gods, she, in a sacrifice.
It was not enough to reestablish the new social life: winter's impurity
still had to be banished. Life in winter had been one of reclusion, during
which the work of the sacralized earth was forbidden; the life of spring
and summer was to be one in the open air, one of activity and of work in
the fields. At this moment a hostile influence (not evil in itself, but
contrary to the season, pu-shih) had to be driven away. This necessity
was translated into a series of religious acts which the king, as always,
initiated. At the beginning of the third month, the no ceremony was
carried out at the capital by a sorcerer endowed with the faculty of seeing
spirits, ‘d fang-hsiang, who by dancing drove pestilences out of the palace
and out of the city as well. At the same time, sorceresses, u i/, performed
similar dances in the women's apartments, after which the queen and the
princesses went to bathe and to drink the water in a stream which made
a bend and ran towards the East, so that the current would carry away
all the impurities of winter.
Everywhere, in this month, village dwellers carried out similar rites,
unfortunately not well known, like everything dealing with popular
religion in China. Yet the texts do mention some of these festivals. The
Lun yii describes the one in the principality of Lu. It was performed on
the bank of the river Yi, near the clearing for the rain ceremonies: two
troupes, one of mature men and one of youths, danced in the water the
dance of the dragon coming out of the current, and then went to sing on
the clearing; a sacrifice and a banquet ended the day. The Shih chiug
alludes to those of two other principalities. In Cheng, it was at the
confluence of the rivers Ch'in and Wei, at the time of thawing and of the
first rains, that youths and girls performed the ceremony of driving out
evil influences, especially sterility. They went together to pluck orchids,
hut, they called out to him souls to reunite them with p’o souls {chao-lum
hsii-p'o), and carrying orchids in their hands they drove away evil
influences { fit-cli’u pii-hsiang). In Shen, as soon as the work of weaving
had been finished, towards the second month of spring, youths and girls
danced on the Yuan mound to the sound of earthen drums, while they
waved fans of egret plumes.

It is these festivals, and similar festivals celebrated in the same period

in other Chinese principalities, which (as the Shih citing shows) were
 212 Taoism and Chinese Religion

accompanied with dances and songs by young men and women and
which ended up in those rustic sexual unions which the Chinese called by
a particular name, pen. All these opening ceremonies to cast olf winter
prohibitions, which followed each other in a regular sequence, ended, for
the young people of the countryside, in a confused period of complete
license, in which young men and young women visited each other, sang
together and coupled freely in the fields. In places where the ceremony of
purification and the expulsion of evil influences was carried out for each
region, they arrived in groups, dressed in their handsomest attire,
conducted the rites, danced, sang, and drank; there they carried out
trysts, found one another again, and courted. Remember the verses of
the ode, “The white elms of the Eastern Gate”:^

A happy day, at dawn, they go in quest of one another.

Going into the southern plain;
This is not to spin hemp.
It is to dance in the marketplace!
A happy day, at dawn, they will wander about.
All go out in a group.
(THE YOUNG MAN:) “Seeing you I think I see a mallow flower!”
(THE YOUNG WOMAN:) “Give me a bunch of ailanthus!”

They called out and enticed one another; couples formed; they “fro-
licked together”, hsiang-imeh, as one poet says chastely; they “gave
themselves over to debauchery”, yin-yi, and “did the husband-and-wife
act”, hsing-fu-fu shih, as the commentator Cheng Hsiian declares more
crudely; and when they left one another the orchids which they had gone
to pluck together served as a pledge of their union:-

The Ch'in and the Wei

Are overflowing now;
The boys with the girls
Now have valerians in their hands.
(The girls say:) “Have you seen the festival?”
(The boys reply:) “Indeed, we have just left it!
Shall we go and see it again?”
On the other side of the Wei,
There is a spacious and pleasant place.
Here the boys and the girls
Together have their pastimes;
And they give each other fragrant flowers.

1. SC. Kuo feng, xii, ii, 2-3.

2. Ibk/., VII, xxi, 1 -2.
 The Society and Religion oj the Ancient Chinese 213

The Ch'in and the Wei

Swell their clear waters;
The boys and the girls
Crowd together
You see, these spring festivals were, among the ancient Chinese, like
those of the modern Black Tai and White Tai. Nevertheless, we must
immediately note an important difference. Among the Tai, the festival is
carried out by everybody; and the daughters of the noble family, Lo-
kam, go to sing at Tham-le just like the daughters of plebeians. In China,
by contrast, these customs were strictly peasant and did not concern the
aristocracy. In the time of the Shih chiiig, the morality of the nobles
required separation of the sexes from the age of ten on; boys left the
family and went to live in the school outside the village, formerly the
house of initiation for adolescents in the prehistoric period, which the
progress of Chinese civilization had gradually transformed; and girls, for
their part, were shut up in the women’s quarters. And this morality,
becoming over-nice about these ideas of an absolute separation of the
sexes, was bound to come up against such problems as the one solved by
Mencius; whether it was permissible for a man to touch his sister-in-law
who was drowning. It was peasant morality alone which, in this period,
was not opposed to the springtime unions between young men and
young women; aristocratic morality censured them, seeing in them a
manifest proof of the degeneracy of the times and the corruption of the
wise principles of the Sacred Kings of antiquity.

Among the Tai, these spring festivals are often followed by marriages,
if not immediately, at least some years later. Immediate marriage would
be almost impossible, since the girls begin to go to Tham-le at about
fifteen or sixteen years of age and rarely marry before nineteen or twenty;
and moreover, families generally have to work for several years to amass
the money necessary for the ceremony. Similarly, among the ancient
Chinese, several pieces from the Shih ching allude to subsequent mar-
riage of young people. But it does not follow' that these festivals must be
considered as having a matrimonial character, and as a sort of prepara-
tion for marriage.
The Tai marriage ritual today differs only in details from ancient
Chinese marriage. Like the latter, it requires the marriage ceremony
itself, a ceremonial meal of the newly married pair (in ancient China
this meal was reduced to drinking from the same cup), and an entry
ceremony for the new bride into the new family through an announce-
ment and presentation to the ancestors, accompanied by an offering.
Among the Tai, as among the Chinese of antiquity, the preliminaries
 214 Taoism and Chinese Religion

include the obligatory presence of a go-between to verify the correct

observance of the matrimonial prohibitions (rules of exogamy among the
Chinese, similar rules, though a little different and quite complicated,
among the Tai). Without his presence there is no marriage. In neither
culture are the spring festivals considered as preliminaries.
Going farther back than the negotiations over which the go-between
presides, one finds, in ancient China as well as among the Tai, cere-
monies relative to marriages at the beginning of each year. They are
completely different but have exactly the same purpose, which is to do
away with the interdict which prohibits marriages in winter. Moreover,
since that interdict disappeared long ago among the Black Tai and White
Tai, the ceremonies themselves are on the way to extinction and are not
to be found in all villages. Where they do exist, they consist simply in a
symbolic ball game which is performed at the end of the sacrifice to the
Earth God: the priest who officiated at that sacrifice throws the ball three
times to the wife of <he district chief (descendant of or substitute for the
former lord), who serves obligatorily as partner. When the district chief
is not married, the ceremony cannot be carried out. The game consists of
making the ball pass through a circle of paper stretched and hung up on
a pole; if the priest or his partner can pierce the circle by breaking the
paper, the year will be favorable for marriages. After these first ritual
throws, a real game takes place in which young men and young women
divided into two teams throw the ball back and forth. They do not stop
until a well-thrown ball has pierced the paper circle, breaking the
interdict.
Among the ancient Chinese, there was a particular ceremony: the king
sacrificed to the Divine Go-between, Kao-mei, on the day when the
swallows return, the spring equinox. Following this ceremony, the
human go-between, mei-jen, the official in charge of marriages, goes
through the countryside and “orders the men and women to gather”.
Studying the songs of the spring festivals shows that these are in
no way preliminaries for marriage. Young Tai people know very well
that their liaisons will not necessarily be followed by marriage. Here is a
girl’s song:
If you love me, take careful counsel of the hour of my dream! If
the hour of my dream is right, we two can marry one another; if the
time of my dream is unlucky, we must separate, leave one another.
Perhaps they will have quarreled the next year and will be chosen by
other partners, as a young man’s song suggests:
The lover who comes after me, the lover who follows me will per-
haps be better!
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 215

And above all they know very well that they will probably be married
to someone else:
Later, after some years, O young woman, you will love your
husband, you will forget your well-beloved; you will forget your
well-beloved, like a timid wild cock, you will forget your well-
beloved who winks at you.
Sometimes they rely only upon the death of the future husband to save
them:
If I cannot marry you in the time of the hot weather, I shall marry
you in the time of cold; if I cannot marry you while we are still boy
and girl, I shall marry you when we are widowed, O my beloved!
Moreover, the girls are often engaged when they go to sing at Tham-
le, and they can perfectly well sing with other partners than their fiances.
We have loved one another since the time when, quite small, we
played at hitting the pig trough; we have loved one another since the
time when, quite small, we played at carrying broom-stalk baskets.
We cherished one another without being able to belong to each
other; we love one another without belonging to one another. You
already have a husband; I wait, I remain single through love of
you They say you married at fifteen years of age; I saw the man
who brought seven bracelets to buy you. They say that you were
married at twelve; I have seen the casket of excellent betel which was
brought to your house; your family ate it, your family did not return
it.
(The terms, ‘‘have a husband, be married", denote the ceremony of
betrothal which is often done at fifteen years of age, if not at twelve, and
not the wedding, which takes place only at about nineteen or twenty. As
I have said, once women are married, they do not go and sing any more.)
The spring festivals among the Tai have nothing to do with marriage,
nor with betrothal, nor with the preliminaries to marriage, whatever they
are. Wasn’t it the same in ancient China? The author of the preface to
the Shift citing, in about the fourth or third century B.C., knew very well
that the young people who had “had their frolics" together at the
festivals of Cheng did not marry one another, and he deplored it, for
though he was both a scholar and a follower of patrician morality, he
remained sufficiently imbued with plebeian morality to feel that the
“debauchery” consisted more in the later abandon of the young people
than in their coupling itself. “Boys and girls left each other, and
debauchery was rampant; there was no way to make it cease," he says.
 216 Taoism and Chinese Religion

And again: “Boys and girls did not observe the rule of separation, but
went out together into the fields and asked for one another’s favors.”
Once the flower (given as a pledge, of which 1 have spoken above) wilted,
and desire was gone {liua-lo se-shuai: I think this is the meaning of .vc; but
ordinarily this is a specific allusion to a word in the verse piece and one
infers “past beauty”; however, the change does not matter much from
the point of view that concerns me here), they parted and turned their
backs on one another.
The songs themselves show us the laments of girls forsaken:-^
All along the highway,
I take you by the sleeve.
Do not harm me.
Don’t shatter our past!
All along the highway
I take you by the hand.
Do not mistreat me.
Don’t shatter our friendship!
Or again:"^
On the dike there are magpies’ nests;
On the hillside there are delicate peas.
Who deceived my well-beloved?
My heart, alas! is tormented.
Or again, consider the piece from the T’ang J'eng entitled “The
Convolvulus”,^ and many others.
No more in the China of antiquity than among the modern Tai did
these spring festivals in theory have a matrimonial character. At the
same time, they do indeed play a part in peasant weddings. These were
performed in autumn, according to the opinions of all the ancient
commentators.^ The theory of marriage in spring goes no farther back
than Wang Su, that scholar of the third century whose school, if not he
himself, is responsible for the forged chapters of the Shu clung, and
which has in other respects reformed and distorted many ancient rituals.
But from spring on the go-between, niei, had ordered the boys and girls
to get together and, in that epoch, not even the unions in the country-
side, pen, were forbidden. Indeed, the ritual books noted, without daring
to describe, the custom of singing together in the spring and of marrying
3. Ihul., VII, vii, I -2.
4. Ihid., XII, vii, I.
5. Ihicl., X, xi.
6. Granet, Fetes et Chansons aneiennes de la Chine, p. 137.
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 217

only in the autumn. Remember that patrician marriage admitted the

young bride into her husband's family by a sacrifice to the ancestors only
after three months, and that until then the marriage was not definitive
(this is certainly a trace of a prehistoric custom, like that of the present-
day Lolo: the young woman does not come to dwell in her husband’s
house and the marriage is not definitive until she is pregnant). From that
you can get some notion of the actual customs. The young people sang
together in spring, one, two or several years, usually with the same
partners; sometimes they changed partners. When the young woman was
pregnant in autumn, the wedding was celebrated.

If these festivals had no matrimonial character, what should we think

of them? The Tai of today know perfectly well why they perform them.
If the pilgrimage to Tham-le or the analogous festivals in other districts
did not take place, the harvests would not come up again. The Shih ching
similarly allows a link to appear between the Chinese festivals and the
renewal of the year which, if not so clear, is no less certain. The fact that
they accompany the purifications which separate winter from spring
shows this plainly. It is at the moment when the adverse wintry
influences have just been driven out that unions of young men and
women take place. Their open-air unions stimulate the breezes of spring.
Thanks to the kind of impetus they give, the cycle of the new year can
begin again, and the renewal of the soil’s fertility will be assured. In the
same way the ceremony of going before the sun into the suburb, at the
beginning of each season, helps that season to begin a new period in its
normal cycle.
Like all the religious ceremonies of ancient China (and the spring
festivals have a clearly religious character), this one is designed to assist
the regular movement of the world, and especially the progress of the
season which rules over the development of agriculture.

3. Official Religion
The official religion of Tais not converted to Buddhism consists of a
series of ceremonies performed in the name of the lords of each entire
ward by the official priest, tiio-niiiotig, at different moments of the
agricultural year. It would be very easy to compare it to the ancient
Chinese official religion. I shall not do this, however, since in my opinion
it would not be very convincing. Religions in which all the ceremonies
are designed exclusively to accompany the various acts of agrarian life
throughout the year cannot be very different. Festivals opening and
 21H Taoism and Chinese Religion

closing the work of the fields, ceremonies for rain, ceremonies for the
grain to set well, ceremonies against all kinds of destructive animals^—all
such observances must necessarily be found and indeed are found among
the Tai, the Lolo, the Meo, and the ancient Chinese, but also among
many other peoples who have no connection with them, such as the
ancient Greeks. But there is a worship peculiar to them, the presence of
which among all these Asian peoples in noticeably similar forms is a very
curious fact: this is the worship of the divinity which the Chinese call she,
earth god, and the Tai fi-niiiong, god of the feudal land.

At first sight, it may seem that the worship of a terrestrial divinity by

agricultural peoples has nothing peculiar to it: the whole of the Eastern
Mediterranean had the worship of the Earth Mother under various
names, the personification of the fertile energy of the earth that gives
birth to harvests. But the Chinese earth god and the Tai fi-niiiong have
none of this character; neither of these is even a feminine divinity. The
idea of making the earth into a goddess never came to the Tai. In China
it is relatively recent, going back only to the Han period: it was the
emperor Wu who, in 133 B.C., had sacrifices to the Earth Mother entered
into the official ritual by establishing a sanetuary for her at Fen-yin in
Shansi; and three-quarters of a century later, in 31 B.C., the emperor
Ch'eng first raised to her, in the northern suburb of the capital, Ch’ang-
an, a square altar to serve as a counterpart to the round altar con-
secrated to Heaven in the southern suburb. But this was no official
consecration of an ancient worship. The cult which Wu-ti instituted at
Fen-yin and then Ch’eng-ti in the northern suburb had nothing in
common with that of the earth god, which went on as before, with its
accustomed places of worship. The cult of the Earth Mother was one of
numerous personal cults that emperor Wu of the Han adopted or created
under the influence of various sorceress-mediums.
The worship of the earth gods has the characteristic of being an
essentially feudal cult: the functions of these gods are strictly territorial.
They govern and protect a limited territory; they are also hierarchized,
and the hierarchy of the gods corresponds to a hierarchy of human lords.
Edouard Chavannes analyzed their character admirably, so far as an-
cient China is concerned, in an appendix to his work, Le T’ai chan
(1910), entitled Le Dieii du Sol dans la Chine antique.
I need not describe the feudal organization of ancient China for you in
detail: at the apex the King, wang, lord of “all below Heaven” {t’ien-
hsia)\ below him princes {chu-hou), provided with fiefs by the King;
farther below, vassals { fu-yung), likewise owing their fiefs to the King,
but set in subordination to the princes. In theory the princes did not
 The Society and Religion oj the Ancient Chinese 219

confer fiefs. Thus below them were only apanages, administrative wards,
hamlets, and families. Earth gods are found at each of these levels,
from that of the empire down to that of an individual house. That of
the house was the chief of the “Five Gods to whom Sacrifice Is Made”
{w'u-chi), the god of the Drain-catchment {chung-liu). In fact he did not
bear the name of she, but this was indeed an identical divinity of a lower
degree, as a passage from the Chiao-te-hsiug of the Li chi shows; “The
chief of the family presided (over the sacrifices) at the Drain-catchment;
the chief of the State presided (at the sacrifices) to the Earth God.”
Above the family was the hamlet, //, of twenty-five families; each
hamlet had its earth god, she, to which the population sacrificed on a
lucky day in the second and the eighth months of each year. Above the
earth god of the hamlet was that of the principality, kuo-she. Farther
above, for the entire empire, was the Great Earth God, ta-she, or
Communal Earth God, kung-slie. This is not all. The King’s and the
lords’ domains can be defined in two ways. For the King, one may
consider the entire empire, or more precisely the entire world (t’ien-hsia),
or one may consider the royal domain proper (that which the kings of
each dynasty had reserved to themselves as property, excluding fiefs
distributed to vassals) and especially the original family fief prior to their
accession to the throne. Likewise for lords, one can consider either the
entire fief conferred by the King, and more or less enlarged at the
expense of neighbors, or the domain proper, as distinguished from the
vassal i fu-yung) domains or the apanages of relatives or grand officers
(tai-fu). In both cases, it is a question of territories of different extent.
Also in each case there were two different earth gods. “The earth god
which the King established for the entire people was called the Great
Earth God; the earth god which the King established for himself was
called the Royal Earth God. The earth god which a lord established for
his people was called the Earth God of the Principality, the earth god
which the lord established for himself was called the Seignorial Earth
God.”
The royal or princely Earth God was proper to a royal or princely
family: when that family was overthrown, this “deprived” earth god had
to be expelled so as to make place for that of the new family. In order to
do that, he was killed by building a roof over his altar. The new dynasty
did not on that account discontinue offering worship to this dead god,
but they did so according to the rituals of offerings to the dead, among
whom he was henceforth placed. Thus it was that the Chou had at their
court a dead Earth God of the Yin dynasty, who was called the Earth
God of Po after the name of the former Yin capital, and the dukes of
Sung a dead earth god of the Hsia. Little by little, moreover, as time
 220 Taoism and Chinese Religion

passed, this worship look on a symbolic value and a “warning” earth

god {chieh-she) was seen in it, designed to remind kings and princes of
the fate that awaited their dynasty if they “lost Virtue”. Contrary to this
god who lasted only for the term of a single dynasty, the Communal
Earth God never changed, either with the King or with princes. The
Great Earth God was, it is said, Kou-lung, the son of the monstrous
Kung-kung: when his father had struggled against Chuan-hsii and had
tried to prevent that hero from bringing the earth covered with water
under control, the son, who unlike his father had assisted in bringing
everything into order, became Earth God and as such received sacrifices.

An analogue of this double hierarchy, human and divine, all the

degrees of which correspond, is to be found among the Black Tai and
White Tai of Upper Tonkin, among whom, just as among the Shan of
Yunnan and Burma, among the Lolo of Szechuan and Yunnan, and
among the Moso of Li-chiang in Yunnan, society is organized feudally.
Until the end of the eighteenth century the Black Tai country con-
stituted a hereditary principality, the prince {duo) of which was the lord
of the “Basic Seignory” {niiiong-kok), a little seignory in the mountains,
called Miiong Mi'iai. From him the lords of all the other miiong
descended. The first dew, who had come from “beyond the sky” (that is,
from countries situated on earth outside the celestial vault), settled in the
area, having created the miiong and distributed them to their children,
establishing them as hereditary lords. More recent princes were satisfied
to give out villages, sometimes as hereditary fiefs and sometimes as
apanages which had to come back to them, either to themselves if the
title-holder died before them or to their successor upon his accession.
The new prince took back or confirmed his predecessor’s donations. But
the Annamite administration, for a century now, has not ceased from
trying to smash this framework, and today heredity of such domains is in
theory not accepted. At the death or retirement of a village or district
chief, the inhabitants elect his successor, as in all the rest of Tonkin
(unless he has been made chief for life) subject to the approval of the
French administration. But it is in fact always one of his sons or, lacking
a son, one of the nephews or brothers of the deceased who is chosen.
Where does this fidelity, lasting over a century, to a tradition of
hereditary government come from, though unrecognized by the suzerain
administrations? The fact is that, among the Black Tai and White Tai,
only one single family can furnish the lords, miiong chiefs, or below them
simple village chiefs, or even, still lower in the hierarchy, principal
notables of the district or village. This is the Lo-kam family. Likewise
among the Shan of Yiinnan there is one family which is similarly priv-
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 221

ileged, the Deo or Leo family whose members have, since at least the four-
teenth century, adopted the character tiao to designate themselves in their
official relations with the Chinese administration. Among the White Tai
of northern Tonkin and of Kwangsi there seem to be several privileged
families and not just one. The Kuang, the Vi, the Dan, the Nung
exclusively supplied chiefs of districts and villages in Annamitc country
until the nineteenth century, and are still today the families of t’u-ssu in
Chinese territory, whom one finds mentioned already in the Sui slut and
the T'ang shu. It is especially among the Siamese and Laotians that the
organization of a Hindu-style kingdom, under Cambodian influence,
caused the originally divine aristocracy to disappear and replaced it with
a nobility of those descended from the kings of the reigning dynasty. But
even there the name of the ancient ruling class remains (it is pronounced
Lo-kham) to denote a sort of bourgeoisie, the class which comes just
below the new nobility.
The privilege of the Lo-kam family is, among the Black Tai and White
Tai, religious in origin. Each family was created by a particular celestial
god, Po-t'eru who presides over the manufacture of souls before birth
and receives those souls into his heavenly villages after death. But the
Lo-kam family was created by the supreme god, Po-t’en luong or Po-t’en
Lo; and its first ancestor is a son of this supreme god whom he sent to
earth at the beginnings of the world, while the ancestors of the com-
moner families emerged from a colossal gourd. Descended from the
supreme Ten, the members of the Lo-kam family alone are fit to
sacrifice to Heaven. Thus they alone are capable of being lords, of
administering a territory, of being chiefs of district or village.
Just as there is a hierarchy of Black Tai lords, there is a whole
hierarchy of territorial gods. Besides the lord of the Fundamental miiofig,
Tao Miiong-kok, there is the god of the fundamental niitotig, Fi Miiong-
kok, at Miiong Miiai. Still today, although the lords of this miioug have
lost all power over the principalities, the god keeps his prestige and is
considered to be suzerain. Under him, each seignory or district {ntiioug)
has its earth ft-mitong. Farther down, in the villages, there are gods
of the village, /7-/w//. And every seignory has two earth gods, one who is
considered as the god of the principality, that is, the fi-miioug (cor-
responding to the Chinese communal earth god, kitng-shcy established
“for all the people”), the other who is personal to each lord, that is the
lak-siici or lak-mitong (corresponding to the private earth god, ssit-she,
whether royal or princely). And just as in China the former is immutable
and never changes, while the latter is displaced with each dynasty, just so
among the Black Tai ihe fi-mitong too is unchangeable, while the lak-siki
is changed at each prince’s death and replaced by a new one. But no
 222 Taoism and Chinese Religion

worship is rendered to this overthrown and replaced god, so that the

“earth god” of ancient China does not have its equivalent in Tai country.
That is a specifically Chinese artifact, the origin of which was apparently
due to particular historical circumstances, the overthrow of the Yin
dynasty by the Chou, and which spread thereafter, through imitation,
from the Royal Court into the various principalities.
In ancient China, every earth god was originally a tree planted on a
hillock in the middle of a sacred wood (which Mo-tzu calls chon). The
tree changed with the region. According to a lost chapter of the Shu
ching, at the center it was a pine {sung), in the north an acacia {huai), in
the east a thuya (po), in the west a chestnut (//), in the south a catalpa
(tzu). This is why the Lun yii attributes different trees to the three ancient
dynasties: the pine to Hsia; the thuya, which was the tree of the Sung
state, to Yin; and the chestnut to Chou (their first capital, Hao, near
Sian, was in the west). For the earth gods of villages, there was less
uniformity; the tree was sometimes an oak or a white elm {fen),
generally a large, old tree. This tree had originally been the god himself
and, at the end of the Chou and even later under the Han, remained his
dwelling place.
But the official religion gave more and more importance to the altar
upon which the tree was raised, because of its symbolic configuration; it
was square, like the earth; its size diminished with the god’s hierarchic
importance. The Great Earth God who watched over the entire empire
had each side of his altar in a different color—that which, in Chinese
theories, corresponded to each cardinal direction. Those of the prin-
cipalities had theirs entirely in a single color, that of the region where, in
relation to the royal capital, the center of the world, their fief lay. On the
altar was the tree. In front of it, on the north side, the god was
represented by a stone tablet without inscription, thrust into the earth;
this is the tablet that was smeared with blood during sacrifices. Near the
altar was dug a square pit where victims were buried, for victims offered
to the earth had to be buried. Since there were two earth gods, there were
two sacred places. One was that of the Great Earth God—or earth god of
the principality, within the very precincts of the palace where the King or
the lord resided, opposite the temple of the ancestors, t’cii-micur, the
other, that of the private earth god, was outside the city on the southern
side, near the field where the plowing ceremony was carried out every
year.
The Black Tai, who have two earth gods, also have two sacred places;
both are small woods outside the village. The fi-niiiong is a large tree
at the entry to the village which is the district headquarters, in the midst
of a copse where breaking branches is forbidden, though one may pass
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 223

through. The tree is ordinarily a niai-lu (or ntai-du, depending upon the
dialect), a big and beautiful tree of a species unknown to me. If there is
no tree of that kind, any big tree will do. The lak-muony, is simply a
wooden post in another copse. From this come its names of lak-nmong
(“post muong") or of lak-sikt (“post near which the clothing is laid
down"). This latter name alludes to the fact that in all official sacrifices
the tao-miiong (or, in a village, the village chief), whether he is present or
absent, must have one of his garments deposited among the offerings,
failing which the spirits will not descend. The village earth god, fi-haty
has neither a tree nor a grove. It is simply a stone which is set up in a
little hut in the middle of a field; digging the soil all around it is avoided.
Among the Lolo, all earth gods, from those of the lords down to those of
hamlets, are trees in a sacred wood; a stone in the middle serves as a
tablet.

The worship oi IUQ fi-miiong among the Black Tai and White Tai is the
greatest religious festival of the year. It takes place in the first month of
the Tai year (in about July-August) and marks the beginning of that
year. At that time the grains of the new rice begin to take shape. It is a
grand ceremony, to which all the gods of heaven and earth are invited;
during it the territory of the tniiong is forbidden to all strangers for three
days. A buffalo is killed and his head, hooves, and tail, as well as pieces
of the liver and intestines, cooked blood, and so on, are arranged on a
tray together with rice, alcohol, and betel, and placed at the foot of the
god’s altar. The priest of the official cult, mo-muong, who must have
fasted for three days, says a long prayer, after which the animal is
divided among the inhabitants and eaten. The worship of the fi-mikmg
has become preponderant among modern Tai to such a point that the
ceremony is performed in his sacred wood and is considered as con-
secrated to him. But in reality the order in which the gods are
enumerated in the prayers shows that this is a sacrifice in honor of all the
gods to open the year, and that i\\Q fi-niiiong takes his place according to
rank. The heavenly gods are invoked first, the supreme t'en who govern
heaven and earth: Po-t’en Luong (the ancestor of the Lo-kam family);
then the special t’en, each responsible for one family; then those of the
wind, of rain, of thunder, of surveillance over Matrimonial Taboos; the
gods and goddesses of sun, moon, and stars; then the gods of the waters;
and then, only after all these divinities, the fi-ntiiong with his sub-
ordinates, the /z'-Ar//?; and finally the gods of the mountains. All are asked
for a good crop, peace, wealth, and the destruction of harmful insects:
Make the sick cease to moan, may they be cured of fever.
Whatever we undertake, make it succeed. May the fish come
 224 Taoism and Chinese Religion

abundantly in the watery ways; may rice and cotton sprout in all
their plants; may the early rice grow well in the fields.
You have eaten. Destroy all caterpillars with trembling heads;
destroy all green-headed insects. May the stricken caterpillars and
insects return to heaven; may they go straight away and not look
back.
You have eaten. Protect the village honestly. May the beasts in
the forest not stop us, the serpents not bite us, the wasps not sting
us. May ingots of silver remain in our pockets, may silver in bars
not leave our sacks. Make us eat as in our grandfathers’ time, make
us live as in our great-grandfathers’ time.

As can be seen, this is a great festival of official life. If its counterpart

is sought in ancient Chinese official religion, it would probably cor-
respond to the chiao rather than to the she. Just as the chiao addresses
the supreme Chinese god, Hao-t’ieu Shang-ti, but the other gods are
made to take part, each according to his rank, so the festival that is
carried out in the fi-miiong's sacred wood is addressed primarily to Po-
t’en Luong, and all the other divinities are invited there, each in his
hierarchical rank, ending with the earth god and his subordinates. But
the times of the two festivals are quite different. The chiao, whatever its
precise date (a matter over which Chinese ritualists have argued for
centuries), is performed before any other ceremony at the beginning of
the year after winter’s end, so as to mark the beginning of summer. It
prepares the opening of work in the fields, which will be accomplished
presently by the plowing ceremony. The sacrifice to the fi-miiong, by
contrast, is performed at the moment when the grain is just beginning to
set, long after the festival of “going down into the fields” which, with its
ritual of digging the ground in a consecrated field, corresponds to the
Chinese plowing ceremony. When it takes place, all the first great tasks
of cultivation—clearing, plowing, sowing—are finished. And despite
that, even in terms of the date, they have something in common; both are
linked to a calendrical term, the beginning of the year, independently of
agrarian work itself.
Thus we must probably see in the chiao as well as in the sacrifice to the
fi-nuiong the great sacrifice to all the gods which opens the year,
independently of the lifting of interdicts on digging up the earth and of
sexual interdicts, for which there were particular ceremonies. But the
position it occupies within the agricultural year, independent of the
calendrical year, among the Chinese and the Tai, gave it quite a diflerent
character in the two cases. Among the Chinese it became the initial
action in the reopening both of all ordinary work and of the year, and
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 225

took the lead over all special rituals. Among the Tai, on the other hand,
its position in the middle of work already under way, at the moment
when the grain is setting, gave it the prime character of a prayer for the
coming harvest. Thus in the course of time, although among present-day
Tai the festivals of agricultural life (beginning of the work in the fields by
the digging of the soil, and of weddings by the ball game, at the moment
of the spring festivals, and the harvest festival when the crop is taken in)
remain distinct from the festival of opening the calendrical year, in
ancient China the latter has tended to blend in among the festivals at the
beginning of agricultural tasks.

In China the sacrifice to Heaven and to all the gods in the southern
suburb marked the beginning of everything. Offered in the countryside, it
presaged the open-air life which was about to begin, as the sacrifice to
Shang-ti in the Ming-t’ang, or Sacred Temple, had symbolized the
inward life of winter. Then, when the first peal of thunder had announ-
ced the return of the fine season, men (imitating nature) prepared
themselves. Ceremonial purification (physical and moral bathing, and
expulsion of evil influences) after the long reclusion; extinction of the
winter hearth inside the house and the lighting of the summer fire outside
with a pure fire (for the old fire was not to be used in the new year);
sacrifice to the earth god after the first rain (for the earth god is not to be
washed with old water), followed by a meal in which the lords and their
relatives in the chief town of the fief, the peasants in the villages, shared
the sacrificial meats; ceremony of opening the fields by a plowing;
contests of all sorts, ball games, rope games, and so on: all that formed a
long period during which work was interrupted. All of society took part
in the festivals, from the King down to the peasants, but each in a
different fashion according to his rank.
The order in which the ceremonies succeeded one another could not be
regularly fixed, since some of them were tied to a physical event, such as
thunder or rain. Even the modern ritual, despite its tendencies to regulate
the rituals and dates once and for all, could not be arranged into an
immutable order with all the various ceremonies which had been dis-
sociated gradually over time. The day of the earth god is a lucky nut day
in the second month, before or after the equinox; the lustration was
finally set on the third day of the third month, while the ch’ing-niing
festival (together with that of the Cold Food which immediately precedes
it), the last vestige of snuffing out the old fire and relighting the new fire,
was fixed at the hundred-and-fifth day after the winter solstice and thus
found itself, according to the various years, preceding or following all the
others. This shows how artificial this systematic ordering of the new year
 226 Taoism and Chinese Religion

festivals was. In reality it was a matter of dissociation, through the

Chinese tendency to multiply special festivals so as to give them more
luster, of one single festival or one undivided single period of festivals.
Thus we dimly see, in almost prehistoric times, a period when official
religion and popular religion, so different in the China of the Chou, were
a single whole.

4. Mythology
It may seem strange to wish to compare Chinese mythology to Tai
mythology. Indeed, it is often said that ancient Chinese religion con-
tained no mythology, and that everything which seems to resemble
mythology is generally considered by Chinese scholars to be a Taoist
invention and relatively recent. That is an illusion, due to the fact that
Chinese scholars have never known but one single interpretation of the
legendary tales, the euhemeristic method. Under the pretext of re-
discovering the historic nucleus of the legend, they eliminate all the
elements that seem to them improbable and retain only a colorless
residue in which gods and heroes are transformed into holy kings and
monsters into rebel princes or wicked ministers. These are the labored
pedantries which, placed end to end according to an order which various
metaphysical theories, especially that of the Five Elements, imposed
upon the chronology, constitute what is called the history of Chinese
origins. Of history, that has no more than the name. In reality, there are
nothing but legends, sometimes mythological in origin like for example
that of Chuan-hsii or that of Yii the Great; sometimes springing from
the ancestral temples of great families, like the legend of Hou-chi, the
ancestor of the Chou; sometimes emanating from local religious centers,
like the tales concerning the Count of the River, Ho-po; sometimes tales
at least partly scholarly in origin, elaborated to explain a ritual; some-
times simple stories borrowed from folklore, such as the legend of Shun.
All these phantoms which clutter the beginnings of Chinese history
should fade away. Rather than insisting upon the search for a non-
existent historical basis under the legendary form, we must rather seek
out the mythological substratum or popular tale under the pseudohistor-
ical account.
Ancient Chinese mythology was as important and as varied as that of
most other ancient religions. Here I can sketch no more than a few
features, referring you for more details to an article which I published in
1924 in the Journal asiatique, under the title Legendes mythologiques dans
le Chou-king (Shu clung). My subject will be the general representation
 The Society and Religion oj the Ancient Chinese 227

of the world and of legends coneerning the organization of the earth in

the beginnings, since 1 have found Tai legends corresponding to them.

The fashion in which the Chinese imagined the world was made is a
subject which is hardly touched upon in the works of antiquity preserved
to us. Nevertheless, by bringing together passages extracted from various
authors, we can get an adequately precise idea of it. To them the world
was like a sort of cart, with the square earth making up the bottom, ta-
r/V, and the round heaven the canopy, kaid That is why they say that
‘‘the earth bears” and “heaven covers over”.- Between bottom and
canopy, there are not full walls but merely pillars standing at the four
corners of the earth which hold the sky up and separate it from the earth,
preventing it from falling. Originally these pillars were equal and heaven
and earth were parallel, but after the northwest pillar, mount Pu-chou,
was shaken by the monster Kung-kung, heaven and earth fell towards
each other on that side. Since then, heaven slants towards the northwest
and the earth towards the southeast, the polar star is no longer in the
middle of heaven, and the stars “flow” (7///) from east to west in the skies,
while on earth the rivers how from west to east.
Heaven is formed of nine superposed levels, chiu-ch’img, which are
also called the Nine Heavens, chiu-t’ien. Each is separated from the next
by a gate guarded by tigers and panthers and commanded by one of the
Gatekeepers of the Lord, ti-hutr, at the lowest level it is the gate Ch’etng-
ho, the boundary of the celestial and of the earthly worlds, through
which they communicate with one another. Through this gate the west
wind descends upon earth, and through it one can enter heaven and
begin to ascend to the Celestial Palace, Tzu-wei-kimg. That is situated on
the highest level, in the Great Bear, Pei-tou. There lives the Lord on
High, Shang-ti, the supreme god who governs both the earthly world and
the heavenly. In the latter, he is particularly the sovereign of the dead
whose souls dwell in his domain, each in its hierarchic place. This palace
is guarded by the Celestial Wolf, T’ien-lang (the star Sirius):
A wolf with piercing eyes comes and goes very calmly, he tosses men
into the air and plays with them like a ball; he throws them into a
deep abyss, obeying the orders of the Lord, and then he can sleep.
Under heaven “flow” the sun, the moon, the stars, gliding with the
slope towards the northwest, and likewise the Celestial River, T'ien-ho,
or Celestial Han, T’ien-haiu or Han of the Clouds, Yitn-han (the Milky

1. Tu-yen-fu. attributed to Sung Yii.

2. Chung yung, xxxi, 4; Legge, p. 429.
 228 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Way), through which the waters of the heavenly world pass to join those
of the terrestrial world in the Great Abyss, forever separating the
Weaving Maiden, chili-nii, from her husband, the Cowherd, c/Tien-niu. In
the heavenly canopy there runs a fissure, Lieli-cITiielu through which the
lightning flashes. It is also pierced by two gates through which the
celestial influx can go down to mix with the earthly influx: the Gate of
Cold, Han-nien, to the north, and the Gate of Heat, Shu-nietu in the
south.
Below heaven stretches the earth. Originally they were linked by a
road, but this was destroyed by Ch’ung-li. In the middle of the earth are
the Nine Provinces of China, chiu-clwu, surrounded by barbarian
regions, beyond which extend the Four Seas, ssu-hai; these communicate
with each other and form a belt of water like the River-Ocean of the
Greeks, around the inhabited world. Farther away are the lands peopled
by gods and fantastic creatures: the mother of the suns, the mother of the
moons, the gods of the wind; the Count of the Water, Shui-po, with the
body of a tiger, eight men’s heads, and ten tails; the wives of the Master
of the Rain, Yu-shih\ the Queen Mother of the West, Hsi-wang-mu, the
goddess of epidemics; and many other gods, goddesses, heroes, and
monsters of all kinds. There are also strange peoples: Giants, lung-po, a
hundred feet tall; Pygmies, C/iiao-yao, scarcely a foot and a half tall;
Holes-through-the-Chest, Kuan-hsiimg, and so on.
Still farther yet (“since the earth is square and heaven is round, the
four corners of the earth are not covered by heaven”, says a little work
attributed to Tseng-tzu), there stretch lands which the sun never lights.
In the southwest corner is the land of Ku-mang, where cold, heat, day,
and night are not separated and where the ever-sleeping inhabitants
awaken only once in fifty days. In the northwest corner is the land of the
Nine Yin, chin-yin, which heaven does not shelter and the sun never
lights. In the middle stands a god with a serpent’s body and a man’s
head, the Dragon of the Torch, Chu-lung, whose body is more than a
thousand // long. He neither eats, nor sleeps, nor breathes; the wind and
rain block his throat; when he opens his eyes it is day in the land of the
Nine Yin; when he closes them it is night; when he breathes it is windy;
when he breathes out it is winter; when he breathes in it is summer. In
the opposite corner, to the southwest, yawns the Great Abyss, ta-ho, a
bottomless gulf in which the waters of the terrestrial world and those of
the Celestial River (the Milky Way) cast themselves without its increas-
ing or decreasing. Beyond is the void; “Below, there is the deep gulf and
there is no earth; above, there is immense space, and there is no sky.”
Between heaven and earth revolves the sun. In the morning, in the
 The Society ami Religion of the Ancient Chinese 229

east, his mother Hsi-ho bathes him in the lake Hsien-ch’ih, which is also
called the Sweet Gulf, Kan-yikin: he appears then in the Luminous
Valley, Yang-ku, climbs into the branches of the tree Fu-sang or K’ung-
sang; then he traverses the heaven and descends again in the west on
Mount Yen-tzu, where king Mu, according to the romance, Mu-t’icn-tzu
cluuttu went to gaze upon the spectacle of his setting, and finally he
disappears in the valley Hsi-liii. Near there is found the tree Jo, whose
flowers are the stars and light up the night. We find traces of this solar
legend in one of the classic books, the Shu chiiig: Hsi-ho, mother and
coachman of the sun, appears in her proper place, in the portion of the
old Yao-tien which makes up the modern Shim-tiety but the rather
naive euhemerism of the ancient scribes divided her into different
personages, the brothers Hsi and Ho; and the valleys of Yang-ku and
Liu-ku are the places where these brothers, turned into officials
responsible for the sun, “respectfully receive” the sun at his rising and
setting.
The counterpart of this description which I have just given you is
found among the White Tai. The world is composed of three levels:
heaven on top, earth in the middle, the country of the Dwarfs below.
Each of these levels is flat. Heaven is flat just as earth is: it is like a great
horizontal circular white stone slab, with a rim forming a slightly raised
vertical footing, the Foot of Heaven, which rests upon mountains, at
least two of which are known, at the east and the west, in the places
where the sun rises and sets. Its upper face is the domain of the Lords
T’en, Pit t’en, who govern the souls of the dead. On its lower face the
stars, the sun, and the moon revolve from east to w'est. From north to
south runs the Pig, Lung, who in his goings and comings has made a road
which is visible from down here, the Road of the Pig, the Milky Way.
The stars are little golden balls which the Star Girl, On nang duo, covers
with a big veil every morning and uncovers every evening. The sun and
the moon are great golden spheres which young boys and girls, the Lords
of the Sun, Pu Ngen, and the Ladies of the Moon, Nang Biion, roll
before them like big balls. The sun spends the night on earth and rises to
heaven each morning by way of the Eastern Mountain, the Golden Peak
of the End of the Waters, Pa kani la natn. He climbs the outer side of the
mountain, the side opposite wTere men live, so that he is not seen until
he reaches the top of the mountain, which conceals him during his
ascent; there he finds a gate pierced in the Foot of Heaven, the Gate of
Light of the Golden Peak Summit, through which he passes into the sky:
this is his rising. He crosses the sky from east to west by a special road;
in the evening he arrives at another mountain, the Mountain Where the
 230 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Sky Finishes, by which he descends; that is his setting. At night he

returns from west to east by rolling on the earth, outside of heaven on
the southern side.
The moon follows very much the same course, but with its own special
gates. The Ladies of the Moon must not only roll it, but must also
swaddle and unswaddle it according to the day, with a strip of cloth
which they roll up one turn each day from the sixth to the first of each
month and unroll from the first to the fifteenth. Since the routes of sun
and moon are close, when the moon makes her trip at the beginning of
each month the Lords of the Sun see the Ladies of the Moon; they
exchange songs and seek to meet again. If they succeed, they leave their
balls for a moment and frolic together; and the young ladies hang veils
and clouds around them so that they shall not be seen: hence the eclipses
of the sun. Eclipses of the moon are far more dangerous. In heaven there
is an enormous frog, the Frog Who Eats the Moon. Ordinarily the Lord
of the Han Pool keeps it chained up at the bottom of his pool, but when
this god sleeps the frog sometimes manages to break his chain and
escape. It pursues the moon and swallows it. The Ladies of the Moon run
immediately to awaken the Lord of the Han Pool, and to help them
young women on earth hit the rice mortar with the pestle as soon as the
eclipse begins. At this noise the sleeping god awakens, captures the frog,
makes him give up the moon, and chains him up again.
The Golden Peak of the End of the Waters, through which the sun
climbs to heaven in the morning, is situated at the eastern extremity of
the world, in the Eastern Sea. The waters of the sea flow eastward into a
grotto at the foot of the mountain, going in through a square opening
and going out at the summit through a round opening. That water is the
source of the heavenly river, Nam Te-tao, which is not the Milky Way.
At the grotto entry stands Lord Si-su of the End of the Waters, who,
assisted by giant birds and crabs, prevents the trees which drift along
with the current from penetrating into the grotto and blocking the entry.
He also watches over Darkness within the grotto; every evening, he
opens the Door of Celestial Obscurity, Darkness spreads across the
earth, and it is night.
As you have seen, the sun spent the night outside heaven. The lands
outside heaven are unknown to the White Tai of Phu-qui. But the Black
Tai of Nghia-16 know them very well. It is from "earth outside heaven"
that the lords Suong and Ngiin, ancestors of the noble clan Lo-kam, and
first princes of Miiong-muai, came at the beginning of the world. "In
those days, the lords Tao Suong and Tao Ngiin ate the miiong of Um,
the miiong of Ai outside of heaven. Lord Tao Ngiin then organized the
miiong of the Great Lo which is below' the sky." In that region "outside
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 23J

heaven” are found the villages where one kind of the various souls of the
dead dwell.
In the world thus made, a direct communication between heaven and
earth existed at the beginning; unfortunately this communication was
soon broken. Here is the legend as it is told among the Black Tai of
Nghai-16, at the beginning of the ritual prayer which is read at the
funeral ceremonies for any dead person who belonged to the noble Lo-
kam clan:
I remember that at the time when the earth and the plants were
created, when heaven was created like a mushroom cap, when the
seven mountains of rock were created, when the watery gulfs and
springs were created, when the three masses of crags were created,
when the seven water currents were created, when the mouths of the
rivers Te and Tao were created—at that time heaven was narrow
and very low, heaven was flat. When rice was husked, heaven
interfered with the pestles; when silk was spun, heaven interfered
with the spindle; the cattle walking along were hindered by heaven
which touched their humps, the pigs walking along were hindered
by heaven which touched their backs. In that time, the rice grains
were as big as gourds; the beanstalks had to be sundered with axes.
In that time, the ripened grain came into the village all by itself; if
one were lazy, it came into the house all by itself.
In that time, there was a widow who had no grain loft, who had
no bamboo mat. The rice grains came fluttering to perch on her
ears, to perch on her eyes. Then she got angry; then she took the rice
grains and went to find a knife to cut them up, to chop up the rice
grains; then she drove the rice out to the dry rice field, saying: “Wait
until you are reaped!” She drove the rice out to the damp rice field,
saying: “Wait until somebody comes to harvest you, until somebody
comes to take you and carry you off to the village; and if they be too
long coming to get you, don’t come into the house by yoursellT’
Then the widow took a little knife; with her knife she cut the link to
heaven; with the little knife she severed the link to heaven. The link
to heaven cut, heaven rose to the firmament; it became the sky that
fills our sight.
The White Tai of Phu-qui thus describe this communication in the
prayer to the Heavenly Ladies:
In the beginning, earth was as small as a pepper plant leaf; heaven
was like a little shell; the track of a buffalo’s hooves was like a
chicken’s track. In that time there were trees, and they had no
leaves; there were hearts, and they knew not how to love; there w^ere
 232 Taoism and Chinese Religion

boys, and they knew not how to court girls; there were swords, and
killing was not known; there were knives, and cutting was not
known; there were axes, and hewing down was unknown; there were
prayers, and nobody knew how to recite them. One went heaven-
ward to make requests of the Lord; one went to seek rice by
climbing to the heavenly world to ask it of Father Pukam. The
Heavenly Father then ordered Tak-ten to come down and bring rice
plants. He descended from that side, he descended to give orders to
the Tai of the land, he planted ten thousand plants
After this the heavenly Lord, so as not to be annoyed any more by the
constant demands of men climbing up to heaven, had communication
cut off. They say also that men, disturbed by the nearness of heaven,
asked that it rise up, and so it took its present position.

The ancient Chinese have a similar legend. Indeed, the Lii-lising

chapter of the Shu clung contains this sentence:
The August Lord ordered Ch’ung-li to sever communication
between earth and heaven so as to end the descents (of the gods).
From the Chou period on, Chinese scholars have sought a symbolic
interpretation of this passage, and the Kuo vz'C contains a long discourse
of Kuan Yi-fu to king Chao of Ch’u (r., 514-488) explaining that, in
primitive times, the people left the care of worship, and in consequence
of communication with the spirits, to the officials responsible for this
function. But in the time of Shao-hao, morals being corrupted, the
people began to invoke the spirits and make them come down at any old
time, so that relations between men and the gods were in disorder. This
is what Chuan-hsii brought to an end by giving Ch’ung and Li their
responsibilities.
This interpretation is ingenious in its rather naive euhemerism. We are
here in full mythology; the text itself shows that. The Chinese are
uncertain whether the August Lord (Huang-ti) is Chuan-hsii, Yao or
Shun; but this passage is quite clear, leaving no room for doubt. It is
enough to read the preceding lines to see that this is not a matter of any
earthly emperor, but of the Lord on High, who is specifically mentioned;
The multitudes who suffered from oppression announced their
innocence on high. The Lord on High examined the people: there
was no efficacious perfume rising, but the stench of punishments
being emitted. The August Lord took pity on the innocent multitude

3. Ch 'll yii, ch. 18, \a.

 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 233

who were being assassinated Then he ordered Ch’ung-li to break

off communication between earth and heaven.
As in the Tai legend, the grand outlines of the Chinese legend were
that in the beginning heaven and earth were connected together, so that
the gods could descend to earth. Later, since the gods took advantage of
this to come down and oppress men (among the Tai, by contrast, it is
men who misuse it so as to make demands of the gods), the Lord on
High ordered Ch’ung-li to break off this communication.

A third legend relates to bringing the earth under control at the

beginning of the world. The first of my lectures indicated how long and
painful this process had been, carried out amidst unnumbered difficulties
which the configuration of terrain imposed upon the men clearing it.
Dikes had to be raised against hoods, canals dug to drain the marshes
and dry them out. All these labors were so ancient that the memory of
them had been long lost in the mist of legends, and they were attributed
to the heroes of high antiquity who had come down from heaven at the
beginnings of the world so as to put the earth into a fit condition to be
inhabited by men. And each region of China had given a particular turn
to the legend, according to the peculiar factors of local topography,
religion and society.
In the north of the great plain, the struggle took on epic aspects and
the gods took their part in it. The basic idea was that a monster, master
of the earth, Ch’ih-yu, opposed the celestial hero but was finally
conquered. “Ch’ih-yu emerged from the river Hsiang; he had eight
fingers, eight toes, and a shaggy head; he climbed the Nine Mires to
knock down the Hung-sang,'" said the Kuei-tsang, a fourth century B.C.
work, lost today, which was considered to be the Yin dynasty recension
of the Yi citing, probably because it came from the land of Sung where
the descendants of that dynasty reigned. He drove the Yellow Emperor,
Huang-ti, to the Cho-lu plain, where the Emperor fought him with an
army of grey bears, black bears, panthers, tigers, and other wild beasts.
Later, the Yellow Emperor sent the winged dragon Ying-lung against
him. Ying-lung gathered the waters against Ch’ih-yu, whom the Count
of the Wind, Feng-po, and the Master of the Rain, Yu-shih, helped. It
was then that the world was flooded.
Then, says the Kuei-tsang, the Yellow Emperor sent the heavenly
princess Pa down to stop the rain; the rain ceased (Pa is in fact the
goddess of droughC). (The winged dragon) pursued Ch’ih-yu and

4. SC\ Hsiao-va, m, iv, 5.

 234 Taoism and Chinese Religion

killed him in the plain of Chi-chou. The goddess Pa could not go

back up to heaven; wherever she stood there was no rain, and the
plants and animals died. The Ancestor of Agriculture, T’ien-tsu,
prince Chiin, informed the Yellow Emperor of this, and he trans-
ported Pa to the north of the Red River, Ch’ih-shui (which in the
north separates the inhabited world from the desert). Then the
Yellow Emperor planted the hundred varieties of grains, herbs, and
trees, and Prince Chiin, the Ancestor of Agriculture, taught men to
work the fields.

Farther south, in the eastern plain, between T’ai-hang shan, T’ai-shan,

and the sea, the legend is almost identical, at least in its general outlines;
but the names and details are different.
The earth was the domain of Kung-kung, a monster whom the Kuei-
tscuig describes as having the body of a serpent, with a man's face,
vermilion hair, and horns. The Master of Fire, Chu-yung, “with a beast’s
body and a man’s face”, was first sent against him, but without success.
Then Chuan-hsli strove against him and defeated him. Kung-kung fled,
and in his rage he threw himself upon mount Pu-chou, the northwest
column of heaven and butted it with his horns, in an effort to knock it
down:

The pillar of heaven was broken, the link with earth was severed,
the sky tilted towards the northwest; and the sun, the moon, the
stars were displaced (from east to west); earth leaned towards the
southeast, the rivers overflowing everywhere, and the earth was
flooded.
A son of Kung-kung, Kou-lung, did not struggle against Chuan-hsii;
rather, he prepared his lands, the domain he had received from his
father, for agriculture and as a reward he was granted sacrifices; he
became Sovereign Earth, Hou-t’u, Great Earth God, Ta-slu\ of the
whole empire.
Between the domains of these two legends, north of T’ai-shan in the
region of the river Chi, the legend still presents the same form of violent
struggle, although the text which has preserved it for us, the Lieh-tzu,
attaches less importance to that struggle itself;
In very ancient times, the four cardinal directions were out of
place, the Nine Provinces were open, heaven did not cover (the
earth) entirely, the earth did not support (heaven) entirely; fire
burned always without being extinguished, water flowed always
without stopping; beasts ate the peaceful people, birds of prey took
 The Society and Religion oj the Ancient Chinese 235

away the aged and infants.* Then Nii-kua smelted the five-colored
stones to finish off the blue sky. She cut off the paws of a tortoise to
establish the cardinal directions, she killed the black dragon to save
the land of Chi, she heaped up reed ashes to stop the waters which
had overflowed And in that time all was quiet, all was perfectly
calm.
And according to the Feng-su t'wig, it was only then that, all being in
order, “Nii-kua turned over the yellow earth and made men from it.”
Contrary to these legends of the Chinese plains, in the western region
with its narrow valleys, confined defiles, steep high mountains, the legend
presents quite a different plot. In place of Nii-kua diking the river and
the Yellow Emperor sending the goddess of drought, it is by piercing the
mountains that the hero, Yii the Great, had made the waters flow.
“In antiquity. Lung-men not yet having been pierced, Lii-liang not yet
having been dug, the river waters passed above Meng-men.” And in
those times, says the Shu-ching,^ “The vast waters assailed heaven;
immense, they encircled the mountains, they overspread the hills.” Kun
was directed to put things in order on earth. A sparrow hawk and a
tortoise taught him to make dikes, but the water rose with the dikes.
Then he stole the living earths of the Lord on High which grow by
themselves, so as to restrain the vast waters. In his anger the Lord on
High ordered the Minister of Justice, Chu-yung, to kill Kun. He put Kun
to death on mount Yii; the corpse remained exposed for three days
without decomposing, then it was opened by a blow of a saber, n z/, and
Yii came out of it. Kun w'as transformed into a yellow fish, nai, and cast
himself into the Yellow River.
The Lord then made Yu responsible for putting the earth in order and
establishing the Nine Provinces. Yu defeated the clouds and rain on the
Mountain of Clouds and Rain. As for the waters, he did not try to dike
them in, but sought to make them flow away. This was a lengthy task,
during which he turned into a bear. TTi-shan’s daughter, who had
married him, saw him in this form one day and was so frightened that
she w'as turned into a stone. She was supposed to bring him his food
each day when he struck a drum; once, he knocked down some crags,
which fell with the noise of a drum; she ran there and, seeing a bear, fled.
Yii pursued her; she ran until she was exhausted and then fell and was
changed into a stone. She was then pregnant with Ch'i: the stone
continued to grow and at the end of nine months Yii, opening it with the
blow of a sword, drew' out his son Ch’i. Yii’s works ended in the piercing
5. ShuC, Yi-chi\ tr. Lcgge, p. 77.
 236 Taoism and Chinese Religion

of a breach in the mountains of Lung-men, opening the defile of Meng-

men, through which the waters flowed away. Then Po-yi, the forester and
as such responsible for Fire, taught men hunting by means of fire set in
the brush. Finally Sovereign Millet, Hou-chi, taught men to sow grain in
the earth cleared by the fire.
The legend of Yii was the most famous of the western Chinese legends,
but it was not the only one. The Tso-chuan (first year of Chao) tells us
the legend from Shansi, on the river Fen; its hero is T’ai-t’ai:

In other times Chin-t’ien had a descendant named Mei, who was

Master of the Flsiian-ming-shih Water. He begot Yiin-ke and T’ai-
t’ai. T’ai-t’ai was fit to follow after his father in that task: he made
the Fen and the Tao flow regularly, he diked the great marsh, and
he made T’ai-yiian habitable.

All these Chinese legends, despite differences in plot, are built upon the
same theme. If they are summarized, omitting the incidental features, it
can be proved that their apparent diversity is basically reduced to local
adaptations of the same theme. This is: the world being covered with
water, the Lord on High sends a hero to put it in order. The hero con-
fronts such obstacles that he fails. The Lord then sends a second hero
who, after prodigious exploits, succeeds in making the earth habitable.
Then this same hero, or others who have come to help him, teach men
agriculture.
But upon this same theme is constructed a legend which is found in
almost the same form among all the Tai of Indo-China. Here is the
version which I have noted among the White Tai of Phu-qui:

Once upon a time, in this world down here, there was water, there
was earth, but there was nobody to put them in order. Heaven said
to the Lord I-t’u and the Lady I-t’iiong: “Water, go down and drink
it. Earth, go down and put it in order!” And they went down; they
went to cut down the trees of the forest so that a clearing might be
made and men might have something to eat. At the moment when
the rice was mature, birds and rats came from everywhere and ate
everything. When the birds had eaten, they went and perched in a
very large banyan. The lord I-t’u took an axe to cut down the tree,
but however he cut it, he could not bring it down; however he hit it,
it did not fall; whatever the time was, he could not eat. At the end of
a hundred years he returned to heaven. Heaven saw him come and
said to him: “Why have you come back so quickly?” He replied:
“Truly, to remain down there is impossible; after a hundred years I
come back to make a report to heaven!” Heaven said: “If the water
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 237

in the world below were abandoned, there would be nobody to

drink it; if the earth were abandoned, there would be nobody to put
it in order!”
Heaven then sends a seeond hero, who also remains a hundred years
but who is obliged to come back for the same reason; his account is
exactly the same as the first hero's. Then he appeals to a third hero, Pu-
yii, and his wife Na-mii, and he sends them:

“Hey, there! Pu-yii and Na-mu! Go down and drink the water, go
down and put the earth in order! When you have put it in order, you
will dwell in it till the end of all generations.”
The lord Pu-yii took from heaven a silver axe, a golden axe, and
went down to cut down the tree. He cut for nine years and nine
months and the banyan fell; he struck for nine years and nine
months and the tree collapsed. When the banyan had fallen, the
birds and the rats no longer had a place of refuge; the birds flew
away in all directions and returned to heaven. The Lord Pu-yii
immediately returned to heaven. Heaven saw him coming up and
asked: “Why are you coming back so soon?” He extended his hands
in greeting and said: “Heaven ordered me to go down and clear
the world below'. I made fields, I made rice fields. Now the rain
comes and I have no cattle to prepare the fields for sowing; the
thunder peals and I have no buffalo to make rice fields. I pray you,
let the cattle come down to plow the fields for sowing, let the buffalo
come down to plow the rice fields!” Heaven said: “Horse, your
hooves are small, you cannot trample the rice fields under foot; your
limbs are small, you cannot tread down the mire. Horse, you shall
bear the saddle so that officials can promenade on your back!
Buffalo, your skin is thick, go down and bear the yoke! Pigs and
dogs, go down into the world below, so that when they are sick men
may make sacrifices! Chickens, go down to mark the time and sing
at sunrise!” Then lord Pu-yii, leading the buffalo and the horses,
went down below. Halfway there, the cattle and buffalo saw that the
grass was good; they ran into the mountains to eat the grass.
Irritated, the lord climbed back up to heaven: “See here, the cattle
and buffalo have run away! All the animals have run into the moun-
tain to eat the grass!” Heaven said: “I shall give you the tiger, who
will go down into the mountain to drive the buffalo out!” Then the
tiger went down into the mountain to drive out the cattle and the
buffalo and all the animals. And they came back to the village, and
they entered lord Pu-yii's house. When the period of land-clearings
came, the lord carried out clearings. What he produced to eat was
 238 Taoism and Chinese Religion

excellent, and what he produced to wear was also fitting. He loved

the water which he had regulated, he loved the land which he had
created. He did not return to heaven. He took on the appearance of
a huge tree so that the people might adore him. When the end of the
year came, the Tai people came together and sacrificed to him.
He had indeed become the earth god for the district, ihe fi-niiiong.
You see that the theme is very much the same as in the Chinese
legends. The ditferences between the Tai legends and their Chinese
parallels are of just the same kind as those among the Chinese legends
themselves. Like them, they show us the local adaptation, under the
influence of local geographic and social conditions, of a common theme,
one which we find also among the Lolo. This is the legend of the begin-
nings, of men setting the world in order at the beginning of the world.
But in China, when in Chou times they began to transpose mythology
into history, each of these legends was taken separately, and a distinct
historical tale was made out of each variant of the common original.
Fortunately this factitious work was not sufficient to cloak entirely the
primary, purely mythological meaning of these legends.

I hope that I have shown, by the facts which I have described, in this
as well as in the preceding lectures, that the comparison of modern Tai
society and religion with the society and religion of ancient China can
aid in the understanding of both. Yet I should have done badly the job
that I set for myself if I had made you believe that in my opinion ancient
Chinese society, religion, and mythology can and should be explained
through those of the modern Tai. It goes without saying that so
simplistic an idea is far from my meaning.
I told you at the beginning that an absolutely scientific work should
include comparisons of the ancient Chinese, not only with the modern
Tai, but with all the southern peoples, Lolo, Moso, and so on. Unfor-
tunately, these peoples are very poorly known. Even for the Tai I have
had to rely almost exclusively on my personal observations. But the
study of the Tai was for many reasons one of the easiest. To start with,
they form compact groups in French territory, and consequently I did
not encounter with them the material difficulties that the study of the
Lolo or Moso in Chinese territory would present. Furthermore, the
dialects are quite close to one another, and passage from one to another
of them is easy. Primers exist in French for several of these languages. In
addition, the tribal peoples having been subjected for more than a
century to Annamite domination, many of them speak Annamite, which
facilitates the study of their language. Finally, each group has its writing,
the knowledge of which is widespread; and written texts can be obtained.
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 239

However, despite these favorable circumstances, it took me ten years or

so to gather enough texts of prayers, legends, and so on to give me a
reasonably exact idea of three local Tai groupings; and many lacunae
remain. The study of the other, less accessible peoples and their customs
and beliefs will be a much lengthier process.
Should we avoid comparisons which leap to the eye? That would be
absurd. To be sure, systematic comparison with the totality of the
peoples would be more valuable. But, as the French proverb says, “The
best is the enemy of the good”. Since comparison with all the peoples is
impossible for the moment, comparison with one people alone is better
than no comparison at all. In seeking to pass beyond the simple veri-
fication of what the Chinese of the third or second century B.C. thought
of their ceremonies and to grasp the deep significance of religious
actualities, the worst method would be to explain beliefs and rituals
which we prove to have been common to numerous populations related,
if not by race and language, at least by culture (and among whom the
Chinese make up only one grouping among several), and to base this
explanation solely upon a more or less ingenious interpretation of
relatively late Chinese texts. Comparison is therefore imperative in
China, as elsewhere. We must only guard against explaining some by the
others, whether the Chinese by the Tai or the Lolo, or the Tai or Lolo by
the Chinese, as though the one had preserved intact and in its original
form what the others alone had transformed. It is necessary to remember
constantly that we have in reality, among the ancient Chinese and among
the present-day Tai, two different forms which have been taken, after a
long separate evolution, by a similar ritual, by a similar belief, by a
similar social actuality, by a similar legend, perhaps even by rites, beliefs,
social facts, legends which are analogous even though they have been
differentiated ever since the time of their origin.

5. Funeral Customs
Among the Blaek Tai of Upper Tonkin
The Black Tai are a small Tonkinese grouping of the Thai, the most
numerous of the tribal peoples of southern China and the northern Indo-
Chinese peninsula. The Thai domain extends east-west in a large band
on each side of the southern border of China from the Gulf of Bengal
(which the now-extinct tribe of the Ahom, the westernmost of the Thai,
almost reached, in the Brahmaputra basin) as far east as the Gulf of
Tonkin and Hainan Island. The Black Tai live in the region lying
between the Red River, the Black River, and Song Ma, on the borders of
 240 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Laos, Tonkin, and Annam. Il is very mountainous and rather poor

eountry, except in a few basins where the plains are well irrigated and
cultivated as rice fields: those of Miiong Lo (in Annamite Nghia-16) near
the Red River, of Miiong Theng (in Annamite Dien-bien phu) on the
Laotian frontier, and so on.
In that area they live in considerable villages with houses always built
on pilings. They are governed by their hereditary lords, or at least lords
from the same family, the Lo-kam. Owing to the dilTculties of communi-
cation, these tribes have kept their own religion and customs, which have
been supplanted by Buddhism among the Shan of Burma and of Yiin-
nan, among the Siamese and among the Laotians, and have been strong-
ly influenced by Chinese ideas (either directly or through the inter-
mediacy of the Annamese) among the populations of Kwangsi and
among the White Tai of northern Tonkin. The Black Tai have not been
settled in the valley of Nghia-16 very long. They came as conquerors
about a century and a half ago, to a country peopled until then by White
Tai. Without driving these away, they established their own villages,
keeping their language, their customs, their religious festivals, their
political organization; and the two populations still live today side by
side without any confusion of identity, though mixing occurs through
numerous marriages.
Like almost all Far Easterners, the Black Tai of Nghia-16 have ideas
regarding the souls of the living and the dead which are quite different
from Western ideas. For them, the living man has not one soul, but a
great number of them. A sorcerer whom I questioned enumerated eighty-
one of them for me, and he added that he was not sure he had included
them all; another enumerated some thirty. Some of these souls are
localised and control a limb, a joint, a portion of the body; there are “the
souls of the eyes, small, which see clearly”, and the soul of the nose, “at
the place where the air enters and leaves”, and again “the soul of the
mouth which can speak”; there are souls of the feet, of the hands, and so
on. Others command, not a real portion of the body, but an affection, a
quality, “the soul that works in the garden near the house and makes rice
fields” and “the soul which watches over the whole body”.
These souls do not hold onto the living body very tightly; a surprise, a
fright, a sneeze is enough to make some of them fall away, and this loss
generally manifests itself in a fit of fever. Or perhaps an offended divin-
ity avenges himself by capturing a soul and thus produces an illness.
Whatever the origin of the ailment, the sorcerer must always be brought
if a cure is to be effected. This is an individual possessed by a particular
spirit, by virtue of which he is capable of making some of his own
souls leave his body and reenter it; it is they who, with the sorcerer's
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 241

familiar spirit, seek out the soul which the sick person has lost and who
promise the offended god propitiatory offerings which will bring about
the cure. In thus sending his souls far off, the sorcerer risks great
dangers: if they are lost and do not come back, he dies or goes mad.
Thus he takes great care to call them back at the end of his prayer;
O my souls! in coming down again from heaven into the world
here below, take no wicked ways! Go by no evil paths! If the road is
in a bad way, O my souls, come down very carefully! My souls, do
not stop in strange villages. My souls, do not disperse in the midst
of space! If you remain in the heavenly world, you will go mad! If
you stay in heaven, you will become stupid! If you remain in the
world on high, you will become idiots! Come down into the lower
world, O my souls, come back home!
At death, all the souls are separated from one another and form four
groups which go to live in separate places as four distinct individuals.
The soul of the top of the head, together with the soul of the hands,
remains in the house. These are the fi-haty the spirits of the house, who
remain there constantly to protect their descendants. The soul that
watches over the whole body and the soul of the bones dwell in the tomb
with the corpse, living there under the orders of the village god, fi-ban.
Finally, the soul that works in the rice fields, the soul of the heart and the
head, those of the feet, those of the eyes, and so on, go very far away.
Some go up to heaven, into the celestial villages, others stop halfway and
dwell in villages on the borders of heaven and earth, where heaven and
earth touch one another.

The Black Tai indeed still imagine the world in a childish way. It is
made up of three superposed stages: below is the world of dwarfs; in the
middle is the terrestrial world; and above is the heavenly world. Heaven
is like a great ceiling made of blue stones; on all sides it is held up by a
slightly elevated vertical foot, the Foot of Heaven, which rests directly
upon the high mountains at the end of the earth, in the places where the
sun rises and sets. The Foot of Heaven is pierced by a number of doors
designed to give passage to the souls of the dead, the sorcerers who—
accompanied by their fi-niot—go up to heaven to ask the cure of the
ailing, and also the sun, the moon, the winds, and so on.
The sun, after having spent the night on earth, ascends to heaven in
the east by climbing the outer side of the Golden Peak of the End of the
Waters, outside the heavenly ceiling. It is a golden ball which young
men, the Lords of the Sun, Pu Ngen, roll before them up to the summit
of the mountain; they pass it through the door of the Summit of the
 242 Taoism and Chinese Relif^ion

Golden Peak, pierced in the Foot of Heaven; and for human beings this
is the sunrise. A road under heaven leads them westward in the evening,
to the Mountain where Heaven Ends. There they hnd another door in
the P’oot of Heaven, and through that they push the sun outside heaven
and send it back to earth; that is sunset. Then all night they go, rolling
the sun from west to east outside of heaven (that is why men do not see
it) on the southern side.
The moon follows almost the same track in the heavens, pushed by
young women, the Ladies of the Moon, Nang Biion; but on earth they
bring it back by the northern side. The Ladies of the Moon, moreover,
have more work than the Lords of the Sun. It is in fact they who swaddle
and unswaddle the Moon all month long with a long strip of cloth,
rolling it up one turn each day from the sixteenth on and unrolling it one
turn from the first to the fifteenth, which produces the phases of the
moon. They must also defend it against the Frog Who Eats the Moon.
This monster causes eclipses by taking advantage of the fact that the
Lord of the Hah Pool, Pu Nong Hah, is asleep. The Frog then escapes
from the pool where he is kept tied up by a golden chain, and swallows
the moon in one mouthful. The Ladies of the Moon must then run in
search of the Lord of the Hah Pool: only he can make the monster vomit
it up. To help them wake him up, girls on earth strike their rice mortars
with their pestles.
Between heaven and earth flows a river which leads the earthly waters
to heaven.' The waters of the sea, flowing eastward to the Golden Peak
of the End of the Waters, penetrate the base of the mountain and come
out again at its summit, and they become the source of the heavenly
river. At the entry to the grotto which is dug in the foot of the mountain,
stands Lord Si-su of the End of the Waters, who, assisted by giant birds
and crabs, prevents trees and animal corpses from passing by.“ He also
watches over darkness; every evening he opens the Door of Heavenly
Darkness and sends it out to spread night over the earth. At the same
time the Star Girl, On-nang-dao, removes the veil which conceals the
stars by day, uncovering them, to cover them up again at dawn.

The heavenly world, which extends above the hrmament’s ceiling of

blue stones, is the domain of the gods, spirits, and souls of the dead. It is
governed by Father T’en the Great, Po-t'en Luong, the supreme chief of

1. Among the White Tai of the same region and even among the Black Tai of
neighboring areas, the river is the Milky Way. It is not the same among the Black Tai of
Nghia-16.
2. The Black Tai, who live far from the sea, envisage this on the broadest scale as a river
in their area carrying the corpses of drowned buffalo and trunks of trees torn up from its
banks in its high waters: Lord Ssu-su is in charge of taking them out.
 The Sociciy and Religion of the Aneienl Chinese 243

gods and men, who holds his court there and who has under his orders
less important celestial divinities, the Po-t’en. Each human family'^ was
created by a Po-t’en and, after death, those souls from that family who
rise to heaven dwell in this god's villages, while those who do not go to
heaven stay behind in villages still situated on earth but outside of
heaven, at the foot of the mountains on which the Foot of Heaven is set.

Existence in this world of the dead is absolutely identical to earthly

existence. The souls live in houses, work their rice fields, raise their
livestock as they do down here; they live there and they die there. Life
there is merely somewhat longer than in this world, lasting several
centuries. At the end of this time the soul dies in heaven, he is given a
funeral, he is consumed by hre, and a tomb is raised to him, exactly as is
done for corpses on earth. Dead on earth, the souls went to heaven; dead
in heaven, they return to earth; but after this heavenly death, as after
earthly death, their association comes to an end. Each of the separate
little souls resumes its individuality: they become caterpillars and then,
when the caterpillars themselves die, their souls are transformed into a
sort of moss which grows in moist places. In this state they remember
having been men; they pine for that time and are jealous of the living:
that is why they produce a dampness that makes them slippery, so that
whoever walks on them and crushes them underfoot falls down.
This is the fate of ordinary men. But equality does not exist, even after
death, in the aristocratic society of the Black Tai, and those who have
the good fortune to belong to the noble Lo-kam family are far luckier.
Their souls will live in a village apart with Po-t’en Luong, the chief of the
gods. There they no longer have to work; the rice grows by itself in the
rice fields and comes by itself into the granaries; the fish come out of the
river by themselves and go into the cooking pot. Thus these souls need
do nothing but indulge in perpetual feasts and revels. They do not die.
This is because the Lo-kam are not men like the others: they did not, like
commoners, come out of the colossal gourd which grew' on earth at the
beginning of the world; their ancestor had not been created by one of the
Po-t’en; they were the descendants of one of Po-t’en Luong’s own sons,
who was sent down here from the villages situated “outside of heaven”
to govern men.
The road which leads from earth to the land of the dead is difficult,

3. This refers to the great religious clans which have a common name, common taboos,
and so on; their ritual number seems to have been seven. The most important is the noble
clan of the Lo-kam; after them come the plebeian clans of the Kuang, the Hun-vi, and so
on. The Po-t'en arc generally designated by the name of the clan they preside over: there is
the Po-t'en Kuang, the Po-t'en Vi; and the supreme chief, l^o-t'en Luong, is thus sometimes
called Po-t'en Lo, from the name of the Lo-kam family.
 244 Taoism and Chinese Religion

and souls do not know it. Thus they need a guide for the route. This is a
sorcerer who shows each soul what it must do, and the place where it
must remain. As he recites the long prayer “to accompany the spirits of
the dead”, his souls lead those of the dead person, traveling the long
passage, showing its dangerous points, and teaching the dead person all
that he must do. For example, approaching the tomb he says:
There is your grave, your tomb. Let the soul of the head pass! Let
the soul of the extremities remain!

Arriving at the village which is at the foot of heaven he likewise says:

You have arrived among the shades of Chiiong-kop, eaters of
offerings, among the shades of Chiiong-kop, eaters of sacrifices. Let
the soul of the head pass! Let the soul of the extremities remain!
Chew a quid of betel and pass on!

He tells them also what they must do at every significant point of the
trip. Halfway to heaven a very large river is encountered, and the
sorcerer informs the dead person how he must rent a boat:
Here you are at the river Ta-Khun, the waves of which break, the
river Ta Khai, whose billows swirl. You have arrived at the dwelling
of Lord Khun Chiiong and of Lady Ziiong-nam. Take the money
concealed in the neck of your robe and rent a large boat from him
to pass over, a big boat to row. Bad boats transport stinking spi/its;
old boats transport the spirits of the dead. Take one of them to pass
over by rowing to the other bank.

Farther on, there is a crossroads where it is difficult to choose:

There are thirty roads behind you; nine hundred thousand roads
converge; the roads that lead to heaven are thirty thousand in
number.
And the sorcerer explains at length the wrong roads that must not be
taken.

It is understandable that for so complicated a voyage a good guide is

necessary. Therefore the choice of a sorcerer is one of the most serious
discussions within a family before a death.
When a man is dying, his relatives around him make a final effort,
during the last moments of agony, to persuade his soul to remain, and
they cry out over and over again:
O, so-and-so! do not die! return to life!
 The Society and Religion oj the Ancient Chinese 245

And they continue to call even after he has taken his last breath in the
hope that the soul, which is still nearby, will come back into the body it
has just left.
Immediately after death, the body is dressed in new clothes and a little
piece of money is attached to his neck, while he is told:
A ten-cent piece is concealed in the neck of your garment, for the
moment when you will have to rent a boat, to rent a raft!
This is a reference to Ta Khai's ferry, of which I have just spoken.
Then he is wrapped in a shroud and put into the coffin, while he is told:
I have found a coffin for you! Go into the coffin!
And while he is laid in the bier, everyone calls his own souls back, for
fear that they may be closed up with those of the dead:
O my souls! come home!
That done, the eldest son offers a meal to the dead person, and all the
time that the coffin remains in the house, at every meal, the eldest son
will offer a part of the meal to the dead.

Generally, the funeral ceremony begins on the day after death and
lasts two days: one day for cremation, since the corpse is incinerated, and
one day for the burial of the ashes.
In the morning, the sorcerer comes to recite the long prayer “for
guiding the souls of the dead”. Throughout the reading, in order to
defend himself against the dangers he runs during the voyage (for his
souls accompany those of the dead person to guide them all the way), he
holds a sword in each hand, one with the point down, thrust into the
floor of the house, the other leaning point up across his shoulder. Then
the coffin is taken down from the house, not through the door but by
demolishing a section of the wall: if the dead man passed through the
door, he could find his house again and would return to torment his
relatives. He is disoriented by being made to go this way, since if he
subsequently returns, the wall will be rebuilt at the point by which he
emerged. After death the soul is not very intelligent; it will not know how
to find the door.
Thus taken down, the coffin is borne slowly in procession to the incin-
eration area. In front walks the sorcerer, holding at the end of a pole the
lint with which to light the pyre; behind him come the drums; then the
coffin, followed by the family in mourning, hair disheveled, and clad in
white, and all the people of the village. Everybody cries, howls, and
makes the most noise possible. When they arrive at the place of incinera-
 246 Taoism and Chinese Religion

tion, they find a pit already dug and a great funeral pyre set up above it.
The coffin is placed on the pyre, and the sorcerer lights the fire: wood,
coffin and corpse burn together, and the ashes fall together into the pit.
When all is consumed, the sorcerer extinguishes the fire by throwing
water on it, then he goes down into the pit first and there gathers up
several bones. After him the eldest son, then the members of the family
descend, each in turn, to gather several bones. These are placed in a jar
which the son carries back to the house. Arriving, he makes an offering
to them. Then begins a great repast in which all the village takes part,
lasting the whole night.
On the following day the tomb is finally constructed. A new procession
is formed in the same order as on the day before, to carry the ashes to
the place where the incineration took place: the sorcerer walks in front,
followed by the eldest son, who bears the funerary jar, and all the family.
A little hole has been dug beforehand beside the big pit of the previous
day; the funerary jar is deposited in it, then the family and all the people
of the village raise above it a little tumulus of pounded earth, about a
foot high. They make a wall of little posts around this, then on top of it
they construct a small house out of bamboo and straw, designed to shel-
ter the souls who remain with the corpse. This is a Black Tai house in
miniature, on little pilings, with small balconies front and back and a
straw' roof covering the whole thing, with a little staircase on the sunset
side, a door and a window. But no hearth is made in it, since the dead
person does not have to cook his food: he lives from the offerings made
to him. The whole thing is about seven feet high from the bottom of the
tumulus to the roof peak, over six feet long and five feet wide.
Th is little house for the soul is furnished exactly as for a living person.
The dead man’s bed is prepared, with a mattress, a quilt, a pillow. Near
the window are hung the dead man’s hat and his shoes if he had any; by
the bedside are placed his pipe, his tobacco box and a little tobacco, and
even, if he was an opium smoker, his opium pipe and lamp. A little
rattan chair will let him sit down, and near it is a tray, with plates, bowls,
cups, and chopsticks for eating. Before being placed in the dead man’s
house, the objects are almost all broken, the quilt and mattress cut with
knives, the stool smashed to pieces: all of them must be dead; if whole,
they would belong to the world of the living and would be of no use to
him. Yet this idea is not carried to an extreme, and the tableware is
generally left intact.

When he has thus been provided with the needs of those souls that
remain with the corpse, those that go up to heaven are provided for and
equipped for their journey. Outside the house, within the pile fence, on
 The Society and Religion of the Ancient Chinese 247

the side where the dead man’s feet were at the time of cremation, a
wooden column six to eight feet high is erected. On this column is placed
an open parasol, then to right and left two slanting shafts, one carrying
at its end a large strip of white and red cloth and the other a little winged
wooden horse, “the horse-bird of the column”. Below the parasol is a
little packet of rice as food for the horse. Finally, five little wooden
crossbars are driven into the column, equidistant from each other. The
souls, in leaving the house, climb the column by the little crossbars,
which serve them as a stairway. Then taking the parasol to shelter them
during the long voyage, they mount the horse and ascend to heaven. The
strip of red and white cloth which they must also carry is a present they
oti'er to the god of the dead. Father T’en, probably to purchase the right
to live in one of his houses in his heavenly domains.
When everything is finished, before leaving, the son releases two little
chickens, as big as a hst, into the outer compound of the funerary house.
These are given to the dead man so that he can raise them. In reality,
they are designed to let the descendants recognize the power of death in
the other world. If his soul is powerful, it will know how to protect its
chicks, which will remain alive within the compound where they are
enclosed. If the soul is weak, it will be able to do nothing for them, and
they will be consumed by wild beasts or will die of hunger. The des-
cendants thus know what degree of protection they themselves may
expect from their deceased ancestor, and that has a practical interest for
the offerings they make to him.
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 BOOK IV

How Was Buddhism

Introduced into China?
 '■-I 'Ot'il

' ’.ii- iV ) i.'iv. S '), A.' ‘iA,

The introduction of Buddhism into China has long been one of the
enigmas of religious history in the Far East. How could a religion so far
removed from the normal tendencies of the Chinese spirit penetrate,
plant itself, develop, and even for a moment come near to triumphing
over the others? We have begun only lately to fathom the way in which
these extraordinary things were accomplished; and that way is in itself
almost as astonishing as what occurred. It is this story that I shall try to
set forth for you.

In China, Buddhism is a foreign religion which arrived in about the

first century A.D., brought by missionaries from India and Central Asia.
It was already several centuries old and had spread through many coun-
tries by the time it reached the Yellow River plain; and although it had
not acquired any dogmatic rigidity in the course of its travels (it was
never rigid in any time or any place), it had necessarily lost some of its
original malleability.

You know what the fundamental ideas of Buddhism are. They rest
upon the Four Noble Truths, the realization of which marked the peak
of the Buddha’s Illumination, and which are (to use the terms of the
Sacred Books) “suffering, the origin of suffering, the extinction of
suffering, and the way to the extinction of suffering”. Existence, begin-
ning w'ith birth, continuing through illness and old age, ending wdth
death, to begin again in a new life which w'ill be like the preceding one, is
suffering and sorrow'. The origin of it is in the illusion of the Me, which
leads to the desire to continue existing, to the “thirst” to live (to use the
pow'erful Buddhist expression). Such being the origin of suffering, it will

Text of a meeting held on 7 February 1940 at the Institiit beige des Hautes Etudes
chinoises, prepared for publication by Paul Demicville.
 252 Taoism and Chinese Religion

end when the desire to live is suppressed, for “he who does away with
this miserable thirst for living, will see the sorrows fall away from him as
drops of water fall from a lotus flower”. To obtain this annihilation there
is but a single way, the Noble Way preached by the Buddha, which leads
to salvation: one must have correct beliefs, among which the main ones
are the recognition that all is sorrow and that the Me is nonexistent; one
must have correct behavior, conforming to the five moral prohibitions,
the chief of which are to avoid killing living things and to suppress
desire; one must have correct meditations, and so on.
In this way one “enters the current” which in four stages will lead to
liberation from the necessity of rebirth after death, will bring about
release from the wheel of transmigration, and will lead on to the uncon-
ditioned existence which is designated by the name Nirvana.
Out of this fundamental doctrine were formed, even in India, two
great religious currents which are called by their Indian names, the
Lesser Vehicle and the Greater Vehicle. Both preach salvation by the
teachings of the Buddha, but in quite different fashions. In the Lesser
Vehicle the faithful seek salvation for themselves. The Greater Vehicle
declares that one must go farther, that the salvation of the Lesser Vehicle
is itself no more than a stage and that all men must some day not only
obtain their own salvation, but also save all living things by attaining the
condition of Buddha.
These two forms of Buddhism entered into China early; and, at the
beginning, the first supplied especially practises of meditation and
themes of practical morality, while the second supplied metaphysical
theses which first astonished and then enchanted the Chinese, not much
indulged on this score by their own philosophers. The fundamental thesis
of the Greater Vehicle, as it was spread in China, was that every man is
right now actually in the condition of the perfectly accomplished
Buddha, a condition which he had no need to attain since he had
never left it; but he does not know this and through his ignorance he
creates for himself the evil conditions of the sensible world, pure illusion
which the knowledge of the Buddha dispels. In order to destroy this
phantasmagoria of the phenomenal world and be saved, it will suffice to
realise that Buddha condition (1) as the Loins of the Good Law preaches
it, by having complete faith, even for only a moment, in the Buddha’s
saying which affirms that things are thus, or (2) by meditation as the
Dhyana school postulates, or (3) by other procedures. He who can attain
this will pass, little by little, degree by degree, through the Domains of
Meditation of the Bodhisattvas and will begin to be capable of saving
living creatures, until he delivers them all and becomes Buddha in his
turn in one of the innumerable worlds of Buddha which fill the universe.
 How was Buddhism Introduced into China? 253

Such were the principal notions which the missionaries had to implant
in the minds of their listeners to convert them. How ready were the
Chinese for complicated ideas?
At the moment when the first missionaries arrived, China was passing
through a period of peace—relative peace, of course, as was always the
case in this land that was too large and too poorly endowed with com-
munications. An attempt at usurpation, followed by the terrible revolt of
the Red Eyebrows in the first years of our era, had ravaged the western
part; but tranquility had returned, under energetic emperors who had
reestablished the shaken dynasty, and the damages had been repaired
quickly enough. The missionaries thus initially found a well organized
country, in which the regularity of administration tended to facilitate
their work; but this advantage was not to last long.
From the religious point of view, they came at the wrong moment, or
rather they arrived a bit late. Several centuries before, in the period of
the Warring Kingdoms, the Chinese world had gone through a powerful
religious crisis when the agrarian religion of antiquity, which had been
involved in the ruin of ancient society, had to be replaced. Patterned
after that society to the point of being hardly more than its transposition
onto the religious plane, this religion of ancient China was concerned
only with socially constituted groups. Well calculated in all its arrange-
ments, it was supposed to give peace and well-being to the seignorial
territories and to their inhabitants. But the individual had no role at all
in this and had no way at all to approach the gods directly, since they
were not made for him, but for the totality of the social group to which
he belonged.
The ancient religion had been swept away at the moment when the
transformation of ancient society rendered it peculiarly vulnerable.
Everything combined against it. The ritualistic scholars who could have
been favorable to it had become accustomed to explaining its rituals
through considerations which left no place for personal gods and tended
to replace these with impersonal and unconscious forces, to which they
attributed the regular progress of the world. This doctrine tending
towards atheism had emerged from a syncretism in which ancient
philosophical systems of diverse origins were intermingled: the system of
the Five Elements, that of the Three Powers, and that of the yin and
yang, which the scholars of the third century B.C. had blended more or
less felicitously. In this composite system, which was to become officially
the doctrine of the Literati under the Han and which is fundamentally
what we call Confucianism, the world is not controlled by personal gods
but by a hierarchy of forces. Creation is not the work, accomplished
once and for all, of a single creator; it is the continuing product of
 254 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Heaven and Earth. Heaven, which produces and covers. Earth, which
nourishes and supports, are the two highest Powers; and Man, the first of
produced beings, comes just after them, almost in the same rank, as the
third Power. These are the Three Powers which control the progress of
the world. Heavenly creation is performed in two constantly alternating
phases, a time of repose called yin, a time of activity called yang. Yin and
yang never coexist, they succeed one another indefinitely, and their
alternation governs everything. For example, in the calendar, yin
Autumn-Winter is succeeded by yang Spring-Summer. But they do not
act directly; they use the intermediacy of the series of Five Elements
(Wood, Fire, Metal, Water, Earth), which succeed one another in an
unending round, or rather in two inverted rounds, by either mutually
begetting or destroying one another. For example, in the calendar.
Spring, which is Wood, is succeeded by Summer, which is Fire, and so
on; in Man the Five Elements are the viscera; in the moral world they are
the Five Virtues; and so on. Everything functions mechanically, reg-
ularly, without a hitch, without the intervention of any personal
divinity. And all will be perfect if Man, the only one of the Three
Powers—and of all the forces which control the universe—to be per-
sonal and conscious does not sometimes throw disorder into it by the
divagations of his conscious individuality. As long as he acts well, the
well governed world progresses well, physically, socially, morally; but if
he acts badly, his evil actions react upon the material world, bringing
disorder to the round of the Five Elements, producing unseasonable
excesses of yin and yang and disturbing the normal creative activity of
Heaven and Earth, so that in the end everything goes very badly. Hence
the necessity to reform Man, to cause him to behave well; hence the
importance of the Classics, which teach the correct doctrine.
Unfortunately Man, as the scholars conceived of him, was not each
man in particular, each person taken individually. He was a collective
being, the People, symbolized by the Sovereign, his ministers, his ofliicers.
And the good that resulted from all the effort to act well was the
collective good of the People, without any regard for persons, who
remained strangers to the scholars’ doctrine, except insofar as they could
someday be given responsibility for a segment of authority and thus
become representatives of Man. Thus this doctrine conveyed nothing to
those minds which strove towards a personal religion in which personal
relationships with the gods would be the highest priority, in which there
would be solace for every man’s anxieties before the problems of justice
and destiny, which had begun to be posed and remained unanswered. All
those left unsatisfied by the Doctrine of the Literati, Confucianism, were
accustomed to seek comfort in Taoism.
 How was Buddhism Introduced into China? 255

Taoism was indeed a religion of salvation. The purpose it had in view

was the individual salvation of the faithful. But that salvation was
conceived not as a spiritual immortality after death, but as a material
immortality of the body. This idea of corporal immortality was Taoism’s
misfortune, because that led to its being encumbered with innumerable
practises of medicine, hygiene, and nutrition, all of them designed to
make the body last and all of them irksome, expensive, often painful,
and little suited to worldly life. The Taoists were led into this difficulty
because the ideas of their time did not show them any spiritual entity in
man capable of continuing his personality after death. Man has no fewer
than ten souls, three rational souls {hun) and seven vegetative souls ip’o),
which are separated after death into two groups, one of which goes to
the hells while the other remains with the corpse in the tomb. It was not
they that gave life to a man; it was the vital Breath {ch’i) entering his
body at birth. Neither was it they that gave personality to a man: it was
the Spirit {shen). But this Spirit, which might have played the role of a
soul, was purely temporary; it was formed at the moment of birth
through the union of the vital Breath, coming from without, with the
Essence (ching) closed up within each being, and it disappeared at death
when its components separated. In order to keep the unity of personality,
one had to preserve the body, the dwelling of the souls and the Spirit,
and to prevent the separation of Breath and Essence.
This was achieved by two series of practises, some psychological ones
for “Nourishing the Body” {yang-hsing) or “Nourishing the Vital
Principle” { yang-hsing), others spiritual ones for “Nourishing the Spirit”
{yang-shcn). Nourishing the Vital Principle consists in suppressing the
causes of death and creating in oneself the immortal body which will
replace the mortal body. The causes of death are especially the Breath of
Grains and the Breath of Bloody Food: hence the alimentary regimens
which are designated by the generic name Abstinence from Grains. One
must succeed in replacing vulgar food with the Food of the Breath, like
an aerophagia which consists of breathing air in, holding it in as long as
possible without allowing it to escape and, while it is held in, making it
pass, in identical mouthfuls with great gulps of water, from the trachea
into the esophagus, so that it can be sent on into the stomach like real
food. The body is made of Breaths, like all things; but it is made of
coarse breaths, whereas air is a light, subtle and pure Breath. Vulgar
food, after digestion, supplies the body with the Breaths of the Five
Flavors, common and impure Breaths which make it heavy. By contrast.
Food of the Breath little by little replaces the coarse matter of the body
with light, pure Breaths; and when the transformation is completed, the
body is immortal. Alchemy and the ingestion of cinnabar help this
 256 Taoism and Chinese Religion

transformation and make it more complete, though they are not ab-
solutely necessary.
But it is not enough that the body be capable of living on; the Spirit
has to remain in it, and therefore the gods who dwell in it must not leave
it. The best way to achieve this result is through concentration in
meditation. Thought is concentrated upon the gods who are within the
body, so as to see them precisely as they are and where they are: that is
Interior Vision. By thus passing them in review one after the other, by
seeing them with perfect precision and detail, they are watched over and
kept in place; they cannot go away and death does not occur. The man
who knows how to Nourish the Vital Principle and Nourish the Spirit in
this way becomes Immortal.
That does not mean that he lives indefinitely in his house among his
family, without death’s touching him. It is too well known that this sort
of immortality does not exist. The Immortal, moreover, could not live
for a long time among ordinary men: his light body, which throws no
shadow and can fly, would in the long run be injured by the emanations
of death which the coarse bodies of mortal men exhale. He will live in the
world of the Immortals, where he receives a rank conforming to his
advancement in the Way; but before leaving, in order not to disturb
society, in which death is a normal event, he pretends to die, and leaves
behind him a sword or a cane to which he has given all the appearance of
a corpse, and which is what his family weeps over and buries.
The Taoist religion had discovered this solution to the problem of
individual salvation in pre-Han times: the great philosopher Chuang-tzu
already shows in his writings that all the techniques of salvation were
known at the beginning of the third century B.C. But this was still only an
incomplete solution. Salvation acquired in so complicated a fashion was
accessible to only a few. In about the time when the first Buddhist
missionaries were arriving in China, certain Taoist circles had conceived
of assuring the salvation of the faithful through group religious festivals
in which bands of believers, getting together, could redeem their sins
through penitence, even redeem their ancestors’ sins, and create for
themselves in advance during this life a living body which would await
them in the other world, prepared to replace their body of death (which
they had not known how to transform during their lifetime) immediately
after death. Thus salvation was brought truly within the reach of all. It
was enough to perform good deeds, to repent of evil deeds, to free
oneself through penitence, and to carry out religious exercises regularly
and with faith, and one was assured (if not of attaining the highest ranks
in the world of the Immortals) at least of escaping the hells, the Dark
Dungeons where the Earth Agent and his subordinates keep the souls of
the dead in Eternal Night.
 How was Buddhism Introduced into China? 257

Such was the slate of mind in China when the first Buddhist mis-
sionaries arrived there. Scholars’ Doctrine and Taoism were both far
removed from Buddhism. Nevertheless, it was in consequence of confu-
sion with Taoism that the new religion was to get a foothold. The first
documents show it as sponsored by Taoists.

We do not know when or how Buddhism was introduced into China

for the first time. There is, to be sure, an official history according to
which Buddhism was imported into Loyang, the capital of the Han, in 61
or 64 A.D., by an embassy sent among the Great Yiieh-chih following a
dream in which the emperor Ming (58-75 A.D.) had seen the Buddha.
But that was only a pious legend, devised towards the end of Han by
the Church of Loyang, which—wishing to take primacy over the
provincial Churches which were perhaps more ancient—desired to
glorify its founding by representing that as a triumphal and official entry
of Buddhism under the protection of the emperor whom a dream had
forewarned. The Church of Loyang had a less awe-inspiring origin,
although it had long been associated with the imperial family.
There is a document which gives us a glimpse of a Buddhist com-
munity in China, in its most ancient aspect, just at the time when legend
sets the arrival of two missionaries with their white horse. In 65 A.D., a
brother of the emperor reigned in the city of P’eng-ch’eng, in the north
of modern Kiangsu province, under the title King of Ch’u. Following an
ordinance of amnesty permitting all those liable to the death penalty to
ransom themselves by donations of cloth, this prince pretended to
consider that his “accumulated faults” enjoined upon him a duty to
“redeem himself from his faults”, and he sent thirty pieces of silk to the
Court. In response, an imperial decree absolved him, speaking of “the
Buddha’s benevolent sacrifices” which he practised: “fasting (this per-
haps means the three-month fast), acceptance of prohibitions (are these
already the i/7r/?), and otferings”; and the emperor bestowed upon him
pieces of cloth for his use in contributing to the abundant feeding of
updsakas and srctnutnas. Upctsiikas and srantamis (laymen and monks),
that is quite a complete Buddhist community: not only a clergy (which at
that time was certainly composed of missionaries) but also converted
believers. And they observed the prohibitions, they practised fasting,
they made offerings to the Buddha. This P’eng-ch’eng community, the
most ancient known in China, had a complete religious life, as we can
see.
It is from that community that the Church at the capital seems to have
had its origin. The King of Ch’u committed suicide in 73, following an
abortive attempt at rebellion. His kingdom was abolished, and all the
monks, both Buddhist and Taoist, whom he had maintained at his
 258 Taoism and Chinese Religion

capital had to leave. It seems that one of his nephews on his wives’ side,
Hsii Ch’ang, marquis of Lung-shu, took in certain of his maternal
uncle’s clients after his death, and that he specifically set up part of the
community in his palace at the capital. It was around him and his palace
that the missionaries whom he lodged and protected formed the first
Buddhist Church of Loyang; and this Church, at the end of the following
century, still kept its center in the building which he had built for the
monks and which retained his name, “Hsii Ch’ang’s temple”.
This Loyang Church, although its history is unknown for a half-
century, seems to have developed regularly. It had taken on a peculiar
importance from the fact that, being at the capital, it penetrated into
court circles. Even an emperor felt its influence; emperor Huan, who
made an offering to the Buddha in 166. The number of missionaries who
succeeded each other there at this time shows that it was rich and
prosperous. The nucleus of believers was numerous and stable enough so
that some of them ventured to undertake the difficult task of translating
certain Buddhist books, rather than being satisfied with oral preaching.
The first translations were the work of the great monk An Shih-kao,
the son of a Parthian king, so it is said, who, having renounced the
throne of his country to become monk and missionary, arrived in China
in 148. We do not know what conditions he worked in. We are better
informed on those who came some years later, thanks to the care which
their Chinese collaborators took to specify the conditions of their work
in accounts, some of which have been preserved. In general, the work
was performed by teams, a foreign monk explaining the original text
after a fashion in spoken Chinese, and one or more Chinese assistants
drafting the translator’s explications in written Chinese. Sometimes the
foreign monk did not even know Chinese, and a bilingual interpreter had
to serve between him and the Chinese drafters. In these conditions
control largely escaped the foreign translator, and it was possible for his
Chinese assistants to introduce into their writings terms, ideas, interpre-
tations which perverted the meaning of the original text.

These assistants, like all the first believers in Buddhism in Han times,
had come out of Taoist circles; and for them Buddhism was confused
with Taoism. During this whole period, Taoism and Buddhism seem to
have formed merely two varieties of one and the same religion to Chinese
eyes. The first protector of Buddhism, that King of Ch’u who, starting in
the year 65, maintained a Buddhist community at his court in P’eng-
ch’eng, was himself a Taoist. “Towards the end of his life”, says the
History of the Later Han, “he loved the practises of Huang-lao.” But
Huang-lao was then the principal Taoist deity, the one who gives the
 How was BuJdliisni Introduced into China? 259

great formulae for immortality; a century later he would still be the

principal god of the Yellow Turbans. The King of Ch'u surrounded
himself with Taoist magicians, and his contemporary Wang Ch’ung
portrays him as connected with a tao-shih who seems to have “made him
eat filth" (this was one of the most frequent tests imposed by the tao-shih
of that time upon their disciples to verify the firmness of their inten-
tions). The Taoists were always in quest of efficacious formulae and new
masters. It w^as ow'ing to this custom that the new Buddhist missionaries
were summoned to the Court. In presenting their religion as a series of
new recipes for Immortality, they lived intermingled in the throng of
Taoist masters and confused with them. Apart from that, this king made
golden tortoises, jade cranes on which were carved divine characters and
which served as amulets. He made a covenant under oath with the gods.
The “sacrifices of benevolence" to the Buddha attributed to him came to
be included among those practises characteristic of Taoism, as the
sramanas were amidst the tao-shih: he mixed the two cults together. And
it was the same for many other personages of whom the historians tell us
until the end of the Han. Buddhism took its first steps in China carried
by Taoism and confused with it. To realize this, it is sufficient to leaf
through the Buddhist translations of the Han period.

To start with, it has long been noted that the technical vocabulary of
Buddhism in its oldest translations is borrowed from Taoism: when the
Buddha obtains Bodhi (that is. Illumination) the Chinese says that he
obtained the Tao. The six cardinal virtues of the Bodhisattva, the
pdramitd, become the “Virtues of the Tao'\ tao-te. The name designating
the Buddhist saints (the Arhats) is translated by chen-JetK “Perfect Man",
one of the titles in the hierarchy of the Immortals; Nirvana, the
unconditioned existence which is the purpose of salvation, becomes
“Non-Action", wu-wei, which is precisely the mode of activity proper to
the highest of the Immortals. It would not be difficult to quote a great
number of expressions thus borrowed from Taoism by the first trans-
lators. But I shall not insist upon the fact. Interesting though it is, it
would not be absolutely conclusive by itself. The Chinese language, in
which all words are invariable and wherein no procedure exists for
forming derivatives, lends itself rather badly to the development of a
philosophical vocabulary, as indeed of a scientific vocabulary: Chinese
philosophers in all periods have been hampered by this fact. The Taoists
had borrowed a part of their metaphysical vocabulary from the >7 ching,
one of the Classic Books; the Buddhists in their turn could have
borrowed from Taoism without there ever being any real confusion
between the two doctrines.
 260 Taoism and Chinese Religion

A very curious fact emerges from the examination of the Buddhist

books translated under the Han. Within the collection of Chinese
translations of the Sacred Books of Buddhism, or as they are called the
Three Baskets (Tripitaka), there are a great many works attributed to
monks from the Han period. Many of the attributions are false, but
some are true; the manner of translation in this primitive period has
something so characteristic about it that one can hardly be mistaken in
identifying it once he has recognized it. But all these authentic books
refer to a small number of subjects, and all are subjects which par-
ticularly interest Taoists.
The translations of that time can be classified into two large groups:
books on morality and books on meditation, these latter subdivided into
two classes—practises preparatory to meditation, especially respiratory
exercises, and subjects of meditation. Besides these there were trans-
lations, lost today, regarding two of the Buddhist paradises or Pure
Lands, that of Amitayus and that of Bhaishayaguru-vaidurya-prabha-
raja; and a life of the Buddha. There is not a single work on the
fundamental theses of Buddhism, on the doctrine of the deed, for
example {karnuin), or on transmigration, on the false doctrine of the Me,
on the Four Truths. There is not even a little elementary catechism for
the use of new converts, for the SCdra in Forty-two Articles which is
supposed to be the first book translated into Chinese is not of that sort at
all. Its forty-two little articles, full of allusions which are never explained,
are presented indeed rather as preaching themes for the use of initiates
who know what it all means than as explanations for use by neophytes
who are ignorant of it. The subjects of the books translated all relate, not
to what is properly Buddhist, but to what is most characteristic of the
Taoism of that time, to its value as a personal religion opposed to
Confucianism with its metaphysical philosophy and its social ethics.
Personal religion under its two forms, external activity and practical
morality, internal activity and meditation; practises of respiration; de-
scriptions of Paradise: missionaries from India and Central Asia did not
choose these subjects to present Buddhism to the Chinese. It was the
Chinese converts who demanded and got what most interested them,
given their Taoist education. It was furthermore a Taoism of a rather
peculiar kind, which insists less on the practises because it attaches less
importance to the conservation of the body and leads on to Immortality
especially by a certain moral asceticism and meditation, which was what
the first converts believed they saw in Buddhism. And it is starting from
this false notion that they tried to guide the missionaries in their choice
of what books to translate. This explains why the books translated deal
with so narrow a group of subjects.
 I low was Buddhism Introduced info China? 261

Within the narrow limits imposed by their disciples’ blindness, from

which their own ignorance of the language, of education, and in general
of things Chinese did not allow them to escape at first, we must recognize
that the missionaries did a remarkable work. Their books are not those
that we would choose to expound Buddhism to persons who know
nothing of it. But, if it is a matter of simply presenting Buddhist morality
or Buddhist meditation to those who wish to understand only these
portions of the doctrine, believing themselves to be already aware of the
whole into which these portions fit, their choice of books and their way
of translation are excellent.
It was to these small elementary works that they clung, and with
reason. A little treatise such as that entitled The Meaning of the Whole
Law {P'n-fa-yi ehing) seems to be a very simple manual for use by
neophytes. The lessons in it are completely down to earth. It begins by
impressing upon them some notions of how to behave during services.
Some of the sixteen ways of listening to the Law, which are enumerated,
are so simple that they would not be misplaced in the practise of many
people in our own churches. One must listen to the Law often, without
worrying whether the sermon is long or short; be respectful of the Law,
of the Master, of oneself all at the same time; apply all one's mind to
what is heard; think of nothing else during the sermon; when the sermon
is over, meditate upon what has been heard; and so on. Then are
enumerated the twenty evil things which prevent the faithful from
progressing: not to steep oneself in the Law, to busy oneself with too
many things, to lack zeal, to do evil deeds, to eat too much; not to
practise meditation; and so on. Then come simple moral rules, beginning
with evil and sin: the fourteen evil ways of being: desires, impure
thoughts, and so on; the six detestable things: lack of rules, lack of faith,
and so on; the eleven execrable things: doubt, thoughtlessness, and so on;
then the good: the thirteen virtues; and finally the ten practises of
meditation w'ith their graded subjects.
One of the books which best shows this quality of being elementary,
yet of leading by degrees from simple notions within everybody's grasp
to the most exalted ideas of Buddhism, is a very short little work which
describes Buddhist meditation, the Ch’an-hsing fa-hsiatig citing. Here is a
resume of it:

The Buddha says to the monks: “Clergy, receive my instruction.

All that has a body must die. Monks, meditate upon the thought of
death. Meditate upon your dead body which the worms eat.
Meditate upon the corruption of the flesh. Meditate upon the pus
which flows away. Meditate upon the separation of bones and
 262 Taoism and Chinese Re/igion

joints. Meditate upon the transformation of bones which go from

red to white, and then to black, then dry up, then become powder.
Meditate upon the fact that, no more than the bones in the body, is
anything in the world solid. Meditate upon the fact that nothing in
the world is lasting. Meditate upon the fact that in this world there
is no place of refuge. Meditate upon the fact that this world is
darkness, that life here is full of weariness, that these fatigues are
useless. Meditate upon the misfortunes of this world, on its mu-
tations and changes. Meditate upon the fact that everything in this
world is impermanent, that impermanence produces Pain. Meditate
upon the fact that Pain is without reality. Meditate upon the fact
that the whole world takes refuge in Nirvana.”
In a few lines, the translator gave a method of meditation by an
example of linking subjects leading from a concrete subject to the most
abstract and difficult in Buddhism.

Chosen with an underlying Taoist motive, designed in the minds of

those who wished to understand them to furnish new Taoist practises,
the translations of the Buddhist books did not take long to reveal the
fundamental difference of the two doctrines. Thus, in less than half a
century, the confusion was dissipated. We see this clearly through an
author such as Mo-tzu, in the last years of the second century. Initially
a Taoist, attracted towards Buddhism like many Taoists of his time, Mo-
tzu became completely Buddhist and rejected Taoism. From this time on,
Chinese Buddhism became aware of itself and wanted no longer to be
confused with Taoism. The first phase of its existence was ended. Hence-
forth it is by its own merit that it will be judged, it is by its own worth
that it will be developed in China. The time of the beginnings is over.

But these later successes remain in large measure due less to a

metaphysical superiority over Taoism and Confucianism, a superiority
which, though real, would never be clearly recognized by the Chinese,
except for the same practical causes which had attracted Taoist converts
to it. If, like Taoism, it offers a personal religious life, in the two
branches which the Chinese demand of it, morality and meditation, its
practises are less painful and less material than those of the rival religion.
“My doctrine is like eating honey”, the Sutra in Forty-two Articles has
the Buddha say; “the beginning is sweet, the middle is sweet, the end is
sweet”. This sweetness in the practise of religious life would attract to
Buddhism the minds that Confucianism did not satisfy but that also
rejected the harshness and painful character of the practises that Taoism
involved.
 BOOK V

Taoism in Chinese
Religio US Beliefs of the
Six Dynasties Period
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 7. Taoist Adepts and the Seareh for Immortality'.
Bodily Teelmiques
All books on China mention its three religions: Confucianism, Bud-
dhism, and Taoism. But if they discuss the first two quite thoroughly,
they hardly mention the third, except to contrast the ancient philosophy
of Lao-tzu to the modern ceremonies in which sorcerers drive out
demons through their dances and their incantations. Dazzled by the
genius of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, the great Taoist philosophers of
antiquity, Chinese and Europeans saw in the Taoist religion only a
corrupted and degenerate descendant of the doctrine of the ancient
masters. Yet it was quite another matter, and should be viewed in the
context of the agrarian religion of antiquity, which concerned itself only
with collectivities, and gave no place whatever to the individual.
Antique religion was concerned only with social groups. In a time
when the Chinese world was divided into several hundred seignories, it
had been the sum of the cults of the seignory, just as Greek religion and
Roman religion were the sum of the city cults. This old religion collapsed
with seignorial society. Against the background of these collective cults,
Taoism was the Chinese attempt to create a personal religion. Within the
Far Eastern world it played a role similar to that of Orphism and the
Mysteries in the Hellenic world, to end like them (though less com-
pletely) in yielding place to a religion of foreign origin. Buddhism, which
in its turn played for a time the same role which Christianity played in
the Mediterranean world, but without gaining the upper hand. The long
efforts of personal religious sentiment to find an expression for itself in
China around the time of Christ were often similar to those in the West
at about the same time. The problems which were posed two thousand
years ago in the Mediterranean world arose in almost the same way and

Text for three meetings held on 8, 9, and 10 February 1940 at the Institut des Hautes
Etudes de Belgique in Brussels; edited for the first time by Paul Demieville in the Melanges
..., “cutting out passages which use the same material as other works and adding a good
many complementary or elaborative items from other unedited pieces and fragments,
found scattered in the author’s notebooks.”
 266 Taoism and Chinese Religion

at almost the same time on the banks of the Yellow River; and, if the
solutions which were given for them were not the same, they had at least
many points of similarity, and their development often followed parallel
lines.
Born in the last centuries before the Christian era, when the ancient
agrarian religion, completing its dissolution with the ancient society to
which it had been closely linked, ceased to satisfy minds which had
become restless, Taoism developed with prodigious success in the Han
empire and attained its apogee under the Six Dynasties, when the
Chinese world was in ferment, in politics and religion alike. In the
seventh century, the peace of the T’ang proved fatal to it, by bringing
back the Confucian order into minds as well as into administration; the
rivalry of Buddhism likewise affected it. Little by little it lost its hold
upon the popular masses, being reduced to nothing more than a monks’
religion and a sorcerers’ cult; and, despite the renown which the glamor
of several great religious personalities of the following centuries earned
it, from then on it began the long decline which was to bring it to the
moribund condition of today.
It is Taoism in the time of its splendor, in the period of the Six
Dynasties, between the fourth and sixth centuries of our era, that I wish
to sketch for you by describing its principal manifestations in succession.

Taoism is a salvation religion which aims to lead the faithful to Life

Eternal. And if the Taoists, in the search for Long Life, conceived this
not as a spiritual immortality but as a material immortality of the body
itself, this is not a deliberate choice between the various possible
solutions of the problem of immortality in the other world; it was
because for them this was the only possible solution. In the Greco-
Roman world, the habit of opposing Spirit to Matter was accepted early;
and in religious beliefs this was translated into an opposition between a
unique spiritual soul and a material body. For the Chinese, who have
never made any distinction between Spirit and Matter, but for whom the
world is a continuum which passes without interruption from void to
material things, the soul did not take on this role as invisible and
spiritual counterpart to the visible and material body. There were,
moreover, too many souls in every man for any of them to be able to
counterbalance the body. Every man has two groups of souls, three
superior souls (hun) and seven inferior ones and if there existed
various beliefs as to what became of these two groups in the other world,

1. (K.) An early source on the three superior and seven inferior souls is the Pao-p’u-tzu
( PPT) 18, Ti-cheu p'ien, 4(i: they appear frequently in subsequent Taoist literature.
 Taoism in the Six Dvnaslics Period 267

all were agreed that they separated at death. In life as in death, these
multiple souls were quite imprecise, quite vague, and quite weak. After
death, when this little grouping of pale spirits was scattered, how could
they be reassembled and made into a unity? By contrast, the body is
unique; it serves them, as well as other spirits, as a habitat. Thus it is
only in the body that the possibility was conceived of obtaining an
immortality, continuing the personality of the living man and not
divided into several personalities each of which, a fragment of the living
self, lives a separate existence. This necessary body, the Taoists could
believe, would be a newly created body in the other world. They accepted
this idea for the deliverance of the dead, imagining in the other world a
smelting of souls through which the dead person received an immortal
body if the living interceded for him through appropriate prayers and
ceremonies; but they did not generalize it. It was the conservation of the
living body which remained always the normal way of acquiring immor-
tality. It was that mortal body which had to be prolonged, or rather to
be replaced in the course of life with an immortal body by bringing
about the birth and development within one’s own living body of
immortal organs (skin, bones, and so on) which were substituted little by
little for the mortal organs. The Adept, reaching this point, does not die
but “goes up to heaven in the full light of day”.
To give the faithful, as their purpose, the immortality of the body and
the suppression of death was to be exposed to the immediate contradic-
tion of facts. It was too easy to see that this ascension into heaven could
only be the exception and that all, even the most fervent Taoists, died
like other men. Such a belief could not spread without some interpre-
tation of the way in which death was to be escaped. The accepted
interpretation was that, in order not to bring trouble into human society,
in which death is a normal event, the man who became immortal gave
himself the appearance of having died. He w'as buried according to the
ordinary rites. But this was only a false death: what was put into the
coffin w^as a sword or a cane to which he had given all the appearance of
a corpse; the real body had gone to live among the Immortals. That is
what is called the “Liberation of the Corpse”.

The necessity of transforming the body in order to make it immortal

imposed numerous and varied obligations upon the Taoist Adept, the
tao-shih desirous of assuring Immortality for himself by wanning it
during his lifetime. He must “Nourish the Body” to transform it,
“Nourish the Spirit” to make it last, and for that purpose give himself
over to practises of all kinds derived from two distinct techniques. On
the material level, diet and respiratory exercises served to “Nourish the
 268 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Body”: that is, to suppress the causes of decrepitude and death in the
material body and to create within oneself the embryo endowed with
immortality which entwines itself, grows, and—having become adult—
transforms the vulgar body into an immortal body, subtle and light. On
the spiritual plane, concentration and meditation served to “Nourish the
Spirit”: that is, to reinforce the unitary principle of the human person-
ality so as to increase authority over the transcendent beings within the
body, and thus to maintain within oneself these beings (gods, spirits, and
souls), the conservation of which is necessary to the persistence of life.
By the first, the body was reinforced as a material support of existence;
by the second, life itself was prolonged within the body by keeping
together all the transcendent beings which inhabited it.
The human body is indeed a world (microcosm) like the exterior
world, that of Heaven and Earth as the Chinese say (macrocosm). And it
too is peopled with divinities. Life enters it with Breath. This Breath,
descending into the belly through breathing, there joins the Essence
enclosed in the Lower Cinnabar Field, and their union produces the
Spirit, which is the master principle of man, causing him to act well or
badly, giving him his personality. This Spirit, unlike what we call the
soul, is temporary: formed by the union of Breath which has come from
outside and Essence which is contained within each man, it is destroyed
when these separate at the moment of death; it is reinforced by increas-
ing Breath and Essence through appropriate practises.

The body is divided into three sections: the upper section (head and
arms), the middle section (chest), lower section (belly and legs). Each of
these has its vital center, a sort of command post; these are the three
Cinnabar Fields, (so called because cinnabar is the essential ingredient
for the drug of immortality): the first, the Palace of Ni-huan (a term
derived from the Sanskrit word Nirvana) is in the brain; the second, the
Scarlet Palace, is near the heart; the third, the Lower Cinnabar Field, is
below the navel. Let us imagine, in the middle of the brain, nine little
houses an inch high forming two rows one above the other, one of five
and one of four houses, with an entry hall between the eyebrows
(probably a crude image and schematization of the cerebral ventricles).
Below, at the entry, is the Hall of Government; behind, the Chamber of
Secrets, and beyond that the Cinnabar Field, then the Palace of the
Moving Pearl and the Palace of the Jade Emperor; above are the
Heavenly Court, the Palace of the Great Pinnacle Reality, the Palace of
Mysterious Cinnabar (which is just above the Cinnabar Field), and
finally the Palace of Great Majesty. In the chest, the entry is through the
Pavilion of Storeys (the trachea), which leads to the Hall of Government
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 269

and the other houses; the Palace of the Moving Pearl is the heart. In the
belly, the Palace of Government is the spleen, and the Cinnabar Field is
three inches below the navel.
The three Cinnabar Melds each have their gods which live in them and
which defend them against evil spirits and breaths. But these malignant
entities are quite near the guardian gods. Three of the most pernicious,
the Three Worms (or Three Corpses), are established within the body
before birth. Each lives in one of the three Cinnabar Fields, Old Blue in
the Palace of Ni-huan in the head. White Maiden in the Scarlet Palace in
the chest. Bloody Corpse in the lower Cinnabar Field. Not only do they
directly cause decrepitude and death by attacking the Cinnabar Fields,
but they also try to shorten the time of life allotted to the man in whom
they lodge, by ascending to heaven to report his sins. It is after death,
unlike the souls which go to the hells or dwell in the tomb depending
upon what kind they are, that the Three Worms walk abroad; they are
called “Ghosts”. The earlier their host dies, the earlier they are freed.
The adept must get rid of them as quickly as possible; and in order to do
so he must “Cut Off Cereals”, for it is with the Essence of Cereals that
the Three Worms are born and nourished.
Abstinence from Cereals, which is intended to make them waste away,
is the basis for all Taoist dietetic regimens, which are very severe,
excluding also wine, meat, and plants with strong flavor, so as not to
disturb the divinities of the body, who detest the odor of blood and that
of onions and garlic. It is not enough, though, to destroy them. One
must also take pills which kill them (there are many formulae), and that
effort can last several years. Besides, all diets are effective only in the long
run; and they are so difficult that they can be practised to the exclusion
of other nutrition only gradually. T’ao Yen, for example, having set
himself to Abstinence from Cereals at the age of fifteen, first suppressed
almost all normal eating (meat, rice, and so on) except for flour, then
later suppressed flour itself and no longer ate anything but jujubes. So
long as anything of the “Breath of Bloody Foods” remains, progress is
impossible.
The destruction of the Three Worms concludes a sort of preparatory
period. It is only after their expulsion that most of the practises take on
their full effect, for only then is it possible to replace common food with
the ideal diet, that which makes the body light and immortal, and which
is called “Feeding upon Breaths” or “Embryonic Respiration”.

Chinese doctors divide the organs of the body into two classes: the five
viscera and the six receptacles; these serve the essential functions of life,
respiration, digestion, circulation (we know that Chinese medicine
 270 Taoism and Chinese Religion

always knew the fact of circulation, though not its mechanism).

Respiration is broken down into two phases: inspiration, which is a
descent of the breath (external air) from the nose, through the spleen, to
the liver and the kidneys; and expiration, which is its rising again
through the spleen to the heart and lungs and its exit through the mouth.
When solid foods go down through the esophagus into the stomach, they
are digested there by the spleen, and the useful elements are transformed
into “Breaths of the Five Flavors”. These Breaths of the Five Flavors
come together again in the spleen, where they are mixed with water
which came there through a special duct different from the esophagus
(until the eleventh century, Chinese doctors believed that there were
three distinct ducts at the back of the mouth, for air, solid food, and
water); and this mixture constitutes the blood. Each time exhaled or
inhaled breath goes through the spleen, it drives out the blood which,
thus pushed, advances three inches through the veins. Thus respiration,
digestion and circulation occur, closely dependent upon one another.
It is in the context of these normal functions that Embryonic
Respiration develops, designed to transform and even partly to replace
them. Ordinary people are content to breathe external air: for them, it
stops at the liver and kidneys and cannot cross the Origin of the Barrier,
which is guarded by the gods of the spleen. But the Adept, having
inhaled it, knows how to feed upon it by making it pass through the food
channel: this is Embryonic Respiration, so called because it tends to
restore the respiration of the embryo in its mother’s womb.
The important thing is to learn to “retain breath” for a long time so as
to have the longest possible time to feed upon it. Eiu Ken, who could
retain it for three whole days, became immortal.- But what a long effort
it takes to attain such mastery! The practise of “holding the breath in” is
painful; it brings on all sorts of physiological difficulties, which the
Adept has to surmount little by little.

Embryonic Respiration is often merely the prelude to the Use of

Breath: that is, of various procedures of circulating breath through the
body. Swallowing the breath, by making it pass through the esophagus
rather than the trachea, allowed it to get through the gate at the Origin
of the Barrier to the Eower Cinnabar Field and the Ocean of Breath.
From there it was led through the medullar canal to the brain, from
where it went back down to the chest. Only after it had finished this tour

2. (K.) For Liu Ken, see note 32 in Book vii. Chapter 1, below; but the basis for
Maspero’s statement regarding Liu’s becoming immortal after retaining his breath for three
days is unclear.
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 271

through the three Cinnabar Fields was it expelled very gently through
the mouth. Or again, it was allowed to wander through the body without
being guided (the procedure called the Refining of Breath). In case of
illness, it was led to the ailing place so as to cure it. The passage through
the three Cinnabar Fields by way of the medullar canal was not followed
only by the Breath; some joined it to the Essence in the Lower Cinnabar
Field, and the two together were then led to the Upper Cinnabar Field to
“repair the brain”.
This is also the route followed by the drug of immortality par
excellence, cinnabar (mercury sulphate); but this was only good to
absorb after a series of transformations which gave it the necessary
perfect purity. This complicated alchemical technique was never very
widespread because of the expense it involved.

As you see, the Immortality of the body is obtained only as the

consequence of prolonged and, above all, well managed elforts. It is not
enough to engage haphazardly in practises which are seen described in
books or which one learns from the mouths of masters; one must know
how to increase them gradually so as to get through the necessary stages.
However, one cannot say that a rigorous order must be followed. For
example, to commence by abstaining from cereals to weaken the Three
Worms, then take drugs which kill them, and then simply set about
respiratory exercises and, holding the breath in for a longer and longer
time, get finally to perfect Embryonic Respiration. Life is too short, and
each stage takes too long to get through, for one to subject himself to so
rigid an order; and moreover each exercise helps success in others. All of
them must be undertaken together, the respiratory exercises at the same
time as the diet, so that one already knows the practise of holding the
breath in for quite a long time when one is freed of the Three Worms and
one need not undergo the whole apprenticeship at a time when one is
perhaps already well along in life. But the practise of Feeding upon
Breath will not attain its full efficacy until diet and drugs have finally
driven the Three Worms out and destroyed them.
Human life is short, and the search for Immortality is long. Thus the
chances of becoming an Immortal diminish with age, and it is useless to
devote oneself to these practises after the age of seventy. No man who at
seventy sets himself to pursuing Immortality can attain it. Certainly
Taoist practises prolong life, even before they bring about complete
Immortality; but one should not rely too much on that, for each man has
his destiny, and if his destiny is to die prematurely it is very difficult to
escape, unless one has made so much progress that the Director of
Destiny erases the name from the Book of Death and moves it to the
 272 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

Book of Life. There do indeed exist two registers in which the names of
all men are inscribed at their birth: one, the most voluminous, is that of
common men and of unbelievers; that is the Book of Death. The god and
his scribes write in it the name, sex, and span of life allotted to each child
at birth. The other, smaller register is that of future Immortals; that is
the Book of Life. Some have their names inscribed there at birth, but for
most it is written there when they have deserved it by their efforts. The
god then erases them from the Book of Death and transfers them to the
Book of Life. From that moment on they are sure of attaining Immor-
tality sooner or later, unless they commit a grave fault which would
cause their name to be erased from the Book of Life and have it fall
back, definitively this time, into the Book of Death. Thus the accounts of
the living and the dead are always well maintained and nobody can hope
to escape death and become an Immortal by lucky accident.
But to obtain inscription in the Register of Life, respiratory exercises
and dietetics are not enough, for after all that is only medicine and
hygiene. One must have advanced in religious life, and especially to have
made progress in meditation and contemplation. That is another aspect
of Taoism, and no less important.

2. Spiritual Techniejues: Inner Vision,

Meditation, and Mystical Union
If Taoism, to bring Immortality of the material body to its believers, had
been satisfied with drugs and with alimentary, respiratory, and al-
chemical techniques—in a word, practises called Nourishing the Body—
it would have been a hygiene, or a medical system, but not a religion.
But it is indeed as a religion that it appears to us in the first centuries of
our era. For in fact, however important all these practises were, they
were not enough to bring about the acquisition of Immortality; at the
very most they could prolong life. To become Immortal, practises of
quite a different sort had to be added.
“Nourishing the Body” made only the body endure. But the gods and
spirits whose dwelling is the body constantly tend to go away; and their
departure brings death. If they cannot be retained, all the drugs and all
the formulae risk becoming useless. Procedures of “Nourishing the
Spirit” consist above all of entering into relation with the gods by
Interior Vision so as to keep them within the body. That is all that is
necessary to attain Immortality, and most Adepts go no farther. It is,
however, only an elementary stage beyond which superior Adepts must
pass to attain Mystical Union, which not only gives them Immortality of
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 273

the body, but also makes them one with the Tao, the supreme purpose of
the Taoist Adept’s career.

But not everyone who wishes to enter into relation with the gods can
do so. Even though the gods be in us, within our bodies, they cannot be
reached unless they consent to being approached. The mere knowledge
of procedures is not enough; the gods must also be willing. They cannot
be compelled by formulae or recipes, however potent these may be, if the
gods refuse.
The way to win their good will is to lead a pure life and especially to
carry out good works. Hagiographical accounts show that the conquest
of Immortality ordinarily begins through the practise of good works.
The History of the Later Han mentions Taoists of good family who in
the first two centuries A.D. made themselves famous by feeding orphans,
by maintaining roads, by building bridges. They even went so far as to
distribute all their goods to the poor. The Book of the Jade Seal
considers those acts especially meritorious by which “men in danger are
saved, by helping them to avoid calamity, by protecting them from
diseases, by preventing premature deaths.”
Good and evil actions and their recompense have been codified and
set. A Taoist rule of life, the Extraet of the Most Important Ritual Rules
and Prohibitions, gives a whole scale of punishments according to the sins
accumulated.
There are in man’s body gods who, at certain fixed moments,
ascend to report on good and evil actions. When offenses pass 120,
one falls ill. At 180 offenses, deficiency: that man will not succeed in
raising domestic animals. 190 offenses, heedlessness: that man will
catch an epidemic disease. 530 offenses, a small evil: that man will
have children born dead. 720 offenses, a great evil: he will have no
sons and many daughters. 820 offenses, a misfortune: that man will
have a disease that will make him blind or deaf. 1,080 offenses, a
calamity: he will die a violent death. 1,600 offenses, a disaster: he
will have no descendants, neither sons nor grandsons. 1,800 offenses,
a catastrophe: the misfortune will spread to five generations.*
And it continues thus, adding unhappy retributions in proportion as
the number of sins increases, up to over 10,000 sins. The most terrible of

1. (K.) Yao-hsiu k’o-i chieh-lii ch’ao, 12, \0a-h {TT, 204-07). This is the romanizalion for
the title Maspero translates just before the quotation. However, since this original passage
differs slightly in the numbers towards the end of the series, and the enumeration of
offenses stops at 3,600 rather than going on to 10,000, as Maspero says, he may have been
using another text of the same kind. 1 am grateful to Ofuchi Ninji for the above source.
 274 Taoism and Chinese Religion

punishments come then: liquidation by the sword, public execution of

the guilty person and all his family. For good actions the catalogue is
shorter and less detailed; it was less necessary to be emphatic in that case:
he who carries out 300 good acts becomes an Earthly Immortal; he
would need 1,200 to become a Heavenly Immortal.

He who, after 1,199 good acts, performs a single evil act loses all
previous good actions and must begin the whole process again.

Not everybody was so severe, however; and there were rituals of

penitence to wipe out sins.
The practise of good works wins the good will of gods and Immortals,
especially if it is accompanied by elementary exercises of respiration and
some simplicity in food. Thus Chou Yi-shan, whose good deeds one text
recounts, found himself rewarded for his virtue by an Immortal:

There then lived at Ch’en-liu a certain Huang T’ai. He had no

wife, no children, no relatives, and nobody knew where he had come
from; he was always clad in patched garments and sold old shoes.
Chou Yi-shan saw him while crossing the marketplace and found
his garb extraordinary. He said to himself: “I have heard it said that
the eyes of the Immortals have square pupils.” For that was so of
Huang T’ai. Quite happy, he bought shoes several times. At last
Huang T’ai went to his house and said to him: "I have learned that
you love the Tao: that is why I have come to see you. I am the
Immortal of the Central Peak
At this initial stage, it was the Immortals and gods who sought out
believers who were still unaware and on their own entered into com-
munication with them. But when they are more advanced, the Adepts
know that they must not wait for somebody to come and find them, and
that it is up to them to go in search of the gods.

Who are these gods with whom the Taoist Adepts wished to enter into
direct communication? Those of the ancient religion, dispensers of very
concrete benefits—health, rain and heat in their due seasons, good crops,
family prosperity—hardly interested them. What could they have to ask
of the Count of the Wind (Feng-po) or the Master of the Rain (Yii-shih)
or even, to take more important gods, the Count of the River (Ho-po) or
the gods of the Peaks and Oceans, who are after all merely local
divinities whose competence is strictly limited to events which take place
in their territorial domain? The Earth God was a hostile divinity who

2. (K.) Tz’u-yaug chen-Jen nei-chiuin (TCNC), la-h.

 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 275

kepi the souls of the dead imprisoned in his Terrestrial Prisons (fi-yii)
and even devoured them. Only to the Lord on High (Shang-ti) eould it
be useful to turn, but for the Taoists his role is much reduced, since the
true regulator of the world is not he, but the impersonal Tao from which
the world emerged by transformation. Indeed, the great mystics of the
fourth and third centuries B.C., Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, addressed their
effusions to the Tao and found in its very impersonality grounds for
mystical exaltation. However, in antiquity Ch'i'i Yiian, a contemporary
of Chuang-tzu, went to seek Unity in Heaven, in the city of the Lord on
High. It is quite difficult to know whether this is only a poetic allegory or
whether, like the Taoists of later centuries, he had already personalized
the Tao itself.
This was indeed the step which the Taoists of the Six Dynasties must
have taken. They admitted that the Tao, in order to instruct gods and
men, lakes human form and becomes the Lord of the Tao, Tao-chiin.
The personage who had been known in Chou limes under the name of
Lao-tzu was, to them, the Very High Lord of the Tao, T'ai-shang Tao-
chiin or, as he was also called, the Very High Old Lord, Tai-shang Lao-
chiin; the Lao-tzu of the ancient texts is only one of his numerous
descents into this world to instruct men and to teach them the way of
salvation.
At that time the influence of Buddhism with its great transcendent
beings, the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, had given birth to a series of
similar transcendent beings within Taoism. These played the same role as
saviors and instructors under the title of Celestial Venerables, t'ieu-tsim.
Since this title was common to both religions, it led to confusion as to
whether, really Taoist in origin, it had been borrowed by the first
missionaries to translate the title Bhagavat given to the Buddha (later, in
order to avoid the confusion, the Buddhists replaced it with shih-tsim.
“Venerated of the World”); whether it was initially a Buddhist interpre-
tation of that title and had been borrowed by the Taoists (in Taoism, it
seems to have been preceded by the title of Celestial King, t'ien-wang), as
in the same period they had borrowed the name of Mara {nw) to
designate demons, that of Kalpa (chieli) to designate the ages of the
world; and so on. In any case, whatever the origin of the name itself was,
the conception of these supreme beings was from certain points of view
patterned after the popular Chinese conception of the Buddha and the
Bodhisattvas. In imitation of the Very High Old Lord, other divinities
descended into this world to teach men; those who did not descend so
low as the earth at least preached to the gods and the Immortals, and
these in turn revealed to the inferior gods and to men what the highest
gods had taught them. Thus the “important recipes” and the “potent
 276 Taoism and Chinese Religion

formulae”, thanks to which it is possible to obtain Immortality, came

into our world.
It is with these gods that the Taoist Adepts seek to enter into relations,
for it is they who can help them to achieve their salvation. They are
extremely numerous because each Adept has one or more of his own.
Taoism is at certain points quite close to spiritualism, and just as each
spiritualist medium has one or several spirits for guidance and “control”,
so the Adepts, who are often mediums, all have their particular gods who
help them at least at the beginning of their career. These gods form a
vast hierarchy, from petty Immortals, still quite close to men, up to the
supreme gods. The Adepts slowly climb the levels of this hierarchy,
managing to enter into relations with more and more exalted gods as
they progress. They see them, they speak with them, they learn from
them their names, their titles, their origin, their modern and ancient
functions, their dwelling place. Thus is constituted an immense pan-
theon, which is at the same time confused (since it is difficult to classify
all these divinities of disparate origins) and precise (since exact details
abound concerning each of them, coming from those who know them
intimately). From the sixth century on, all this became confused, and
T’ao Hung-ching, one of the great Taoists of that time, tried in vain to
establish the pattern; even with the assistance of the gods he consulted,
he could not manage to avoid confusions, redundancy, and omissions.
Nowadays, fifteen centuries after him, the confusion is even more
insoluble, and I cannot pretend to give here a complete explanation of
this pantheon with its gods, its goddesses, its Immortals, male and
female, its numerous divine officials arranged in hierarchized categories
which are themselves exceedingly numerous. Whole books are devoted to
establishing the ranks in this hierarchy of transcendent beings; and these
efforts at classification augment the confusion. But, if it is very nearly
impossible to find one’s way in all these hierarchical degrees, and to give
an idea of the Taoist pantheon as it is today or as it was in about the
sixth and seventh centuries, it is fortunately a great deal easier to follow
the genesis of the gods in the ancient books which describe it. And this
Taoist theogony, which is at the same time a cosmogony, will show how
the tao-shih and the faithful of the Six Dynasties period envisioned the
divine world.

According to the Taoists, the world has an identical beginning and

end. This is Chaos, from which all emerges and to which all returns. All
things are made of Breaths which have in various degrees gone through a
modification which is expressed by the words “tie up” and “coagulate”,
and the result of which is to materialize them more and more. In the
 Tdoisnj in the Six Dynasties Period 277

beginning. Breaths were intermingled in Chaos; then they were separated

into nine distinct breaths. The gods and the universe emerged from
Chaos almost together, though the gods- despite a slight precedence—
had nothing to do with creation.
Each of the gods made himself a palace, and in each palace were set up
divine departments and offices where the gods and the official Immortals
worked. Even in the divine world, the Chinese could conceive of no
greater felicity than to be an official.
These divine functionaries are legion; the first heavenly palace, the
Palace of Purple Tenuity, includes by itself 55,555 myriads of levels,
consisting of as many offices, and in each one there are 55,555 myriads of
divine officials, all made from Breaths, all spontaneously born, all clad in
winged vestments of green feathers. And there are many palaces in the
eighty-one levels of the heavens!'^ All are filled with gods; but, as one
descends in the divine hierarchy, they are made of less subtle Breaths.
All these gods, great and small, do not govern the world, either the
physical world—Eleaven and Earth, as the Chinese say—or the world of
men, sovereigns, ministers, and people. To be sure, there are gods who
preside over physical phenomena. The sun and the moon have their
gods; there is a whole bureau responsible for thunder and lightning, rain
and wind, under the presidency of Sire Thunder. And there are also gods
who preside over human destinies, such as the Director of Destiny and
his subordinates, who establish every man’s lifespan at his birth and
lengthen it or shorten it thereafter according to his good and evil acts.
But they are only functionaries of a colossal administration which is run
quite by itself and in which they intervene only to carry out the detailed
functions of their jobs. From top to bottom, they do not control it.
The Taoists believed, as the Chinese always have, that the world runs
quite by itself and that there is no need for the gods to meddle. Eleaven
produces beings and things. Earth nourishes them, the Four Seasons
follow one another regularly, the Five Elements replace one another by
triumphing one over the others in an unending cycle, yin and yang
succeed one another. Everything goes very w^ell by itself If anybody tried
to run it, all would go awry, as Chuang-tzu already explained in the third
century B.C. If catastrophes sometimes occur, the fault lies with men.
Man can act well or badly: that is, in conformity with Heaven or not in
conformity with it. In the latter case, this revolt reacts upon the general
system of the world, and that is what causes cataclysms, eclipses,
earthquakes, conflagrations, floods, and so on. So the gods, the saints.

3. (K.) There are various ways of enumerating the heavens in Taoism, e.g., Hsiao-tao inn
(HTL), sect. 30, in Kuang Hung-niing chi (KHC) 9, TT, 52, ISla-/^.
 27S Taoism and Chinese Religion

the great Immortals who would have the power to govern the world, let
it go, keeping themselves well away from disturbing its mechanism. Their
role is quite different: from the greatest to the smallest, they are all
instructors; and what they teach are the procedures of salvation, not so
much doctrines or beliefs as the physiological, medical, or alchemical
recipes which prepare the faithful and make them worthy to receive
doctrines and beliefs.

Such are the Taoist gods, and such is their role in the world. It is with
them that the Taoist Adept must enter into relations. At the start, the
gods and Immortals themselves come to meet apprentices who give
evidence of merit, so as to set t+iem upon the way. But it would be
neither proper nor prudent to expect them all the time: human life is
brief and one might wait for them too long. So one must go to seek them
out and strive to reach them. They never refuse their aid to men of good
will.
Still, one must know where to find them. Their Celestial Palaces are
well known; the exact location is known and so are the roads of access.
But it is not within everybody’s reach to “ascend up to heaven in full
daylight”. Very far from this being a procedure of preliminary searching,
it is rather the last phase in gaining Immortality, and is furthermore only
for the greatest Immortals, since most Taoist Adepts never attain this
level. Fortunately the gods often descend to earth and dwell in the
grottoes of the mountains. Many mountains and grottoes are known to
serve thus as temporary dwellings for gods and Immortals; but they do
not live there always, and even if the grotto is discovered, one cannot be
sure of finding them there. Indeed, gods and Immortals, though they do
not refuse to teach those who seek them out sincerely, proportion their
assistance according to the searchers’ degree of advancement. These
must advance step by step and are never received except by Immortals or
gods whose rank, and in consequence whose knowledge, is such that
their teaching is not beyond the grasp of the person to whom it is
addressed. There is no use in addressing too high a god too early; he can
do nothing for an apprentice who is too little advanced to understand his
teaching. He will not show himself or, if out of good will he deigns to
show himself, that will be to send the too-hasty seeker back to other,
lower-ranking gods and Immortals who are more within his reach.
Seeking the gods across the world is thus a long business and very
exhausting. It takes many years, and one must travel the world in all
directions, passing from master to master, with a thousand fatigues and
a thousand delays, not to mention the expenses involved in these trips
and the impossibility of living a normal life. For, in China as elsewhere.
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 279

questions of expense play their role in the very life of the faithful, and
Taoist Adepts are not all wealthy men. A fourth century alchemist
admitted that he could never succeed in making the drug of immortality
because, despite his wealth, the cost of pure cinnabar and the expense of
the alchemical manipulations exceeded his means.'* The travels necessary
in search of the gods would have discouraged poor Adepts and fright-
ened the richest of them.

But there is another way of approaching the gods without making

these long voyages. They are in fact always close to us, even more than
close to us: they are in us. Our body is full of gods, and these gods are
the same as those of the exterior world. That is one of the consequences
of the fact that the human body is identical to the world, is the world
itself in another form: microcosm to the world’s macrocosm. The round
head is the vault of heaven, the rectangular feet are the square earth;
mount K’un-lun which carries the sky is the skull; the sun and moon,
which are attached to it and turn around it are the left and right eyes
respectively. The veins are the rivers, the bladder is the ocean, the hair
and body hair are the stars and planets; the grinding of teeth is the
pealing of thunder. And all the gods of the sun, the moon, the rivers, the
seas, the thunder are found again in the human body. How are they at
the same time in the world and in each man’s body? This is a question
that the Taoists seem never to have asked themselves until late; and then
they borrowed from the Buddhists, to the benefit of their own gods, the
power to “divide their body”, which the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
possess. Men of old were satisfied to accept this without reflecting upon
it any further.
These gods within the body are extremely numerous. Their number is,
like that of the bones, the joints and the acupuncture points, related to
that of the days of the year (for the calendar too is identical to the world
and the human body); it is a high multiple of 360, and 36,000 gods are
commonly mentioned. Each limb, each joint, each of the viscera, each
organ, each part of the body has its gods, one or more. The liver has four
divinities; the lungs six, guardians of the bridge with Twelve Spans (the
trachea), which does not prevent the trachea itself from having twelve
Perfect Men Gate-keepers who control the breath’s going up and down.
The spleen has five; the kidneys seven, who guard the Side-Gate of the
Jade Barrier of the lower bone in the back. The heart has the Lord Male,
Director of Destiny for the Middle Section, who guards the little gate of
the blood opening and whose mouth spits forth a whiff of mist which

4. (K.) PPT. 16, 1/7.

 2H() Taoism and Chinese Religion

moistens the five viscera; the nose has its god, and in addition the Old
Lord of the Three Simplenesses guards it below, flanked by two
Immortals, one for each nostril, and trailed by six others. Aside from the
gods. Perfect Men, and Immortals of all ranks, there are also the souls,
him and p'o, which are very little spirits indeed. The most important of
all the gods of the body are those of the three Cinnabar Fields, those
vital centers of which I have already spoken, those command posts for
the three regions of the body (head, chest, belly), the nine one-inch
houses of which are so many palaces where gods reside.
All these gods are responsible for defending the organs where they
dwell and for defending the body against evil spirits and Breaths which
consume it from within and attack it from without. The body cannot be
entered at will; when a spirit appears, it may penetrate only with the full
awareness of the guardians:

Above the gap between the two eyebrows, inside the forehead, are
to the right the Yellow Portico and to the left the Scarlet Terrace,
which are set so as to guard a space one inch square (the first house
of the Cinnabar Field). Between them pass the great gods of the
Nine Palaces (the nine houses of the brain), going in or out. The two
guardians of the Terrace and the Portico let the divine officers of
the Nine Palaces enter and exit, as well as those who carry the
orders of the Lord on High, the Jade Youths and the imperial
chariots which come and go. But they allow no other to pass; that is
the rule. (When a messenger appears), the New-Born Imperial Lord
gives the order to the gods of the two ears to let him in; they strike
gongs and bells to warn the deputies of the Nine Palaces, so that
they will know of his arrival and prepare to receive him respectfully.
These gongs and bells, men hear as humming in the ears; when one
hears his ears buzz, this is because messengers from outside are
entering.'”'

A man can help defend his own body. At the least humming of his
ears, he must say a prayer; if, when the prayer is finished, he has a warm
sensation in his face, that is a good sign; but if he feels cold between the
forehead and the nape of the neck, that is because an evil Breath is
entering. Then he must lie down in all haste, close his eyes and address
the Great One, so that with his little bell of liquid fire he may drive away
the evil Breaths which have managed to enter.
All the protector-gods of the body are the same as those of the world,
and the following passage from the Book of (he Red Jade Forest of the

5. (K.) Ta-yu miao-ching ( TYMC), 16i/-l Ih.

 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 2(SI

Service of the Immortals of Great Purity shows just how a man’s body
and the universe are confused with each other, and how one passes from
the one to the other without transition:
In Heaven there is the Mysterious One in the Great Yang; it is
called the Moving Pearl. It is the gate of all that is marvelous. He
who gets and keeps it will obtain Eternal Life. Within man, there are
the Three Ones who do not dwell in the same place. Whoever can
hold onto them will become king of the Immortals. The One is in
the Great Gulf of the North Pole; in front is the Hall of
Government, below is the Scarlet Palace, above is also the Flowered
Canopy with its Jade Pavilion of ten thousand levels.^

It is the same for the divinities called Queen Mother of the West and
Lord King of the East, Hsi-wang-mu and Tung-wang-kung:
The Lord King of the East (Tung-wang-kung) is the original
Breath of the Green Yang, the first of the ten thousand gods;
dressed in garments of three-colored pearls, he dwells in the East;
under him is P’eng-lai (the Isle of the Immortals). He is also in man,
above the head, at the summit of the skull, having at his left Wang-
tzu Ch’iao and at his right Ch'ih-sung-tzu; he lives in the left eye
and will frolic on top of the head; the Breath of his Essence above
forms the sun. The left eye is the sun, the right eye is the moon; the
King-Father (Wang-fu) is in the left eye, the Mother-Queen (Wang-
mu) is in the right eye."

These same divinities also have their place in the Middle Section:
The Queen-Mother of the West (Hsi-wang-mu) is the original
Breath of the Great Yin. Below, she dwells at mount K’un-lun, in
the Metal City with nine levels; on high, she dwells in the Flowered
Canopy and in the Great Bear, below the Polar Star. Man too has
this divinity: it is in his right eye. The man’s two breasts are the
Breath of the Essence of the ten thousand gods, the elixir o{ yin and
yang. Below the left breast is the sun, below the right breast is the
moon: these are the dwellings of the King of the East and the Queen
of the West, who above dwell in the eyes and frolic on the top of the
head (and below) stop below the breasts and reside in the Scarlet
Palace (the heart).^

6. (K.) Shang-ch’ing hsien-fu ch'iung-lin citing (TT, 1050), \a.

7. (K.) T'ai-shang Lao-chiin chung-ching (TSLCC), 1,2a.
8. (K.) IhUI., 2h.
 2(S2 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Not only are isolated gods found in the human body, but the whole
heavenly administration.
In each man's body, says a fifth century Taoist author, there are
three Palaces, six Administrations, one hundred twenty Barriers,
thirty-six thousand gods.'’
One recognizes without difficulty the Three Palaces of the Three
Originals, which are described in other texts, with their Administrations,
their Law Courts, their Offices (see below. Book vii, note 98 el sec/.). The
hgures are not exactly the same. That is quite natural: the human body is
the world, but the world in miniature.
Thus the gods are in us. It is in our bodies and not in the distant
mountain grottoes that they should be sought. And for him who knows
the way there is no difficulty in reaching them. For this way is within the
reach of all those who can lead the spiritual life necessary for the
conquest of Immortality: the way is meditation.

One enters into relation with the gods less to ask for counsel and
revelations from them than to see that they remain within the body,
where their presence is necessary for the maintenance of life. The
procedure for keeping them there and requiring them to stay in place is
what the Chinese call “Keeping the One", shou-yi, because it is especially
the Great One, chief of all the spirits of the body, who must be taken
care of and retained. This procedure is no different from concentration in
meditation: you look at the particular god whom you wish to bind to
yourself, and you keep your thought concentrated upon him. This is not
a simple illusory representation: the god is not imagined, he is really seen
in the place where he lives in the body, in his ordinary setting and with
his entourage, dressed in his costume and provided with his special
attributes.
That is what is called Interior Vision. The Adept closes his eyes to
close off external sight; thus their light (they are the sun and the moon) is
spread within the body and lights it, and if this clarity is insufficient, the
sun must be brought down into one’s body by an incantation.’^’ This
technique, like all the others, requires an apprenticeship. In the begin-
ning, vision is confused and rather veiled, details do not show' up. But it
improves little by little through exercise, and then one can see the gods
precisely and accurately: the god of the Hair, two inches tall and clad in
gray; the god of the Skin, an inch and a half tall and clothed in yellow;
the god of the Eyes, Light Abundant, three and a half inches tall and

9. (K.) H 'u-shang pi-yao (WSPY), 5, \2a-h.

10. (K.) Yiin-chi ch'i-ch’ien ( y'C’CCq, 23, 8a-15A.
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 2H3

dressed in clothes of the five colors; the god of the Nose, two inches tall
and clad in green, yellow, and white garments; the god of the Tongue,
seven inches tall and dressed in red; the gods of the Brain, the Marrow,
and the Spine, all three clothed in white, the first one inch tall, the second
five, the third three and a half, and so on.'' Imagination is not given free
rein in these representations, and there has clearly been an effort to
match the color of the clothing to the organ which the god watches over:
the white of the brain and the marrow, the red of the tongue, the green-
yellow-white of the pituitary, the yellow of the skin, the five colors
symbolic of vision. In one sitting all the gods of the body are passed in
review one after the other; the supervision which is exerted over them by
this procedure keeps them in their place and prevents them from going
away.

Interior Vision is only the threshold of spiritual life. Ordinary Adepts

may be satisfied with it; those who aspire to a more intense and less
superficial religious life know that they must push on much farther.
The fundamental formula of Taoism is “Non-Action” {wit-wei).
Everything that is done spontaneously is superior to what is done by the
will. Just as, in the technique of the Breath, the Refining of Breath {lien-
ch’i) is superior to the Guiding of Breath {hsing-ch’i), so in the technique
of meditation ecstasy consisting of “sitting down and losing conscious-
ness” (tso-wang), an ecstasy which leaves the spirit (the heart, hsin, say
the Chinese) free, without imposing any subject for meditation {ts’un-ssu)
upon it, is superior to the concentration through which the vision of the
gods and the spirits is imposed upon the spirit, so as to watch over them
or to enter into relation with them.
In this superior contemplation, which is “the last territory which is of
the world and the first domain of the Tao”, and which is considered the
“perfection of meditation”, “the body is like a piece of dead wood, the
heart is like dead ash, without emotion and without purpose.” The heart,
the spirit, is completely empty, exterior things do not get into it. One can
say that “there is no heart for contemplation”, so much has it lost all
activity proper to it and even all awareness; and at the same time “there
is nothing which contemplation cannot reach.” The mind being perfectly
calm and all influence of external phenomena being brought to nothing,
the Adept sees the Tao in his spirit, a supreme reality always present,
which the agitation of phenomena had hidden from him as if it were a
veil; he realizes its presence.

11. (K.) Cf. T’ai-shang huang-t'ing chung-ching cliing (THCC), 2a ff.; Teng-chen yin-
chik’h (TCYC), 3, 3a ff.; and especially T'ai-wei ti-chi'm erh-shih shcii hui-yikin ching
{TTESHC), TT 1064, \h-2a.
 284 Taoism and Chinese Religion

To realize the presence of the Tao produces Wisdom {hid). This is not
a new-created thing: Wisdom is always in us, but ordinarily it is troubled
by desires and totally confused. Through contemplation, it comes back
to its natural purity. Little by little it is clarified; thus it is called the
Celestial Light {t’ieu-kmmg). This is not a new knowledge being pro-
duced then; it is already produced, one merely has to realize it.
What is difficult is that one has to keep from making use of this
Wisdom; for to use Wisdom is to use the heart, which wearies the body,
so that Vital Breath and Spirit are dispersed and life ends very soon. But
it is hard to have Wisdom and not use it; it is a temptation which few
men resist, for if in the world many people manage to lose awareness of
their bodily selves {wang-lising), few can lose awareness of their “names”
{w'ang-niing), of the reputation and petty glory that can be derived from
the knowledge of the Tao. Chuang-tzu said: “To know the Tao is easy;
not to speak of it is difficult”.^ - That is one of the last, but not one of the
least difficulties of “obtaining the Tao” {te-tao). For it is to “obtaining
the Tao” or to “possessing the Tao” (the word “/c” has the double
meaning of getting and possessing) that contemplation—that is.
Mystical Union—leads. That is defined in the following terms in the
Treatise on {Ecstasy which Consists in) Sitting and Losing Consciousness
{Tso-wang lun)d^
The Tao, having its perfect power, changes the Body {hsing) and
the Spirit {shen). The Body is penetrated by the Tao and becomes
one with the Spirit; he whose Body and Spirit are united and are but
one is called the Divine Man {shen-jen). Then the Nature of the
Spirit is empty and is made sublime, its substance is not destroyed
by transformation (that is, it does not die). The Body being totally
like the Spirit, there is no longer any life, nor any death; inwardly it
is the Body which is like the Spirit, in appearance it is the Spirit
which is like the Body. One walks in water and in fire without harm;
set in the sun (the body) casts no shadow; to go on or to end
depends on oneself; one goes out and comes in (that is, dies or lives
again) without interval. The Body which is only filth seems to attain
(the state of) the Marvelous Void; all the more, transcendent con-
sciousness grows in depth, grows in extent!
This identity of Body and Spirit must be understood in the strictest
sense: the Body has become the same as the Mind, that is, it has been
stripped of the impure Breaths which normally make it up; that is why it
no longer casts a shadow in sunlight.
12. (K.)CT32, Legge, ii, p. 205.
13. YCCC,ih.94.
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 2H5

This is the final degree of contemplation: after having realized the

presence of the Tao in himself, the Adept perceives that he is not different
from the Tao but One with the Tao, that he is the Tao itself. This is the
state of Union:
The transformed material body is identical with the Spirit; the
refined Spirit is one with the Tao. The unique body is dispersed and
becomes everything; everything is intermingled and becomes the
unique body.
The Book of the Ascension in the West^'^ (which dates from the
beginning of the Christian era) says of the Divine Man who has achieved
Union:
He has a heart identical to heaven, and he is unconscious; he has
a body identical with the Tao, and he is without corporality.
In both his body and his spirit, which are henceforward identical, the
Adept become one with the Tao is in all things like the Tao itself. That is
why he is said to have no consciousness, for consciousness implies a
distinction between the knowing subject and the object known. He who
knows is external to things, and the man in a state of union with the Tao
is not external to things. He is no different from them, since he is
identical to the Tao which is in them, which is them, which is the
ultimate reality of all things, concealed from the ordinary man by the
phantasmagoria of phenomena.

In thus making Mystical Union with the Tao the final stage in the
vocation of immortality, the tao-shih of the Six Dynasties resumed the
bond with the great Taoist tradition, that of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. In
the fourth and third centuries B.C. Taoism was still close to its origins,
but it had already established its fundamental techniques of immortality:
dietetics, respiratory exercises, drugs, and also meditation. Only alchemy
seems to have been lacking. Lao-tzu and the school which claimed him
as leader, (that of Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzu), developing spiritual tech-
niques, made the mystical life the preferred procedure for attaining
immortality. Without rejecting other procedures, the Taoists relegated
them to secondary importance. Contemplation, ecstasy, and finally
union with the Tao led them to share in the eternity, omnipresence, and
omnipotence of the Tao, but also in its impersonality, its “Non-
Action”.

14. (K.) Hsi-shen^ ching (HSC), 2, 2\b.

15. Cf. below, p. 416 ff.
 2(S6 Taoism and Chinese Religion

To attain Union with the Tao, no short preparation will do, as it does
for Interior Vision. For that, a few moments of concentration in a
secluded and quiet room lead to a quite superficial “emptying of the
heart” which fleetingly shuts out from it the influence of the external
world, and allows the attainment of the result sought, on the surface of
the spiritual world. But Union demands the effort of an entire life. One
has to “empty the heart” definitively, free oneself from passions, drive
out all worldly influence, in order to penetrate to the very basis of the self
and of all things, to the Tao, unique principle of Reality. One must pass
through the whole mystical way, from the first awakening to Union. In
this pursuit, physiological techniques are of secondary importance.
Nevertheless, certain exercises such as the “retention of breath” are often
employed as preliminaries to meditation: the slight intoxication which
this practise produces when it is pushed far enough seems to have
favored the production of certain mystical conditions. Some Taoists of
the third and fourth centuries A.D. expected a similar help from incipient
drunkenness: it produced some darkening of the external world which
facilitated detachment from all things and concentration upon internal
life; this is the case with the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, famous
in Chinese poetry.
Mystical Life was never an everyday practise within Taoism; even
ascetics and hermits seem to have given themselves over chiefly to
dietetics or respiratory exercises, or to have manufactured drugs, if one
believes the hagiographical accounts of the first centuries A.D. The
Mystical Life attracted only rare minds, and unfortunately it was the
least exalted practises and the most bizarre recipes which seduced most
of the faithful.

3. The Taoist Church and the Salvation of the Faithful:

Institutions and Ceremonies
The practises which led to Immortality were numerous, complicated, and
expensive; many people had neither the means nor the taste for them.
But Taoism was, at least from the Han period on, a religion of salvation
for all. The faithful who could not or would not do what was necessary
would not obtain Immortality, since their bodies would perish; but they
would have a privileged position in the world of the dead if they were
pious and behaved themselves well. Those who performed good deeds,
repented of their sins, and participated actively in Taoist religious

16. Cf. Book VI below.

 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 2H7

ceremonies became officials in the hells rather than being sunk in the
throng of the Dark Dungeons. Still better, their descendants could help
them out and save them after death through appropriate ceremonies.
The Church was divided into two classes: the Taoist Adepts (tao-s/iHi),
striving to save themselves, and the Taoist People (tao-niin), awaiting
their salvation from others. The latter formed the great mass of believers,
and it was the slackening in their ties to the Church which little by little
ruined Taoism under the Tang and the Sung.
The Taoist Church of the fifth and sixth centuries had an organization,
of which only the wreckage remains today in some regions. That struc-
ture derived from that of the Yellow Turbans, the sect of the three
Chang brothers, which failed to overthrow the dynasty of the Han in 184
A.D. This sect consisted of two groups of Taoist communities, one in the
East (that of the Three Chang: Chang Chiieh and his two younger
brothers), the other in the West (that of Chang Hsiu and Chang Lu).'
Chang Chiieh, the Yellow Turbans chief of the East, had divided the
believers in the eight provinces he dominated into thirty-six districts. At
the head of each of these districts, he had set an Adept who was given the
title of fatig. which must probably be interpreted in the meaning of
Regional Authority.- The Great Regional Authorities had more than
10,000 adherents under their orders; the Lesser Regional Authorities
from 6,000 to 8,000; and they in turn established Grand Chiefs who
remained subordinate to them. Above the Regional Authorities, Chang
Chiieh and his two brothers were in command, bearing the titles General
Sire-Heaven, General Sire-Earth and General Sire-Man. Among the
Yellow Turbans of the West the hierarchy was similar, though with other
titles which made the religious character of the whole organization stand
out more clearly. In both areas, indeed, the role of the chiefs was above
all a religious role. All were missionaries, and their troops were recruited
through conversion; discipline was entirely religious.
Thus, by the second century A.D., the Taoist Church appeared to be
strongly established. Its structural framework was sufficiently solid to
resist the repression which followed the crushing of the Yellow Turbans
revolt; and it remained, insofar as we can tell, that of the Church in the
following centuries. But the powerful unity which the three Chang bro-
thers were able to give their communities disappeared with them; and the

1. (K.) Japanese and Western scholars now agree that the Three Chang signifies the
Western succession of Chang Ling (Chang Tao-ling)-Chang Heng-Chang Lu, rather than
Chang Chiieh and his brothers.
2. [Cf. below, the first two pages of Book vii, chapter 2. This interpretation of the word
fang, which can indeed mean “region”, was added in pencil to Maspero’s typewritten text
of his 1940 lectures.]
 2(SiS Taoism and Chinese Religion

regional groupings constituted separate and rival sects, each with its
usually hereditary chief. Within all of them, the fundamental element
was the local community, I would almost say the parish.
The chief of the community was the Master or Instructor, shi/u whose
position was the one which the missionaries of the Three Chang had held
in Han times. He was responsible for administering both its religious and
material life.^ The Instructors were hereditary: they succeeded from
father to son, though the sons of secondary wives were excluded. If the
son was too young, an adult relative performed the office on an interim
basis until the child grew up, and then handed the position over to him.
If there were no son, a brother of the dead man was selected; if there
were neither brother nor near relative, searches were carried out even
into remote branches of the family for a descendant of the first ancestor
of the community’s founder. In no case could a stranger be called to the
post. The fact of having founded a community by converting unbelievers
had created between founder and his converts an indissoluble link which
extended to the most distant of their respective descendants and which
no other relationship could replace. Some of these families spanned two
thousand years of Chinese history without interruption. In several
provinces their descendants are still found today, bearing the same titles
and filling the same functions.
Beside them the Instructors had a sort of parish council to help them,
made up of Taoist notables, wealthy and learned in the religion and
organized hierarchically under the Instructor’s presidency. At its head, in
the highest rank, were the Cap-Heads, kuan-kuan, men and women;
below came the Libationers, chi-chiu. These two titles were survivals of
the Yellow Turban organization, and those who bore them seem to have
played an active role in certain ceremonies. Thus these titles were
ultimately reserved to monks or nuns who lived in the community and
had taken a vow of celibacy: that was the rule in T’ang times. In the
third rank were the Patrons, chu-clie, rather like church wardens, from
whom no more seems to have been expected than material help: gifts,
influence, and so on. In the lowest rank were the Masters of Talismans,
lu-shUu who seem to be the direct ancestors of the modern Taoist
sorcerers: expellers of demons, composers of charms and talismans, for
that is today still one of the titles they give themselves. Their position at
the bottom of the hierarchy, despite their religious functions, shows that
ever since those times they formed a sort of inferior clergy held in low

3. On the parish organization, see Hsikin-tii lii-wen (HTLW) (“Law-code of the

Mysterious Capitol”), TT, Commercial Press ed., 78, \ \a ff., from which the account
following is taken.
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 2<V9

esteem not only by the high clergy of officiating priests. Instructors, and
Cap-Heads, but also by the very laymen who employed them.
The role of this parish council was undoubtedly rather meager; it must
have consisted chiefly in obtaining for the Instructor the funds required
for worship. The few funerary inscriptions which have been found seem
to indicate that members of these parish councils often had to bear the
cost of these funerals out of their own pockets, and that the titles they
bore were not unconnected with their liberality.'^
The material administration of the parish consisted particularly in
gathering the “rice of the Heavenly Tax”, t'icit-tsu-chih-nti, the five
bushels which in olden days had caused the Yellow Turbans to be called
“the five-bushel bandits”. This tax of five bushels of rice was supposed to
be paid in by each family on the seventh day of the seventh month;
precise payment was a merit. But this merit diminished as the date of
payment was delayed; in the seventh month, superior merit; in the eighth
month, middling merit; in the ninth, inferior merit. From the tenth day
of the tenth month, the merit became nothing; lateness beyond this
became a demerit. The Instructor, it seems, did not keep all of this
income for the needs of the parish, but transmitted three-tenths of it to
his chiefs, notably to the Celestial Master, t’ien-sliili. We have no
knowledge of these upper levels of the Church.
The Instructor, in imitation of the Director of Destiny, Sstt-nting,
maintained a census list of his parishioners, registering births and deaths
which occurred in their families. This “register of destiny”, ming-chi, had
a double purpose. In earthly administration it enabled the Instructor not
to forget families as he collected the Heavenly Tax. In divine adminis-
tration, it simplified for the Director of Destiny and his subordinates the
difficult task of distinguishing Taoist families from non-believers, by
allowing an extract from this register, certified and sealed by the
Instructor, to be delivered into the other world, so as to obtain there the
favor that was due the pious faithful.
This establishment was thus to the advantage of the parishioners as
much as to that of the Instructor. That is why, in order to give thanks for
the trouble he took at each of these events, the family held in his honor a
banquet to which were invited a ritually-fixed number of parishioners,
and which was accompanied by equally ritual gifts to the Instructor. This
little ceremony was designated by the name of “Kitchen”, ch'ii. The
word has other meanings: it designates a kitchen cupboard and in
consequence a cabinet in general, and among Buddhists it came to be

4. (K.) The material in the two preceding paragraphs is not in the present text of HTLW.
5. (K.) HTL\\\ 1 \h-\2a.
 290 Taoism and Chinese Religion

applied to the cabinet in which the statues or relics of the Buddhas or

Bodhisattvas were kept, then by extension to the chapel where this
cabinet is placed, so that in Annamite it has come to mean the entire
Buddhist temple, chua. But these meanings, frequent in Buddhism, do
not appear in Taoist texts. In those the word c/Tu sometimes takes a
technical meaning, that of “magic”: it is found used to designate the
magical recipes through which one becomes invisible. None of these
meanings seems to fit in the case of this little ceremony, which has no
magic about it and nothing to do with the building of a chapel. It
concerns a meal.
For the birth of a boy, this was the superior ceremony of the Kitchen,
shang-cITu, a banquet {c/Tu-sliili) offered to ten members of the parish as
w'ell as the Instructor, with a gift to the Instructor of a hundred sheets of
paper, a pair of writing brushes, a cake of ink and an ink scraper. For
the birth of a girl, it was only the middling ceremony, chimg-ch’u, and the
costs were less: the banquet was only for five parishioners and the gifts
consisted of a mat, a waste basket, and a broom. These gifts had to be
handed over by the child’s parents during the month following the birth,
under pain of losing a certain amount of merit, as much for themselves
as for the child.^ At the death of a family member, it was the inferior
ceremony of the Kitchen, hsia-dTu, also called Kitchen of Deliverance,
cliieh-c/Tu, which the Taoist books do not describe and of which we only
know what the Buddhist polemicists say of it. According to them, it was a
great orgy;^ but it is difficult to pass judgment on the basis of testimony
by bitter adversaries and rivals. According to Taoist texts, for the supe-
rior Kitchens five s/ieng of wine per person was planned, which is about a
liter; for the middle Kitchens, four sheng, and for the inferior Kitchen
three.^ The people must have departed a bit happy, but not drunk.
These revels seem to have taken place likewise at the New Year; and
there were also Kitchen ceremonies on other occasions: superior, to ask
an increase in births or wealth, or nomination to an official post; middle,
to ask to be rescued from difficulties, protected in distant journeys,
promoted to a higher official post; inferior, to ask the cure of illnesses or
deliverance from law suits or imprisonments.*^
In a work from the early fourth century, the “Biographies of the
Divine Immortals”,’^ is found the description of a Kitchen festival,
which is mingled with fantastic details, because it deals with two

6. (K.) Ibid., 12a-\?>a.

1. (K.) For example, Hsuan-kuang, Picn-huo Inn (PHL), in KHC, 8, TT. 52, 49a.
8. (K.) HTLW, \3h-\4a.
9. On the three Kitchen ceremonies, see HTLH’, \2a fi'.
10. Ko Flung, Shen-hsien chuan (SHC), ch. 2, (HO TS ed.).
 Taoism in (he Six Dvnasfics Period 291

personages destined to become Famous Immortals, Miss Ma (Ma-ku)

and Wang Yiian; but in this idealized account, all the features prescribed
by the code of Taoist discipline arc noted.

M iss Ma meets Wang Yiian at the house of a person named Ts'ai

Ching, whose guest he is and all of whose family sec her. She is a
pretty girl of eighteen or nineteen years, with her hair dressed in a
coil twisted on top of her head, the rest of her hair falling to her
waist. At Miss Ma's arrival, Wang Yiian rises to greet her; then, the
seats being set up, everyone steps forth to “perform the Kitchen”,
lising-cITu. All is gold plates and jade glasses without number,
delicious dishes, the rich scents of which spread inside and outside.
Preserved meat is carved for eating: it is, they say, preserved
unicorn After some time comes the rice. Miss Ma throws it on
the ground, saying that this is to cleanse it of its impurities; and lo,
the rice has been transformed into cinnabar dust.
Wang Yuan declares to the people of the Ts’ai family that Miss
Ma is still young and that, for him who is old, such conjuring tricks
are hardly amusing. And he announces that he is going to give them
good wine, coming from the Heavenly Kitchen, t'ien-ch'u. This wine
is strong, and common men cannot drink it, for it will burn their
intestines. Water must be put into it, a ton of water (two liters) per
sheug of wine (0.2 liter). The Ts’ai family drink this mixture, and
everyone is drunk after drinking almost a sheng.^ *

From the spiritual point of view, the Instructor taught his parishioners
and directed all religious ceremonies, which were quite various. There
were annual festivals celebrated at fixed dates, and others which took
place at variable dates, especially the penitence ceremonies called Fasts,
chai. Certain of these were performed at regular periods but not on fixed
dates and others w^ere performed at any time. There were, finally,
ceremonies in honor of the dead.
It is to the Three Chang, chiefs of the Yellow Turban revolt, that the
origin of most of these festivals, and particularly the penitence rituals, is
attributed.'- In their doctrine sudden death or illness w-as the con-
sequence of sin; protection could be had by public confession of faults
and by washing them aw'ay through the “charmed water” which the chief
of the community gave penitents to drink. At equinoctial festivals,
warrior amulets were distributed to defend against maleficent demons.

11. (K.)//>/V/., 2, 3A-5/).

12. (K.) For example, Tao-an, Erh-chiao Inn (ECL), in KHC\ 8, TIK, 52, 140( , col. 16,
attributes the Fast of Mud and Soot to Chang Lu.
 292 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

Finally, to ensure a fortunate life as a landlord in the other world, the

faithful made contracts with the Earth God to purchase a piece of land
destined to be the place where they would put their tomb. A great
sacrifice to Heaven is also mentioned, in which human victims were
offered up.
Taoist religious festivals were thus numerous and varied as early as
Han times. The rituals of later periods were more complicated and more
varied. They were of all kinds, from the Fast of the Jade Talisman for
the remission of sins for the whole world, to the wholly personal Fast of
the star presiding over the destiny of each man. A small group of
believers made contributions to share the expense and the merits of a
ceremony; their number was fixed at thirty-eight at the most and six at
the least. Some of these ceremonies, such as the Fast of Mud and Soot,
in the course of which the participants smeared their faces with ashes and
wallowed in mud to do penitence for their sins and to ward off the fearful
consequences of them, assumed a character of religious exaltation
pushed to the point of delirium. Not all were so violent; but all were
performed in such a way as to act upon the nerves of the participants:
repeated sessions, incense, long prayers, prostrations, drum-rolls, music,
inadequate food at unaccustomed hours, and thus an abrupt sundering
of the regulated family life, the casting away of decorum and of all
human respect. All this was peculiarly suited to developing the emotion-
ality which these festivals frequently regenerated and which all members
of the community at least shared as onlookers, if they did not actually
participate in all the festivals each year.
Those who merely attended religious services could not conquer
immortality in this life; but the Church supplied them with the means of
receiving it after death. By night in open air, they buried, three feet deep,
several feet of colored silk and a metal talismanic seal (ten feet of silk
and a gold dragon for the great, five feet of silk and a dragon made of
iron and five-colored stone for the common folk). Thus the deceased was
given something with which to redeem himself among the divinities of
hell and, after thirty-two years, he was released: his bones were covered
with flesh again, he resumed possession of his body and he left the tomb
to go to the Paradise of the Immortals. Thus filial piety was satisfied.
This was the festival called the Fast of the Yellow Talisman, which I
intend to describe briefly so as to give an idea of what these ceremonies
were like in the period of the Six Dynasties.

The Fast of the Yellow Talisman is no less curious in its kind than the
Fast of Mud and Soot.*^ It is by the overflowing of emotion, by the

13. [On the Fast of Mud and Soot, cf. below. Book vii, starting at chapter 2, note 30.]
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Teriod 293

violence of movements and feelings, that this latter festival seeks to make
believers feel the grip of the sacred. In the Fast of the Yellow Talisman,
which is the festival of penitence for the dead, explosions of personal
repentance cannot be counted upon, since it is their ancestors’ sins and
not their own that the participants are redeeming. It is through the
weariness of fatiguing movements repeated indefinitely, through the
monotony of long prayers repeated interminably, that in this case one
seeks to inculcate in the faithful the notion that salvation is not to be
gotten without pain, by making them in some sense physically feel that
pain, rather than making them understand it. Participants were supposed
to emerge broken by the long sessions, in which they had to stay and
hear the same prayer recited, hardly changed except in a few words, and
above all by the thousands of prostrations which comprise the ritual of
this Fast.
The Fast of the Yellow Talisman is performed in open air, in the
courtyard of the Taoist temple.*'^ The sacred space is twenty-four feet to
a side, with ten gates formed by two stakes nine feet high (nine is the
symbolic number of Heaven) joined by a large signboard. Four of the
gates are in the middle of the sides, four at the corners for the four
cardinal points and the four intermediary points, and two supplementary
ones at the Northwest and Southeast corners for above and below.
Outside are added at each corner the four Great Gates called Gates of
Heaven, of the Sun, of the Moon, and Side-Gate of the Earth. Between
these four gates and the twenty-four foot enclosure are arranged, in such
a way as to mark the six gates of this enclosure, eight signboards each
bearing the drawing of one of the eight Trigrams from the Yi ching,
symbols of Heaven, Earth, Water, Mountains, Gulfs, and so on, and
elements in the formation of the sixty-four divinatory hexagrams, which
themselves symbolize all things.
The four Great Gates are designed to delimit an intermediary zone
between the profane world and the sacred space, both to guard the latter
(together with the officiating priest and all those who are carrying out the
ceremony) against the evil influences from outside and to protect the
profane from the extreme sanctity which pervades the sacred space and
could injure those not prepared to receive it. The Eight Trigrams
reinforce this protection, playing a role like that of the Seal of Solomon
and other cabalistic figures in the magic ceremonies of the West: it is a
defense, a barrier which none can cross, and which obliges spirits to halt
before the ten gates.
The ten gates of the ten directions are the most important points, since
they are the obligatory passages from the sacred space to the profane

14. (K.) The description which follows is summarized from ITS'f’)' 54.
 294 Taoism and Chinese Religion

world. The purpose of the Fast is to constrain the spirits of the ten
earthly regions to take the souls of the ancestors for whom the sacrifice is
oft'ered and lead them before these ten gates; there the heavenly spirits
will in turn take and convey them to Heaven. There are thus two
categories of spirits to be fetched separately, terrestrial spirits of the ten
directions, and heavenly spirits. The first are summoned in front of the
ten gates, the second within the sacred space.
For that purpose, a lamp and an incense burner are placed by each of
the ten gates, designed to attract the terrestrial spirits and to show them
the place to which they are being convoked: the incense burners by day,
through the fumes of their incense, the lamps by night, through their
light. A prayer says:

By day we burn incense, by night we light lamps.

This is to warn the gods day and night. The symbolism was inspired
by the procedure used then in China to transmit signals: smoke by day,
fire by night; but the lamps and incense burners naturally preceded this
interpretation. Near each of the gates is placed a golden dragon, charged
with subduing the corresponding region and compelling the spirits which
reside there to obey. Finally pieces of embroidered silk of the color and
length corresponding to the color and the number of each direction are
placed there; these embroideries are meant to redeem souls. Indeed, the
souls of the dead in the other world are servants of the Earth Agent, who
keeps them imprisoned in his Dark Dungeons; so they must be redeemed
as slaves are, and it is their price which is paid in rolls of silk, legal tender
in the China of that time, together with bronze cash.
Once the preparations of the gates are finished, the center of the space
where the olficiating priest will stand still has to be marked by a large
incense burner and a lamp nine feet tall (again the number symbolic of
Heaven: this lamp is designed to guide celestial spirits). Then, in order to
light the other world better and show the road clearly to the souls
themselves, ninety lamps are set up (nine for each of the ten directions),
probably outside the sacred space near each of the ten gates; and still
more lamps are placed on the family tomb and on the road which leads
from these tombs to the place of the ceremony. Thus each category
receives its particular summons in its proper place: the celestial spirits in
the middle of the sacred space, the terrestrial spirits of the ten directions
at each of the ten gates, and the souls of the dead on the family tombs.
All is ready. The Master of the Law approaches, followed by his four
acolytes and by all the participants in the Fast. They enter by the Side-
Gate of the Earth, then, turning left, they make the round of the incense
burners starting on the East side and continuing by the Southeast, the
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 295

South, the Southwest, and so on. Each time they come to an incense
burner, they raise the incense three times while making a prayer, then
they prostrate themselves and continue on their way. When the circuit
has been completed the Easters, remaining always outside the sacred
space, go and take their places, standing on the West side. The Master of
the Law then enters the space to take his position by the lamp of
Heaven; and he summons all the spirits of heaven in a long prayer during
which he indicates to each one of them its role. Some are responsible for
keeping order and must prevent all evil spirits from approaching:
May the Celestial Immortal horsemen and soldiers. Terrestrial
Immortals, Flying Immortals, Perfect Men, Divine Men, horsemen
and soldiers of the Palace of the Sun and of the Moon, of the
Planets and of the Constellations, of the Nine Palaces, of the Three
Rivers and of the Four Seas, of the Five Peaks and of the Four
Rivers, numbering nine hundred thousand myriads, come watch the
Fast!
Others are made responsible for simpler tasks:
May the Golden Youths come and tend the incense, thirty-six of
them; may the Jade Maidens come to cast flowers, thirty-six of
them! May all those who transmit utterances, those who write
requests, the officers riding the dragons of the postal service who
carry official dispatches in the celestial world come also!
When the prayer is ended, the Fasters resume making the circuit of the
incense burners, directed by the Master of the Law. He then says, and
the Fasters repeat together after him, prayers designed to explain the
purpose of the ceremony clearly to the spirits of the ten directions:
For the first time I raise the incense so that my fellow believer
{t’lmg-hsiu) So-and-so saves his male and female ancestors of nine
generations, their dead souls which are in the Jade Coffer of the
Nine Darknesses, in the Domain of Eternal Night, their bodies
which dwell in wretched conditions. For their salvation this Fast is
established and I burn this incense. I desire that the male and female
ancestors of nine generations be brought out of the dark sufferings
and ascend to the Celestial Palaces. I burn incense.
Bowing our heads down to the earth, we beseech you:
O you, the Very High Three Venerables, I desire to shift the
merits (of this ceremony) upon my relatives to the ninth generation.
I beg that they may obtain deliverance from the Ten Evils, from the
Eight Difficulties, and that their bodies which are in Eternal Night
may attain the sight of the Shining Light, to rise to the Palace of the
 296 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Heavens, to be clad and fed with garments and food produced

spontaneously, and to dwell eternally in Non-Action. This is why I
now burn incense.

By this prayer, said by the officiating priest and repeated by the

Pasters three times at each incense burner (making thirty times in all),
amidst strikings of the gong and music, the object of the ceremony is well
established. Each of the Pasters having announced his name in each of
the ten directions as a participant in the festival, there will be no error; it
will indeed be their ancestors who will be saved, and not those of some
other family.
Prom this moment on begins for the Pasters an exhausting journey
around the god of the cult. They must again take up the promenade
from incense burner to incense burner, saying prayers. But this time they
must prostrate themselves a number of times equal to the symbolic
number of the region they are addressing.
They begin to the East. The Master of the Eaw first bows nine times.
Then they say:

The male and female ancestors of So-and-so, in the days when

they were living in this world, committed evil deeds of old. Por their
sins they are linked to the Nine Darknesses, in the Domain of
Eternal Night; their souls fallen into sufferings and difficulties are
tossed about eternally through a thousand ages, and cannot be freed
until Heaven shall end.
Now I offer nine feet of green embroidered silk and a golden
dragon. May the Very High Celestial Venerable of the Sacred Jewel
of the Eastern Region, Celestial Eord of the Nine Breaths, may the
Transcendent Officials of the Eastern Eand redeem my male and
female ancestors of nine generations from the evils resulting from
their sins! May they, at the Celestial Palace of Ching niu, be struck
off the register of sinners and saved! May their miserable souls and
bodies enter into the Shining Eight, rise to the Celestial Palace and
soon manage to live anew in Happiness!

This prayer completed, the Master of the Eaw takes a small cord on
which a series of knots are made and unties one of the knots so as to
make clear that the tie which binds the souls to the Nine Darknesses is
thus loosened. Then the Pasters prostrate themselves ninety times, the
number nine being that of the East.
And the circuit continues with the same prayer in which only the
names of the divinities invoked changes for each of the ten directions.
And the number of prostrations also changes each time. To the South-
 Taoism in the Six Dynasties Period 297

west and at each of the four corners, one must prostrate himself 120
times, to the South 30 times, to the West 70 times, to the North 50 times.
When the circuit of the ten incense burners for the ten directions is
completed, they have prostrated themselves 960 times, face to the
ground. And it is not finished. There must still be 30 prostrations for the
Palace of the Sun, 70 for the Palace of the Moon, 365 for the Constel-
lations, 20 for each of the Five Peaks, 120 for the World of the Waters,
360 for the Three Jewels (that is the Tao, the Sacred Books, and the
Community of the Faithful).
Finally the ceremony is completed: only a few prayers remain before
leaving.
Imagine the condition of those who have taken an active part in such a
ceremony, who have recited a hundred long prayers and made more than
two thousand prostrations! After the ordinary manner of Taoist fes-
tivals, the movements, slow and solemn at first, are performed more and
more quickly as the ceremony goes on; more than a day is spent in
circling about and prostrating oneself several times a minute. The
kneeling men throw themselves down, forehead to the earth, come back
up, and begin again without having a moment’s rest. Backs broken with
incessant prostrations, they are covered with sweat and dust; half suffo-
cated by incense fumes; deafened by gongs, drums and music; mouths
dry from reciting prayers; spirits drained by noise, movement, fatigue,
hunger, and thirst. This is no longer a violent but brief emotion, like that
of the Fast of Mud and Soot; it is a fatigue prolonged to exhaustion
which must give to the faithful the shock designed to stagger not only
their bodies, but their minds as well.

The Fast of the Yellow Talisman was a large, expensive enterprise; it

w'as not within the means of all the faithful. For those whom their family
could not save, there remained the expedient of the Refining of Souls.
Through an appropriate ceremony, the faithful made the souls of their
ancestors leave the hells in such a way that “the souls {him) dwelling in
the Darkness of the Nine Ancestors go out of Eternal Night and enter
into Luminous Heaven”, or again that “the Seven Ancestors may grasp
the Principle of the Life of Spontaneity and that they may rise to be
Immortals in the Palace of the Southern Summit”. In this paradise there
gushes forth, in the middle of the courtyard, a spring of liquid fire; the
souls bathe in it, their substance melts in it, and wTen they emerge the
Celestial Venerable of the Original Beginning creates for them a “body
of life”.
Some, for the sake of safety performed the ceremony of the Refining
of Souls for themselves during their lifetime; thus their souls were
 298 Taoism and Chinese Religion

thoroughly prepared, and after death they ascended straight to the

Southern Palace to don their “body of life”.
Thus it is that the simple faithful, without escaping death, could at the
same time hope that they too could take a place in Paradise and partic-
ipate in happy immortality, without being obliged on that account to
renounce the life of people in the world.

Such is the fashion in which the Chinese resolved the religious

problems which the disappearance of antique religion and the pursuit of
a personal religion presented to them in a period when similar problems
were debated in the West. Taoism had the merit of clearly posing the
problem of individual salvation by itself: “My destiny is in me, it is not
in Heaven”, declares the Book of the Ascension in the West {Hsi-sheng
dung), composed around the beginnings of our era.^ '^ But the solution of
that problem was hampered by an adventitious problem: the preser-
vation of the body. While for Westerners, immortality was acquired at
the onset for whatever the Spirit is in man, the whole question being how
to avoid an unhappy immortality for the soul and to assure it a happy
immortality, for the Taoists the question was the very acquisition of
immortality. How was the human being, all of whose constituent
elements disperse at death, to succeed in conquering death.
This problem of the conservation of the body took a preponderant
place and encumbered Taoism with innumerable, meticulous, wearisome
practises, which in the end repelled the better minds, turning the more
positive of them back to Confucianism and the more religious to
Buddhism.

15. (K.) HSC\ hsia, 6a.

 BOOK VI

The Poet Hsi K’ang and the Club of

Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove
The Chinese poet of whom 1 am going to speak, Hsi K’ang, is better
known in his country for having been the principal figure in the famous
Club of the Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove, Chu-lin ch’i-hsien, than
for his works, which are for the most part lost. Those that remain are no
less interesting for their style, simpler and less mannered, but above all
less pedantic than that of most writers of his day. But what is perhaps
most interesting is that he is fundamentally religious. He was a Taoist
devotee, and his life and work were profoundly influenced by Taoism;
but this influence shows itself especially in depth and hardly appears on
the surface of his poems.
We know him so well because Hsi Hsi, his brother and an enthusiastic
admirer of his younger brother's talent, had written a biography and
eulogy of him; and although this work is lost, the biography devoted to
Hsi K'ang in the Wei chronicle, Wci-chih, found in the History of the
Three Kingdoms, the official history of his time, is based upon it.
Hsi K'ang belonged to an excellent family. Hsi Hsi boasts that “his
family belonged hereditarily to the school of the Literati", which does
not mean merely that they were educated people but implies a Confucian
education. Moreover, his ancestors did not hold any great public post,
serving rather in modest posts as scribes in local and central adminis-
trations. In fact, the family's importance derived from their having been
very wealthy large landowners. Hsi K'ang was born in 223, in his father's
old age; while very young he lost his father and was raised by his elder
brother Hsi Hsi, who held a minor provincial position. He himself
described his childhood in a few lines of verse at the beginning of his
poem entitled “Dark Sadness", Yu fern
Alas! I have but little luck!
A child, I lost my father.

Text for a meeting held at the Soeiete beige d'Etudes orientales, Brussels, on 8 February
1940.
 302 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Orphan without knowing it,

Then when 1 was still in diapers.
My mother and elder brother raised me.
They were good, they were not harsh;
Depending upon their love, I was self-indulgent and arrogant;'
I had neither rebuke nor master.
Searcely arrived at the age when cap and sash are taken.
Relying upon their benevolence, I followed my inclinations.

To tell the truth, his inclinations were not especially bad; but they had
little in common with Confucian norms and they made him drift towards
Taoism. His studies were successful, and his works show a good knowl-
edge of the Classics. Like most wealthy young men, he rounded off his
studies with travel; but he showed that he was quite versatile: his brother
says, “He did not become the disciple of any master, but was interested
in everything and learned all sorts of things”. These very diverse interests
were undoubtedly not pure curiosity. One can visualize the child and the
young man, a little restless in spirit (his verses show this), not very
ambitious, spared by his wealth from the necessity of following an
administrative career, seeking vainly in the Classics and in the teaching
of the Literati for an answer to his impulse towards a personal religion
and finding only political recipes for the world’s welfare when he would
have longed to calm his own uneasiness about his own fate, the origin
and aim of his mind, about life and death. Like many of his contem-
poraries, it was in Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu and the sacred books of
Taoism that he found inner peace.
Taoism was then very flourishing, precisely because it had brought the
Chinese the revelation of a personal religion. Widespread even among
the Literati, who did not consider it inconsistent with official Con-
fucianism, it promised salvation to believers who conscientiously gave
themselves over to numerous and meticulous practises of diet and
breathing on the one hand, and of concentration and meditation on the
other. It entailed a precise knowledge of everything that alfects destiny,
as well as knowledge of the makeup of the body and the self and of
man’s fate in life and death. It taught that in the normal way man is
fated to end totally; he is indeed composed of a physical body made from
coarse Breaths which came down when Chaos was dispersed, and of a
Spirit, controller of conscience and personality, produced at birth by the
union of the vital Breath, one of the pure Breaths which rose when
Chaos dissolved, and the Essence peculiar to each person. Both of these

1. The translation of this line is based upon Kawakatsu Yoshio’s emendation of

Maspero’s reading: Do kyd, p. 75, and p. 88, note 2.
 The Poet fisi K'cm^ and the Club of Seven So^es 303

are equally perishable, for the Spirit ends, the vital Breath and Essence
separating; and when it ends the body dies. What remains are little souls
which separate off and go, some of them to dwell in the tomb with the
corpse, others down to Eternal Night, in the Dark Prisons of the land of
the Yellow Springs where the Earth God holds them fast. But the learned
know how to “Nourish the Body” and prevent it from dying, and to
“Nourish the Spirit” and make it last by appropriate procedures. By diet
they drive away the Breath of Bloody Eood, getting rid of common
nutrition; respiratory procedures enable them to feed upon Breaths and
to replace the coarse matter of their bodies with a material more and
more subtle. By concentration and meditation they maintain within the
body the gods, spirits, and souls that live there and, forcing those beings
to protect them against all evils within and without, they preserve life in
themselves. Thus they obtain Immortality within the body. Not that they
live eternally among the people of their family: that would be too
disconcerting for other men. But their death is only an apparent death:
their immortalized body goes to Paradise.
Hsi K’ang became a practising Taoist. He composed a “Dissertation
on the Nourishment of the Vital Principle”, in which he set his thought
out clearly. But that did not prevent the continuance of his classical
studies. Once they were done, he began to travel, as young men of good
family often did at that time, dividing himself between Taoist and
classical studies. One of these trips, between 240 and 245, took him to
Han-tan (in the west of modern Hopei) where he met a certain Wang
Lieh, who claimed to be over two hundred years old and who taught him
the procedures of breathing.- At about the same time or a little later, he
passed by Chi (near Wei-hui-fu, in northern Honan) and paid a visit to
the hermit Sun Teng, whose disciple he wished to become but w'ho kept
him at a distance. In about 242, he was in the commandery of Ying-
ch’uan (Yii-hsien in central Honan). Recommended to the governor,
Shan Ch’in, he was received in the governor’s house and there made the
acquaintance of his son Shan T’ao,^ who \\as to become one of his best
friends, the one to whom he entrusted his young son when he was at the
point of death. Although twenty years younger than Shan T’ao (who was
born in 205‘^), Hsi K’ang immediately exerted a great influence upon

2. Kawakatsu notes that there are no grounds for asserting that Wang taught Hsi K'ang
the procedures of breathing, though faulty punctuation in one of Maspero’s sources may
well have led him to think that there are (p. 88, note 3).
3. Kawakatsu, in note 4, cites sources which show that, although Shan T'ao was a
relative of Shan Ch’in, he was not Shan Ch’in’s son.
4. On the basis of Shan T’ao’s biography in the Chin shiu Kawakatsu corrects his birth-
year to 205 and the differential in age to eighteen years (note 5).
 304 Taoism and Chinese Religion

him. An enthusiastic Taoist, he had resolved not to become an official

and persuaded Shan T’ao, who decided to follow his lead. But it must be
added that Shan T’ao’s resolve did not last long and that he sub-
sequently had a very honorable administrative career. In about 258 or
260, one of Hsi K’ang’s admirers, Chao Chih, met T’ao in the Grand
School at the capital, engaged in copying the ancient characters of the
Classics engraved in stone.
On one of his travels back to his homeland, in about 250, Hsi K’ang
got married: he married the daughter or granddaughter of king Mu of
P’ei, a prince of the Wei imperial family.^ After his marriage he made his
home at Shan-yang, north of present-day Hsiu-wu in Honan. There he
spent the last years of his short life, and there he founded the renowned
Club of the Bamboo Grove, which has remained famous in Chinese
literature.

We know the life he led at Shan-yang well enough, owing to the

anecdotes gathered in a collection of literary gossip compiled in the sixth
century, the Shih-shuo hsin-yitC He divided his time between the metic-
ulous exercises of Taoism (gymnastics, respiration, meditation); trips in
the mountains searching for medicinal plants from which he made up the
drugs absorbed by Taoists during the periods when, abstaining from
cereals, they tried to live on Breaths, wine, literature, and hand labor in
the smithy. For Hsi K’ang, who was seven feet, eight inches tall (perhaps
1.90 meters), this violent exercise was a recreation. In the middle of his
courtyard there was a big willow tree, and in summer he set up his anvil
under this tree and worked there, seated on the ground. This is what is
said to have gotten him into trouble with the most notable person in
Shan-yang, one Chung Hui, son of the former Grand Tutor Chung Yu
(151-230) and a special favorite of the all-powerful duke of Chin, who
was soon to dethrone the Wei emperor and set up a new dynasty. Chung
Hui, attracted by the poet’s fame, went to see him at his house. Hsi
K’ang sat with his legs stretched out, a highly impolite attitude, and was
pounding on his anvil. On Chung Hui’s arrival he didn’t budge and said
not a word to him; and finally Chung Hui turned away offended. Then
Hsi K’ang said to him as he was leaving, “What have you been told, that
you come here? What did you see, that you leave?” To this Chung Hui
replied with some presence of mind, “What I had heard made me come
here; what I see makes me leave!” Hsi K’ang thus brought upon himself
a spiteful enmity which, to his misfortune, he would encounter later on.

5. Kawakatsu, in note 6, gives Maspero’s sourees on Hsi K’ang's wife.

6. Kawakatsu corrects Maspero’s dating of the Shih-shuo hsin-yil from the si.xth to the
fifth century (note 7).
 The Poet Hsi K'aug, and the Club of Seven Sa^es 305

Rich, of excellent family, related through his wife to the imperial

family, Hsi K’ang entertained in his house his friends Juan Chi, Hsiang
Hsiu, Wang Jung, Liu Ling, Shan T’ao, all writers and poets with whom
he formed the Club of the Bamboo Grove, where they composed verses
as they drank wine. There were seven friends, when K’ang Hsi himself
and Shan Hsien, Shan T’ao’s nephew, are added in. Later, in his old age,
one of the survivors, Wang Jung, delighted in recalling his memories of
that time; and from his anecdotes and several others which have been
collected, enough remains to show us what they did. They wandered
chatting in a little grove of bamboos, stopping to drink, resuming their
walk and then, having drunk, talked, and composed poems, they went to
the tavern of one Mr. Huang, where they proceeded to get drunk. What
was it that educated, cultivated, poetic, profoundly religious men such as
Hsi K'ang were looking for in drunkenness? Their works, much more
personal than those of Chinese writers ordinarily were, give us the answer
to this question.
Here, for example, is Liu Ling’s “Song to the Virtue of Wine’’, which
discusses this subject in the form of general remarks:

Song to the Virtue of Wine^

I. He is a noble master,
For whom Heaven and Earth are but a morning,
And eternity but an instant;
Sun and moon are his windows;
The eight deserts are his court;
He walks without leaving traces;
He dwells in no house;
For roof he has heaven and for mat earth.
He follows his fancy.
If he stops, it is to seize a cup or hold a flask;
If he moves, it is to carry a decanter or grab a bottle.
Wine is his only concern:
He knows no other.

11. A young lord of noble house

And an official in retirement.
Having heard of my habits.
Discuss my way of carrying on.
They shake their sleeves, clutch their lapels.
Roll furious eyes, grind their teeth,
And expound the rules of good conduct to me:

7. The text of the poem is in Wen-hsikin, no. 47 (note 10).

 306 Taoism and Chinese Religion

The “way it must be” and the “way it must not” rise up like
sharp spear blades.^
At this moment the master
Seizes a jar, takes a pot.
Raises the cup to his mouth and inhales the wine;
Then, shaking his beard, stretches his legs.
Taking the ferment for pillow, the dregs for bolster.

Ill Without thought, without care.

His happiness is complete;
Suddenly here he is, drunk.
And at once he is sober.
Listening peacefully, he would not hear the thunderclap;
Looking attentively, he would not see the shape of T’ai-shan;
He feels neither the cold nor the heat that eat into the flesh.
Nor the victory nor the desire that rouse passions.
He bends over to observe creatures swarming about:
They are like duckweed floating on the Yangtze and the Han.
The two notables stay at his sides,
Like wasps or caterpillars to him.
A poem by Hsi K’ang himself, taken from the series of his “Wine
Gatherings”, Chiu-hid, shows what the poet sought in wine: there we see
the triumphal period of the beginning of drunkenness, where everything
seems to him more beautiful, larger than reality, where his imagination
derives a harmony from all he sees and hears, followed by an abrupt
depression in which the feeling of his decadence suddenly comes over
him, in which he regrets not being able to lead a simple, obscure life.

What a pleasure to walk in the garden!

I am rambling around the infinite;
Every plant sends out its fragrances

The forest trees mingle confusedly;

In the Hsuan-ch’ih pool frolic bream and carp;
With light bullets I shoot down birds in flight.
With a slender line I take sturgeon.
During the session rises a delicious song.
Various breaths are led into the same tune.
Near the brook I offer pure wine,^^
A murmured song issues from white teeth;

8. Sec Kawakatsu’s emendation, p. 75, and note 11.

9. See KawakatsLi's emendation, p. 84, and note 13.
 The Poet Hsi K'ang and the Club of Seven Suf^es 307

My unadorned lute stirs and plays admirably,'^’

A pure sound rises following the wind.
Why does this gathering give me no pleasure?
It is that I regret Tung-yeh-tzu's not being here.
In wine, I am thinking of the man who is hiding.
Preserving the ancient ways;
(Since he is not here) I can only entrust myself to the lute
So as to give my heart to him who truly knows me.''
It appears that they sought in a light drunkenness that sensation of
being outside and above the things of the world, which our literature
attributes to opium, and that they finished the day in a heavy drunken-
ness at Mr. Huang's tavern so as to drown in w'ine the depression which
follow'ed the exaltation of the beginning.
A man who lived thus in retirement, without wanting public position,
could hope to pass through even that troubled era without hindrance,
despite his wealth and his family situation. It did not happen that way,
and Hsi K'ang died in 262, executed in the public square.
I have told you how Hsi K'ang, by his independent attitude, had
provoked the enmity of Chung Hui, the favorite of the duke of Chin,
Ssu-ma Chao, then all-powerful. Among Ssu-ma Chao's hangers-on was
Lu Sun, the brother of one of Hsi K'ang's friends named Lu An, who
was having an affair with his brother Lu An's wife. He wished, probably
in concert with her, to get rid of this inconvenient husband. He accused
his brother of “lacking filial piety", one of the unpardonable crimes
under the Code of the Han and the Wei; and Lu An was thrown into
prison. Rather than keeping quiet and letting himself be forgotten, he
had the bad idea of trying to prove that the accusation was a conspiracy
against him, and he called his friend Hsi K'ang as a witness. Adultery
was a serious crime, especially with a brother's wife. Lu Sun, seeing that
he w'as in danger, pressed the accusation of lacking filial piety by getting
Chung Hui's support, and the latter- in order to revenge himself for Hsi
K'ang's disdain—involved him in the accusation. Hsi K'ang too was cast
into prison, and both he and Lu An were condemned to death. It is said
that 3,000 admiring disciples of Hsi K'ang begged the king of Chin to let
them take their master’s place at the sacrifice, but their requests were
denied. Hsi K'ang’s friend, Hsiang Hsiu, hastening to his province, got
an audience with Ssu-ma Chao and was very pleasantly received, but he

10. See Kawakatsu's emendation (“idle” to “unadorned” lute), p. 84, and note 14.
11. In notes 15 and 16 Kauakatsu accepts the interpretation of a C hinese commentator
who sees the last two lines as referring not to Hsi K'ang's friend Tung-yeh-tzu but to Hsi
K'ang himself.
 3()(S Taoism and Chinese Religion

had no more success. The two friends were executed at the eastern
marketplace of the capital in 262. On his way to death Hsi K’ang played
the lute, contemplating the sunbeams.

I don't wish to end without underlining for you the enormous anguish
which Hsi K’ang's very religion must have brought him at the moment
of his execution. Hsi K’ang believed that man could obtain happy
immortality, but on condition that he succeeded, through appropriate
practises, in avoiding death and rendering his body immortal. He gave
himself devoutly to the necessary exercises for many years. And suddenly
he was condemned to death by execution. It was not only losing this life
while he was still young (he was forty-three'"); it was losing the very
hope of a future life, which could not be acquired after the destruction of
his body. The Taoists of the centuries after him made Hsi K’ang an
Immortal and declared that he had achieved Liberation of the Corpse by
arms'a procedure which was rare but not irregular. Perhaps Hsi K’ang
was consoled by this sort of hope in his march to execution, as he went
along playing his lute.
I will add that Hsi K’ang’s works were lost quite early, though a
number of them were put into various anthologies. It was from those
that, in Sung times, they were recovered in order to make a little
collection, far from complete, which nevertheless contains—if not all his
best works—at least the pieces which were most relished by those who
could read all he had left behind.'"^

12. Maspero's own dates for Hsi K'ang would make him forty rather than forty-three, as
Kawakatsu points out (note 18).
13. Kawakatsu gives a number of literary references on Hsi K’ang's becoming an
Immortal and suggests that the locution “Liberation of the Corpse by arms” refers to such
beliefs as are noted in notes 6 and 7 to the introduction to Book ix, below.
14. The Sui shu (SS) has a listing of Hsi K’ang’s works which casts some doubt on
Maspero’s statements here: note 20. Kawakatsu goes on to point out that original sources
on Hsi K’ang and his life are conveniently gathered together in Tai Ming-yang’s Hsi K’ang
chi chiao-chu (published in 1962); and, in addition to two Japanese secondary sources,
recommends Donald Holzman’s La vie et la pensee de Hi K'ang (1957).
 BOOK VII

All Essay on Taoism

ill the First Centuries A.D.
 Preface by Paul Demieville
The bulk of the materials published here under this title were found
scattered in Maspero’s notes, but they were evidently designed to form a
whole which Maspero apparently planned to entitle Taoism and Bud-
dhism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era. Since, in the present
condition of these materials, they treat of Buddhism only in its relations
with Taoism, and quite briefly at that, it has been thought necessary to
modify the title.
Scattered in various drawers and cardboard boxes, these materials
included handwritten pages and a great number of typed sheets, some of
them revised by Maspero, who had added Chinese characters and some-
times notes to them, but most of them without any Chinese characters
and without any handwritten corrections or additions. The* whole thing
was in extreme disorder (which undoubtedly had its logic for Maspero),
with various listings of certain chapters (especially in the first part), of
pages in duplicate or triplicate, and, at the top of each sheet, numbers of
all kinds, corrected, erased, scratched out, written over, from which it
was impossible to derive a continuous pagination. Maspero was pro-
bably preparing a technical publication on this subject, in which he had
undertaken to incorporate fragments worked up for his courses or for
lectures; he had not had the time to polish them into a definitive draft,
and a good many portions envisioned in the plans which he left behind,
or announced in certain passages of one or another of the successive
listings, have remained incomplete or entirely lacking.
We have tried to standardize the wording of what existed and, with-
out ever adding anything to it that was not from Maspero’s hand, to
derive from all these fragments a coherent whole, as coherent and as
complete as possible. To this end still other materials were used: notably
a fragment of sixty-three typed pages, lacking both a title and footnotes,
dealing with ancient and medieval Taoism, many pages of which were
encountered again, more or less recast, in other unpublished materials
printed herewith; an uncompleted manuscript of some forty-odd pages
 312 Taoism and Chinese Religion

on ‘The techniques of immortality and the mystical life in the Taoist

school of Chuang-tzLi’s time”, which seems to date from 1936-37, but
part of which is taken from an older text, probably from notes for a
course at the College de France; an “Essay on ancient and medieval
Taoism”, a manuscript similarly unfinished and lacking notes, of some
twenty pages, including numerous numbered quotations; the complete
manuscript of the course taught by Maspero at the College de France in
1921-22 on “The origins of the Taoist religion”; incomplete translations
of the biography of the immortal Chou Yi-shan (Wieger, “Canon
Taoiste”, No. 300), of the disciplinary Code of the Taoist parish
(“Hsiian-tu Lii-wen”, Wieger, No. 185), of the beginning of Chen Euan’s
“Hsiao-tao lun” {Taislw issai kyd [TIK] 52, no. 2103, chiian 9, pp.
1446-145c/); and a certain number of other bits, notes, and fragments
relating to Taoism which it was possible to cull out of the formidable
accumulation of Maspero’s files.
(From Melanges posthumes, p. 72 of vol. ii)

Bibliographical Introduction
The first centuries A.D., which in China correspond to the Later Han
dynasty, followed by the period of internal divisions and barbarian
invasions which is called the Three Kingdoms and the Six Dynasties,
were marked by great religious transformations. It was then that the
establishment of the definitive text of the Classics and the composition of
the great Commentaries gave its first precise shape to Confucianism. It
was in this period that Buddhism, a foreign religion which immediately
had a considerable success, entered China. Finally, it was in this time
that Taoism seems to have reached both its religious and its political
apogee. In sum, it was during these few centuries that those grand ideas
which are the foundation of the medieval and modern Chinese mind
took shape.
But the religious history of this period is very poorly known. For
Confucianism, we have biographies of scholars; but although these
enumerate at great length all the official positions those scholars held,
they hardly speak of their ideas, and most of the books are lost. For
Buddhism we have biographies of monks; but they tell us almost nothing
about the organization of the churches and their development. For
Taoism, it is still worse.
The Taoist scriptures were printed only once, under the Ming dynasty,
in about 1444-47, and only two copies of that printing have survived.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 313

one at Peking, the other in Tokyo.* The Taoist Canon, Tao-tsan^, was
thus very nearly inaccessible; fortunately, a re-edition has just been
made^, but it is hardly ten years old.^ And the collection is vast, over a
thousand volumes containing nearly 1,500 different works, many of them
very lengthy; so that the exploration, which will be long and difficult, has
scarcely begun.
But Taoism played a great role in the religious history of China during
the first centuries A.D., as much by itself as through its relations with
Buddhism. The success of Buddhism in China is one of the most aston-
ishing facts in Far Eastern religious history, for nothing more opposite
could be imagined than the religious genius of India and that of China.
No common idea, no common sentiment existed between them, and at
first blush it is hard to imagine what expedient foreign missionaries could
use to gain entry and acceptance for their doctrines. We began to realize
only a few years ago that Taoism must have played a role in this
introduction; it has indeed been noted that the main technical terms of
Buddhism, when they were not rendered simply by transcribing the
Sanskrit terms for better or worse, were translated by Taoist technical
terms.^ It is an interesting initial fact. But when one wishes to go farther,

1. Detailed information regarding these collections will be found in Wieger, Taoisme,

vol. I. Bihliographie generale, p. 5 (Hsien-hsien, 1911), and in Weng Tu-chien, Combined
Indices to the Authors and Titles of Books in Two Collections of Taoist Literature (Harvard-
Yenching Institute, Sinological Index Series, no. 25, Peking, 1935), pp. ii-iii. Father
Wieger’s work, to which 1 shall refer constantly for Taoist books, is a catalogue of all the
works contained in the Taoist Canon, with brief notes under each title, ending with two
indexes, by titles and by authors’ names. My references are made in abridged form on the
pattern: Wieger the number being that which Wieger assigned to each work, and
which indicates its place in the collection. The dates given for the printing of the Taoist
Canon are those supplied by Weng Tu-chien; according to Father Wieger, it was printed
between 1506 and 1521. [Kaltenmark, in the preface to this volume, and Kawakatsu, in Do
kyd, p. 350, both offer emendations to Maspero’s dates on the printing of TT.]
2. Tao-tsang [TT], Commercial Press, Shanghai, 1926. This edition, which reproduces the
Peking copy in reduced form, includes 1,120 fascicles (1,057 for the works printed about
1444-47, 63 for the supplement printed in 1607). I shall refer constantly to this reedition,
indicating the numbering of its fascicles, except however for the Taoist encyclopedia,
y’Cee, of w'hich 1 used the edition reproduced in SPTK. YCCC, the work of Chang Chiin-
fang, dates from about 1025 A.D. [Pelliot’s review of Wieger’s Taoisme in J.As., 1912, ii,
pp. 142 ff., gives added data on editions of the Taoist classics.]
3. [This bibliographical introduction must thus date from around 1936. Other parts of
the present Essay are of more recent composition.)
4. Taoism, like all religions, has its own vocabulary of technical terms. It was impossible
for me to leave these expressions in simple Chinese transcription, since that risked being
unintelligible, and I have tried to translate them as best I could; but as there are naturally
never corresponding French [or English] terms, 1 have had to be content with approximate
 314 Taoism and Chinese Religion

and to examine elosely how Buddhism and Taoism mutually influenced

one another, one is quickly stopped by our continuing ignorance as to
Taoist doctrines and still more as to the evolution of those doctrines.
One of the chief difficulties of research relating to the history of
Taoism arises from the fact that the ancient Taoist books are undated:
their authors are unknown, we do not know what period they belong to,
and there is almost never either a preface or a prefatory or final note
giving an author's name or a chronological indication. For some of
them, we can waver between Han and Ming—that is between dates
differing by some fifteen centuries.

It is, however, necessary to have some dates in order to produce a

history of Taoism. I believe I have been able to establish a certain
number of them. I cannot set forth here the details of this research; I
shall limit myself to presenting the results in summary form, so as to
show that 1 am not assigning precise dates arbitrarily to certain books
which the Tao-tsang gives us without any sort of indication.
If the Taoists had been as careful as the Buddhists, who kept for us a
whole series of ancient catalogues of their collection since the beginning
of the sixth century, we would have three valuable points of reference,
for at least three ancient catalogues of the Taoist Canon were compiled:
the first by order of the Earlier Sung, completed in 471 by Lu Hsiu-
ching;^ a second entitled “String of Red Jade Pearls of the Three Depths”
{San-tung cITiung-kang), composed by imperial order in 713-18 by

equivalents. The system which would seem a priori the simplest would have been to
translate each of the composite terms for Chinese expressions literally and to make a
French expression out of them, to which the technical Taoist meaning would be attached. 1
have sometimes proceeded this way, when the French expression thus created is sufficiently
deprived of meaning so that the Chinese expression which it retrieves is not forgotten. But
this way of doing it has usually been inapplicable: besides the fact that French and Chinese
are too remote from one another to allow us to imitate expressions closely from one to the
other, Taoist expressions (and in this they are like all technical expressions in all languages)
have frequently taken a meaning which has nothing in common with what simple adding
up of the meanings in compound terms would give, and which is sometimes even contrary
to that meaning. I shall give but a single example. The expression ts'iin-ssii, which 1
translate as “ecstatic meditation”, would signify, if one took the meaning of each of the
two words separately, “Keep one’s thought firmly attached to ..., apply one’s thought
to ....” But here is the Taoist definition of the expression: “During ts'un-ssia close the eyes
and break off'the thoughts" {T'ai-yi ti-cinin t'ai-tan yin-shu. in YCCC, eh. 44, ba).
If it were impossible to leave the technical terms untranslated, one might judge that it
was less necessary to translate the titles of books. It seemed to me that these titles also had
too often a technical significance for me to be satisfied with merely transcribing them.
5. Regarding Lu Hsiu-ching, who lived from 406 to 477, cf. TC’CC, cli. 5, 5h-lh.
 .4/7 Essay on Taoistn in the First Ccntnrics A.I). 315

Chang Hsien-l'ing; and finally a third, composed by imperial order at the

beginning of the Northern Sung period under the direction of Hsii
Hsiian (916-91), soon followed by a supplement compiled between 1007
and 1017 under the direction of Wang Ch’in-jo. This composite made up
what was first called the New Catalogue {Hsin-lu) and which, after
presentation to the emperor Chen-tsung of the Sung (998-1022),
received from him the title of “General Catalogue of Precious Litera-
ture” {Pao-wen None of these catalogues remains, except for a
few lines from the T’ang dynasty one, preserving the titles of twenty-four
works/ We can nevertheless get an idea of what the Taoist collection at
the beginning of the T'ang dynasty was, thanks to collections of excerpts
compiled then, two of which have survived: “The Most Important
Things There Are in the Secret Books of the Tao Which Has No
Superior” ( Wu-shemg, pi-yao) in a hundred chapters,^ and “The Bag of
Pearls of the Three Depths” {San-tung chu-nang) in ten chapters.*^ The
name and period of the author of the second of these, Wang Hsiian-ho
of the T’ang, have been preserved by chance in the colophons of the Tao-
tsaug. As for the first, which appears as an anonymous work of unknown
date, significant fragments of a copy made in 718 are found in the
manuscripts wiiich M. Pelliot brought back from Tun-huang;^® the work
was thus from the beginning of the eighth century at the latest. Thanks
to these two collections, we have the titles and numerous excerpts from
194 diflerent books going back at the latest to the seventh century A.D.
If one wishes to go back farther, research is less simple. For the sixth
century, anti-Taoist polemical works by Buddhists quote numerous titles
and passages from Taoist books. For the fifth century, Lu Hsiu-ching’s
catalogue, which is lost, as I have said, is mentioned regularly in the
Tun-huang manuscript fragment containing the T’ang catalogue; that
gives some twenty titles. In addition, one of the rare preserved passages^ ^

6. Ma Tuan-lin, H'eu-hsien t'ung-k'ao (WHTK: thirteenth century), ch. 224, \ 5a: for the
San-tung ch'iung-kang, he gives as a date only the period k’ai-yuan (713-41); but the
manuscript fragment of this work from Tun-huang (see the following note) having been
copied in 718, the date is thus confirmed. It is probably the Pao-wen t'ung hi which is the
base for no. 1 on the list of catalogues in Father Wieger, Le Canon taoi'ste, p. 6. On the
ancient catalogues of the Taoist Canon, see also Pelliot, BEFEO, iii, 322, n. 4.
7. Bibl. Nat., Pelliot ms. (Tun-huang), no. 2861.
8. TT, 768-79; Wieger, 1124.
9. rr, 780-82; Wieger, 1125. The Taoist Canon is divided into Three Profundities, san-
tung, in imitation of the Three Baskets, San-tsang (Tripitaka), of Buddhist writings.
10. Bibl. Nat., Pelliot ms., no. 2861 (Table of Contents), 2602 (ch. 29), 2371 (end of ( /?.
33), etc.
11. San-tung chu-nang (STCN), ch. 7, 22h, TT, 781. On Sung Wen-ming, see below.
Book IX, Second Part, note 123.
 316 Taoism and Chinese Religion

of one of the now-lost works of an early sixth century Taoist, Sung Wen-
ming, “The Chasm of Meanings of the Tao-te" {Tao-te yi-yiian) mentions
a book which has itself survived, the “Genuine Book of the Eight
Simplicities of the Very High of Supreme Purity” {Sliang-cITing kao-
shang pa-su cheu-ching),^^ and that in turn enumerates twenty-four
works which must be studied by those who seek Immortality at various
stages of their progress. That gives us fifty titles for the middle of the fifth
century. Finally, for the fourth century, we have two important lists of
titles, one from the second, the other from the first half of the century.
Forty books are mentioned in the “Esoteric Life of the Perfect Man (of
the Palace) of Purple Yang” {Tzu-yang chen-Jen nei-chiian), a book of
hagiography (it is the life of a personage called Chou Yi-shan who
attained Immortality) which we know could not have been composed
later than the end of the fourth century thanks to a copyist’s note,
preserved by chance, stating that he completed the copy on 22 February
399 13 jYig other list is far more significant. Ko Hung, an alchemist who

died between 325 and 336, cites more than three hundred titles of works
in his Pao-p’ihtzu,^'^ most of them concerned with alchemy and talis-
mans; but there are also books on doctrine and rituals.
We thus have a certain number of well established reference points,
and that helps us to make a rough estimate which, if incomplete, is
nevertheless good enough, of Taoist literature from the second century
A.D. to the T’ang dynasty.
To begin with, a homogeneous group of books of the second to fourth
centuries can be established, books which, closely related to one another
and above all emanating from the same Taoist milieu, are all related to
the same fundamental ideas. There are, first, the “Book of the Yellow
Court” {Huang-t’ing yii-ching),^^ probably the oldest, and the “Genuine
12. Under the abridged title of Pa-su clung. The quotation was in reality composed of
three separate passages from this book set end to end. The text of it is identical to the
present-day text of this book (TT, 194, 4h, lines 5-6; p. Sa, lines 5-6; p. 5h, lines 6-7;
Wieger, 423).
13. Tzu-yang chen-Jen nei-chuan (TCNC), TT 152; Wieger, 300; YCCC, eh. 106, 8a-146;
Li-shih chen-hsien t'i-tao t'ung-chien (LCTT) [“General mirror of the Perfect Men who
have embodied the Tao in successive ages”], <-'h. 14, Irz-Sc/ {TT, 141; Wieger, 293). —This
note, which is a final colophon, was preserved thanks to later additions which gradually
pushed it off into the middle of the work, where it remained unnoticed. (K.) The correct
date is 28 February, not 22.
14. PPT, nei-p’ien (NP), in TT, 868-70; Wieger, 1171. (I shall quote this work not
according to TT, but according to Sun Hsing-yen’s critical edition in his PCKTS.) There
are numerous quotations in all the chapters of the PPT, but the long list of titles which
occupies several pages of chapter 19 of the first part (NP) must be set apart.
15. TT, 168; Wieger, 329; TCCC, ch. 12, 30a-60<:/, an edition with better commentary
than the present-day TT.—Quoted in PPT, ch. 19, Aa.
 A/I Essay o/i Taoism i/i the Fi/'st Ccntu/ ics A.I). 317

Book of the Great Depth" {Ta-fu/ig clic/i-chi/ig) in thirty-nine sections,’^’

which to me seems a systematic arrangement of the Book of the Yellow
Court. The first of these, extremely confused, filled with cryptic expres-
sions and divine names, is in many passages almost unintelligible today.
Even in ancient times and for readers who were familiar with the ideas it
expresses, it could never have been easy reading. The second, better
ordered and simpler in style, is far less dihicult and also seems to have
been more widely known.These books, both of which are quoted in
the Pao-p’u-tzu, seem to me very old. The hist of them goes back at least
to the second century, since it is quoted in the Lich-hsic/i-cliua/i.
From them derives a series of works which are more recent, since they
quote the first ones: the "Genuine Book of the Eight Simplicities" {Pa-sii
chen-clii/ig), which I have already mentioned, the "Marvelous Book of
the Ta-yu (Heaven)" {Ta-yu //liao-chi/ig),^^ the "Profound Book of the
Seven Transformations and the Seven Changes" {C/Ti-cliua/i cITi-pien
fu/ig-ching),^'^ the "Book of the Three Original Genuine Ones, by the
Imperial Lord of the Golden Portico" {Clii/i-ch’ueh ti-chi'm Sa/i-yiia/i
cheu-yi cliifig)r^ and in the last place the "Book of the Correct Law of
the Three Heavens" {Saii-t’icn che/ig-fa ching).-^ All these books quote
the first two, which by contrast do not know of them: these latter books
are therefore surely later than the first two. On the other hand, they are
earlier than the Tzu-yang chen-jen nei-chuau, which mentions all of them.
Since all of them quote one another, I consider them absolute con-
temporaries: they must be from the first half of the fourth century A.D.
All these books grant a great importance and a particular respect to
the "Genuine Book of the Great Depth" {Ta-tu/ig clicn-clii/ig), and the
ideas they express are very closely related to that book and to the "Book
of the Yellow Court". In my opinion, this very coherent body of works
originates from the same Taoist circle which closely followed the tradi-
tion of the "Book of the Great Depth".
If the works which refer to the book of the Great Depth may be dated

16. liv'd., 18; Wieger, 7.—Quoted in PPT.

17. In the present-day Taoist Canon, these two works both exist under two very difterent
forms: an ancient form in which they bear respectively the titles of “Exoteric Book (W'ai-
clii/ig) of the Yellow Court” and “Jade Book {Yu-ching) of Great Depth”, and later
reworkings (between the hfth and seventh centuries) entitled “Esoteric Book {Nci-ching) of
the Yellow Court” (TT, 328; Wieger, 329) and “Real Book (Clie/i-chiiig) of the Great
Depth” (TT, 16-17; Wieger, 6).
18. TT, 1026; Weiger, 1295.
19. Ihul., 1030; Wieger, 1312.
20. Ihicl., 876; Wieger, 250; YCCC, eh. 50, 10i/-17/\ edition better than that of the
present TT, but abridged in certain passages. —Quoted in TCNC, \ 3a-h.
21. rr, 876; Wieger, 1188.
 3J(S Taoism and Chinese Religion

without too much trouble, it is more difficult to get precise results for
those referring to the “Sacred Jewel” (Ling-pao). The “Sacred Jewel” are
the holy books themselves, created spontaneously by the coagulation of
Pure Breaths at the beginning of the world, in the form of jade tablets
engraved with gold. The gods, who are not pure enough to behold these
books directly, heard them recited by the Celestial Venerable of the
Original Beginning, Yikui-shih T’icn-tswu who alone can read them,
having himself also been formed by the coagulation of Breaths at the
origin of the world; and the gods in their turn engraved them in charac-
ters on tablets of jade and keep them in heavenly palaces. I do not know
when the expression “Ling-pao” began to be used. The most ancient
books of the Ling-pao, which seem to have been rituals of certain
religious ceremonies, likewise go back at least to the third century. The
doctrinal books of this group seem to have appeared later; the most
important of them, the “Book of the Salvation of Innumerable Men, by
the (Celestial Venerable of the ) Original Beginning” ( Yium-shih wu-liang
tu-jen clung) must be from the end of the fourth or the beginning of the
fifth century, a period when the tradition of the Ling-pao seems to have
begun to spread and to take primacy in Taoism.
These two groups of works give shape to two tendencies, each of
which represents a different conception of the mode of salvation, and
thereby of the religion as a whole. But these two tendencies do not
appear as antagonists, despite their fundamental divergences. The adepts
of the Sacred Jewel know the Book of the Great Depth and other works
of that tradition; they do not strive against them, but on the contrary
quote and use them; they claim not to replace, but to complete and
continue them. And the adepts of the Book of the Great Depth do not
rise up against this pretension, but accept it quite naturally. For the one
group as for the other, the practises of worship mean more than
doctrines. The two tendencies highlighted in these books seem to have
always existed within Taoism, though without having the same relative
importance at all times. That of the Sacred Jewel seems to me to have
developed particularly from the third to fourth centuries on, in part
spontaneously, in part under the influence of certain Buddhist doctrines,
at a time when the Taoists still believed that they saw in Buddhism a
particular form of their own religion and interpreted it purposely in their
own way.

I cannot conceive of explaining the whole development of Taoism

during the first centuries A.D. completely. Not only would that be far too
long, but also I have not yet managed to see clearly enough certain
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 319

points relating to the books of the Sacred Jewel. 1 have therefore left
these aside and have concerned myself chietly with the study of the Taoist
circles which, in the fourth century, invoked the Book of the Great
Depth. I shall in the first place examine the believer's individual religious
life and the search for Life Eternal in the Taoism of the third to fifth
centuries A.D.: then the organization of churches, their ceremonies, their
life before and after the great revolt of 184 A.D.; and hnally the
connections between Taoism and Buddhism in the first Buddhist com-
munities in China. I do not claim, moreover, to offer a complete study of
these questions. In approaching the study of a religion of which every-
thing, or almost everything, is unknown—ceremonies of worship,
doctrines, organization, history—too many lacunae and errors are
inevitable. I must limit myself to deriving a few insights which I hope will
help further work to some extent.

1. ludividual Religious Life and the Seareh for Immortality

Ancient Taoism is above all a religion the end of which is to lead the
faithful to Life Eternal or, as it is said in Chinese, Long Life {ch’ctng-
slicng), a “long life” which need have no end. This term Life Eternal,
which seems almost Christian, conceals ideas quite different from ours.
For indeed, the problem of Immortality and of Life Eternal is not posed
in the same way for Taoists and Christians. The latter, shaped by Greek
philosophy, are accustomed to considering Spirit and Matter as two
distinct substances. From before the beginnings of Christianity, it was
accepted that death affected only Matter and allowed the immaterial and
essentially immortal Spirit to survive. But the Chinese never made our
distinction between Spirit and Matter. For them there was but a single
substance which passes from an invisible and formless state to one that is
visible and possessed of form.* Man is not formed of a spiritual soul and
a material body: he is entirely material.
While for Occidentals immortality is acquired at the outset by that in
man which is Spirit, and the whole question is to avoid an unhappy
immortality for the soul, so as to assure it of a happy immortality, for
the Taoists it is the acquisition of Immortality which is at stake. For
them the human being, all of whose constituent elements are scattered at
death, must succeed in conquering Immortality.

1. This old theory, which is that of the Hsi-tz'u, the principal philosophical appendix to
TC, has been preserved intact by Taoism, as it has also been by all the schools of Chinese
philosophy.
 320 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Perhaps the first founders believed in the possibility of obtaining

immortality in this life through the suppression of death. But in the Han
period the Taoists were satisfied with results which were seemingly less
miraculous. It was necessary to try and develop in oneself during life a
kind of internal embryo endowed with immortality, which was formed,
grew, and once it became adult transformed the coarse body into a fine-
spun, light immortal body, as the cicada leaves its molt or the snake its
old skin. This birth into Life Eternal was quite like common death. The
Taoist believer seemed to die; he was buried according to the ordinary
rites. But that was only an appearance: what was really laid in the tomb
was a sword or a bamboo cane to which he had given the likeness of his
body. The real body, become immortal, had gone to live among the
Immortals. This is what was called the Liberation of the Body (or of the
Corpse), shih-chieli: and it was said that “the Liberation of the Body is a
false death”.-
The following anecdote, which is taken from a book of the third
century A.D., a sort of Taoist biography of the emperor Wu (140-87 B.C.)
and perhaps of several other emperors of the Han, entitled “Facts and
Actions within the Palaces of the Han” {Han chin-clnmg c/Ti-cliii chu),
shows what this Liberation of the Body was.^
Li Shao-chiin, the hero of the anecdote, is a historical personage, an
alchemist mentioned by Ssu-ma Ch’ien, who was his contemporary.
When Li Shao-chiin was near departing, emperor Wu dreamed
that he was climbing mount Sung with him. Halfway up, a messen-
ger riding upon a dragon and carrying his insignia of office in hand
descended from a cloud and said: “The Great One, T’ai-yi, begs
Shao-chiin to come.” The emperor awoke and said to those around
him: “According to what I have just dreamt, Shao-chiin is going to
leave me.” Several days later Shao-chiin said that he was ill and
died. A long time afterwards, the emperor ordered that his coffin be
opened: no body was there; only clothes and cap remained.
The Pao-p’ii-tzu contains other little stories of the same kind. For
example, a Taoist master and his two disciples having died, the families
had the coffins opened. In each was found a bamboo rod to which was

2. YCCC, ch. 84, Aa.

3. Han chin-chung ch’i-chii chu, in PPT, ch. 2, 8/). The term ch'i-chii chu denotes the
official collections of deeds and acts of the emperors, set down during their lifetimes by the
historiographers for the composition of the Chinese official histories: see H. Maspero, La
Chine et I’Asie Centrale, in Histoire et Historiens depids cinquante ans, vol. ii. But of course
the work which PPT quotes has nothing official about it except this title: it was a collection
of Taoist legends regarding the emperor Wu.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 321

attached a vermilion script; it said that all three were Liberated from the
Body, shih-chieh^
In sum, no prodigious miracles, no ascension in broad daylight on a
dragon like that of the Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti, one of the mythical
founders of Taoism; but the assurance for the faithful of enjoying, after
an apparent death, happy immortality if they have known how to
conquer it.

A. OUTER RELIGIOUS LIFE: PRACTISES AND EXERCISES

/. First Steps in the Way of Imniortality: Moral Life and “Aets of Virtue”
How does one acquire immortality?
Authors strange to Taoism have been especially struck by the alchem-
ical and dietetic practises, and those are what they stress. A great writer
of the first century A.D., Wang Ch'ung, says:
The Taoists SWTIHOW the essence of gold and jade, and eat
crystallized agaric, so that their body becomes light and they
become Immortals.
And elsewhere:
They say that by controlling the breath, one will not die
Finally he speaks of people who “practise the Taoist procedure of
abstaining from eating cereals”.^ Indeed all that was very impor-
tant. But it does not suffice. To it must be joined a pure life and the
exercise of moral virtues. The two series of practises complement one
another and have equal importance. The greatest alchemist of the fourth
century, Ko Hung, says this explicitly:
Those who do not carry out acts of virtue and are satisfied only to
practise magical procedures will never obtain Life Eternal.^
What these acts of virtue were, we see through the life of an Immortal
of whom I have already spoken, which was composed in the fourth
century and which has fortunately survived the wreck of almost all the
Taoist literature of that period, the “Esoteric Biography of the Perfect
Man of the Purple Yang Palace”. The hero, called Chou Yi-shan, who
according to this little work lived towards the end of the Later Han
dynasty, never existed, but by the very fact that he WTIS not recounting
4. PPT, ch. 2, 9a.
5. Wang Ch'ung, LH, ch. 7, 6a (SPTK ed.; tr. Forke, vol. i, p. 339); ch. 7, 8a (I, p. 342);
ch. 7, 1 la (i, p. 347).
6. PPT, ch. 3, 8/7.
 322 Taoism and Chinese Religion

the life of a real person, the author was able to give free rein to his
imagination, and we thus see perfectly what the ideal of the Taoist life is.
Here is the beginning of this biography;^
When quite young^ (Chou Yi-shan) loved to meditate, sitting by
himself in peaceful places. Each day after dawn, at the moment
when the sun rose, he stood turned towards the east and, having
rinsed out his mouth, he swallowed his saliva and absorbed air more
than a hundred times; and he bowed to the sun twice. Every
morning he did this. To his father, who asked the reason for this
practise, he replied: “In my heart I love the brilliance of the sun's
rays; that is why I bow to it.”
On the first of the month, in the morning, he went to walk in the
marketplace, along the streets, at the crossroads; and when he saw
the poor or the hungry, he took off his clothing and gave it to them.
... One year when there was a great drought and famine, and the
price of a bushel of rice reached a thousand pieces of cash, so that
the roads were filled with the starving, he exhausted his fortune and
ruined his family to help them in their distress; and he did this
secretly, so that the people did not know- that these generous gifts
came from him.
Following these good deeds, he was rewarded by the coming of an
Immortal, who set him upon the way of Immortality by initiating him
into the practises of alchemy and dietetics.
We can see the importance of good works for the author of this
biography. It is indeed an ordinary truth in the Taoism of that period
that the practise of virtue must precede the search into technical
procedures. The alchemist whom I have already quoted, Ko Hung, said
this and on this point quoted the sacred books:*^
The Master was asked: “Those who practise the Tao must first
acquire merits, must they not?” He replied: “Yes. According to the
second chapter of the Book of the Jade Seal: To carry out merit-
orious acts is the main thing; to expunge sins comes afterwards.
Those who practise the Tao do meritorious acts by saving men from
danger, making them avoid misfortunes, protecting them from
illnesses, preventing premature deaths. Those who wish to become
Immortals must take the Five Virtues as their foundation.’

7. TCNC, \a-h{TT, 152). Cf. above, note 13.

8. Chou Yi-shan was then sixteen years old.
9. PPT, ch. 3, Sh-9a. —“Book of the Jade Seal”, Yii-ch'ien ching, quoted in this passage,
is lost today.
 An Essay an Taoism in the Firs! Centuries A.I). 323

“The same Book says: ‘He who wants to become an Tarlhly

ImmorlaP^ must have accomplished three hundred good deeds;
he who desires to become a Heavenly Immortal must have accom-
plished one thousand two hundred good deeds. He who, after
having accomplished 1,199 good deeds, does but a single evil one,
loses all the previous good deeds and must begin the whole again.’
“The same Book says: ‘Before the accumulation of good deeds is
completed, it serves no purpose to take the drugs of the Immortals.
If one does not swallow the drugs of the Immortals, even if one has
accomplished good deeds, one cannot become an Immortal. How-
ever, one will avoid the misfortune of sudden death.’”
An exact accounting of each man's good and evil acts is kept by a
special divinity, the Master of Destiny.
These passages from the “Book of the Jade Seal” suffice to show that
the author of the “Esoteric Biography of the Perfect Man of the Purple
Yang Palace” is in the good Taoist tradition when he has his hero
accomplish pious works before giving himself over to alchemical re-
searches. And that was not merely an ideal of saintly life which the
faithful admired without practising it. Quite on the contrary, a number
of Han-period Taoists are found who acted like Chou Yi-shan. I cannot
quote all those mentioned in the History of the Later Hath for there
are at least fifteen.** They are seen feeding orphans, maintaining roads
and bridges. Voluntary poverty is one of the standard forms of Taoist
religious life in that period: most frequently, the adept divides his goods
among all his relatives; but sometimes he distributes them to all the poor
of the region. A certain Che Hsiang, having inherited an enormous
fortune, distributed it to the poor and, when he was reproached for this,
he said: “Our family has accumulated wealth for a long time. But
affluence is a fault from which Taoists abstain!”*-
Another side of moral life which the texts show' clearly is atonement
and penitence for sins committed. The passage from the “Book of the
Jade Seal” which I quoted above says a w'ord about it, but in such a way
as to set it below the performance of good deeds. It is especially in the
practises of the Yellow Turbans, those Taoist rebels who, in 184 A.D.,

10. The Earthly Immortals are inferior Immortals; the Heavenly Immortals are higher
Immortals.
11. Hou Han shu (HHS), cli. 49, la; cli. 51, 1/^; ch. 57, 6h\ ch. 60A, 36; ch. 62, 3a; ch. 70,
2a; ch. 72, 3a; ch. 80, 16; ch. 87, 2a; ch. 90B, la; ch. 104B, 5a; ch. 112A, 66; etc. (HHS, like
the other dynastic histories, is quoted according to the TSCC edition, Shanghai, 1888). —!
count only the personages who are said to have loved or practised the worship of Huang-
lao; for many, that was accompanied by an ascetic life and the suppression of desires.
12. HHS, ch. 112A, 66.
 324 Taoism and Chinese Religion

endangered the Han dynasty for a moment, that it can be well seen.*^
Among them, illness was considered as the consequence of earlier sins.
The sick person went to a special priest or sorcerer and, kneeling down,
declared himself guilty of sins, prostrating himself and asking to be
absolved of his sins. The priest inscribed his name and his repentance on
three slips addressed to Heaven, Earth, and Water: the first was burned,
the second buried, the third submerged. In addition the master, holding
in his hand a bamboo rod with nine knots (nine is the number of
Heaven), made spells and recited incantations over the water. He made
the sick persons prostrate themselves and told them to repent of their
sins. Then he made them drink the charmed water. After several days, if
the sick got well, it was said that they were faithful believers; those who
were not cured were punished for lack of faith. The punishments
consisted in carrying out, under the supervision of the religious authori-
ties, various pious works: repairing a hundred paces of road, furnishing
the rice and meat needed in free public inns, and so on.

The practise of virtue and avoidance of sin, the confession and

repenting of one’s faults, the doing of good works, the feeding of the
hungry and clothing of the naked, the succor of the sick, the distribution
of one’s fortune to the poor so as to do good secretly without boasting of
it, these are things we know and are familiar with. But in Han China this
was something new. Unlike Confucianism, for which man is never more
than a cog in the social structure, Taoism created a true moral individual
for Chinese use. One must hold at least some bit of authority to be in
position to apply the rules of Confucian morality; Taoist morality
applied to everybody: all could practise it. It certainly contributed to the
popularity of Taoism in this era, even among scholars who had no
leaning towards alchemy and who moreover remained devoted to Con-
fucian doctrines.

//. Physiological Practises

The ancient Taoists, for whom Immortality was possible only in the
survival of the material body, had some trouble in transforming the
heavy mortal body into a light immortal body in which bones and flesh
were gold and jade. For that they had to follow numerous practises,
which a religious book of the third century had summarized in the
following four verses:'*^

13. San-kuo chih (SKCY H'ei chih (H'C), ch. 8, 9h\ HHS, ch. 105, 2h.
14. Quoted in PPT, NP, ch. 3, \h (PCKTS ed.), as taken from one of the “Books of the
Immortals”, without citing the precise title.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.l). 325

He who swallows Cinnabar and keeps the One

Will only finish in Heaven;
He who makes the Essence return and practises Embryonic
Respiration
Will have longevity unlimited.
Beneath these cryptic terms are sketched the principal practises neces-
sary for attaining Immortality; “to swallow Cinnabar” is alchemy; “to
keep the One” is concentration, meditation, and ecstasy; finally the last
two verses briefly describe sexual and respiratory practises.
To obtain Immortality, the Taoist adept must accomplish two things
in succession: to suppress the cause of decrepitude and death of the
material body; to create the subtle immortal body. But in order really to
understand how he succeeds in this, we must know how the Taoists
envisioned the interior of the human body.’ **
A great number of books from the third and fourth centuries A.D. deal
with this subject, and several of them still exist today. They enumerate,
designate, and describe at length the various divinities dwelling in the
Three Cinnabar Fields, and incidentally in other portions of the body,
evidently for the purpose of guiding the Adept and allowing him to
recognize them when they appear to him in his visions. Or, if one prefers
to take our rather than the Taoist viewpoint, they are designed to guide
the visions themselves and to control them by somehow codifying them,
that is, by setting up the experiences of the first masters as a normal rule,
in such a way that the disciples, under the suggestion of these detailed
and precise descriptions, will not stray too far. These books all belong to
the school or—^if the word “school” seems a bit too strong—to the
Taoist group which claimed to adhere to the “Genuine Book of the
Great Mystery”, Ta-tung chen-ching, in thirty-nine articles, which makes
this the basic text of its doctrine. After the fifth century, the question
seems to have ceased to interest Taoist circles, and, if later literature still
makes numerous allusions to it, it no longer supplies anything new.

Like all Chinese, the Taoists divide the body into three sections: the
upper section (head and arms), the middle section (chest), and the lower
section (belly and legs). And they set the internal organs off into two
classes, the five viscera, wu-tsemg (lungs, heart, spleen, liver, kidneys),
and the six receptacles, liu-fu (stomach, gall bladder, large intestine,
small intestine, bladder, and “three cooking places”, san-chiao—that is,
esophagus, interior stomach canal, and urethra, the three of which make up

15. See Dabry de Thiersant, La Medecine chez les Chinois, Paris, 1863, and below. Book
IX, introduction, note 9.
 326 Taoism and Chinese Religion

a single receptacle). The upper section contains the organs of sense; eyes,
ears, nose, tongue, and the fingers, the principal organ of touch. The
large functions of physiological life are situated in the two middle and
lower sections, while all that concerns intellectual life belongs to the
upper section, except that the very organ of thought, which for the
Chinese is the heart, is in the middle section. Despite this important
exception, the partition of the life of the mind and vegetative life among
the three sections of the body plays its role in Chinese ideas.
Otherwise, the Taoists share the ideas of Chinese doctors’^ concerning
respiration, digestion, and circulation. Respiration is broken up into two
beats, inhalation falling under the yin principle since it is a descent which
conducts the exterior air, c/zV, through the spleen to the liver and to the
kidneys, and exhalation falling under the yang principle since it is an
ascent which casts the breath of the kidneys out to the heart and the
lungs, passing through the spleen again. In traversing the spleen, the air
drives out of it the breaths of the Five Flavors produced by digestion;
under the influence of the spleen, solid food descending through the
esophagus into the stomach and mixed in the spleen with water (which
has its special duct different from the esophagus) to form the blood,
which, pushed by the breath of respiration, advances three inches in the
veins, thus creating circulation.
To these notions accepted by all, the Taoists add others which are
peculiar to them. In the three sections of the body they place three main
regions, one in the head, the second in the chest, the third in the belly.
These are in some sense command posts for each of the sections. They
are called Cinnabar Fields, tan-t’ien, to recall the name of the essential
element in the drug of immortality, cinnabar. The first, or Palace of Ni-
huan {Nirvanay, is in the brain; the second, the Scarlet Palace, is near
the heart; the third, the Lower Cinnabar Field, is below the navel.
These three Palaces have the same general arrangement. All alike are
made up of nine cubicles an inch high, in two rows of five and four. The
first cubicle in the row of five is the sole entry to this complex assemblage
of nine cubicles or nine Palaces. Its outward third (three tenths of an
inch) serves as a vestibule; the insides are round and empty and have
interior walls of a brilliant red. The only difference among the cubicles of

16. I am not saying that the Taoists borrowed these notions from doctors: Chinese
medicine was always under the influence of Taoism, and the first doctors who were not
mere sorcerers may have been Taoists.
17. [For the transcription of the second character, Maspero vacillated in the various
revisions of this work between wan, which is the modern official pronunciation (though
abnormal), and huan, which he adopted in Book ix. Huan has been reestablished
throughout.]
 A/I /:.v.sY/v o/i Ti/ois/}/ i/i the Fi/st Cc/ilu/ ics A.I). 327

the three sections is that those of the brain are arranged horizontally
from the front to the back of the head, in two stages, live cubicles below,
four above, while those of the chest and the belly seem to have been
arranged vertically in two parallel lines, the hve-cubiclc row in front, that
of four behind.
But this is not certain, for the only detailed descriptions relate to the
Upper Cinnabar Field, that of the head. It is not impossible that the
Nine Palaces may be a rough and schematic simulacrum of the cerebral
ventricles. Below, at the entry, is the Palace of the Hall of Government,
miug-t'ang-kung: behind, the Palace of the Chamber of the Arcane, tim^-
Jaiig-kit/ig: then the Palace of the Cinnabar P'ield, which is properly
called the Ni-huan; then the Palace of the Moving Pearl (that is, of
quicksilver), liii-chu-kun^\ and finally the Palace of the Jade Emperor, yii-
ti-kung. Above, and starting from the front of the head are the Palace of
the Celestial Court, f'ic/i-f’ing-kitng: the Palace of the Reality of the
Great Pinnacle, t'ai-chi cheii-kitng: the Palace of the Mysterious
Cinnabar, hsuan-tau-kimg. which is just above the Palace of the
Cinnabar Field; and finally the Palace of the Great Majesty, t'ai-liuang-
kii/ig.
The term Ni-huan, which literally signifies “Mud-pill", is actually a
transcription of the Sanskrit word nirvana. And this shows that the
definitive elaboration of the complicated anatomy system had scarcely
been completed in the third and fourth centuries, the time when those
books were written from which I take the elements of this description,
for it is under the Later Han at the earliest that Buddhist influence could
have been introduced in this way. The general theory of the Cinnabar
Field is ancient, but the detailed description of the Cinnabar P'ield of the
head with its nine cubicles must be from just this time.
In the chest, one enters through the Little Gate of Stories iou-ke
(trachea), which leads to the Hall of Government and to the cubicles
beyond it: the Palace of the Moving Pearl is the heart and the Cinnabar
Field is three inches inside the chest. In the belly, the Hall of
Government is the spleen, and the Cinnabar Field is three inches below
the navel.
But the Nine Palaces are far from being all of the divine residences
which are in each section of the body. The first three Palaces of the lower
row, those which are nearest to the entry, make up—together with other
pavilions situated to the right and left the three Yellow Courts {huang-
t’ing), the center of which for the head is in the eyes and for the belly in
the spleen. The Palace entry is guarded by pavilions where divinities
dwell. Entirely outside, the two ears are like pavilions of drums and bells,
from which arriving visitors are announced.
 328 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

Near the entry of the Upper Cinnabar Field, above the gap between
the two eyebrows, inside the forehead, are to the right the Yellow Portico
{liucnig-ch’iieli), to the left the Scarlet Terrace (chiang-t’ai), which are set
so as to guard the “space of an inch”—that is, the entry vestibule, which
is called the “Double field which guards the space of an inch” {shou-ts'im
shuang-t'ien), and which occupies three-tenths of an inch just in the
middle between the eyebrows and the root of the nose.*^ On the other
hand, the eyebrows form the Flowered Canopy {hiia-kaiy^, below which
are, in the left eye and the right, the Palaces of the West and the East
which are also called the Green Chamber, ch’ing-fang (or Green
Judgment Hall: cITing-fu) and the Judgment Hall of White Purity, liao-
ch’ing fu (green is the color of the East and white the color of the West).
They communicate with the Palace of the Hall of Government. One inch
behind, the Chamber of the Arcane or Golden Chamber also has several
pavilions. First there is the Dwelling of the Mysterious Essence {hsiian-
c/iing she) and a Dark Portico {\'u-ch'iieh), then a Yellow Portico {huang-
ch’iieh) and a Purple Entryway {tzu-hii), the first to the right and the
second to the left: these last two buildings must be in fact the same as
those of the Hall of Government; but the descriptions are so confused
that T’ao Hung-ching, despairing of fixing their precise locations, made
them different buildings.
In the Chamber of the Arcane or, as it is also called, the Purple
Chamber, is the Jade Wall of the Golden Hall {chin-t’ang yii-c/Teng),
beyond which the Immortals do not penetrate when they are received in
audience.
The Divine Palaces are in fact portrayed on the model of earthly
palaces. The lower row of the Nine Palaces has five buildings one behind
the other, as on earth the Imperial Palace has five successive courts, each
one with a hall on a paved platform; and. Just as earthly officials are
received in audience in the courtyard which comes before the second hall
of the Palace, so the Divine Immortal Officials and Real Officials are
received in the courtyard before the second cubicle of the Ni-huan
Palace. The three outer Palaces, with all the pavilions belonging to them,
constitute also, as has been seen, a particular ensemble for audiences and
receptions, the Yellow Court {huang-tlng). The six other Palaces are
inaccessible to other gods, spirits, and transcendent beings of the body.

18. (Tung-chen) T’ai-shang su-ling tung-yiian Ta-tu miao-ching (TSTTM) [“Marvelous

Book of the Great Being (Heaven) of the Arcanic Original of Transcendent Simpleness
(told) by the Very High”], \ba-\la (TT, 1026; Wieger, 1295).
19. Huang-t’ing nei-ching chen-ching (HNC), sect. 6 (TT, 190; Wieger, 399).
20. T'ao Hung-ching, TCYC [“Secret formula for raising oneself to the position of
Perfect Man”], eh. 1, 11a {TT, 193; Wieger, 418).
 An £'.V.SY/V on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 329

Right at the back of the Nine Palaces section of the upper region, there is
a small gate, the Little Back Gate, hou-liu, which crosses the “Jade Bone
of the Cross-beam”: this is the hollow of the nape of the neck.^*
The middle and lower sections are no less filled with divine dwellings.
Some of them are the same as those of the head. Thus it is that the navel
too is a mount K'un-lun and that near it there is a Yellow Portico; that
the Transcendent Terrace (the heart) is below the Flowered Canopy (the
lungs).Others are peculiar to each section, like the Golden Dwelling
{cliin-she), the Silver City (j'in-ch’eng), the Vermilion Tower (chu-iou),
which are not far from the navel. In the middle of the belly, the small
intestine is the Great Wall {cli’ang-ch’eng).^^ The space between the
kidneys is the Dark Portico {yu-ch'iieh), which communicates with the
ears."*^ A little lower is the Ocean (ta-liai), which is called the Weak
Water {jo-sliui: the bladder); there a divine tortoise lives who exhales and
inhales the Original Breath and, by making it flow, produces the wind
and the rain which it causes to penetrate throughout the four limbs.

For the Taoists, these are the major organs of the body. Life Eternal
depends on the way they are handled; the common man who neglects
them dies, the Taoist Adept who knows well how to handle them obtains
Immortality. It is in them that the causes of death are destroyed and the
embryo of the immortal body is created.
For this there are many procedures, all of which can be arranged in
three classes: absorption of drugs, circulation of breath, and alchemy.
Each of them can in some measure lead to immortality, but their benefits
are increased by using them simultaneously or successively.

a. Alchemical Practises The alchemical procedures are the most potent,

but it is not possible to use them straight away: one must begin with the
others. And if their value is accepted by all, the indispensability of their
use is debated. Ko Hung, in the fourth century, declares explicitly that
without alchemy prolongation of life can be achieved, but it cannot be
made eternal. But already in his time many Taoists acknowledged virtues
in other procedures equal to those of alchemy. He who could successfully
practise alchemical recipes became an Immortal of the highest rank, but
the circulation of breath well practised likewise led to the status of

21. For this description, see especially TTN, \a-2h (TT, 59; Wieger, 130); Ta-tung yii-
ching, ch. 1 {TT, 16; Wieger, 7).
22. THCC, 10^/.
23. Huang-t'ing nei-ching yii-ching (HNY).
24. Ihici.
25. Lao-tzu cining-ching {LCC) ch. 1, 19th divinity ( YCCC\ ch. 18, 14a).
 330 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Immortal, although at a lesser rank; and even the absorption of non-

alchemical drugs, though this was a still inferior procedure, also led to
immortality, though naturally at a still lower rank. In our day, the
question is not even debated any more, and I know of no work
contemporary with or later than the T’ang which maintains that alchemy
is indispensable to the attainment of immortality. On the contrary, its
difficulty and the expense of its procedures have steadily diminished
its practical if not its theoretical importance within Taoism, to the
advantage of other procedures. At the same time it tended, following the
example of medicine though with less success, to be separated from
Taoism and to become a purely scientific technique, though not without
a certain disrepute, due to its constant exploitation by quacks.
Alchemical procedures consist essentially in the preparation and
absorption of cinnabar {tan: mercury sulfate). They do not dispense with
other procedures, but complement them. It is the crowning glory of the
Adept’s career if he can get that far. Circulation of breath and ingestion
of drugs are the procedure of the Female Cinnabar (yin-tan): through
them immortality can be attained, but only the lower degrees. Alchemy is
the procedure of the Male Cinnabar (yang-tan): by it alone can one
become a “Flying Immortal” ( fei-hsien) and attain the highest grades in
the hierarchy of the Immortals.-^
This is a complicated and costly technique, for cinnabar is not absorbed
as such; it must undergo a whole preparation. I cannot describe it here at
great length. Moreover, the Taoist books themselves do not tell all about
this subject, for the transmutations of cinnabar are properly the “great
work”, the secret of which is transmitted orally by the initiated from
master to disciple. And not everybody had the good fortune to find a
master. If Liu Hsiang, a great writer of the beginning of the Christian era
whom the tradition of later centuries portrays as an alchemist, did not
succeed in fabricating gold, it was for want of oral instruction. He had
the book, but he could find no master from whom he could learn the
secret formulae: thus he failed.-^
I shall restrict myself to giving a few general indications borrowed
from the Pao-p’u-tzu, that book of an alchemist from the beginning of
the fourth century which I have quoted several times before. The
cinnabar has to “come back” nine times to get it into its sublimate form:

26. (K.) According to TCNC, yin-tan includes sexual, gymnastic, and respiratory
procedures, as well as other measures, but excludes ingestion of drugs and alchemical
procedures. The text does not seem to offer any examples of alchemical procedures referred
to as yang-tan; but page 5a does say that only through alchemical procedures is it possible
to become -d fei-hsien.
27. PPT, NP, eh. 2, 10r/-l l/x
 An Essay on Taoism in I he First Centuries A. I). 33!

that is, to carry out the transmutation of cinnabar into mercury and of
mercury into cinnabar nine times.
By burning cinnabar (tan-sha), one gets mercury {shui-yin). There
are people who cannot believe this: “Cinnabar (they say) is a red
body. How could it become this white body?" And they say further:
“Cinnabar is a stone; (but) stones which are calcined become
limestone: why should cinnabar alone (avoid this and become
mercury)?"
The operation is repeated nine times, and at each transmutation the
cinnabar becomes more active and more powerful.
He who takes the cinnabar which has undergone one transmu-
tation {yi-chuan-tau) will become an Immortal within three years.
He who takes cinnabar which has undergone two transmutations
will become an Immortal in two years. He who takes cinnabar
which has undergone three transmutations will become an Immortal
in one year. He who takes cinnabar which has undergone four
transmutations will become an Immortal in half a year. He who
takes cinnabar which has undergone five transmutations will
become an Immortal in a hundred days. He who takes cinnabar
which has undergone six transmutations will become an Immortal
in forty days. He who takes cinnabar which has undergone seven
transmutations will become an Immortal in thirty days. He who
takes cinnabar which has undergone eight transmutations will
become an Immortal in ten days. He who takes cinnabar which has
undergone nine transmutations will become an Immortal in three
days.-*^
h. Dietetic Practises The procedures most usual in the fourth, fifth, and
sixth centuries A.D. were dietetic practises and circulation of the breath.
In theory these are independent procedures, but they are almost always
used together (the first serving only as an aid to the second).
What causes death is the habit of eating cereals. In fact, cereals bring
to birth in the body those Worms which consume its vitality. These are
not ordinary worms, common intestinal worms belonging to the nine
species of vermin which Chinese doctors enumerate. They are trans-
cendent beings which belong to the category of souls and spirits. They
are not of fixed form: “Sometimes they have the aspect of evil demons.

28. Ibid., ch. 4, 3/^.

29. Ibid., 4a. The word cliuan, which I translate as “transmutation”, designates the
double operation which, by calcining cinnabar, produces mercury and thereafter re-
transforms the mercury into cinnabar.
 332 Taoism and Chinese Religion

sometimes they take human form.”^^ Certain authors, however, give

each of them its own form, which they even draw themselves. One has
the appearance of a man, the second is a monster that looks like a
horse’s leg with a horned human head, the third is like a quadruped; but
these seem to be only occasional forms, the ones they take on when they
approach the souls and spirits within the body.
They are three in number {san-ch'img), and each of them lives in one
of the Cinnabar Fields. The first, the Old Blue (CITing-ku) dwells in the
Ni-huan Palace in the middle of the head. It is he who makes men blind,
or deaf, or bald, who makes the teeth fall out, who stops up the nose and
gives bad breath. The second, the White Maiden (Pai-ku), dwells in the
Scarlet Palace (Chiang-kung), the middle Cinnabar Field, in the chest.
She causes palpitations of the heart, asthma, melancholy. The third is the
Bloody Corpse {Hsiieh-shih), who lives in the lower Cinnabar Field: “It is
through him that the intestines are painfully twisted, that the bones are
dried out, that the skin withers, that the limbs have rheumatisms, that
the wrists are painful, that the will is not strong, that thought is infirm,
that one can no longer eat and is hungry, that one is sad and sighs, that
ardor flags, that the spirit wastes away and falls into confusion.”^'
Hence it is the Three Worms who cause decrepitude, infirmities,
illnesses; they are also called the Three Corpses {san-shih)P^ They do still
worse things. These malevolent guests spy on man within his body, and
they go to heaven to denounce his sins so as to diminish the time allotted
to his life, to make him die quickly, so as to be freed as soon as possible
from this body in which they are closed up and which they consider a
prison. At the end of each sixty-day cycle, on the fifty-seventh day {keng-
shen), the Lord of the North (Pei-ti) “opens the doors of all sins and
receives the requests of all the spirits” in the Upper Palace of the Great
Mystery. On that day the Three Corpses, having made a list of men’s
sins, go up to heaven to report to him, and the Director of Destiny
subtracts a certain number of days from one’s life according to his sins.
It is because the Three Corpses don’t want a man to have a long life. The
Spirits who are within the body wish for the man to live, but the Corpses
wish him to die. When the man dies, the Corpses scatter and wander
about; they become Ghosts, people sacrifice to them, and they have
things to drink and to eat; that is why they want the man to die.^^ The

30. (K.) E.g., see YCCC, ch. 82, 9a.

31. TCNC, 4a; Tai-shang san-shih chung-ching (TSC), in YCCC, ch. 81, \ 3b-\4h.
32. The two names are very ancient: that of the Three Worms is used in the middle of the
second century A.D. in the Lieh-h.sien chuan {LHC), ch. 2, that of the Three Corpses appears
by the mid-fourth century in SHC, ch. 3, 5a. (K.) LHC refers to the Three Corpses, not the
Three Worms.
33. (K.) YCCC, ch. 81, \ 5b-\(yh.
 An Essav on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 333

Other spirits oppose their plan, and eonsequently real hghts break out
within the body; “When in dreams one finds oneself fighting with wicked
men, this is the Corpses struggling with the Spirits.”
In sum, the Three Corpses, or Three Worms, are the evil inner spirits
who seek to prevent a man from getting to Life Eternal. They exert
themselves to this end in all ways: on the one hand materially, physically,
one might say, by attacking the three Cinnabar Fields and thus weaken-
ing vitality; on the other morally, by denouncing and exaggerating sins
and by opposing all progress. Thus the Adept must absolutely get rid of
them. “Those who wish to seek Life Eternal must first of all drive out the
Three Worms,” declares the Immortal Liu Ken.'^*'
To that end one has recourse to dietetic procedures, the primary point
of which is “To Cut Off Cereals” {chiteh-kii), that is, to stop eating the
hive Cereals which constitute the base of the Chinese diet; rice, millet,
wheat, oats, and beans. It is also called “abstaining from cereals” (/;/-
A'//), or again “discontinuing grains” {hsiu-liang). The Five Cereals are
the most harmful of food, that which prevents the obtaining of Im-
mortality. “The Five Cereals are scissors that cut off life, they rot the five
internal organs, they shorten life. If a grain enters your mouth, do not
hope for Life Eternal! If you desire not to die, may your intestine be free
of it!”"^
Their maleficence is a matter of their very nature, which is the Essence
of the Earth, as is explained very well in several verses from the “Book of
the Yellow Court”, the thirtieth section:^^
The grains of the cereals are the Essence of the Earth;^^
The pleasant taste of the five flavors is the snare of evil demons.
Their stench troubles the Spirits, and the Embryonic Breath stops;
The three upper souls are flurried, and the lower souls bow their
heads.
What makes them very dangerous is that, since men have eaten them
for generations, the evil that this food produces is hereditary and begins
before birth. This harm consists in the fact that the Essence of Cereals
constantly produces and nourishes the Three Corpses. “Men taking
shape in their mothers' wombs are filled with the breath of the Essence of

34. (K.) YCCC, ch. 82, 5a-h.

35. Liu Ken was supposed to have lived as a hermit on Mount Sung (the Central Peak)
during the Han period; cf. LCTT, ch. 20, \2h-\Aa {TT, 141; Wieger, 293). The text which is
attributed to him is from the Six Dynasties period. (K.) Cf. YCCC, ch. 82, 10a.
36. Ta-yu clung, in STCN, ch. 3, \h.
37. Huang-t'ing nci-ching (HTNCy, YCCC,ch. 12. 146-15a.
38. Commentary: “They are of the yin kind." —It is known that Earth is yin by
opposition to Heaven, which is va/7g.
 334 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Cereals from birth; that is why there are the Three Worms who do so
much damage in their bellies,” declares a book especially devoted to this
question, the “Book of the Three Corpses (said to be) by the Very
High”T‘'
But dietetic regimes include far other things than simple abstinence
from cereals. For example, the regime outlined by the “Book of Jade
Characters on Tablets of Gold”, a book so sacred that it remains in the
Heavenly Palaces and has not been revealed to men entirely, is very
severe:"^^

Those who, in their food, cut off cereals must not take wine, nor
meat, nor plants of the five strong flavors; they must bathe, wash
their garments, and burn incense.

The “Lives of Those Who Have Studied the Tao” {Tao-hsiieh chuan),
a collection of biographies of Taoists, lost today, which had been
composed at the beginning of the T’ang dynasty, mentions still other
diets. For example:

T'ao Yen ..., at the age of fifteen or sixteen, cut off cereals from
his food: first he still ate flour; later he ate only jujubes.'^*

So long as “the Breath of Cereals” has not been entirely suppressed,

progress is impossible;

Chieh Hsiang, whose sobriquet was Yiian-tse, originally from

Kuei-chi, excellent scholar and good writer, traveled throughout the
whole empire seeking a master but did not succeed in finding one.
Finally having gone into the mountain, he encountered an Immortal
Woman. He prostrated himself and asked her for Life Eternal. The
Immortal Woman said: “The breath of bloody food is not ex-
hausted in you. Cut off cereals and come back in three years; I shall
await you here and shall instruct you!”"^^

The prohibition on eating meat had nothing to do with the similar

Buddhist prohibition. In Buddhism, it is the consequence of the interdict
upon killing living beings; for the Taoists, it is because the spirits of the

39. TSC, in rC’CC, ch. 81, 13/).

40. Chin-chieii yii-tzu clung, in STCN, ch. 3, 4/).—This is not a genuine title denoting a
partieular work; it is the general designation for the Taoist books as they circulate in
heaven among the gods. But here it refers to one of these books which, by special favor,
was offered to a Taoist Adept in its original form, and to which this latter had given this
title in publishing it so as to emphasize the authentic character of the revelation which had
been made to him.
41. Tao-hsiieh chuan, ibid., ch. 3, 2a.
42. SHC, ch. 9, 14/).
 A/I Essdv on Taoism in ihc First Centuries A./). 335

interior of the body have a horror of blood, the Breath of which wounds
them, causes them to flee, and thus shortens life.

This very severe diet was not without its painful moments. Without
grains and meat, whoever practises it is undernourished; and the Taoist
authors admit that at the beginning one may have numerous troubles,
some of them general (vertigo, weakness, sleepiness, difficulties in
moving), others local (diarrhea, constipation, and so on). Nevertheless
they advise persevering, insisting that these disappear after several weeks
and that the body soon feels as before, and even better: more calm and
more at ease. They also advise practising it only gradually, and they
recommend a number of drugs for the period of transition and adap-
tation which, according to them, lasts thirty to forty days. The recipes
for drugs to help in the practise of Abstention from Cereals are
numerous: ginseng, cinnamon, pachyma cocos, sesame, digitalis, licorice,
and all the traditional Chinese tonics play a preponderant role in them.
Likewise numerous are drugs especially designed to destroy the Three
Worms or Three Corpses which disquiet the internal organs by pulling
at them inside the body.
“Sit down, I am going to explain to you,” says the Immortal of
the Central Peak to an adept who by his virtues had managed to
have him as instructor.“You know a little, since your childhood,
about making the Essence of the yang come back in such a way that
the marrow does not coagulate: you know' also how to do exercises,
to feed upon breath, to absorb the rays of the sun, to swallow' the
Broth (of Jade: the saliva): and you no longer need to help the
growth of the Embryo (of the immortal body) through the internal
procedure of r//? cinnabar (the expulsion of internal air). But, since
the Three Worms are not yet destroyed, all these practises cannot
produce their full effect. First you must sw'allow pills which cure you
of Worms, so as to kill the Worms produced by Cereals.”
And, while taking the pills, incantations of this kind are uttered:'^’^
May the Three Worms, the Five Worms*^^ go to the Yellow' Springs!

43. TCNC, 4a. (K.) In this passage, .. the marrow does not eoagulate”, and “internal
procedure" may be references to sexual practises.
44. San-s/uli p'icn, in YCCC, ch. 82, 1/).
45. The Five Worms, which to my knowledge appear only in this text, are set into
relation with the Five Elements, consequently with the Five Viscera, and arc designated
simply by the color corresponding to the elements, the Blue Worm, the Red Worm, the
Yellow W'orm, the White W^orm, the Black Worm. —The Yellow Springs being the abode
of the dead, the first verse means: “May they die!”
 336 Taoism and Chinese Religion

1 climb to Blue Heaven to keep Life Eternal!

Joyously and eternally I shall dwell with the King of Heaven!

The recipes for drugs which destroy the Three Worms are innumer-
able, and some of them are very ancient. The following, which is
attributed to Chou Yi-shan,*^^ probably dates from the fourth century,
since it was the fifth century at the latest when the biography of this
imaginary Immortal was composed:

The recipe for killing (the Three Worms) uses 5 ounces of aconite:
7/10 of a bushel (sheng) of hemp-grains; 6 ounces of rehniannia
glutinosa', a root of xanf/ioxylum 1 inches long; 7 ounces of sinilcLW 4
ounces of cinnamon; 5 ounces of agaric clusters in the shape of a
cloud; seven different drugs in all. Beforehand you have taken a
rattan root {acorns celatnus) and boiled it in wine to make a bushel
and a half of essential liquor that is completely pure. Soak the seven
drugs in this, then decant the mixture into a vase; but that will still
not do After leaving the drugs to macerate for three nights, take
them out and put them in the sun to dry out. (Then) again take the
aforesaid liquor and steep (the seven drugs) in it for three nights.
Once more draw off (the wine) from them and put them in the sun
(and continue this alternative steeping in the wine and drying them)
until the wine is exhausted; then stop putting them out to dry.
Pound them in an iron mortar and put them through a fine sieve to
reduce them to powder. Then take white honey and mix the powder
with it for making pills.
In the morning, facing East, roll two pills the size of a small pea;
then increase this by one pill (each day) to ten or more. This
regimen cures third-degree fever within the belly, it truly makes the
breath rise up in such a way that the heart and breast are freed of all
obstruction, coagulates the flesh and skin, makes the body light and
produces a halo around it.'*^ When a whole dose has been taken, the
cereal Worms die; when the Worms are dead the Corpses dry out;

46. TCNC (TT, 152), 4h. I'his recipe is also found in other works of various dates, which
bears witness to its popularity.
47. The expression hua-kuang, “flowery light”, is one of those which the Buddhists
adopted (perhaps borrowing it from the Taoists) to designate the halo of the Buddhas and
Bodhisattvas. It is possible, however, that it refers here to an internal light and not to an
external emission of light, since a bit farther on (ihid., 5a) it is said that after Chou Yi-shan
“had eaten smilax for five years, his body emitted light: in looking within he saw his five
viscera.” To see inside one’s body is the “Interior Vision” of which I shall speak later; and
since the inside of the body is very dark, there are dilferent procedures for lighting it,
among others that which consists in making the sun come down into one’s heart (cf. below',
starting at Book ix. First Part, note 188).
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 337

when they are dry, they drop down by themselves. This has to be
done several times, not restricting oneself to a single dose.
A great Taoist physician of the seventh century. Sun Ssu-mo, quotes a
whole series of recipes for destroying the Three Worms; I shall give the
first two as examples:*^®
Recipe for (round) pill to drive away the Three Worms.
(Take) juice of rehmannia glutinosa, three bushels, and heat it over
a few reeds in a stove turned towards the East; three times pour into
it two-tenths of a bushel of sumac. On the chosen day, bring the
contents of a one-foot vase (and add to that) three ounces of
genuine cinnabar; then take the contents of a one-foot vase (and add
to it) three-tenths of a bushel of powdered gourd; then take the
contents of a one-foot vase (and add to it) two ounces of powdered
rhubarb.Put on a slow fire, not letting it boil, until (the liquid
through condensation has attained such a consistency that) pills can
be made of it. Make pills as big as an eleococca grain. Before eating,
take a pill. Three times a day impure blood will come out of the
nose; after thirty days the Worms will have come down entirely;
after fifty days all illnesses will be cured, the complexion will be
radiant.
Another recipe:
Sumac, two-tenths of a bushel, powdered rhubarb, six ounces;
wine, a fifteenth of a bushel; powdered turnip seeds, three-tenths of
a bushel.
Heat the above four ingredients together on a slow fire until pills
can be made of it; (make pills from it) as big as an eleococca grain.
Take three pills before eating. After ten days the impure blood will
come down through the nose; after thirty days all the Worms will be
dried up; after fifty days the body will be resplendent; after a year,
one will match a galloping horse at running
The respiratory practises described below require precautions which
are the purpose of other dietetic regimens, the detailed description of

48. Sun chen-jen Pei-chi ch'ien-chin yao-fang {SPCY: TT, 818; Wieger, 1149), ch. 82, 10a,
10/).
49. I suppose this phrase means that one puts into a one-foot vase the necessary quantity
of the mixture of rehmannia juice and sumac so that, when the three ounces of cinnabar are
added, the vase will be full; then the operation is repeated in a second vase, but this time by
adding three-tenths of a bushel of marrow grain powder; and finally a third time w ith rhu-
barb powder; after that the whole is mixed together. Since a one-foot vase holds a bushel,
the three bushels which the recipe indicated at the beginning have thus been used up.
 338 Taoism and Chinese Religion

which fills the Taoist Canon. These regimens are extremely varied; all are
based upon the idea that the intestines have to be kept as free as possible
and, in any case, at the hours when exercises are being performed. When
immortality is being sought, excrements must hrst be suppressed; after
that one can “feed on breath”.At the least one must avoid eating to
repletion before performing the eirculation of breath, for when the belly
is full, the breath moves poorly. The tao-shih who push their efforts
farther than the mere faithful must have no more than one meal a day;'”*'
and this meal, which must be taken both at the hour of the “living
breath” and a eertain time before the hour of respiratory exercises, is
generally set at midnight.

But when one wishes to practise Embryonic Respiration successfully,

far stricter diets must be followed, at least during the period of exercises.
In the sixth century the “Book of the Great Peace”, T'ai-p’ing dung, set
forth, in order of decreasing efficacy: “In the first place feed upon airy
breath; in the second place feed upon drugs; in the third place eat little.”
The best diets, thus, were those that dispensed with all solid food. Two
were singled out, one of which consisted of feeding upon saliva, the other
upon air. The first was the so-called Embryonic Nourishment, t’ai-s/iili,
with a name obviously suggesting the name of Embryonic Respiration,
t'ai-hsi, which will be described later; the second was the method of
“Feeding upon Breath”, shih-ch'i or fu-ch'i, or again “Feeding by
Respiration”, /i/-//x/.
The two methods were, moreover, mutually complementary.When
breathing, one must in fact be careful to breathe the air in for a great
while with the two nostrils,and at the same time one fills the mouth
with the Jade Liquor, yii-yi, the saliva which flows abundantly from
beneath the tongue; then, tilting the head, one swallows this saliva, so
that it goes upwards to restore the brain, and downwards to bathe the
Five Viscera.“Rub the mouth with the tongue above, below, and in

50. Chiing-shan yii-kuei fu-ch 7 ching (CSYFC), in YCCC, ch. 60, 4a'. cf. below, starting at
Book IX, First Part, note 39
51. T'ai-shang T’ai-chen k'o ching. in Bibl. Nat., Pelliot ms., no. 2459. This manuscript is
a collection of excerpts from Taoist books.
52. T'ai-p'ing ching (TPC), ch. 145, San-huang chai-yi [“Fasting Ceremonies of the Three
Majesties”], in STCN. ch. 3, 4h. Every meal must be taken at the hours of the “living
breath” and those who have two meals a day must set them between noon and midnight
(ihicL). —On the “living breath”, see below, p. 341.
53. Fn-ch’i fa (FCF). in Bibl. Nat., Pelliot ms., 2459. Cf. below, starting at Book ix. First
Part, note 82.
54. Hiian Chen hsien-sheng. Fu-na yiian-ch’i chiieh-fa (HCFYC). in YCCC. ch. 60, 136.
55. Y CCC, ch. 60, 216; cf. below. Book ix. First Part, between notes 82 and 89.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.l). 339

the middle, to make the Jade Liquor fill the mouth, and swallow it three
times; that makes one live long and prolongs existence.” ''^’
As for the method of “feeding on breath”, “one must concentrate
thought constantly upon the breath as it enters the Live Viscera and
circulates there, then passes through the hands, the feet, the heart, the
nape of the neck, the Three Barriers, the Nine Openings, and the joints,
and comes out of them.”

c. Respiratory Practises The destruction of the Worms is lengthy:

Chou Yi-shan spent five years getting rid of them. That done, the future
immortal body has to be born within oneself It is truly a question of a
birth. To start with, an embryo is formed which grows and develops little
by little, if one knows how to “make the Essence of the yang come back
so that the marrow does not coagulate.For that, one must make “the
Breath Circulate” across the three Cinnabar Fields.

The circulation of breath was the technique of immortality most in

vogue among pre-T'ang Taoists. We have only to see the place it holds in
Taoist legends (whether the personages are real or imaginary) to realize
how great a hold it had upon the mind and practises of believers in that
period. Moreover, diet and drugs were considered only reinforcements to
the methods which established control over the breath.

The circulation of breath, in this (pre-T’ang) period, consists above all

in a special way of breathing, for it concerns external air. That air is the
vital breath of man, and it must be made to pass through the three
Cinnabar Fields.
Man and world, for the Chinese, are absolutely identical, not only as a
whole but also in every detail. Man’s head is round like heaven, his feet
are rectangular like the earth; his Five Viscera correspond to the Five
Elements, his twenty-four vertebrae to the twenty-four solar half-months
of the year, and the twelve segments of the tracheal artery to the twelve
lunar months; his 365 bones to the 365 days of the year; his veins and the
56. Nei-yin yii tzu, in STCN, ch. 10, 1 \ h.
57. Yen-ling hsien-sheng chi hsin-chiu fu-ch'i clung (YHCHFC; Old and New Books on
Absorbing Breath colleeted by the Master of Yen-ling), in TT, 570 (Wieger 818), 19a. Cf. p.
480 below. This book, which is from the end of the T’ang dynasty, follows the doctrine of
internal breath circulation, which differs from that of external breath circulation, which is
more ancient. But though the doctrine of breath had changed, the practise had remained
the same in all cases where that was possible. —The Three Barriers are the Barrier of
Heaven, t’ien-kiian (the sinciput—upper portion of the cranium); the Barrier of Earth, ti-
kuan (the feet); and the Barrier of M'du, jen-kuan (the hands).
58. T'ai-hsi citing (THC) [“Book of Embryonic Respiration”] {TT, 5; Wieger, 127).
 340 Taoism and Chinese Religion

blood they contain to rivers and streams; and so on. In reality, the
universe is an immense body: according to some, that of the Very High
Old Lord, T’ai-shang Lao-chiin; according to others, that of P’an Ku,
who is none other than the Celestial Venerable of the Original Beginning,
Yiian-shih T’ien-tsun.
Lao-tzu transformed his body. His left eye became the sun, his
right eye became the moon; his head became mount K’un-lun, his
beard became the planets and the heavenly mansions; his bones
became the dragons; his flesh became the four-footed animals; his
intestines became the serpents; his belly became the sea; his fingers
became the Five Peaks; his hairs became the trees and grasses; his
heart became (the constellation of) the Flowery Canopy; and his
two kidneys, uniting, became the Father and Mother of the Real,
Chen-yao fu-mu.^^

Jen Fang, in the sixth century, reports the legend of P’an Ku exactly
that way in his “Marvelous Tales’’:^®
In ancient times, when P’an Ku died, his head became the Four
Peaks; his eyes became the sun and the moon; his fat became the
rivers and the seas; his hair and beard became the grasses and the
trees. In the period of the Ch’in and Han there was a popular story
that P’an Ku’s head was the Eastern Peak, his belly the Central
Peak, his left arm the Southern Peak, his right arm the Northern
Peak, his feet the Western Peak. Former Scholars related that P’an
Ku’s tears are the rivers, his breath the wind, his voice the thunder,
the pupil of his eyes the light.

The legend is not necessarily Taoist in origin, for the very concept of
the body-microcosm has nothing specifically Taoist about it: it is a
universally spread belief which, in China itself, is encountered in almost
all spheres, lay and religious, in all periods. But the Taoists pushed this

59. Chen Luan, HTL [“Dissertation making fun of the Tao”], in KHC, ch. 9, 144/), TIK,
vol. 52, no. 2103. This book is an anti-Taoist pamphlet composed in 570 which contains a
great number of excerpts from ancient works lost today. The passage quoted above is
abridged from a “First Remembrance of the Creation of Heaven and Earth by the Very
High Old Lord”, T’ai-shang lao-chiin tsao-li t'ien-ti ch'u-chi. Chen Luan later adds that
Lao-tzu made the Palace of the Green Lord, Ch'ing-ti-kung, out of his liver, and the Palace
of Purple Tenuity, Tzu-wei-kung, out of his lungs; and he remarks that, if Lao-tzu has his
heart, his liver, and his lungs in heaven (since they had been made into constellations) and
his head on earth (since it had formed the K'un-lun), he was in the position of a man
upside down, with his body in the air, “thrown from Heaven to Earth head down”.
60. Jen Fang, Shu-yi chi, ch. 1, \a (HIVTS ed.). Nothing remains of this sixth century
work except fragments.
 Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 341

assimilation of the body to the world farther than their contemporaries

did.
Thus the universe is identical to the human body. Like that body it
breathes. Just as man breathes, “spitting out the old breath and bringing
in the new breath", t'u-ku tui-hsin. Heaven and Earth respire and their
breath, which is the air we breathe, is also good when it is inhaled and
bad when it is exhaled. In this general respiration of the world conceived
of as a living creature, the day is divided naturally into two portions, one
in which the world inhales the air—that is the time of “living breath",
sheng-ch’i- {\\Q other in which the world exhales the air—the time of
“dead breath", ssu-ch'i. The Taoist adept must inhale air only at the
“time of the living breath" to make it circulate through the body; in the
time of “dead breath", that would be harmful. There is debate over the
precise determination of these two portions of the day: some see in it
simply the division into day (living air) and night (dead air), others
maintain the unity of the day which, for the Chinese as for us, is
reckoned from midnight to noon, and for them the period of living air
goes from midnight to noon, and that of dead air from noon to
midnight.^* But the theoretical rule remains the same: respiratory exer-
cises must be performed only in the time of living air, since that is the
only time when the air is vivifying.

The air is inhaled through the nose and exhaled through the mouth;
from the one to the other it has a long way to go. As in ordinary
respiration, it goes down by the power of the yin to the liver and the
kidneys: “From the Long Valley to the Dark District (the breath) makes
the tour around the Suburbs and the Countryside", says the “Book of
the Yellow Court", Huang-t'ing citing,^- one of the most famous and
most studied Taoist books of the fourth to the seventh century, in
esoteric language. Translated into plain language this means that the
breath descends from the nose (the Long Valley) to the kidneys (the
Dark District) and traverses the Five Viscera (the Suburbs) and the Six
Receptacles (the Countryside). That is where it ends with ordinary
people, who are incapable of breaking through the Origin of the Barrier,
kiuiu-yihm, the double door of which is closed with a key and guarded by
the gods of the spleen, both clad in red. The Taoists knew how to make it
break through this passage and lead it to the Lower Cinnabar Field or

61. Both parties do the morning exercises just before sunrise; but those vsho hold the
opinion of the division according to day and night add exercises in the evening at sunset.
See Book ix. First Part, A, vi.
62. See below. Book ix. First Part, at note 81.
 342 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

Ocean of Breath, ch'i-hai, three inches below the navel.Then is the

moment of “leading the breath”, hsing-ch'i, in such a way that “the
breaths of the Nine Heavens {= the inhaled air), which have entered the
man’s nose, make the tour of the body and are poured into the Palace of
the Brain”. The “breath is led” by Interior Vision, nci-kuan, thanks to
which the Adept sees the inside of his own body and, concentrating his
thought, steers the breath and guides it, following it by sight through all
the veins and passages of the body. Thus it is led where one wishes. If
one is sick (that is, if some passage inside the body is obstructed and
hampers the regular passage of air), that is where one leads it to
reestablish circulation, which produces healing. If the adept is in good
health and is practising Embryonic Respiration to develop the immortal
body within him, he makes the breath of the Ocean of Breath go out
through the rear passages which communicate with the vertebral column
and through the medullar canal, and leads it to the brain. It enters the
Upper Cinnabar Field and the eight cubicles within the brain, then it
goes back down to the Middle Cinnabar Field (that is, to the heart), and
ends by being expelled by the lungs and going out through the mouth.
The Breath’s journey begins and ends, we see, like that of ordinary
respiration, but in the meantime it takes a particular route determined by
the Adept’s will.
This supplementary route significantly lengthens the ordinary course
of the respiratory breath. Thus, in order to practise this exercise, one has
to know how to “hold the breath closed in”, pi-cITi, for as long as
possible, not allowing it to escape either above or below. One becomes
accustomed to this little by little through graduated exercises, beginning
with a short time, and prolonging retention more and more, by counting
the number of suppressed ordinary respirations. The Adept retires into a
room apart and, the doors closed, lies down upon a bed covered with a
soft mat, with a pillow two and a half inches thick. Then, eyes closed,
hands clenched, he gently inhales the breath through the nose and keeps
it closed in as long as possible.
A whole apprenticeship and daily exercises are necessary: one first
learns to hold the breath for the time of 3, 5, 7, 9 respirations; when one
gets to 12, that is a “little series”, hsiao-t’img. The time of 120 respira-
tions makes up a “large series”, ta-t'img. The student begins from that
moment to take care of himself and to cure his ailments through
respiration. Most authors advise increasing each day up to 200 respira-
63. (K.) Based on the cross-referenced material in the note above and f'CCC ch. 12,
29r/-30</, and ch. 60, 21a, it seems that the kuaii-yiian, c/i'i-lnii, and Lower Cinnabar Field
are in much the same place.
64. See below. Book ix. First Part, starting at note 11.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 343

lions at least. But this number is far from being the final achievement:
only when one attains 1,000 does he approach immortality. But this
retention of breath does not go on without etfoii and pain, for asphyxia-
tion comes soon, with buzzing of the ears and vertigo: “At the end (of
the time) of 300 respirations, the ears no longer hear, the eyes no longer
see, the heart no longer thinks"; then one must gradually stop (holding
the air in); and when the air has been held in a long time, “sometimes
sweat forms into beads, the head and the feet grow warm; this is because
breath is passing through them"; at other times, “after a while the belly
aches". In spite of all these troubles, one must continue stoutly to hold
the breath longer and longer, so as to be able to make it circulate longer
and longer and give it the time to “pass through the entire body, from
the nose and the mouth to the ten fingers".

All that makes up what is called Embryonic Respiration, t’ai-lisi, the

principle of which is to reproduce the respiration of the embryo in its
mother's womb.^^ The essential point of it is given by a fifth century
author in these few words: “Training oneself to retain breath,/?/-<:7/7, and
swallow it, t'lifu is what is called Embryonic Respiration".^^ This
formula shows very well what its two phases are: first to inhale breath
and hold it in as long as possible, and then to utilize this breath held
within the body by swallowing it—that is, by making it pass from the
respiratory apparatus into the alimentary canal so as to be nourished by
it. Respiration is tightly linked, in Chinese conceptions, to digestion and
circulation.^^ He who practises Embryonic Respiration in a perfect
fashion has no need for ordinary food: he has realized the Taoist ideal of
“Eeeding upon Breath". Eor him the long series of practises which
begins with abstention from cereals and absorption of drugs is finished.
Theoretically, he has only to continue the practise of Embryonic
Respiration until the coarse breaths which make up the coarse matter of a
body fed on cereals are replaced with the pure breaths upon which he
feeds every day, and his mortal body, heavy and thick, will become light,
subtle, and immortal. But it is clear that, outside of hagiographic
legends, Eeeding upon Breath could never have been more than a diet
followed with intermissions during short periods; for if it had been
followed too long, death—or, if one wishes to express it in the Taoist
way, the Liberation of the Corpse—would have occurred so regularly

65. See below, pp. 463-65, 485-86.

66. See Book ix. First Part, A, i.
67. Han li'n wai-chuan (HW'W’C) (TT, 137; W^ieger, 290); see below. Book ix. First Part,
at note 82.
68. See below , pp. 449-51.
 344 Taoism and Chinese Religion

with the beginning of this practise that it would make the Adepts think
again, and cause them to abandon so dangerous a procedure.
The held breath must never enter the mouth, the exit gate; and to
avoid this, it is filled with Jade Broth, yu-chiang\ that is, saliva. From
time to time a “mouthful” of air is passed up into the back of the throat
to be swallowed: one must succeed in passing it from the respiratory
channel into that of solid food by leaving it in the back of the throat,
without letting it penetrate into the mouth, for air which has entered the
mouth is no longer good for anything but being expelled. This mouthful
of air is swallowed “as if one were swallowing a large mouthful of
water”:^^ it is sent into the esophagus by a gulping effort, together with
saliva; it descends through the way of solid food and not through the
respiratory routes, and serves for nutrition, not for respiration. A “meal
of emptiness” is composed of several “mouthfuls” of air, to the point of
satiety, without a fixed number; for those who know how, the alimentary
canal is filled as if with food and there is no emptiness; if not, one takes
thirty or fifty meals of breath a day, the inside of the belly is exhausted,
and one thinks unceasingly of food. Those who feel their bellies empty
when they engage in this practise are clumsy or ignorant; they should get
back to study, but not quit. Feeding upon Breath must succeed in
replacing ordinary nutrition. The ideal would be to stop eating so as to
feed only upon breath.
The importance of Embryonic Respiration lies in the fact that the
human body is made up of breaths. At the origin of the world, the Nine
Breaths, jumbled up, formed Chaos; when Chaos was dispersed, they
were separated. The pure, light ones rose and formed heaven; the
impure, coarse ones descended and became earth. The first gods, the
greatest, were created spontaneously by the knitting together of Breaths,
then lesser gods were produced and engendered. Later the Yellow
Emperor, Huang-ti, fabricated men by setting up earthen statues at the
four cardinal points of the compass; he exposed them to all the Breaths
for three hundred years; when they had been well penetrated with the
Breaths they could speak and move, and they gave birth to the various
races of man. Thus man’s body is made up of the impure breaths which
formed the earth, but the vital Breath which animates him is the pure
Breath which circulates between heaven and earth. To become immortal
he has to replace the impure breaths in him entirely with pure Breaths;
that is the aim of Embryonic Respiration. While the ordinary man, by
eating cereals, daily replaces the matter of his body with matter just as
gross, the Taoist by feeding upon Breaths replaces his with a matter
more and more pure.

69. (K.) yccc ch. 59,12a-b.

 A/1 Essay on Taoisni in the Fi/st Centwies A.D. 345

d. Sexual P/actises The circulation of Breath is completed by that of

the Essence, dung. In theory this is the sperm in men and the menstrual
blood in women;^° but if the books often take this word in its material
meaning, it seems ordinarily to refer rather to some sort of sublimation
dematerialized and capable of blending with the Breath: “In the middle
of the Cinnabar Field, the Essence and the Breath are very subtle.”^* It
is in fact necessary to “make the Essence come back”, huan-ching- that
is, to make the Essence mingled with the Breath circulate through the
body to guide it from the Lower Cinnabar Field to the Upper Cinnabar
Field so that it “restores the brain”, pu-nao.^~ To be capable of this the
Adept must first develop his Essence. The Immortal P’eng-tsu^^ explains
in fairly coarse terms how to go about this so as to arouse and agitate the
Essence under the influence of the yin Breath, but without expending it,
which would be a cause of weakening and would diminish the term of
life, for “at all times when the Essence is small, one is sick, and when it is
exhausted, one dies.” Essence accumulates in the Lower Cinnabar Field;
when it is strong enough, it blends with Breath:
He who retains Breath constantly below the navel (that is, in the
Lower Cinnabar Field) keeps his Essence in his body. Essence and
Breath combine and give birth to the Mysterious Embryo. The
Mysterious Embryo twines itself about and gives birth to a body.
This is the process of the Interior Cinnabar, nei-tan, which leads on
to not dying.
In fact, this Mysterious Embryo is the body of Immortality.

e. Gynmastic Practises Respiratory procedures could have the expected

results only if the circulation of air took place freely and without
difficulty throughout the entire body. In fact, any delay caused by any
difficulty whatever meant a loss of time and that had its importance.
Time was not unlimited since it depended upon the Adept’s aptitude in
retaining breath and since, even for the most practised, it necessarily
remained rather short; so one had to make haste to use it in the best
possible way. Without even speaking of the real obstructions which had
to be overcome in guiding the breath precisely to the ailing spot, there
are throughout the body difficult passages where access comes hard. In

70. See below. Book ix. Second Part, at note 3.

71. Huang-t'ing wai-ching yii-ching {HIVY), 1«; YCCC, ch. 12, 32/); see below. Book ix.
First part, at note 105.
72. See below, pp. 522-23.
73. See below. Book ix. Second Part, starting at note 13.
74. THC.—On sexual practises among Taoists during the Han, see Book ix. Second
Part, below, starting at note 115.
 346 Taoism and Chinese Religion

order for the passages to be open as wide as possible so that breath may
pass everywhere without difficulty, the Adept performs a kind of gym-
nastics called tao-yin shen-t'i (literally, “extend and contract the body”),
or simply tao-yin. This exercise is done by itself and is beneficial in itself,
but it is also a preparation for the Circulation of Breath in that it acts
upon the viscera, on the interior breaths, and so onC^

B. INNER RELIGIOUS LIFE! GODS AND THE ADEPT'S RELATIONS TO THEM

/. The Taoist Pantheon

All that has gone before relates merely to the life and the outward
practises of the Taoist Adept. But they are nothing without the develop-
ment of inner religious life. Indeed one must not commit the error of
believing that Taoism had been perverted into being no more than a kind
of hygiene accompanying a sort of science.
To start with, every exercise, even a simple gymnastic exercise, in-
cludes a religious aspect, since every limb and every organ has its divinity
who must be propitiated when the exercise affects it in any way. The
more important the exercise is, the greater the religious element grows,
for the number of divinities whose favor must be sought becomes larger
and larger. The whole body is indeed filled with divinities and trans-
cendent beings. Not only has each of the cubicles in the three Cinnabar
Fields, each of the Five Viscera and the Six Receptacles one or more
gods of its own, but so also has every organ or simply everything which
would seem to have any degree of individuality, or to constitute a
separate entity, such as eyes, ears, hair, and so on. Each of these gods has
its family name, its personal name, its sobriquet, its titles; it has its own
costume, its dwelling place, its occupations and its role in the general
harmony of the body’s life. The Taoist must know all these in order to
enter into relation with them. Thus the books contain interminable lists
of names and titles.
The Tnng-ehen ehing, a pre-T’ang work, lost today, enumerated thirty
divinities from within the bodyT^

The divinity of the hair has for his sobriquet Unfolded, Hsun-
chih; the divinity of the two eyes has for his sobriquet Light
Abundant, Ying-ming; the divinity of the top of the head has for his
sobriquet Father King of the East, Tung-wang-fu; the divinity of the
Entry ways of the Nape of the Neck has for his sobriquet Lord of

75. See below. Book ix. Third Part.

76. Ta-ning chcn-chiijg (TTCC) in ll'SPY, ih. 5, \2h~\4h.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 347

the Ni-huan; the divinity of the space between the eyebrows has lor
his sobriquet Original Brilliance, Yuan-kuang; the divinity of the
two ears has for his sobriquet Chiao-nii; the central divinity of the
man has for his sobriquet Great One, T’ai-yi; the divinity of the
nostrils has for his sobriquet Hut for Communication, T’ung-lu; the
divinity of the inside of the mouth has for his sobriquet Cinnabar
Pearl, Tan-chu; the divinity Upper Original, Shang-yiian, has for his
sobriquet Majestic Achievement, Wei-ch'eng; the divinity Middle
Original, Chung-yiian, has for his sobriquet Master of the Yellow,
Huang-tzu; the divinity Lower Original, Hsia-yuan, has for his
sobriquet Master of the Flash of Fate, Ming-kuang-tzu
The list continues, passing the various parts of the body by in review;
then the author goes on to the gods of the Five Viscera and those of the
Six Receptacles, and he ends by saying;
These gods command 18,000 gods. When a man concentrates his
thought upon them, the 18,000 gods do not scatter; when they do
not scatter. Heaven causes 18,000 other gods to come down so as to
complete the inside of the body, making 36,000 gods in all, who
together lift the whole body and bring it up to the Three Heavens.
Then the man becomes a Divine Immortal; his transformation is
without fault.
This number, 36,000, corresponds to the 360 days of the year and is
encountered very often; but not all the books derive it in the same way.
For example, the “Book of Prohibitions of the Three Originals”, San-
yiktn p’in-chieh citing, contemporary to the Tung-chen citing or a little
later, makes it the number of gods that normally reside in the body:^^
In the body of every man there are three Palaces, six
Administrations, a hundred and twenty Barriers, thirty-six thousand
gods.
Another collection of famous divinities is that of the twenty-four
divinities each of whom, at the same time, governs one of the sections of
the body and corresponds to the twenty-four sections, citicit, which in the
human body (microcosm) are twenty-four superposed rings dividing it
equally from the summit of the cranium to the sole of the foot, and in
the universe (macrocosm) are the twenty-four solar half-months into
which the year is divided, so that the summer solstice is the summit of
the cranium, the equinoxes are around the navel, and the winter solstice
is at the feet. A pre-T’ang work, which seems to be lost nowadays.
77. In IVSPY, ch. 5, \la-b. See above, p. 282.
 348 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

enumerates these gods by dividing them not into four groups according
to the four seasons but into three groups according to the three regions
of the body, not exactly but in a somewhat disparate fashion, by
naturally making the head a particular group and by separating into two
distinct groups on the one hand the Five Viscera and on the other the Six
Receptacles and several other abdominal organs. For each it provides
the personal name and surname; I do not know why there is no family
name. First come the gods of the upper group (head):^^

The god of the Brain has as his personal name Original

Awakened, Chiieh-yiian, and as sobriquet Metropolis of the Tao,
Tao-tu; the god of the Hair has as his personal name Flower of
Mysterious Signs, Hsiian-wen-hua, and as sobriquet Conduct of the
Tao, Tao-hsing; the god of the Skin has as his personal name He
Who Makes All (the Gods) Communicate, T’ung-chung and as
sobriquet Bond of the Tao, Tao-lien; the god of the Eyes has for his
personal name Inspector of the Void, Hsii-chien-sheng, and as
sobriquet Adolescent of the Tao, Tao-t’ung;^^ and so on.

I do not believe it useful to continue translating this list of proper

names, which is all the less interesting in that a translation of this kind is
naturally uncertain. What I have quoted is sufficient to show how metic-
ulously these details were specified, so that the trained adept always
knew how to address himself to the gods when he entered into communi-
cation with them. The enumeration continues by completing the series of
gods of the head: the god of the Nape (of the neck), called Canopy of
Transcendent Counsels, Ling-mo-kai, and Circuit of the Tao, Tao-chou;
the god of the Vertebral Column, called Support of the Canopy, Kai-li-
fu, and Column of the Tao, Tao-chu; the god of the Nose, the god of the
Tongue. Then it goes on to the eight gods of the second group, gods of
the Throat, of the Heart, of the Liver, of the Gall Bladder, of the Left
Kidney, of the Right Kidney, and of the Spleen. It concludes with the
eight gods of the third group: gods of the Stomach, of the ch’iung-ch’ang
(?), of the Large Intestine and the Small Intestine, of the Bladder, of the
Diaphragm, of the Flanks, of the left and right Testicles (or Ovaries).
The names and surnames of all these gods recall in general the organ
over which they preside, but the allusions are not always recognizable.
This onomastic pattern differs, moreover, in the various books. When

78. (Tung-chen) tsao-hsing tzu-yikin erh-shih-ssu shcn-ching [“Book of the twenty-four

Original-Purple gods who create the body”], in WSPY, eh. 5, Ha-h.
79. The word I’loig M, which means adolescent or child (pupillus), also denotes the pupil
of the eye (pupilla).
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 349

they are of important divinities, the later authors have taken the trouble
to give lists of these names and to identify them; but for second-rank
divinities, they have not bothered.
Finally the “Genuine Book of the Great Arcana”, that collection of
stanzas each spoken by a god, with its addenda and its commentaries,
provides here and there names and titles of a collection of gods different
from the foregoing.^® The Lungs have six gods, the Jade Lords of Sim-
pleness, Higher Originals, shang-yiktu su-yii-chwy who guard the twelve-
spanned Bridge of the neck—the trachea. That has, in addition, twelve
Perfect Men Gate-keepers, t’ing-cliang chen-Jety one for each span, who
“preside within over the rising and falling of the breath”. The Heart has
a god, the Lord of the Fluid of the Celestial Essence, t’ien-ching yi-cliiin.
He resides four inches below the point of the sternum, precisely in the
middle of the space between the two breasts, above the dent in the heart,
and he guards the openings in the four extremities of the chest. The
Spleen has five, the Lords Who Nourish Clarity, yang-kiumg-chiin, who
guard the Entryway at the root of the throat. The Liver has four, the
Lords of Green Light, ch ’iug-miug-chim, who guard the Entryway to the
hollow of the Stomach underneath the diaphragm (cardia); the two
Kidneys have seven, who guard the Entryway of the Jade Barrier of the
bottom bone in the back. The Stomach has two, who guard the pylorus;
the Gall Bladder has eight, the Spine is divided into four parts, each of
which has its gods, one per vertebra, and so on.
Other texts inform us regarding the gods of the Three Cinnabar Fields,
with their three groups of Nine Palaces in the three regions of the body,
and all the pavilions, halls, terraces, porticoes, gates, which surround
them or are attached to them.®^ The gods of the interior, the Masters of
the Palaces, are great gods who command all the secondary divinities of
the body; those of the gates and porticoes are primarily guards. The gods
who watch over the Scarlet Terrace and the Yellow Portico at the entry
to the Cinnabar Field of the head allow passage only to divine officials of
the Nine Palaces and emissaries of the Supreme Lord of August Heaven.
At the approach of these latter officials, the gods of the Ears strike
gongs and bells to announce their arrival within the Nine Palaces.^- The
Palaces above the eyes are guarded no less than the ears. The Green
Judgment Hall (the left eye) is the residence of the Green Youth, cITing-
t’lmg, the Judgment Hall of White Purity (the right eye) is that of the
Jade Girl of White Simplicity, pai-su-yii-niif^ in addition there are for
80. TTCC, in WSPY, ch. 5, 12/7-15a.
81. See above, pp. 268-69, 279-82.
82. TYMC, \ la{TE 1026). Cf. below, p. 436.
83. T'ai-shang Tung-fang nei-ching chu (TTN: TT 59), 2ci.
 350 Taoism and Chinese Religion

each eye twelve Divine Girls and twelve Perfect Men who are seated all
around and who protect it.^**
The Palace of the Hall of Government contains three gods, who are
like the newborn.To the left is the Genuine Young Lord of Light,
ming-t'uug chen-chim, who is named Mysterious Yang, Hsikin-yang, and
whose sobriquet is Little Green, Shao-clTiug\ to the right is the Genuine
Official Daughter of Light, ming-uii chen-kiuiiu whose name is Subtle
Yin, Wei-yiih and whose surname Little Original, Shao-yikur, in the
middle is the Divine Lord Mirror of Light, ming-chien slien-chiin, whose
name is Resplendent Essence, Cliao-c/iing, and sobriquet Four Lights,
Ssu-niing. All three together rule over the Palace of the Hall of Govern-
ment. They have the heads and bodies of newborn infants and all are
clad in gowns of blue silk; from their belts are suspended four little
round bells of red jade; each holds in his mouth a mirror of red jade.
They remain seated facing one another looking outwards; but sometimes
they look at one another.
The Chamber of the Arcane, the second of the Nine Palaces in the
head, contains the Three Real Ones, san-chen: to the left the Unpre-
cedented Lord, n'u-ying-c/iiin: to the right the Lord Original White, Pai-
yikin-chim, in the middle the Lord Yellow Old Man, Hucing-lao-chim
(w'ho was the principal god of the Yellow Turban sect).
Who are their fathers and their mothers? They are born Spontane-
ously from Emptiness.
Wearing the flowered cap under the purple canopy, bearing on the
belt the little round bells of liquid gold.
Clad in garments embroidered with dragons, and the (amulet of the)
Tiger at the belt, they read the Tung-clien c/iing.
They go out of the Yellow Chamber to go and frolic in the
Cinnabar Pdelds;
On high they communicate with (the Palace of) Vast Tenuity; and
sometimes they enter into the Arcanic Mystery.
In the Palace of the Moving Pearl dwells the Director of Destiny, Ssu-
niing, who bears the title of Minister of (the Palace of the) Great Summit,
t'ai-chi-ch'ing. He keeps the register of merits and demerits for the upper

84. THCC\ la-h(TT, 1050; Wieger, 1382).

85. The general de.scriplion of the gods of the Nine Palaces is based upon the T'ai-shang
tao-chim shou-yiian-tan sluing-ching [“Supreme Book of the Original Cinnabar Guard, by
the Very High Lord of the Tao”], in TSTTM, \2h-22a: see also T'ao Hung-ching, TCYC\
eh. 1, which is interesting for its commentary: it is in fact an effort at the interpretation and
classification of all these disparate data, by a sincere Taoist of the sixth century.
86. TTN, 2h-2h (TT, 59).
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A./). 351

section. Those who commit sins will have their life shortened; for those
who do good deeds death is deferred and life is lengthened. The Director
of Destiny presents a request to the Great One asking him to increase or
diminish the number of years established at birth for each man.
The Three Ones, supreme divinities of the three sections of the body,
also have their respective dwellings in the three Cinnabar Fields. The
Upper One, called the Imperial Lord Newborn, ch’ih-tzii ti-c/iiin, dwells
in the Palace of the Ni-huan. The Middle One, called the Perfect Man,
clicn-Jefu dwells in the Scarlet Palace. The Lower One, called the Baby,
ying-erli, dwells in the Lower Cinnabar Field.
The supreme master of the three sections, the Lord Great One,
Sovereign of all the gods of the entire body, has his residence in a special
Palace, the Palace of Mysterious Cinnabar, hsiktn-tau-kimg, situated just
above the Palace of the Cinnabar Field (Palace of the Ni-huan), the third
of the Nine Palaces of the upper section:
It is a purple chamber in a blue dwelling, filled with a vermilion
vapor. The Great Real of the Ni-huan, who governs it, has the
appearance of an infant who has just been born. Seated on a golden
throne, before a jade hanging, clad in a silken garment with purple
embroideries, he carries suspended from his belt a little round bell of
liquid fire, which is without substance and is nothing but a red light,
but the sound of which, when it is shaken, makes itself heard for
10,000 leagues. Such is the precious little round bell of the Perfect
Man Great One of the Central Yellow of the Great Purity. In his
left hand he holds the handle of the seven stars of the Bushel (the
Great Bear), in his right hand the first net of the Boreal Constel-
lation, that is, the star which does not move (the Pole Star). He is
seated in the midst of the Mysterious Cinnabar Palace, looking
outwards. To his right and left he has no assistants. It is because he
has no assistants that he is called Real Lord Great One.^"^
The four other Palaces of the head, the Palace of the Jade Emperor,
the last in the lower row, together with the Palaces of the upper row,
except for the third (the Palace of Mysterious Cinnabar), are less known
because their books have not been revealed to men. These are the Palaces
of the Female One, Tz'u-yi, since the divinities who dwell there are
goddesses: in the Palace of the Jade Emperor, the divine Mother of Jade
Purity; in the Palace of the Heavenly Court, the Real Mother of Superior
Purity; in the Palace of the Great Summit, the Queen of the Emperor of
the Great Absolute; and finally in the Palace of the Great Majestic, the

87. T'ai-shang tao-chi'm shou-yiian-ttin shang-ching, in TSTTM, \2a-7i\h-35h.

 352 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Very High Empress; three thousand Jade Maidens serve them. The
Palaces of the Female One exist in men, as do the Palaces of the Male
One even in women.

In examining the names of the gods inside the body, one sees that they
are also the gods of the external world. That is in no way surprising since
a man’s body, as I have already said, is the precise counterpart of the
world; the body is the microcosm. Heaven and Earth are the macrocosm,
and they are absolutely alike. From that it follows that, for the identity
to be perfect, the gods who preside over the various parts of the one
preside at the same time over the corresponding parts of the other. Thus,
to understand the divine system of the human body properly, the divine
system of the world must be understood.
I cannot give here even a very abbreviated summary of the cosmo-
logical pantheon of Taoism. Divinities of all kinds are far too numerous
in it, and the reading of innumerable names and titles of gods, in
translations which are necessarily inadequate, would be tedious. I shall
content myself with giving first of all the translation of a text, a sort of
theogony taken from a work that antedates the T’ang dynasty, the “Very
High Book of the Correct Law of the Three Heavens”, T’ai-sliang san-
t’ien Cheng-fa ching, composed by the Celestial King of the Small Being
(Heaven) of Pure Vacuity, Ch'ing-hsii Hsiao-yu-t'ien T'ien-wang:^^
The Real King of the Nine Heavens, chiu-t'ien clien-wang, and the
King Celestial of the Original Beginning, yiian-shili t’ien-wang, were
both born before the beginning of the Breath. (At that time) celestial
light was not shining yet, the accumulations were not yet clarified,
the vast waters had no shores. Chaos was a Great Void, the
immense waters flowed like an ocean. After 7,000 Kalpas and more,
the Obscure and the Clear were separated for the first time. The
Nine Breaths existed; each Breath was distant (from the others) by
99,990 years.^^ Pure Breaths ascended on high, impure Breaths
spread about down below. The Real King of the Nine Heavens and
the Heavenly King of the Original Beginning, having received
conception from the Spontaneous, gave themselves the title of (kings
of) the Nine Heavens.The Nine Breaths mysteriously coagulated

88. TT, 876, \a-2h (Wieger, 1188); the beginning is quoted also in YCCC, ch. 21, la-/),
but without the commentary.
89. Commentary (TT, 876): “Lord Green-Adolescent, Ch'ing-t’ung-chiin, says: in this
period there was neither year nor month; the Nine Breaths already existed, each breath
being 99,990 // from the others. One li corresponds to one year.”
90. Commentary: “The Real King of the Nine Heavens and the King of the Original
Beginning were both born in the midst of the Nine Breaths; the breaths entwined and made
their shape”.
 Au Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 353

and completed the plan of the Nine Heavens; sun, moon, planets,
and constellations then shone.
Then there were the Emperors of the Nine Realities, Chiu-chen
chill ti^^ The Upper Reality, the Middle Reality, and the Lower
Reality were born in the Heaven of Pure Tenuity of the Supreme
Uttermost, Chi-sliang ch’ing-wei I'icn^^ The three Realities were
thereupon born in the Yii-yii heaven.Down below were the Three
Realities born in the third heaven Great Red, ta-ch’ihy^
The Princesses of the Three Originals, san-yiian fu-jen, were born
of the Breath. Heaven was their father and Breath their mother; that
is why they are called the Three Ladies of Great Simpleness, T'ai-su
san-yuan-chim. Each of them conceived a son spontaneously by the
Breath.That is why (the children) born of the three Princesses
received feminine titles. Each (of the three Princesses) set up a
palace, and there they had the Officials of the Guard of Great
Purity, Shang-ch’ing ying-wei chih kuan.^^
The three (Lords of the) Tao,^^ being prosperous, raised their title

91. Commentary: “The Lord Green-Adolescent, Ch'ing-t’ung-chiin, says; The Nine

Realities, these are the positions of the Nine Palaces produced by the coagulation of the
Pure Breath of the Nine Heavens”.
92. Commentary: “The Heaven of Pure Tenuity is (that) to which the Breath of the
Beginning, shih-ch’i, rises.”
93. Commentary: “The Yii-yu Heaven is (that) to which the Original Breath, yuan-ch’i,
rises”.
94. Commentary; “The Great Red Heaven is the one to which the Mysterious Breath
rises.” —Here the quotation from the T'ai-shang san-t'ieu cheng-fa clung stops in YCCC,
ch. 21, \a-h.
95. Commentary: “The Lord Green-Adolescent says: The Lady of White Simpleness,
Pai-su yiian-chun, was the mother of Lord White Original, Pai-yiian-chun, of the right; the
Lady of Yellow Simpleness, Huung-su yuan-chiin, was the mother of Lord Yellow Old
Man, Huang-lao-chiin, of the center; the Lady of Purple Simpleness, Tzu-su yuan-chun, was
the mother of Lord None More Brilliant, Wu-ying-cinin, of the left. Vacuity knitted
together without needing any embryo; from Breath they were born.” Cf. Tung-chen Kao-
shang Yii-ti Ta-tung tz’u-yi yu-chien wu-lao pao-ching [TKYTTY. TT, 1925; Wieger, 1294;
see below, paragraph ending at note 101), 5a: “Lady White Simpleness, that is the mother
of Lord White Original of the right Lady Yellow Simpleness, that is the mother of the
Great Yellow Old Man, of the center Lady Purple Simpleness, that is the mother of the
Great None More Brilliant, of the left”. But the book adds a degree to the genealogy by
making the three Princesses the daughters of another divinity, the Princess of Great
Simpleness (mother of the) Three (princesses), T'ai-su san-yiian chiin {ihUi., 5h\ 1 translate
the title according to the explanations in the text).
96. Commentary: “The 3,000 Jade Adolescents of the Golden Dawn(?), chin-ch'eni ?) yii-
f’ung, and the 3,000 Jade Maidens of the Western Flow'ering, hsi-hua yii-nii, who are
committed to serving the three Princesses. They are in the Palace of the Chamber of
Profundity, tung-fang-kung." Kuan, “official”, is a title given to Immortals of lower ranks.
97. These are the three sons of the three Princesses, Po-yiian chiin, Huang-lao chiin, and
Wu-ying chiin.
 354 Taoism and Chinese Religion

and became the Very High Lords of the Great Tao, f'ai-sliang ta-
tao-cliiiny^ They established the Red Jade Palace, c/Tiung-kung: the
Jade Hall, yii-tien, (of that palace) is occupied by the Three High
Lords of the Great Tao. They completely govern the Nine Heavens.
Next to the Very High Lords the Eight Regions take their positions,
and in these Eight Regions the Eight Emperors, //, are set up. That
is why the three upper heavens have twenty-four Emperors, Lord
Jade Majesties, yu-huang chili chiin.
In the time of the Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti, they created living
people;*^*^ they were animated by the Original Breath, yikni-ch’k they
dressed and were capped in the five colors.
Of the two divine beings which this book places at the beginning of
creation, only one, the Heavenly King of the Original Beginning, passed
into the “Marvelous Book of the Highest Degree for the Salvation of
Innumerable Men, by the Original Beginning”, Yiian-shih wu-liaug tu-jen
shang-p'iu niiao-ching,^^^ a fifth century book which had a great success;
and he is the only one who truly entered into Taoist religious life.
However, his title of Heavenly King was changed under Buddhist
influence. Heavenly King, t’ieu-waug, was the term by which Chinese
translators rendered the title {devardja) of the four gods of the lowest of
all the series of Buddhist heavens, the one that was situated on the four
faces of mount Sumeru. It was thus impossible to keep this title for the
greatest of the Taoist gods, and he was therefore given the title of
Celestial Venerable, t'ieii-tswy an expression by which the Sanskrit term
hhagavat, one of the Buddha’s titles, was rendered at that time.
Besides, the theogonies often differed from one book to another. For

98. Commentary: “The Very High Lords of the Great Tao are Emperors for all the
Perfect Ones. Their position is high, their Breaths are pure: that is why they are called Very
High. They are all conceived of the Breath and receive the Real; their degrees are
accumulated one on another and they take their titles from them.”
99. Commentary: “The men who lived later on began with Huang-ti. Huang-ti formed
men and made statues of them in the Desert, k’uang-yeh. In 300 years, through the
transformation of the five colors, they could speak. Each was made of (earth of the color
corresponding to) a region: that is why there are difi'erent kinds of people, all well made,
Chinese as well as barbarians. The Five Innate Qualities, nu-hsing, having harmonized
their Virtues, the Five Dharmas, wu-fa. (were produced) spontaneously and received the
Breath of the Higher Real; and then they managed to become men. They had a term of life
and of death, and the chance of Life Eternal. If their bones and breath become Real, then
(man) becomes one who does not die; he manages to be appointed as a Superior Immortal;
if his behavior is not perfect, (the man) dies and returns to earth.” —“... living people”
designates, as we see, ordinary men, all the personages dealt with previously being divinities
formed exclusively of breath.
100. TT, 1-15; Wieger, 1. Cf. below, note 107.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 355

example, the “Precious Book of the Five Old Men of the Jade Register of
the F'emale One of Great Depth (said to be) by the Eminent fJigh Jade
Emperor (a book making up a portion of the ) Tung-chen (section)”,
Titng-clien Kao-shang Yii-ti Ta-tung tz'u-yi yii-chien wu-lcio pao-cliing,
which makes Huang-lao chiin and his two assistants the offspring of the
three Ladies of the Three Simplenesses, adds a degree to the genealogy
by making these latter the three daughters of another goddess, the Lady
of Great Simpleness (mother) of the Three (Ladies of the Three
Simplenesses).
Given the fact that the pre-existing books had been revealed to men by
the Immortals, each book had its particular god, who was also in effect
the guarantee of its authenticity and of the recipes it offered. Of these
divinities, some were ancient gods to which popular religion and Taoism
had given a new' vitality, not without changing their character; others
were new divinities created by Taoist imagination. Later on, believers
practising the recipes of each book each classed their god as high as
possible within the divine hierarchy, either by ranking them among the
gods spontaneously sprung from the Breaths, or by making them the son
or daughter of some celebrated divinity, or finally contenting themselves
to identify them with some other already famous divinity. Thus we find
the Queen Mother of the West, Hsi-wang-mu, the goddess of epidemics
in ancient religion, becoming within Taoism the queen of Immortals,
formed spontaneously from the Original Breath of the Great Yin, by
whom a number of recipes for long life, dietetic regimens, drugs, and so
on have been transmitted, and the counterparts to this goddess, a very
ancient creation of the Chinese symmetrical mind, the King Father of the
East, Tung-wang-fu, and the daughters of Hsi-wang-mu.
It was not easy to find one’s way among this whole population of
gods, which it was nevertheless necessary to know precisely so as not to
make a mistake in addressing them when one had managed to enter into
relations with them. Also, the gods themselves often came to the aid of
the faithful by making various revelations to them regarding the celestial
world, its organization, with names, titles, functions, costumes, and
residences of transcendent beings.
It is unfortunate that these revelations do not always match up with
one another. One of them, the “Jade List of the Pearl Palace, by the Very
High Old Lord”, T’ai-shang lao-chiin chit-kuug yii-li, or simply the
“Book of Lao-tzu”,Lao-tzu Chung-cliing, enumerates a series of
divinities in fifty-five notes, with prayers, formulae, and ceremonies to

101. TKYTTYiTT, 1025; IVieger. 1294), 5a; cf. above, note 95.
102. TSLCCiTT, 239; Wieger, 1154). Cf. YCCC, ch. 18-19.
 3S6 Taoism and Chinese Religion

gain their favor. It puts the Great One, T'ai-yi, first:

He is the Father of the Tao, preceding Heaven and Earth, who is
above the Nine Heavens, in the Great Purity, outside the Six Dark-
nesses, liu-ming, within the Ether, hsi-wei. I do not know his name;
it is the Original Breath, yikin-c/Ti (that is, the pure breath which
vivifies the world and living beings). He has the head of a man on a
bird’s body, the shape of a cock with the five colors of the phoenix;
his garment of pearls is dark yellow.
Then comes the Very High Original Sovereign of the Limitless, Wu-chi
t'ai-sluing yuan-chiin, who “is the Sovereign of the Tao”, tao-clum.

He has a single body with nine heads, or again he changes into

nine men, all clad in garments of five-colored pearls, wearing
headdresses of the Nine Virtues. He is the son of the Great One
without being his son, being a Spontaneous One from the Original
Breath.
In the third place is the King Father of the East, Tung-wang-fu, who is
the Original Breath of Green Yang:
He is the first of the ten thousand gods. He is clad in a garment of
five-colored pearls, with a three-seamed cap on his head. Above him
is the Cloudy Glimmer of Great Purity, which is of five colors, and
beneath him mount P’eng-lai. His family name is Non-Action, wu-
]vei, and his sobriquet Sovereign Deliverance, c/iiin-cliieli. He rules
the East.
The Queen Mother of the West, Hsi-wang-mu, is the Original
Breath of the Great Yin; her family name is Spontaneity, tzu-Jan,
her sobriquet Sovereign Thought, chim-ssu. Below, she rules mount
K’un-lun with its nine-storied Metal City; above, she rules the Purple
Chamber of the Flowery Canopy of the Great Bear, which is below
the North Pole.
Aside from the Great One and his assistants, there are the Three Ones.
The first One is the Sovereign of the Tao, tao-cliiin, the Lord on High of
Majestic Heaven, huang-t’ien s/uing-ti; he is the central star of the North
Pole, chung-chi pei-ch’en chuug-yang', he dwells above the Nine Heavens
and is always in the Purple Chamber of the Great Abyss, ta-yiian tzu-
fang; he is clad in garments of five colors, wearing the cap of the Nine
Virtues; above him is the five-colored Flowery Canopy. He is always
accompanied by the Superior Soul, t’ien-hwu and the Lower Soul, t’ien-
p’o. Spontaneous Sovereigns who wait upon him, one at the left, the
other at the right. The first is Lao-tzu, the second the Great Harmony,
 -4// Essay on Taoism in ihc First Centuries A.I). 357

ta-Jto. The second One is the South Pole, nan-chi, who is Grand
Constable, t'ai-wci, of Heaven, one of the Three Dukes; he presides over
calamities, over the destiny of the State and dynasties, over favorable
and unfavorable. The third One is the Yellow Old Man of the Central
Pole, cliung-clii hiutng-lao, sovereign of the Central Bushel, but he is not
designated as one of the Three Ones in the text in its present-day
condition. The Sun and the Moon are the two others of the Three
Dukes, the Director of the Multitudes, ssii-t'u, and the Director of
Works, ssu-k’iifig: they preside over the errors of men’s sovereign.
Farther away are placed the Sun-Eating Essence and the Moon-Eating
Essence, shih-jih shih-yiich cliih c/iing, which produce eclipses of sun and
moon, and so on. From this enumeration one can see clearly how the
Taoist pantheon was recruited: ancient Chinese divinities, such as the
Lord on High of Majestic Heaven, who is the supreme sovereign of
stellar divinities, and new divinities born of Taoist imagination, such as
the Great One, Huang-Uto chiin, and so on.

The “Genuine Book of the Great Arcana”, Tu-tung chen-ching, a

curious collection of thirty-nine pieces in verse, each revealed by a
particular divinity who proceeds to state in cryptic terms his essential
activity, is less eclectic.There too, at the head of the list is the Great
One, under the title Eminently Supreme Majestic Sovereign of Vacuity,
kao-shang hsit-huang chitn. He is the Original Breath; he was born above
the Nine Heavens, and he dwells there beyond the Yi-yu Gate, which is
the Northwest gate of Heaven. After him we find the Supreme Majesties,
Sovereigns of Jade Vacuity, t’ai-lniang yii-hsit chitn, who are “the Male
and Female principles of the Sovereign One”. Then comes the Majesti-
cally Supreme Sovereign Jade Emperor, huang-shattg yii-ti chitn, who
possesses the banner of the Mysterious Supreme, with which he convokes
the Immortals so as to give out responsibilities and to regulate the
hierarchical degrees in the nine heavens. He summons the gods of the
Four Seas and the Five Peaks. He resides in the Heaven of Jade Purity,
yii-ch’ing-t'ien, and on his terrace he has trees like pines, the flowers of
which give the brilliance of gold to those who eat them. After these he
names the Supremely Majestic Sovereign First-Born of the Purple
Aurora, shang-huang hsicn-sheng tzu-ch'en chitn, who is also in the
Heaven of Jade Purity; then the Imperial Sovereign of the Heaven of
Great Tenuity, t'ai-wci t’ien-ti chitn, wTo dwells in the Palace of Great

103. TTCC (TT. 16-17; Wieger, 6). YCCC, cli. 8, gives (without the text) the
original eommentary which the various editions collected in TT give only in truncated
form, when they do not suppress it entirely. That is what I used.
 358 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Tenuity, behind the Red Jade Gate; and the Three Originals, Sovereigns
of the Purple Essence, san-yikin tzu-ching cliiin, who have their palace in
the heaven of Jade Purity and who are not the same as the Sovereign
Three Originals of Great Simpleness, shaug-yikin t’ai-su san-yikin cliiin:
the Sovereign of the Great Tao of Great Purity, t'ai-ch’ing ta-tao c/iiin,
who governs the kings of the Three Heavens; the Director of Destiny,
ssu-niing, who lives in the Palace of Jade Vacuity; the Sovereign of the
Gold Portico, chin-ch'iieh\ the King of the Immortals of Jade Protection
Master of the High Aurora of the Moon Palace of the Eastern Flower,
timg-hiia fang-chu-kimg kao-ch ’en-shih yii-pao hsien-wang, who presides
over the palaces of the Immortals; and so on.

One of the most learned Taoist monks of the fifth to sixth centuries
tried to classify this crowd of gods, Perfect Men, and Immortals in a
work entitled “Table of the Hierarchy of the Real Transcendents of the
Sacred Jewel (who belong to the section) of the Mystery among the
(three) Arcana”, Timg-hsikin ling-pao c/ien-ling wei yeh-t’u}^'^ Gods and
Immortals are classed in seven ranks, each subdivided into three parts:
the central place, where the principal god of that rank, the one who
reigns over the others, is placed; then places to the left and right, very
numerous and lowering in grade as they move away from the center.
Finally, from the fifth rank on, follow personages without any fixed
place, rather like Immortals of the crowd, who came after those of the
left and the right in each rank.
Each rank corresponds to a Heavenly Palace and contains the gods
and Immortals of that Palace. The first rank is that of the Jade Purity
Palace, in which the central place is occupied by the lord of the Tao of
Majestic Vacuity, also called Celestial Venerable of the Original
Beginning. The second level is that of the Palace of Supreme Purity, in
which the central place belongs to the Very High Lord of the Great Tao,
Mysterious Majesty of the Jade Aurora, Eminent Saint of Supreme
Purity. The third level is that of the Palace of the Great Summit, with the
Imperial Lord of the Golden Portico of the Great Summit. The fourth
level is that of the Palace of Great Purity, where the central place is
occupied at the same time by two divinities, the Very High Old Lord
(Lao-chiin) of Great Purity and the Majestic Supreme Lord of the Great
Unexcelled Tao. On the sixth level are the Nine Palaces, those great
administrations which I have described, under the direction of the

104. TT, 73; Wieger, 164. This is a little work twenty-eight pages long consisting of one
chapter. The author, T’ao Hung-ching, lived from 452 to 536.
 /I/I Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 359

Minister, an Immortal named Chang Feng who, after having been

Director of Destiny, ssit-ttiing, for North of the River, Ho-pei, is now
Immortal of the Palace of the Great Summit, delegated to the manage-
ment of the Nine Palaces. Finally, in the seventh level, it is the Great
Lord of the Northern Yin of Feng-tu, the celestial judge who controls
the hells, assisted by a whole series of Chinese emperors who occupy the
places to his left: Ch’in Shih-huang-ti, the founder of imperial unity in
the third century B.C. (221-10), who has become Minister of the
Emperor of the North; emperor Wu of the Wei, in the third century A.D.
(220-26), Grand Tutor of the Emperor of the North; farther off' kings
Wen and Wu of the Chou, the former assimilated into a secondary
Tutor, the latter into Lord of the Northern Bushel; emperor Kuang-wu
of the Later Han (25-57 A.D.), as well as princes of antiquity such as
prince Huan of Ch'i and prince Wen of Chin.
The Palace of Jade Purity naturally contains the highest gods. To the
left of the Celestial Venerable of the Original Beginning, there is first The
Eminently Supreme Born-of-Chaos Lord of the Tao of the Five Tran-
scendents and the Seven Luminaries (that is, the five planets and seven
stars of the Great Bear); then four Eminently Supreme Lords of the Tao
of Majestic Vacuity, who control, each at one of the four cardinal
directions, one of the Heavenly Palaces where the Immortals dwell. Light
of the East, Flower of the West, Mystery of the North, and Vermilion of
the South; finally a whole series of Lords of the Tao for the Three
Palaces of the Three Originals of Jade Purity: four for the Palace of the
Higher Original and the Palace of the Lower Original, and six for the
Palace of the Middle Original. The Palaces of the Three Originals have
still several more divinities among those who are at the right of the
Venerable Lord of the Original Beginning, among whom are also two
Lords of the Great One, the Lord Great One of Jade Heaven and the
Jade Lord Great One. The Lords of the Five Peaks fall under the juris-
diction of the Palace of Supreme Purity. The Heavenly King of the
Original Beginning, considered as distinct from the Celestial Venerable, is
classed in the fourth level at the left in the Palace of Great Purity, just
like Chang Tao-ling.
It is in the Palace of the Great Summit (the third level) that most of
the Sage Kings of antiquity are found—Yao and Shun, and the Great
Yii. There they are neighbors of Confucius, who has the title of Sire the
Higher Real of the Great Summit, T’ai-chi Shang-clien kung K'lmg
Ch'iii. Lao-tzu, under the name of Lao-tzu of the North Pole, Majestic
Immortal Mysteriously Supreme, is classed there among the Immortals
of the left, and again under the name of Lao Tun among the Immortals
 360 Taoism and Chinese Religion

of the right; and moreover it is he who, under the title of Very High Old
Lord of Great Purity, T'ai-ch’ing kao-sluing Lao-cliiin, occupies the
central position on the fourth level.
In this list of T'ao Hung-ching's, beside the great divinities, the most
famous Saints and Immortals, there are personages of lesser importance,
such as the Ten Lords without fixed position of the Palace of Jade
Purity, whose names, surnames, and functions are unknown, or even
simple office employees such as the twenty-four and the twelve hundred
orderlies of the Lords Officials in the Palace of Great Purity (fourth
level), and a whole series of messengers—messengers of the Nine Holy
Places, messenger of Great Purity, messenger of the six yi days, of the six
ping days, of the six ting days, of the six /c7? days, of the six knei days of
the sixty-day cycle, and so on.

We should not be astonished at this confusion if we bear in mind that

almost every Taoist book claimed to have been dictated by a god or by
an Immortal, and contains the names of one or several other gods or
Immortals, the latter as unknown as the former. A great deal of ancient
Taoist literature is the work of mediums, and we have only to run
through what remains of it to realize that they were not always very well
educated nor very intelligent. Like the mediums of today, each had his
particular spirit or spirits which inspired him and which did not always
propose to identify themselves precisely. To put in order all these names
of disparate origin was an impossible job. T'ao Hung-ching was himself
often aided by gods in the composition of his various works; but in his
prefaces he does not mention any supernatural assistance regarding this
labor on the Taoist pantheon. This is a task, however, in which it would
have been highly useful.
In fact, despite various efforts, there has never been a definitive
hierarchy accepted by all; there were too many disagreements for that,
and moreover this whole pantheon was always being reshaped, books
bringing in new names at every moment, or precisions of detail regarding
divinities known of old that demanded to be painstakingly harmonized
with the rest. At the very most a sort of general scheme of the celestial
hierarchy can be sketched. The highest gods constitute the Triad of the
Three Pures, San-ch’ing, who respectively rule over the Level of Jade
Purity, Yu-ch'ing, the Level of Supreme Purity, Shang-ch’ing, and the
Level of Great Purity, T’ai-ch’ing. Identification of the gods who preside
over each of these Levels was not easy, since (besides books which
modestly claimed to come from gods or Immortals of middling rank)
there are a certain number emanating from multiple divinities portrayed
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 361

as supreme gods of some kind, and it look much ingenuity to dif-

ferentiate them one from another and to fix their ranking.
Everybody agrees in putting at the head of the list of gods the Celestial
Venerable of the Original Beginning, Yiian-shih t'ien-tsun, but there is
less agreement on how to classify him. Some, agreeing with T’ao Hung-
ching, make him the first among the three gods who preside over the
three levels of Purity, and have him preside over the Level of Jade Purity,
without setting any being above him. Indeed, according to these authors,
the Great Net heaven, Ta-lo-t’ien, which makes up the limit enveloping
all the other heavens and the world and separates them from the Great
Obscurity, is itself completely empty and uninhabited.Others, by
contrast, set him off by himself, above the Three Pures, in the Great Net
heaven. There is still more irresolution, according to books and
periods, regarding the names of the divinities who come just after him,
divinities who hardly matter in religious life. One must get to the Queen
Mother of the West, Hsi-wang-mu, on the one hand, and the Jade
Emperor, Yii-huang, on the other, to find divinities who are anything
more than names, or rather titles. Hsi-wang-mu remained the queen of
the Immortals, and the Jade Emperor (charged with directing all the
gods and Immortals who were officials of the heavenly administration)
tended to be popularly transformed into a divine king of the world,
stelae being raised to him during the Six Dynasties period. He was one of
the Lords of the Tao, tao-cliiin, and had a great number of them under
his orders, since the whole administrative hierarchy was under his
control. His registers included no less than a hundred and eight Lords of
the Tao, chiefs of various heavenly departments; among them, those who
have to manage a whole Palace, with all the servants it includes, receive
the title of Very High, t’ai-slumg. The Immortals, divided into three
classes. Lords (clnin). Perfect Men {chen-Jen), and Immortals {hsien), are
distributed among these offices to carry out their functions.

All this constituted a vast administration, organized in the same way

as the Chinese empire, divided into palaces, services, bureaus, and so on,
with numerous officials of all ranks. A Taoist writer of the fifth century.
Yen Tung, gives the following description of it, as a summary of a more
ancient work entitled “The Prohibitions of the Three Originals”, San-
yuau p’iu-chieh. It is a hierarchized administration, perfectly regulated.

105. Yuan-shill cliing [“Book of the Original Beginning”], in YCCC, ch. 21,2a.
106. YCCC, ch. 21, 4a: cf. Yu-ching-shan clung [“Book of the Jade Capital Mountain”],
in YCCC,ch. 2\,\h.
 362 Taoism and Chinese Religion

closely imitating Chinese administration;

When the Original Breath, yiiau-ch’i, coagulated and knitted
together for the first time (forming) the three Breaths, green, yellow,
and white, the three Palaces of the Higher Originals, shang yuan,
were founded.
The first Palace is called Palace of Purple Tenuity’®^ with the
Seven Jewels, of the Original Yang, of the Mysterious Capital
{lisiian-tu yikin-yaug ch’i-pao tzii-wei kitng). The Eminent Majestic
Supreme Emperor, Higher Perfect, Spontaneous, Void (pure as)
Jade {shang-chen tzu-jan yii-hsu kao-huang shang-ti) governs all the
Emperors and Heavenly Kings, the Higher Saints and great gods
(who came out of the) Breath of the Beginning Yang. This palace
has 555,555 myriads of stories. It is the Green Yang Breath. Officials
and employees there, likewise a throng of 555,555 myriads, all
became men through the Spontaneous knitting of the Green Yang
Breath. Their garments are flying garments made of green feathers.
In this palace is the Charm for prolonging Life, yen-niing chih fir.
when the rapidly flying Breaths of the eight directions reach them,
they become men; if the Charm were destroyed and the bodies (of
these men) burned, smoke would result and, transforming them-
selves, they (would) become breaths.
The Palace of Purple Tenuity, the upper Palace of the Great
Mystery, T’ai-hsiian shang-fu, has three judgment halls, left, right,
and center.
(1) The Left Judgment Hall, tso-fii, is responsible for the Palace of
Life, sheng-kung. The Fire Official, Huo-kuan, Great Yang, is in
charge of it.
(2) The Right-hand Judgment Hall, yu-fii, is responsible for the
Palace of Death, ssu-kung. The Water Official (shui-kuan). Great
Yin, directs it.
(3) The Central Judgment Hall, chung-fu, is responsible for the

107. Ling-pao wu-liang tu-jen shang-p’in miao-ching ssu chit (TT, 38; Wieger, 85), ch. 2,
1/), Yen Tung’s commentary. This book is a collection of four commentaries on the first
chapter of the “Marvelous Book of the Higher Degree on the Salvation of Unnumbered
Men, by the (Celestial Venerable of the) Original Beginning”, Yiian-shih wu-liang tu-jen
shang-p’in miao-ching ( YWTSM), quoted above; the “Lord of Ling-pao” is one of the titles
of the Celestial Venerable of the Original Beginning, hence the variant. Yen Tung, a tao-
shih from Heng-yiieh, lived in the second half of the fifth century: he was converted to
Taoism at about the age of forty, during the chien-yiian period of the Southern Ch’i
(479-83).
108. See above, pp. 352-53, and below, p. 369.
109. This name. Palace of Purple Tenuity, tzu-wei kung, had been given to the central
part of heaven, around the Pole, by the astronomers of the fourth or third century B.C.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A./). 363

Registry of the Sins of Life and Death, s/icn^-ssu tsui-lu. The Wind
Sword, Feng-tao, direets it.’
In each of the three judgment halls there are twelve Bureaus,
ts’ao, of Life, Death, Sin, Happiness, and so on.
The Left-hand Palace is called Left Palace of the Great Absolute
of the Original Yellow, of the Capital of the Great Mystery, t’ai-
hsiutn-tu yiktn-hucing t’ai-chi tso-kung. It is the Breath of the Original
Yellow. It maintains universal control over all the Higher Perfect
Ones, those who have obtained the Tao and those who have not yet
attained it; it keeps the register of the life of Perfect Men and
Women. This Palace has the Charm to summon back the Spirit,
chao-liug chill fu.
The Right-hand Palace is called Right Palace, of the Great
Absolute, of the Profound White, of the Capital of the Great
Mystery, t'ai-hsiunt-tu tung-pai t’ai-chi yu-kung. It is the Breath of
the Original White. It maintains universal control over the Higher
Perfect Ones who have attained and those who have not attained the
Tao, and keeps the register of the men and women who, practising
the Real, are to be saved and to become Immortals, and the tablets
of sins with the book of death. In this Palace is the Charm for
illuminating the Real, iiiing-chen chili fit. The officials and employees
(of this Palace) are exactly like those of the Palace of Purple
Tenuity.
Heavenly officials of the Superior Original degree have three
palaces in all. Each palace has three Judgment Halls, fir, each
Judgment Hall controls altogether twelve Bureaus, ts’ao. Each of
the Palaces (thus) has thirty-six Bureaus altogether; these concern
themselves with what is above the Original Yang, which is in the
midst of Great Space, which has the surname Spontaneous, and
they completely control the Higher Perfect Ones who have already
attained the Tao. After assembling on the three yiian days (fifteenth
days of the first, seventh, and tenth months) and making a check,
the thirty-six bureaus of inspecting officials of yin-yang, of Water
and Fire, and of the Wind Sword (i.e., twelve bureaus each of the
t’ai-yin Water officials, t’ai-yang Fire officials, and Wind Sword
officials), having drawn up the results on two registers, green and
black, submit them under their joint signatures to the three left,
right, and middle palaces of Great Tenuity and of Purple Tenuity. ’ ’ ’
110. The Wind Sword, Fcng-iao, is a breath that cuts all the joints at the moment of
death.
111. Last sentence translated according to Kavvakatsu emendation (his note 137), on the
basis of a parallel passage.
 364 Taoism and Chinese Religion

All this is taken from the “Prohibitions of the Three Originals”, which
I have summarized.'
This whole divine administration, with its palaces, its services and its
bureaus, its officials and employees, is not only in the universe (“Heaven
and Earth”), but also in the human body. And all the gods spon-
taneously produced by the Breath are there also, except perhaps the
Venerable of the Original Beginning. At least, I have not encountered his
name among those of the gods within the body.

//. The Supreme Divinities and Mystical Meditation

The Taoist finds himself in quite a peculiar position, different from that
of believers in any other revealed religion. For him there is no body of
doctrine and stock of practises fixed once and for all through an entirely
completed external revelation carried out by a god or a prophet who will
return no more. Such an ensemble does indeed exist, but the knowledge
of it comes to men only piece by piece, gradually. Everyone has the duty
of seeking out masters for himself, and his masters, if he knows how to
search for them, will be great gods or Immortals of any rank always
prepared to “transmit” useful instructions to him. And he has two
methods of entering into relation with these masters. One is external, by
searching for the Immortals in the solitudes of the mountains where they
like to stay, the other internal, by striving to get in touch with them
inside himself, in the various regions of his own body where they reside.
The author of the “Biography of the Perfect Man of the Purple Yang”,
which I have already quoted several times, shows this in striking fashion.
His hero, Chou yi-shan, spent long years traveling the world seeking for
the gods of the Supreme Triad, climbing mountains and exploring grot-
toes; finally he discovered them and prostrated himself before them.

Then he closed his eyes to look within himself and, after a long
moment, he saw indeed that within the Eastern Chamber (one of the
cubicles of the head), there were these two great gods (of the Triad),

112. A part of this text is quoted in Chen Luan’s HTL (in KHC, ch. 9; TIK, vol. 52, no.
2103) under the title "(Book of the) rank of the Three Originals (told) by the Very High”,
T'ai-shang san-yiian p’in. The complete title of the work was "Marvelous Book of the
Prohibitions of the first degree of the Three Originals who do away with Sins, by the Very
High Nii-ch’ing of Great Mystery”, T'ai-shang t'ai-hsiian Nu-ch'ing San-yiian yi-p'in-chieh
pa-lsui nuao-ching (TT, 28; Wieger, 35). This work was famous in the sixth and seventh
centuries; aside from HTL, it is quoted in the Han-fa pen-nei-chuan, which is also from the
sixth century (in Hsii-chi ku-chin fo-iao lun-heng, ch. 3, 398/); TIK, vol. 52, no. 2105), under
the abridged title San-yiian p'in-chieh and in iVSPY, ch. 5, \2a-h, ch. 34, Sa-h, ch. 66,
\a-2a, which is from the seventh or the beginning of the eighth century.
 .4// Hssdv on Taoism in the First Centuries A.l). 365

just the same in appearance and costume as those that were on

mount K’ung (in the mountain grotto).
The Lord Yellow Old Man burst out laughing and said: “Sharp!
Deep! Use meditation! That is the way to mount into Heaven in
broad daylight!” '
In sum, rather than painfully searching for the gods throughout the
world, it is within himself that the initiate can seek them, and he may
find them there, since they live within him always.
He seeks and finds them through meditation and ecstasy, by what has
been called “concentrating within the One” or “concentrating his One”.
Like all the Taoist divinities of that time, the One is at the same time
both inside and outside of man.’ The literal sense of the expression is
“keep the One”, shoit-yi.
This One which must be kept is described to us as being three. But I
believe that this is in fact the result of a recent elaboration and that it
had really been one indeed, originally. In fact, as a celebrated phrase
from the Tao-te citing indicates, the One was the first emanation of the
Tao.
The Tao produced the One; the One produced the Two (the yin
and the yang): the Two produced the Three (Heaven, Earth, and
Man); the Three produced the ten thousand things.'
With the tendency to personalize abstractions of Taoism, the One was
quickly conceived of as a personal divinity, called the Great One, T'ai-yi,
by the time of the Later Han. That the Great One was indeed an
important Taoist divinity in the search for immortality appeared to be
fairly obvious from the fact that it was Taoist magicians, Miu Chi first
and then Shao-weng, who introduced its worship."^ Sacrifices were
made to it at the Palace of Longevity and those who took part were the
Great Forbidden One, Ta-chin, who is unknown elsewhere, and the
Director of Destiny, Ssu-ming, a divinity who was perhaps not Taoist
in origin, but was adopted by Taoism very early. He was the
supreme god dwelling in the Polar Constellation,"^ and the Five

113. TCNC, I \h.

114. Later on the Great One, the Director of Destiny, and so on, were made into the
names of four Perfect Men living in the Great Bear. Within a man, the Great One is in the
brain; the Director of Destiny is in the heart. Cf. Hsieh Chi-chao, YWTSM chu-chieh, eh. 2,
3L/ (TT, 46; Wieger, 90; a work presented to the emperor in 1304).
115. Tao-te clung (TTC), sect. xlii.
116. She, tr. C'havannes, vol. iii, 466-70 (about 130 B.C.).
117. IhuL, III, 473.
118. Ihul., HI, 389.
 366 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Emperors, regents of the five quarters of Heaven, were his underlings.^

From that time on, he was already part of a Triad of Ones, san-yi, who
were called the Heavenly One, T’ien-yi, the Terrestrial One Ti-yi, and the
Supreme One, T’ai-yi.^^^ Despite the differences in names it seems to be
difficult to accept that these Three Ones to whom the emperor Wu
sacrificed in about 130 B.C., following his Taoist magicians, were not the
prototypes of the Three Ones of the Later Han period, those divinities
each residing in one of the three Cinnabar Fields, where they had a
beneficent role, inverse to the maleficent role of the Three Worms. This
transformation of One into Three while preserving the former name is
explained by the necessity of bringing into agreement two practises
which were originally independent: that of meditation, ecstasy, and
Union with the Unique Tao, bequeathed by the ancient mystical school
of Lao-tzu, Chuang-tzu, Kuan-yin-tzu; and the perhaps more recent
practise of circulation of breath in the three Cinnabar Fields. There had
to be Three Ones since there were three Cinnabar Fields. But some
people still remembered their original unity. A book of the third or
fourth century A.D., the “Book of Ascension to the Mystery”, Sheng-
hsiuin c/iing, clearly affirms that unity.

The Immortal Tou Tzu-ming asked: “I formerly heard the Master

of the Faw’s instructions regarding the Real Ones and the Great
Ones; I have never heard an explanation of the Three Ones. How, if
it is One, can one say Three? Is what is Three One? Are there Three
who are One? Although I respectfully observe the practise of
‘Keeping’ the Three Ones, I could never understand it. I want you to
explain it to me, so that henceforward I shall study and can grasp its
essentials.”
The Master of the Law says: “The Three Ones are One, no more.
(It is because) it is given (different) names in the three (different)
areas (where it resides) that it is called the Three Ones.”

Another Master of the Law, a certain Meng, sought to explain the

relation between the One and the Three by means of notions and terms
borrowed from Buddhist philosophy:

119. IhkI., Ill, 485.

120. Ihid., Ill, 467, and CHS, ch. 25A, 86; “A report was presented to the emperor saying:
Mn the old days the emperor offered a suovetaurilia, t’ai-lao, to the Three Ones, the
Heavenly One, the Earthly One, and the Supreme One’.” Cf. also CHS, Liu-li chih, ch. 21A,
36: “The Original Breath of the Great Absolute contains the Three in One.”
121. Sheng-h.siian citing, quoted in San-yi chiieh [“Formula of the Three Ones”], in
YCCC, ch. 49, 36.
122. Hsmn-men ta-lun San-yi chiieh [“Great Dissertation on the Formula of the Three
Ones by the (Master of the) Mystery Gate”] in YCCC, ch. 49, 4a-h.
 Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A./). 367

Although the Three are ditferenl, they cannot be definitively

separated: although the Ones are substantially the same, they must
not be definitively mistaken one for the other. They arc identical but
without being the same. That is why They become distinctly Three;
they separate, without separating definitively. That is why they are
substantially mingled in One. Since the Three mingled become One,
the Three are not Three; since the One dividing becomes Three, the
One is not One. If they are Three while not being Three, they arc
One while not being One; this is because the Three who are not
Three really are Three, and the One which is not One is really One.
The Three who are not Three are not only not-Three; they are also
not-not-Three; the One which is not One is not only a not-One, it is
also a not-not-One. This is the purport of Mystery redoubled.
1 do not know whether Master of the Law Meng fancied that the
rigmarole that he had written made any sense; but we can be sure that he
did not claim any great importance for it. The adept must carry out
certain practises, but it is not absolutely necessary for him to understand
them right away; understanding of them will come little by little, together
with the progress which is the fruit of the practise. Anyhow, if it was
difficult to understand how' the One could be Three, the fact itself was
easy for all educated Adepts to realize. Several times a year, indeed, the
Great One and the Three Ones, with the gods of the Five Viscera,
mingle and transform themselves into one great god who takes a
different name each time. This god stays once in each of the Five Viscera:
in the first month and the chia-tzu and chia-hsu days (first and second
days of the cycle), in the morning at the niao hour (betw'een 0500 and
0700), he stays in the heart under the name Lord of the Heavenly
Essence, T'ien-ching-chiin; in the sixth month, on the day chia-chett (the
twenty-first day of the cycle) at the ch'cn hour (0700-0900), he is in the
liver; in the seventh month in the spleen; in the eighth month in the
lungs; in the ninth month in the two kidneys. Besides, in the eleventh
month he is in the brain, in the Ni-huan Palace; in the third and fourth
months, after having transformed himself into a single and unique god,
he divides and spreads, in the third month, throughout all the bones,
which he strengthens (he is then called Lord of Solid Jade, Chien-yii
chiin), and in the fourth month he enters the Essence and the blood.
Only in the second, fifth, and twelfth months does this transformation
not take place.*
The original unity of the Three Ones was recalled at every moment by
the very term with which the concentration and meditation ending in

123. ch. 5, 9h-\\a. It is lacking the tenth month.

 368 Taoism and Chinese Religion

ecstasy were designated: “keeping the One”, shou-yi, an expression

which, like almost everything that is mystical about Han Taoism, is
borrowed from the school of Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu. It is not en-
countered very often in Chuang-tzu, but it was so common in mystical
circles that it had left the purely technical usage and had been adopted
by fashionable people to designate simply concentration, sustained
attention. To Attain the One, te-yi—that is, to attain mystical Union
with the Tao or at least with its primary manifestation, the One—
brought superhuman powers:
It is for having attained the One that Heaven is pure. It is for
having attained the One that Earth is stable. It is for having attained
the One that the Spirit is Sacred.
“Keeping” it gave long life:
I have kept my One so as to establish myself in harmony; that is
why I have cultivated myself for twelve hundred years without my
body’s becoming weakened.
Thus to Keep the One had remained the technical name, not only for
ecstasy itself, which was called “to sit and forget”, tso-wang, an old name
also borrowed from Chuang-tzu,but for all mystical practises.
Ecstatic meditation had also been styled “preservation of thought”,
ts ’lai-ssu:

To perfect oneself, the most important thing is ecstatic medi-

tation, ts’un-ssu. When ecstatic meditation is not perfect and is
lacking in concentration, it is without effect When it is perfect,
there is necessarily vision. When the vision is as clear as a painting,
intelligence opens up and there is progress.
The internal mechanism which produces this vision is explained to us
precisely, if not clearly, by a book from the middle of the fourth
century, the “Book of the Three Original Ones revealed by the Lord of
the Golden Portico”, Cliin-cITiieli ti-chim san-yikin cheu-yi ching:
If you are capable of keeping the One firmly, your Essence,
responding to its influence, will spread everywhere. Your Essence

124. TTC, sect, xxxix.

125. CT, sect. 11, Legge, i, 299.
126. CT, sect. 6, Legge, i, 257. Neither Chuang-tzu nor his mystical precursors invented
this term, which seems to have originated, like the technique of ecstasy itself, with sorcerers
and sorceresses. See “Le Saint et la Vie Mystique chez Lao-tzu et Chuang-tzu”, Bulletin de
rAssociation Franeaise des Amis de I’Orient, 1922.
127. Lao-ehiin ssu-t'u shih-pa p'ien, in YCCC, eh. 43, 3a (Preface). —Work probably
from the T’ang.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 369

will spread everywhere, the Three Originals (Three Ones) will

become visible. When the Three Originals have become visible, the
White Breath will be transformed. When the White Breath is
transformed, the Embryo will be born by itself. When the Embryo is
born by itself, a thousand chariots and ten thousand horsemen
appear suddenly. Then you will put yourself under the flowery
canopy, you will take your place in the chariot of clouds, and you
will ascend to Heaven
And the same book describes this vision itself in detail:
Method for keeping the One.—On the day of the Establishing of
Spring, at the midnight hour, I sit down facing the East; I breathe
the breath nine times, I swallow saliva thirty-five times. That done, I
concentrate upon the seven stars of the Great Bear: little by little
they come down onto the top of my head. Then I turn towards
Heaven, in the direction of the Handle (of the Great Bear) which is
pointing towards the East. I concentrate upon the two stars of the
Perfect Men of the Yin Essence, yin-ching chen-Jen, and they
themselves draw near the top of my head. The two stars of Yang
Clarity, yang ining, and of Mysterious Darkness, hsiian niing, are
then above; the two stars of Yang Clarity and Yin Essence are
behind, the Perfect Man of Mysterious Darkness, hsuan-ming chen-
Jen is in front. Then, seeing distinctly, I concentrate my thought
firmly.
Then I think of the Venerable Lords of the Three Ones. Suddenly
I see them born through transformation; together they emerge from
within me. In an instant the Three Ministers, they too, are seated
like the three Venerables. In an instant, I see the six men ascend all
together; going towards the East they reach the gate of Heaven and
stop; they move towards my mouth. Then I see the Higher Original,
shang-yikity with his hand touch the Higher Minister; the Middle
Original, chung-yiian, with his hand touch the Middle Minister; the
Lower Original, lisia-yiian, with his hand touch the Lower Minister.
Then I inhale breath once, at great length. The Higher Original and
the Minister follow the breath, entering my mouth; they rise to the
Ni-huan Palace (in the head). A second time I inhale breath, at great
length. The Middle Original and his Minister follow the breath,
entering my mouth; they go to the Satin Palace (in the chest). A
third time I inhale breath at great length. The Lower Original and

128. Chin-ch'iieh ti-chiin san-yiian chen-yi ching (CCTSCC), in YCCC, ch. 50, I \ a. [Sec
also note 20 to the introduction to this Book, above.]
129. Ibid., 1 ba-\la.
 370 Taoism and Chinese Religion

his Minister follow the breath, entering my mouth; they go down to

the Lower Cinnabar Field, hsia-tan-t'ien.
Then I concentrate upon the Gate of Heaven star, T’ien-kuan
hsing, and I order it to place itself seven paces from my mouth. The
star is before my mouth; the Three Originals are within my Three
Palaces. Everything is accomplished.
We see that the gods come down from the Great Bear for the Adept.
This is because Man and Heaven are in fact alike. These gods that the
adept sees through meditation, sitting upon thrones within him, are also
the great gods who are enthroned in Heaven and govern the world. The
author of Chou Yi-shan’s biography shows this in the way I have
indicated above. His hero, who is not a simple believer seeking the
Deliverance of the Corpse, but a transcendent adept aspiring to the
highest forms of Immortality, after having seen the Three Ones, learns
from a master that “keeping the One is a good thing for the Perfect
Average Earthly Immortal, enabling him to greet the thousand gods of
the mountains, to ingest the Essence of Lakes and Rivers, to spit out the
old (breath) below the Seven Flowers (Great Bear), to make the new
breath enter into the Three Palaces, and so on; but it is not a principle of
the Higher Perfect One.”‘^° He then begins the search for the Supreme
Triad, and after having roamed throughout the world for years, he ends
by finding them in himself, in his own head, for which he is con-
gratulated by the Lord Yellow Old Man (Huang-lao-chiin).

Of these three supreme gods, one is none other than this Huang-lao-
chiin whose name I have just translated literally as Lord Yellow Old
Man; but it must not be taken in this literal sense. Within the system of
correspondences between the five elements, the five cardinal points, the
five colors, the five flavors, and so on, a system then universally accepted
by the Chinese, yellow is the color corresponding to the fifth cardinal
point, which is the center. That is the most important, for the world is
divided into five regions, four peripheral and one central, and the
supreme master naturally dwells in the central part. It is to this idea of
the supremacy of the center that the term “Yellow” refers in this
expression. As for “Old Man”, the word simply denotes the immortality
of the personage: in the same way, in the Apocalypse, God is called
“Ancient of Days”. The expression Huang-lao, Yellow Old Man, thus
signifies basically the supreme master Immortal.
130. TCNC\ 6a. This passage is a resume of CCTSCC. The meditation upon the seven
stars of the Great Bear will be recognized in "the exhalation of old breath below the Seven
Flowers (canopy)”, and the procedure for making the new breath enter with the Three
Ones into “The Three Palaces” —i.e., the three Cinnabar Fields.
 A/i Es.u/y on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 37!

He was in fact, during the first centuries of our era, the supreme god of
Taoism. The author of Chou Yi-shan's biography says of him:
On high, he directs the Nine Heavens; in the middle, he wanders
on the K’ltn-liiit: through the Yellow Portico he goes outside,
through the Purple Pavilion he is within; below, with the two other
Lords (of the supreme triad), he enters the Eastern Chamber (of the
brain) and rules with majesty the three spaces of an inch (Cinnabar
Fields).'^'
And this was not then a recent development of his worship. Already
two centuries earlier, certain emperors of the Han dynasty had set up an
altar and made sacrifices to him within the palace; and what signifies
clearly that he was accorded the supreme rank was that the emperor
granted him the Flowery Canopy, a parasol with five tiers each of a
different color, which was none other than the imperial canopy. A prince
of the imperial family, the king of Shen, who was accused of practising
sorcery against the emperor in 173, defended himself by saying that, in
order to obtain immortality and happiness, he was sacrificing to Huang-
lao.‘'^‘ This was the particular god of the Yellow Turbans sect'^'^ which
was on the point of rebellion in 184. He governed the world, but did not
disdain consorting with men to help and direct them towards their
salvation. The Pao-p’u-tzu, that fourth century work from which I have
quoted several passages, shows him coming dow'ii to earth since the
beginning of the world in the guise of about a dozen Taoist masters, one
of whom was Lao-tzu, so as to preach the good doctrine.It is not, as
in Buddhism, apparent bodies that he sends through his power; it is
indeed himself who leaves his heavenly throne and comes down into the
world.
Popular w'orship knew only him, addressed itself only to him. But the
sacred books linked tw'o other divine personages to him. Lord Peerless
Excellence, Wii-ying-chwt. and Lord Original White, Po-yiktti-chuii.
Should we see in this a development of scholarly religious speculation
around the unique, ancient popular god? It is clear that the existence of a
Triad simplified things at the moment when (the One becoming Three, as
I have shown, under the influence of respiratory doctrines) the whole
Taoist mythology tended to organize itself into triads. What leads me to
believe this is that there seems to have been some hesitation as to the

131. TCNC, Wci.

132. HHS. ch. 80, \h.
133. HHS,ch. 101, U/.
134. Kawakatsu, in his note 161, says that this statement must be based upon either a
misunderstanding or a confusion w ith SHC.
 372 Taoist)] and Chinese Religion

rank of these three gods. They are arranged in a way which seems to
make Wu-ying-chiin the supreme god, since he is in the middle having to
his left Po-yiian-chiin and to his right Huang-Iao-chiin, who seems to be
the lowest divinity of the group. But on the other hand, in the practises
of the search for immortality, the vision of Po-yiian-chiin leads only to
being a lower Perfect Man, that of Wu-ying-chiin to being an average
Perfect Man, and it is necessary to have the vision of Huang-lao-chiin to
become a higher Perfect Man. If there really was hesitation over the
precedence of these gods, it could not have lasted long: the triumph of
the Ling-pao school soon brought everybody into agreement by setting
its own gods above all the others, forming the supreme Triad, which cast
the ancient gods into the shade.

These ancient divinities did not entirely disappear from later Taoism
in the sense that, until our day, the catalogue of divinities contains their
names. But they lost their supremacy. In the Books of Ling-pao, they are
quoted but play no role. With the tendency towards practises of collec-
tive public worship, and the assisting influence of Buddhism, the search
for immortality is moved from within to without. No longer does the
adept learn to find within himself the gods who are indeed there; it is
outside himself that he seeks to enter into communication with the great
divinities of the new supreme Triad. Clearly, it is still through meditation
and ecstasy that communication will be established; but it is no longer a
matter of seeing in oneself what was already there; one must see in
ecstasy the supreme divinities—the Three Celestial Venerables, T’ien-
tsun, the Three Pures, San-ch’ing—outside oneself.
Moreover, ever since the ancient period, it has been given only to some
to see the Great Triad of the Eastern Chamber, and especially the
supreme god, Huang-lao-chiin. Everybody sees divinities of more or less
elevated rank according to the stage he has attained in religious life. But
all had to succeed in producing ecstasies at will and in seeing one of the
great gods themselves. Only then could immortality be finally acquired.

Such, in broad outline, was the personal, individual aspect of Taoist

religion in the first centuries of our era. Active and contemplative life
had their unequal shares in it, though judiciously proportioned. But the
existence thus offered could only be that of a few. Not everybody had the
time and the means to consecrate himself totally to the search for
immortality. Only certain privileged ones could do it; the throng of
believers could certainly not hope for it. What did all those who could
not aspire to immortality find in the Taoist religion to attract and hold
them?
 All Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A./). 37.^

2. Taoist Coninuinitics and Public Worship

If Taoism had been nothing more than what I have just described, if it
had addressed itself solely to those who could live the complicated and
absorbing life of the search for immortality, it would have had few
adepts, and it could not have exerted the attraction over the popular
masses that it did in Han times. It would have remained a religion for the
rich and leisured. In order to give oneself over with any chance of success
to the search for immortality, not only were leisure and wealth necessary
(for drugs were costly), but also, from the beginning of the Adept’s
career, the virtues which were demanded of him were the wealthy man’s
\ irtues. For him to distribute his fortune to the poor, he had first to have
a fortune and not to be himself one of the poor. To gain merit by
holding honors in contempt and by refusing public offices, he had to be
of a social rank which permitted him to seek and obtain them.
Otherwise, what merit w'ould the Adept have in refusing what was
beyond his grasp? And moreover, the exercises of all kinds which Taoist
life required were hardly compatible with the life of a peasant or an
artisan.
However, in the second century A.D., the Taoist religion was very
widely spread among the masses of the people. In 184, when the rebellion
of the Yellow Turbans broke out, this was not a few thousand alchemists
rising up, but indeed the whole population of the eight northeastern and
central provinces. Chang Chiieh, the chief of the Yellow' Turbans, then
had 360,000 adherents under arms, a third century historian tells us.‘
What did Taoism offer the popular masses to attract and fanaticize
them to the point of casting themselves into all the perils of a revolt?
To understand this, we must understand what life was like within the
Yellow Turbans sect—not the life of the most knowledgeable and
advanced adepts, but that of the common faithful.

A. ORGANIZATION OF COMMUNITIES IN THE YELLOW TURBANS PERIOD

Taoist church organization in the time of the Yellow Turbans (Huang-

chin) is rather poorly known, for lack of documents coming from the
believers themselves; we have nothing comparable to the innumerable
dedicatory inscriptions of the sects in the Roman world. Nevertheless,
historians have preserved some information for us. One of the last chiefs
of this great movement, Chang Lu, defeated and subdued in 215 by
Ts’ao Ts’ao (the general who laid the foundations of the Wei dynasty

1. Hsii Han slue in HHS, eh. 8. 5a. —Under the Han, China was divided into twelve
provinces known as choir, eight provinces were thus two-thirds of the empire.
 374 Taoism and Chinese Religion

and died in 219, a few months before he could realize his ambition and
ascend the throne by deposing the last emperor of the Han dynasty),
brought to the capital after his defeat, was well treated by his conqueror.
Ts’ao Ts'ao heaped honors upon him, bestowed upon him the title of
General Tamer-of-the-South, raised him to the rank of marquis with an
apanage of 10,000 hearths, also gave the title of marquis to his five sons,
and finally allied him to his own family by asking that one of his
daughters be married to one of Ts'ao Ts'ao’s own sons. Chang Lu lived
for several years at the Wei court;- and he took part in a discussion
before the emperor in 220. He devoted himself entirely to religious
practises. And it was scarcely fifty years later when the historian of the
Wei dynasty, Yii Huan, composed a history of the end of the Han, the
Tien-liicli, and a little later a history of the beginning of the Wei, the
IVei-liieh. In the first of these works, he succinctly explained Chang Lu’s
organization and doctrine, in a few short but precise lines.^ In addition,
the organization survived the Yellow Turbans affair, for its cadres were
sufficiently strong to resist the crushing of the revolt. And the Buddhist
polemicists of the fifth and sixth centuries knew it as a living thing. One
of them, Chen Luan, the author of the Hsiao-tao Inn, had begun as a
Taoist and, in describing certain ceremonies, claims to have taken part in
them. The Taoist writers are more reticent. Evidently under the T’ang
dynasty, the Chinese world having been pacified, Taoism had to try to
adapt itself to the new conditions; the faithful preferred not to conjure
up this past of rebellion and civil war, which they hoped to have
forgotten. Nevertheless, they say enough to corroborate what the non-
Taoist authors say.

When the Yellow Turbans revolt brought it fully to light at the end of
the second century, the Taoist church was an organized church with a
very strong hierarchy and a discipline with a pretty rigorously paternal
character. The Taoist communities were then divided into two main
groups. The Eastern communities, in the great plain of the Yellow and
Huai rivers, gave allegiance to chiefs who were called the Three Chang
because the supreme chief, Chang Chiieh, had set up his two younger

2. H'C, ch. 1, 16a; ch. 8, 9b', HHS, ch. 9, 6a; ch. 105, Hr, Hiui-yang kuo-chih, ch. 2, 3a
(SPTK cd.). Chang Lu is also mentioned as taking part in a discussion in 220 (U'C, ch. 2,
2h): that is the last date at which 1 have encountered his name. Kawakatsu, note 163, shows
that the mention of Chang Lu must be pre-220 A.D.
3. The Tieii-liich, in thirty-nine chapters, bears on the period of the end of Han; it does
not go beyond the year 219; the work is lost, but it is quoted at length in the commentaries
to the SKC and HHS. It is there that the passages on the Yellow Turbans are found: IVC,
ch. 8, 96; HHS, ch. 105, 26.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 375

brothers, Chang Liang and Chang Pao, as his aides and successors. The
Western communities, in southern Shensi and northern Szechuan, first
submitted to a personage named Chang Hsiu who seems not to have
been related to the three Chang, and still more clearly not to Chang Lu,
who replaced him after putting him to death. These two communities
were geographically far distant from one another. Yet despite that
distance the organization was essentially the same, though under dif-
ferent names.
Chang Chiieh, the chief of the Yellow Turbans in the East, had
divided the believers of the eight provinces where he was dominant—that
is, almost two-thirds of China—into thirty-six districts, placing at the
head of each an Adept to whom he gave the title fang. This term,
which denotes magical recipes, seems here to signify a Magician, though
I am not entirely sure of it; the historians do not explain it, merely
stating that it is equivalent to the title of general in the imperial
hierarchy."^ The Great Magicians, ta-fang, were those having more than
10,000 adherents under their orders; the Lesser Magicians, hsiao-fang,
had not less than 6,000 to 8,000. Under them, to control these multi-
tudes, the Magicians set up Great Chiefs, ch'u-shuai.^ Above the magi-
cians there were only Chang Chiieh and his two brothers: he had given
himself the title of Heaven Lord General, t’ien-kung chiang-chiin, and
had awarded his two brothers those of Earth Lord General, ti-kimg
chiang-chiitu and Man Lord General, jen-kimg chiang-chiin.^ Heaven,
Earth, and Man, that is the triad which, in Chinese philosophy, embraces
the entire world: Heaven which covers and creates. Earth which bears
and nourishes, and Man—the first creature produced—who serves as
intermediary between the two.
Chang Hsiu, the chief of the western Yellow Turbans, and after him
Chang Lu who killed and replaced him, had a similar organization.^
Among them, new converts were called Demon-Soldiers, kuei-tsu\ and
believers were the Demon-People, kitei-min. Above them were those
called generally Demon-Officers, kuei-li. There were two grades of these.
The less senior were the chien-ling, a title which is something like
“Commander of the Perverse”; in fact, they said prayers and conducted
ceremonies for the healing of the sick and, since diseases were considered
as the natural consequence of sin, the sick were considered as wicked, as

4. [For another interpretation of this term (regionary) see Book v, chapter 1 above, at
note 2. Kawakatsu in his note 152, supplies still another.]
5. HHS, ch. 101, Ir/.
6. Ibid.
1. Tien-lik'h, in \VC\ ch. 8, 9b If., and in ////.S', ch. 105, 2/); Flsiian Kuang, PHL. in A7/C,
ch.iiiTlK, vol. 52).
 376 Taoism and Chinese Religion

perverse. Above the chien-ling there were the clii-chiu, literally those who
make offerings, libations of wine, the Libationers. These were the highest
chiefs; they commanded the Adepts of a district, pu: there were twenty-
four metropoles, chi/i, each probably with a Libationer to head it as
Metropolitan, chih-t'ou.^ These corresponded almost exactly to the
Magicians, /d//g, of the Three Chang; and the chien-ling or Commanders
of the Perverse were the equivalent of the Great Chiefs, ch'u-shuai, of the
East. At the top of the hierarchy Chang Lu took the title of Lord
Heavenly Master, t’ien-shih-chun, in which “master” must be taken in
the sense of “instructor” and not of “chief”.
In both regions the role of the chiefs was primarily a religious one.
Among the Three Chang—that is, the Yellow Turbans of the east—the
great festivals of equinoxes and solstices which I shall describe presently
were called “the business of the generals, officers, and soldiers”^—that
is, they were conducted by the Magicians, /ir/z/g, and the Great Chiefs. In
Chang Lu’s area, the Commanders of the Perverse were healers of the
sick. As for the Libationers, they commanded the troops, but they were
at the same time responsible for teaching religion; they had to know Lao-
tzu’s Tao-te ching by heart. Peculiarly enough, moreover, the Tao-te
ching had become, without in any way modifying the text, but through
the explanations which accompanied it, a lecture on the doctrines and
cultural practises of the Yellow Turbans. There remain some phrases
from a Commentary on the Tao-te ehing attributed to the “Three
Chang”, and in it one reads the most curious things. Everybody knew
the first sentence of the book: “The Way that may be followed is not the
Eternal Way.” Here is how it was explained: '"The Way that may he
followech that is to eat good things in the morning; the Way that is not
eternal, that is to go to the toilet in the evening.” And again;
""Mysterious, and yet more mysterious: that is the nose and the mouth.” It
is in this way, or in similar ways, that Magicians and Libationers
understood the Tao-te ching, and it was no doubt also how they taught it
as one of the fundamental books of the religion, for they were mis-
sionaries: their troops were recruited through conversion.
8. Shu-chi, in KHC, vh. 8 (TIK, vol. 52); ch. 1.
9. [The translation has been altered here to take account of Kawakatsu, note 169, which
is based upon ECL, p. 104c, columns 14-15.]
10. Fa-lin, Pien-cheng tun {PCL, ch. 6, 532c/; TIK, vol. 52, no. 2110). See other, different
explanations, though in the same spirit, according to other Taoist books, ihid., ch. 2, 5006.
These texts of course do not go back to the Three Chang and to Han times, but they show
how the TTC was interpreted, according to the doctrine of the search for Eternal Life. The
author of the Book of the Yellow Court, Huang-t'ing ching (HTC), certainly understands
the TTC is similar fashion, to judge by the use he makes of expressions borrowed from that
book.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 377

Indeed, administration was entirely religious. Law and morality were

completely mingled. There were no crimes, but only sins; and punish-
ments were replaced by penances. In Chang Lu’s area drunkenness,
debauchery, and theft were put on the same footing and were atoned for
by confession, repentance, and good deeds, such as repairing a hundred
paces of road with one’s own hands or at one’s own cost. Only to
recidivists, third-time offenders, were punishments applied. But in theory
that was not necessary: every sin—theft, for example—had, as in
Erewhon, its natural punishment in the disease which sooner or later
struck the guilty one. Thus illnesses were the object of harsher sanctions
than the sins themselves. Prisons, abolished for ordinary crimes, had
been reestablished by Chang Hsiu for the sick; they were called
Reclusion Houses, ching-she, and the sick were sent there to reflect upon
their sins. What is more, they and their descendants had to pay a fine of
five bushels of rice a year. These five bushels of rice became, in the eyes
of non-converts, one of the characteristic marks of Taoism, and until
T’ang times Taoists were called “the adepts of the Five Bushels of Rice
Doctrine, sectarians of Huang-lao”, Feng wu-tou mi-tao, Hitang-lao chi/i
t ’u. ‘ *
All this certainly worked. It was owing to this organization that Chang
Chiieh converted and subdued three-quarters of the empire within some
ten years, all the great northeastern and eastern plain as well as the
valleys of the center. And in the west, for about thirty years Chang Lu
governed—until 214, almost peacefully—the remote region of Han-
chung on the upper Han river. The almost contemporary historian Yii
Huan says of him: “Even travelers in his domains dared not disobey
him”.

Otherwise, the purpose of this organization was not simply to govern

the country and to replace the imperial functionaries for better or worse
with Taoist officials. It wished to be quite another thing than an
administration. It had given itself the principal task of bringing the mass
of believers to progress in religious life and to lead them gradually to a
more and more excellent understanding and practise of the religion.
Chang Lu (and I do believe that in this he was only imitating the
eastern churches) encouraged the faithful to piety as best he could. He
had instituted ranks and titles according to the degree of advancement in
religious practise. The believers had to give themselves over to the
practise of Embryonic Respiration, absorbing the Breath and making it
circulate, not so much in order to attain Life Eternal as to live a long

11. Fa-yuan chu-lin, ch. 13, (TIK, vol. 53, no. 2122).
 37(S Taoism ami Chinese Religion

time and to ward otf sudden death. Beginners were called the Sons and
Daughters of the Tao: tuo-muu tao-nii. The higher rank was that of Man
or Woman Wearing the Cap, nan-kuan or nii-kuan, and this was
sometimes written with a character of the same pronunciation which
signified Mandarin. Further progress gave the right to the title of Father
or Mother of the Tao, tao-fu or tao-nui. As we see, all these ranks were
accessible to women as well as to men; there seems to have been no
difference between them, and religious life was open equally to the two
sexes. However, for the title which seems to have been the highest, that
of Divine Lord, shen-chiiiu no feminine equivalent has been found.
As far as we can see, what was demanded of the faithful was in short
to develop their religious life according to the same methods as the
adepts who intended to become Immortals, though with less rigor. At
the same time, the titles which were given them prove that it was not
merely a private development and progress which was demanded of
them, but that in some fashion they must have been called upon to give
public proof of their progress.

B. COLLECTIVE FESTIVALS AND CEREMONIES

To ordinary believers, those who did not want to become saints, the
Taoist religion offered health, long life, happiness, and offspring, since
respiratory exercises and abstinence from cereals rid them of disease, the
practise of the virtues made them happy, and the practise of sexual
hygiene preserved the youth of those who observed it and let them have
many male children. But however alluring such prospects may have been
for the Chinese, to whom they constituted ideal felicity, it is still poorly
understood how they could excite the enthusiasm and ardor shown by
the Yellow Turbans rebellion. This sugared and reduced form of Taoist
religious life is rather too soft and tame to have been capable of arousing
the popular masses and of leading to mass conversions: not so much
perhaps to conversions of non-Taoists as to conversions of Taoists to the
new sect.
Yet it is indeed massed conversions that must be conceded in order to
explain the Yellow Turbans movement in the middle of the second
century. Indeed, the armies of believers in 184 were certainly not formed
slowly through individual conversions achieved by lengthy propaganda:
there was not enough time for that. Chang Chiieh recruited them within
about ten years.
Chang Chiieh practised the Huang-lao doctrine and had a throng
of disciples. These knelt down and confessed their sins, and the sick
were healed in throngs. The people believed in him. Chiieh then
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 379

charged eight disciples to go in all four directions to teach the

excellent religion and to convert the world. In a little over ten years
the number of converts mounted to several tens of thousands; they
were spread everywhere throughout the commanderies and the
kingdoms. All the people of the eight provinces of Ching, Hsii, Yu,
Chi, Ching, Yang, Yiieh, and Yii submitted to him.*^
He had, as we have seen, something like 360,000 adherents. Such
figures imply massive conversions. This rapid burgeoning can only be
explained through an unleashing of religious enthusiasm.
The Taoist missionaries organized great collective ceremonies in which
the religiosity of the Chinese, rather weak in ordinary times, was excited:
great festivals of the equinoxes and solstices were held, with distributions
of healing talismans; and some of them were accompanied by orgies.
Aside from these great festivals, there were gatherings to pray for the
salvation of the faithful; there were others especially for public confes-
sion and penitence. And we know how' easily public confession becomes
contagious in a fanaticized crowd. We need not go so far as ancient
China to be convinced of it. In our day still, in Protestant communities
which practise it, sessions of public confession, of “witness” according to
the sanctioned term, show it clearly. It is some sort of contagious
religious exaltation which in my opinion explains the prodigious success
of Taoism among the population masses of this period.
The collective ceremonies were called Fasts, chai, or Assemblies, hiti,
the first term designating those which were celebrated under the direction
of an Instructor, with a limited number of participants, while in the
Assemblies their number was not fixed. The word Fast was borrowed
from the official religion, in which it was applied to the abstinence from
food during the period preparatory to sacrifices; but in Taoism it served
to designate the whole ceremony and did not apply exclusively to dietary
restrictions.
The great Taoist festivals were, insofar as we can tell, marked by a
genuine unleashing of religious sentiment. The greatest annual feasts
were those of equinoxes and solstices.
According to the regulations of the Three Chang, a writer of the sixth
century tells us, at the spring and autumn equinoxes.

12. HHS, ch. 101, U/.

13. The Hsikiu-men ta-lun, in YCCC, ch. 37, 8^/, gives a very all-encompassing detinition
for the word cliai: “The rules for the Fast are nine in number; (1) coarse food, (2) little
food, (3) sober food, (4) absorption of the Essence, (5) absorption of Ivory (?), (6) absorp-
tion of the Light, (7) absorption of the Breath, (8) absorption of the Original Breath, (9)
Embryonic Food.”
 380 Taoism and Chinese Religion

offerings were made to the Kitchen God and sacrifices to the Earth
God. At the solstices, in summer and in winter, sacrifices were made
to the dead as laymen did. Before (the sacrifice), healing charms and
warrior amulets were received, as well as agreements with the Earth
God.**^

The “healing charms” were “enchanted water” of which historians

speak in describing the ceremony for us:

The Master, holding in his hand a bamboo rod with nine knots
(nine is the number of Heaven), uttered incantations and recited
prayers (over the water). He made the sick prostrate themselves and
had them lay their heads against the earth, reflecting upon their sins.
Then they drank the water charmed by the Master.'^

The “warrior amulets”, such as the one the text of which has been
preserved for us, were designed for combat against demons:*^

In my left hand I bear the seal of the Great Absolute. In my right

I bear the sword of Kun-wu. When I show it to the sun, may it cease
to shine! When I point it towards a demon, may his blood shoot out
to a thousand leagues!

As for the “contracts with the Earth God”, they were real contracts in
which the believer purchased a piece of land from the Earth God for his
tomb and thus assured himself of a happy life as a landlord in the other
world. Since these were sometimes engraved on metal or even on jade so
that they might be durable, some of them dating from the third and
fourth centuries have been rediscovered.

In this ancient period as well as for later times, we need not believe
that Taoism was one, with rituals and festivals identical from one end of
China to the other; on the contrary, each sect had to have its own
ceremonies. The festival of the Three Agents, San-kuan, seems to have
been in the beginning peculiar to Chang Lu’s sect. At any rate, it had so
much success that it spread throughout the whole Chinese world; and in
the third and fourth centuries, universally adopted, it was even admitted
among the six Fasts of the Sacred Jewel, Ling-pao chai, when certain
circles felt the need to reform, codify and reorganize the rather in-
coherent multitude of ancient festivals. The Three Agents are Heaven,

14. Tao-an, ECL [“Dissertation on the Two Religions”, i.e.. Buddhism and Taoism; 570
A.D.], in KHC, ch. 8, 140r (T/K, vol. 52, no. 2103); cf. HTL (same date), ihu!., 149a.
15. (K.) Tien-liieh, in WC, 8, and HHS, 105.
16. Tao-an, ECL, I40e; cf. HTL, 149e.
 A/I Essay on Taoism in the Firs! Centuries A.I). SSI

Earth, and Water. In Chang Lu’s area the festival was the one which
cured the sick:
The manner in which the Commanders of the Perverse prayed for
the sick was as follows: they wrote the family names and personal
names of the sick while announcing their intention of repenting of
their sins, all in three copies. One of these copies had to go up to
Heaven: it was placed on the top of a mountain. The second was
buried in the earth. The third was plunged into water. This was
what was called the manuscript letters to the Three Agents.*^
A great sacrifice to Heaven is also mentioned, in the course of which
human victims were offered up, but no date is given for it.‘^ Anyhow,
not all the festivals were celebrated on set dates; some of them were
occasional. The Fast of Mud and Soot, t’u-t'an chai,^'^ was designed to
ward off the maladies which were the consequence of sin: it consisted of
repenting of one's faults and asking for happiness and long life.*® The
prayer, which has the form—common among Taoists—of a request to
the higher gods, describes it briefly:
Holding us reverently by the hand, for So-and-So we follow the
instructions of the Celestial Master: (face) smeared with soot,
according to the regulations of pardon, presenting ourselves in the

17. On the san-yikin chai, cf. IVSPY, ch. 52.

18. (K.)CLHHS, 101, \a.
19. This can also be read “Fast in which one smears oneself with Soot”. This fast is one
of those which the Taoist tradition of the fourth and fifth centuries classed as Fasts of the
Three Celestial (Masters), San-t’ien chai: the commentary to the T'ai-chen k'o {STCN, ch.
1,23/0, a vvork already mentioned in a T’ang manuscript (Bibl. Nat., Pelliot ms., 2459: see
note 51 to chapter 1 above), sets it among the “fasts of the Chih-chiao ching", a term
which—according to the Tung-hsiian ch'ing-wen shang-ching (in WSPY, ch. 47, 2a), a work
quoted in the Han-fa-pen nei-chuan (TIK, vol. 52, 398c)—designates the Fasts of the Three
Heavenly Masters. —There was a chih-chiao-chai, “Fast for making Doctrine known”,
which allegedly went back to the Three Chang, chiefs of the Yellow Turbans.
The expression t'u-t'an is to be taken in its proper meaning, as will be seen in what
follows, and not in its figurative sense of “affliction, calamity”. In the Han period, the
expression t'u-t'an referred in a general fashion to the black dirt which covers the faces of
the miserable: “Chao Hsi smeared (t'u) with mud (/?/) the face of (his friend, Han) Chung-
po‘s wife (who was very beautiful) and put her in a cart which he himself pulled. Every time
they met brigands, he said that she was sick, and thus they escaped them. On arriving at
Tang-hui, he met Keng-shih’s family (one of the pretenders to the throne), all naked,
without shoes, black with dirt (t'u-t'an), exhausted with hunger, and unable to go on. On
seeing them in this state, he took pity on them and gave them all the cloth and provisions
that he had ” (HHS, ch. 56, la: Tung kuan Han-chi, ch. 13, 12</). From that it takes its
figurative sense of material or moral misery.
20. YCCC, ch. 37, 5h.
 382 Taoism and Chinese Religion

sacred place, we are attached, we are linked together, our hair is

disheveled, we have smeared our foreheads with mud, we keep our
heads averted and our hair in our mouth at the foot of the
balustrade, conforming to the (ritual of) pure fasting of the Great
Pardon of the Lower Original of the Sacred Jewel, we burn incense
and we strike the earth with our forehead; we ask for mercy.
In this day, such-and-such a day of such-and-such a month, on
the sacred altar of such-and-such a church, kuciiu in such-and-such a
village of such-and-such a subprefecture of such-and-such a com-
mandery, such-and-such a family, carrying out the fast for pure
pardon, has lit the lamps and produced the brightness illuminating
the heavens. For three days and three nights, for six hours each (of
these days and nights), it has carried out repentance to obtain
pardon, so that the hundred thousand ancestors, relatives and
brothers, already dead or who will later die, including the person of
So-and-So (who is performing the ceremony), shall be without evil
throughout several Kalpas

Those who performed this ceremony maintained the posture of one

condemned; this was the same idea which, still in our day or at least until
a few years ago, caused one to see confraternities following the proces-
sion, faces smeared with red and the cangue on the neck. The sinner
punished himself ceremonially, so as to ward off divine punishment. In
the fifth century, a Taoist master underlines this clearly by adding a rite
consisting of tying the hands of the penitents behind their backs.

Almost all of these ceremonies were performed in the open air,

sometimes in the court of the phalanstery, kuan; in the fifth and sixth
centuries, hardly any celebration was held indoors except the festivals of
the Union of the Breaths, which will be treated later. A Sacred Space,
ling-t’an (or simply a Space) was prepared. This was a level piece of
ground, set off by a special kind of barrier;-’ the Taoists had, in this case
as in many others, adapted the arrangements of the official ceremonies at
the imperial Court to their ceremonies. They surrounded their Sacred
Space on the outside, and marked its internal divisions, by using the
stakes and cords which set off the ranks of officials in imperial recep-
tions. These were bundles made up of a hundred and fifty reed stalks,
colored in alternate bands of red and black lacquer, well clasped and

21. Yii-ch’ing chieh [“The Prohibitions of Jade Purity”], in IVSPY, ch. 50, \h.
22. SS, ch. 35, \2a (tr. Ware, JAOS, tin, iii, 1933, p. 245), uses the official term mien-
chik'h: Taoist rituals use the word t.suan. These are two names for the same thing. See ShC,
ch. 99, 3/>, So-yin: “The chiieh is the t.suan nowadays”.
 An Essciv on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 3H3

held at the base in a bamboo sheath. The large stakes thus made (those
at the corners and the gates, 1 think) were ten feet high, the small
intermediary stakes only seven; both were thrust into the ground to the
depth of a foot. A red cord linked them together;^^ The spaces thus
delimited showed arrangements which varied somewhat from one cere-
mony to another. For the fast of the Golden Talisman, chin-lii cluti, there
were three concentric enclosures, respectively 45, 33, and 24 feet to a
side, each of them raised 2 feet higher than the last.^"^ By contrast, for
the fast of the Yellow' Talisman, /iitang-lu c/uti, and for that of the Three
Majesties, sati-huang c/iai, there was but one, 24 feet to a side.^^ That
made little squares varying from 13.5 meters on a side to 7.0 meters
according to the case;-^ they could not contain large groups and, in fact,
the number of participants at a fast was tightly restricted and kept within
narrow' limits. There could not be more than thirty-eight nor fewer than
sixF^ that is, numerous enough so that (each one having a fixed function
to perform and his own role to play in the ceremony) a certain sense of
solidarity was awakened and a collective religious feeling developed; yet
not too numerous, so that the Chief of the Fast, clicti-c/nt, who was the
chief Instructor of the community, or perhaps an adept of age and
experience and who (having handled the instruction of the believers
before the ceremony) managed the whole ceremony itself, remained
always master of his community, and was not overwhelmed by it. If the
number of participants was limited, that of those attending w'as not; the
ceremony was public, everything took place in open air, and the crowd
was numerous outside the ropes.
Some of these festivals were celebrated for a long time (some are still
celebrated today); but they did not survive unchanged, especially during
the first centuries of our era, when Taoist circles, like all Chinese circles,
were constantly being transformed. A good number of festivals directly
associated with the Three Chang must have disappeared quite early;
those that were preserved had to be recast to accommodate to new ideas.
In the first half of the fifth century, K'ou Ch'ien-chih, the Celestial
Master, t’ien-sliili, announced that he had received a special mission to
correct the abuses and corruption of the rules of the Three Chang.
Numerous reforms and innovations, both in the ceremonies themselves

23. Chin-lu-chai ch'i-t’an yi, \a-h (TT, fasc. 266).

24. Ibid.
25. \VSPY,ch. 49, \a: eh. 54, \a.
26. For the reduction to meters I take the foot of the Six Dynasties and the T'ang, since
the rituals are from that period.
27. T'ai-hsiian clung, eh. 8, in STCN, eh. 6, \(i. — The limitation on the number of fasters
is indicated in SS, eh. 35, 12a (tr. Ware, p. 245), but without the numbers being given.
 384 Taoism and Chinese Religion

and in the costumes, are also attributed to Sung Wen-ming, a century

later. In about the same period T’ao Hung-ching published a collection
on the ceremonies, in ten chapters. It was probably rituals of that period
which various books of the T’ang period preserved for us and, owing to
them, we understand those festivals pretty well, at least as the reforms of
that day shaped them. But, if they indeed show us the general frame-
work, they are very far from showing them to us in all their living reality.
That flashes forth here and there in a sentence encountered among the
non-Taoist writers of the time, struck by the picturesqueness of these
festivals. The sixth century Buddhist polemicist who, speaking of the
Fast of the Mud and Soot, portrays the participants “rolling in the mud
like asses, smearing their faces with yellow earth and, their combs
removed, letting their hair hang down”,“^ conveys in his miniature a
vision which, despite its hostility, is no less exact than that of the rituals,
since each detail of it is confirmed by the very prayer of that fast.“^
Let us try to envision this festival of the Fast of the Mud and Soot as
it took place.The believers who had to take part in it had set up the
Sacred Space of which I have already spoken above. In the days
preceding, they had prepared themselves by studying (under the direction
of the Instructor of the Fast, chai-shih, a trained Taoist Adept, tcio-sliilu
and Master of the Law, /h-.s////;, who during the ceremony had to become
Chief of the Fast, chai-chu) the words and actions which they would have
to perform, for each of them had his role to play; one was in charge of
28. Tao-an, ECL (570 A.D.), in KHC, cli. 8, \40c {TIK, vol. 52, no. 2103); cf. HTL, ihid.,
149c.
29. See above, note 19, its reference, et seq.
30. All the Taoist rituals (a dozen of them are found in the Taoist Canon, 266-69 etc.;
and see Wieger, 479-502) give us an identical schema for these ceremonies with the
exception of a few small details; only the formulas change. It is that schema which I have
followed here. It must have been set by about the fourth and fifth centuries. In his study Le
Jet des Dragons (Memoires concernant I'Asie Orientale, iii, Paris, 1919, pp. 172-214),
Chavannes translated, with an abundant commentary, a ritual of a Taoist Fast dating from
the end of the T’ang. For the interpretation of facts, one may waver between two methods:
either to consider each action of the fasters as a rite fixed in all its details and carried out
uniformly by all those taking part, lying down on the ground together, for example, rolling
to the right together, then together to the left, and standing up again together, as in a
gymnastic exercise; or to see in it a sort of crisis, seizing upon people who evidently know
what is expected of them and are determined to do it, but who nevertheless think of the
action only under the influence of a spontaneous excitement, of people who “get religion”.
It is this latter way that I have adopted here for various reasons. First, everything seems to
me to have been brought together in the Taoist fasts so as to provoke this excitement, even
to the small number of participants, thirty-eight, which already constitutes a group large
enough to have collective reflexes. Moreover, it is enough to have seen Taoist ceremonies,
as they are still practised, to verify that they aim to release crises of exaltation. The Taoists
today are only following the tradition of their ancestors.
 Au Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 3S5

books, another of incense, still another of lamps, and so on. This long
and meticulous study, for the ceremonies were complicated, put them
already into a particular spiritual condition.
On the very day, the fasters arrive in ceremonial costume, but with
hair disheveled, face smeared with soot, head falling on the chest. They
hold one another by the hand and advance in single file one behind the
other, the Instructor at the head, followed by his assistant, and then by
each according to his rank in the festival. They enter the Sacred Space.
The Instructor goes directly to his place, and all go there to bow to him
in turn before taking the places which their roles require, near the books,
the incense-burner, or the lamps for which they are responsible. When all
are ready, suddenly the drum resounds; the Instructor chants a prayer
announcing the start of the ceremony, accompanied by the voices of all
the faithful, who repeat the phrase with him; and during this time
twenty-four drum rolls bear the news of the festival to the highest
heavens. When the drum stops, the Master of the Law, an old man
whose shrill voice contrasts with the hubbub just ended, calls one after
the other, as if to assure himself that all have come, the innumerable
divinities with their long and high-sounding titles. Then all, masters and
everyone else taking part, bow in the cardinal directions, singing a hymn
accompanied by musicians.
Then, the preliminaries thus accomplished, there comes the chief
moment of the festival, that of public repentance. The Instructor, and
with him all those taking part, chants the lists of sins and the formulae of
penitence, while the band gives rhythm to the recitation, first slow and
calm, then more and more lively and noisy. The incense vapors make the
air heavy while all, officiating elders and participants, recollect their sins
as the prayers roll on and become excited, gripped by repentance and
also by the terror of all the maladies which are going to pounce upon
them, certain consequence of past faults. Little by little, some of the
sinners become agitated, excited by the noise, the perfumes, the emotion;
exaltation seizes them, and suddenly one of them, gripped by religious
enthusiasm, throws himself on the ground and starts rolling about in all
directions, covering his face with dirt and lamenting. Soon those next to
him imitate him, seized by the contagion; the madness grows by degrees,
and soon all are sprawling on the ground in a more and more deafening
uproar. The throng outside the enclosure also begins to be affected and
some of them, who had come simply to watch, cast away their hats,
snatch out their haircombs, let their hair fall in disorder, and they too
roll on the ground. But the Instructor does not leave them in this
condition for a long time. He was chosen from among the educated
people, he must know his business and know that, since the ceremony is
 386 Taoism and Chinese Religion

lengthy, the faithful must not be exhausted on the first day. He interrupts
the penitential stanzas when the donors of the festival have all rolled on
the ground, and sets about reading the addresses, written in the form of
official letters, announcing to the gods the names and identities of each
one, the place of the festival, and so on. And this lecture restores calm,
since each one wants to be certain that his name has not been forgotten
and that there has been no error affecting him, and strives to gather up
his wits. After renewed prostrations, conventional gestures well known
to all, a second appeal to the divinities manages to restore order after the
paroxysm just preceding. The twelve vows can be recited in quiet, each
person pledging to sin no more henceforward. There remains only to
burn a little incense and recite a prayer to summon back the souls of
those taking part which the commotion at the beginning of the ceremony
may have frightened away; and the participants depart, singing the
recessional hymn.
The first session is finished. But there must be more of them at noon,
and then again in the evening. The crises will recur more and more
violently, as time passes and as the general exaltation, fatigue, lack of
food, noise, and the demonstrations of the crowd which presses outside
the enclosure stretch the nerves of all. It will begin again the following
days if the participants are pious and rich, for the Fasts last two, three,
seven, or even nine consecutive days according to the wish of the devout.
And all this time the participants have but a single meal per day, at
noon, according to the strict Taoist rule.

Another ceremony, that of the Union of the Breaths, ho-ch’i, likewise

designed for deliverance from sins, scandalized the Buddhist monks who
summarily described it by saying that “men and women mingle together
absolutely like beasts”. Accusations of orgy are so often leveled by one
sect against another that their witness might be suspect: the first
Christians were accused of it, and in the Middle Ages the Cathars. But
what remains of the prayer of the Yellow Writing, Huang-shu,^- which
accompanied this festival in the sixth century, is so obscene that it is
understandable that the Buddhist monk Tao-an handled it as a “pestilen-
tial impropriety”;^^ and the Taoist texts of that period leave no doubt as
to what occurred, completely confirming what the Buddhist writers say.
The Taoist religion seems to have kept and adapted to its own ends the
great popular festivals which M. Granet described on the basis of the
31. Tao-an, ECL, in KHC, ch. 8, I40f; cf. below. Book ix. Second Pari, at note 91.
32. Cf. below. Book ix, chapter 2, quotation beginning at note-reference 108. The
Huang-shu allegedly goes back to the Yellow Turbans.
33. Tao-an, loc. cit.
 /In Kssciv on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). SH7

Shih citing for much more ancient times, and which must have survived
until the Han period among the rural populace. Among the Taoists
themselves, sexual practises of the kind I have mentioned above'^*^ are
attested as early as the Han period,but only as individual and private
matters. As for collective practises of this sort, some would have them
going back to the Yellow Turbans.That does not prove much, for the
Buddhist polemicists have a tendency to attribute to the ‘Three Chang”
anything of which they do not know the origin; and we must come down
to the end of the fourth century to find a clearer testimony. A master
who died in 402, Sun En, had such practises celebrated by his fol-
lowers. It is not impossible, I repeat, that the origin must be sought
much earlier and that this is a matter of a Taoist adaptation of the
ancient festivals of spring and autumn. But as early as the most ancient
period when we find these orgiastic festivals in Taoism, they were lacking
in any seasonal timing; and the Taoist festivals of spring and autumn are
entirely distinct from them.
In the fourth and fifth centuries, this was what w'as popularly called,
apparently, “uniting the Breaths”, ho-ch’i, or more simply “uniting”, ho-
ho.^^ I shall not give here a description which I have given elsewhere.
Not all the festivals were so violent or so indecent. It was because the
Fast of the Mud and Soot and the Union of Breaths had a separate
character that the Buddhist polemicists constantly chose them as the
target of their attacks. It was there that Taoism seemed to them to be
shown at its worst: at once grotesque, immoral, and profligate, alto-
gether quite inferior to their own religion. The other festivals (at least the
Fasts of Fing-pao) were, insofar as can be judged, much calmer; neither
in the Fast of the Golden Talisman, nor in that of the Yellow Talisman,
nor in the Fast of the Three Majesties, and so on, do we see anything
similar. All were nevertheless calculated to act upon the nerves of the

34. Cr. above, p. 345.

35. Cf. below. Book ix. Second Part, starting at note 1 15.
36. Cf. below, pp. 533-39.
37. Cf. below, pp. 534, 540.
38. Buddhist writers ordinarily say lio-cli'i, uhich seems to have been the name under
which the ceremony was usually known, but which I have never encountered in actual
Taoist books; they use the expression ho-ho less frequently, though that is by contrast
current among Taoist writers. Cf. Book ix. Second Part, note 86.— It does not seem to be
because the expression ho-ho is one of the ordinary translations of the term sangha,
designating the Buddhist community, that Buddhist writers are offended to use it; it is
encountered, in fact, with its meaning of sexual union, in numerous passages of translations
of Buddhist books, especially in the Vinayas.
39. Cf. below, pp. 533-41.
40. [See above, pp. 292-97, a description of the Fast of the Yellow Talisman.]
 38^ Taoism and Chinese Religion

participants: lamps, incense, long prayers, prostrations, rollings of

drums, music, inadequate or even a lack of nourishment, above all the
length of the ceremonies (which always had to last at least a whole day
and a night and often lasted three days or five days or seven days), all
that was supposed to develop the emotivity of the believers. All the more
since we have to remember that these were far from being rare and
isolated, but were on the contrary very frequent: a Taoist book counts
twenty-one kinds of different Fasts;*^* several of them were held several
times a year; there were indeed more than two a month.
The faithful were caught in a closed web of incessant festivals which
succeeded one another at short intervals. In the Taoist phalansteries,
kiunu those great communal houses where Taoist Adepts, tao-shilu men
and women, lived side by side to the great scandal of the Buddhists and
Confucianists, there must have been no more than a few days between
each of them. The ordinary believers spaced them out more, since, given
the small number of participants in each one, it was physically im-
possible for them to participate in all. But pious folk came to attend
many of them, in the crowd which stayed outside the enclosure, and if
the effects of the festivals upon these spectators could not have been as
violent as those produced by actual participation in the ceremony, they
must nonetheless have made themselves felt. It was these festivals, I
believe, which made the extraordinary success of Taoism in the first
centuries of our era. The Chinese, ordinarily of a calm and self-
controlled temper which religious passion hardly shook, delighted to feel
himself seized by an irresistible enthusiasm and as if swept out of
himself. It was a sort of delirium, a drunkenness which snatched him out
of the monotony of life as an official or a scholar, and the dullness of the
official religion.

C. CEREMONIES FOR THE DEAD

Something else must also have contributed to this success: this was the
festivals for the dead. At a time which it is difficult to know precisely,
between the second and third centuries A.D., the reversion upon ancestors
of merits acquired in the festivals was accepted. The prayers regularly
mention, besides petitions by the Pasters for themselves, the request that
their ancestors back to the seventh or the ninth generation be released
from the Dark Abodes where the souls of the uninitiated languished.
This was difficult to explain in Taoist doctrine. Since immortality

41. San-tung f eng-tao-ke, in FCCC’, ch. 37, 10^/. Other enumerations of different kinds of
Taoist Fasts are given by Chavannes, Le Jet des Dragons, pp. 216-17.
 Au Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A./). 3H9

depends upon the creation of an immortal body within oneself, it seems

quite impossible to create this body, after the fact, for a dead person to
use. Nevertheless, this is what was accepted, and for this purpose a whole
special ritual was created to see that “the souls of the nine ancestors
dwelling in darkness, chiu-tsii yu-huu, emerge from Eternal Night, cli’an^-
yelh and enter into Bright Heaven",or again that “the seven ancestors
grasp the Principle of the life of Spontaneity and that they rise to be
Immortals in the Palace of the Southern Summit".
It was accepted that there were various procedures for saving the souls
of the dead. One of them consisted in “being refined", shou-lien:
The souls of the dead are raised to the Southern Palace; then with
a broth of liquid fire the material of their phantoms is refined;
henceforward they are transformed and become Immortals
When the souls having received salvation through refining return to
obtain existence as Immortals, just at that moment the (Celestial
Venerable of the) Beginning creates a body for them and this goes
up to the Palace of Eternal Life and will last for a hundred thousand
Kalpas.
The details of the refining of Souls appear for us only among the
authors of Tang times, but already a book from the beginning or the
middle of the fifth century alludes to it:*^*^
The souls of the dead receive refining, they become immortal
beings;
The bodies of life which have received salvation will last eternally
from Kalpa to Kalpa.
From Kalpa to Kalpa they will continue, for as many years as
Heaven,
Forever saved from the Three Ways, san-t'u, of the Five Sorrows
and the Eight Evils.
Besides, by burying certain objects with the dead person and by
offering him food, the possibility of his being reborn at the end of a
certain time was gained.
The “Book of Five Pieces of Satin", Wu-lieu citing, says:
“Colored silks are employed: for the Son of Heaven a roll, for kings
and dignitaries ten feet, for the people five feet. For the aristocracy.

42. HTL, in KHC, ch. 9, 146a.

43. YCCC\ch. 30, 12/7.
44. YWTSM, ch. 2, 38/7-39/7. The second half of the first line is amended according to
Kawakatsu, note 211.
 390 Taoism and Chinese Religion

with five ounces of gold a dragon (is made); for the people, iron and
five five-colored stones are used. On them are written characters of
jade and they are buried by night in the open air to a depth of three
feet " When food has been otiered at the sanctuary (of the dead
person's tablet) for thirty-two years, he comes back into his form
and is reborn.

Thus filial piety likewise found its sustenance in Taoism.

D. COLLECTIVE TAOISM AND INDIVIDUAL TAOISM!

THE EVOLUTION OE THE CONCEPTION OE THE GODS

These great collective festivals, these Fasts with the religious exaltation
that they developed, these orgiastic assemblies of men and women, these
prayers, these charms, these amulets are all quite remote from the
individual theories and practises I have described previously. Passing
from one set to the other, it would seem that one has to deal with two
distinct religions. And yet, not only is this a matter of the same religion
in the same period, but also, wherever there were Taoist communities,
the same believers gave themselves over at the same time to the
individual and to collective practises.
Still, there were two tendencies which, despite points of contact, were
in general quite different. We know so little about the ancient history of
Taoism that we do not see whether some people ever became aware of
the divergences. In about the fifth to sixth centuries, everything gets
classified. There are two classes of Taoists. Those who have the vocation
(and the wealth) to give themselves over to the individual search for
Immortality, and who are called Adepts who study or practise the Tao,
hsuch-tao shih, hsiu-tao sliilu or more simply the tao-shHu become the
Instructors of the ordinary faithful; they are the Masters of the Law, /<:/-
shilu who manage the Fasts; the contagion of the Buddhist example
tends to assimilate them to the Buddhist monks, all the more easily since
to live the Taoist religious life they gather together in community
houses, kuan, something like phalansteries, where they live with their
wives and their children; and certain chiefs of sects, such as Sung Wen-
ming in the first half of the sixth century, adopting the ideal of the
Buddhist religious life, require their disciples to “leave the family”, ch'u-
cliia, and to renounce marriage. Gradually that becomes the rule for the
tao-shHu so much that at the beginning of the seventh century, under the
Sui, the tao-shih of the Sung-yang kuan, Li Po, will have to make a
report to the emperor to remind him that it was not forbidden for tao-

45. (K.) HTU 52, 146^/.

 /4/7 Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A./). 391

shih to marry and asking, for himself and other tao-shili, the permission
to marry.Celibaey had become the rule under the T’ang. I rom that
time on the tao-shih constitute a clergy entirely similar to the Buddhist
clergy, a clergy of celibate men and women clearly separated from lay
believers and gradually losing their influence over them through that
separation. But that is a situation which was attained only long after the
period which concerns me.
The practises of collective worship were born or at least took on a
capital importance with the Yellow Turbans and were continued under
their successors. They seem to have quite soon appeared excessive to a
number of Taoists. From the third century on similar festivals appeared,
but of a calmer, more balanced character. It is these which are called the
Fasts of the Sacred Jewel, Ling-pao. Their origin is ascribed to Chang
Tao-ling, the mythical ancestor of Chang Lu, the chief of the Yellow
Turbans of Han-chung under the Han, and of that Chang family whose
chiefs often received from Europeans the bizarre designation of Popes of
the Taoists:"^^ that is, it was they who had “received” from a god the
writings of the Sacred Jewel and who had “given” them to their disciples.
These writings were in fact texts in purple characters on golden tablets,
tzu-wen c/iifhcliieiK kept in the Heavenly Palaces; their prototypes were
uncreated, being formed spontaneously of the Original Breaths, at the
same time and in the same fashion as the Original Venerable of the Great
Beginning, and the Opening of the Kalpa, when Chaos began to resolve
itself. After having been preached by this Celestial Venerable to the gods
and written down by them on golden tablets, in the first ages of the
world, these texts were gradually revealed by the gods in the present age,
as they judged them useful for the Salvation of men.
1 have already said that the Fasts of the Ling-pao (they were six in
number at the end of the Six Dynasties) hardly differed from the F'asts of
the Yellow^ Turbans except in a certain external orderliness and less
violence; but they likewise appealed to the coarsest emotionalism.'^^ It

46. Chen-cheng Inn, 569h (TIE, vol. 52, no. 2112).

47. [Cf. below, section E of this chapter.]
48. I shall not speak here of these festivals or of the books which supplied the rituals, the
talismans, and the dogmatics. The Books of the Sacred Jewel, Ling-pao cliing, began to
appear at the end of the third century [cf. above, p. 318], since Ko Hung already mentions
them; but that was only the beginning of a movement which was going to take on great
importance only a bit later, in the fifth century, or so it seems to me. Buddhist
pamphleteers of Tang times attributed the whole Ling-pao movement to Sung Wen-ming,
a tao-shih of the beginning of the sixth century, who composed commentaries and
explanations to the books of Chang Tao-ling and to whom reforms and innovations in
ceremonies, costumes, and so on are attributed. He certainly did not invent everything, as
the Buddhists say, but it is quite possible that he was the moving spirit of the movement.
 392 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

was the festivals taken all together, and not these Fasts alone, which
created a new tendency within Taoism. This tendency, from the doctrinal
point of view, was characterized especially by the idea of external assis-
tance brought to the believer by gods existing outside and above him and
governing the whole world, as well as by the idea of salvation through
the help of these omnipotent gods, the Celestial Venerables, T'ien-tsun.
The practise of the collective ceremonies led directly to such a
conception, totally different from the theories of individual search:
thirty-eight persons are not gathered together so that each may pray
separately to his own interior gods, but so that they can address a god or
gods who are common to them and who are thus in some measure
external. Huang-lao-chiin seems to have filled this role first among the
Yellow Turbans, whose supreme god he was; but he was too especially
the god who was found within oneself in the calm of ecstasy to become
easily a god whom one went to seek outside oneself in the trances of a
violent collective worship. A religion with firmer outlines than Taoism,
in which sacred books revealed once and for all changed no more or
changed almost not at all in the course of the centuries, would probably
have made the effort to bring this transformation about, and the ancient
god would have acquired a whole series of new attributes. Taoism
resolved the question in a simpler fashion: at a time which is diflhcult to
fix precisely (the fifth century at the latest, probably in the course of the
fourth century) a new god was revealed to the faithful, a god of an
essence quite different from the previous ones.
Huang-lao-chiin and the two counterparts who assisted him were
simple men who had become Immortals through their own efforts,
appropriate patrons for adepts seeking immortality themselves. The new
god and his subordinates were of a genuinely divine essence; they were
beings shaped by the first concentration of the Original Breaths, when
the elements of Chaos divided. Taoism had had a theory of creation for a
long time: it is found in Lieh-tzu, who presents it in philosophical and

which had already achieved a certain development in the second half of the preceding
century, in the time of Lu Hsiu-ching. From a simple sect with its peculiar festivals (the six
fasts of Ling-pao), the Ling-pao finally became almost all of Taoism at the time, reshaping
the ancient festivals so as to make them square with theirs, imposing its new conception of
salvation, its new gods, and in general its own dogmas, strongly tinged with Buddhism. Its
main point was the notion of salvation through the aid of supreme gods, new gods setting
themselves above those of the older Taoism: a simpler notion, more comprehensible to the
mob, which replaced earlier and more complicated theories within Taoism, without making
them disappear completely. That constituted a new phase in the history of Taoism, one
which must be studied by itself.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 393

impersoiicil terms.‘*‘^ With its tendency to personalize abstractions,

Taoism made the different terms of Lieh-tzu’s cosmogony, designating
the different stages of the passage from the Without-Form to things, into
so many particular divinities, drawing up a catalogue of gods’ names
from one page of metaphysics. Since Taoist gods are always personal
and finite, one cannot go farther back than the “beginning of the form”,
what Lieh-tzu calls the Great Beginning, t’ai-shih. That became the
Celestial Venerable of the Great Beginning, T’ai-sliili T’ien-tsun, who was
said to have been born spontaneously, tzu-jan sheng, firstborn of all the
beings having form and supreme master of the world, who is conceived
of as surviving all the cataclysms which come periodically to destroy the
universe, and who is constantly concerned with the salvation of men.
Others were born after him, also spontaneously, the Celestial Venerable
of Great Simpleness (another term for Lieh-tzu), T’ai-su T'ien-tsun, and
still others designated by other names.
At what period was this metamorphosis of Lieh-tzu's metaphysical
abstractions into gods accomplished? It is difficult to say. It had been
finished by the beginning or the middle of the fifth century, when the
Yuan-shill wu-liang tu-jen miao-ching^^ was composed, a work which
claims to have been revealed by the Celestial Venerable of the Great
Beginning, and which contains long lists of divine names. Is it the author
of this work who invented these divinities, or did he take them from an
already established tradition? I cannot say. The name Celestial Vener-
able, t’ien-tswu is ancient as a Taoist title, since it is one of those which
was adopted at the time when Buddhism arrived in China, to translate
the word Bhagavat, a title of the Buddha (later on it was replaced with
shih-tswu “Venerated of the World”). And the special divinities of the
Ling-pao are simply Ling-pao T'ien-tsun, in books which seem to me
older than the Yikin-shih wu-liang tu-jen miao-ching. I would willingly
believe that the Buddhist translators’ application of the term t’ien-tsun to
the Buddha contributed to developing the meaning of that expression by
attributing a part of the Buddha’s qualities to it, and that by coming
back into Taoism with this surcharge, it in turn contributed to modifying
the very conception of the Taoist divinities, for the role of the Celestial
Venerables is remarkably close to that of the Bodhisattvas.

One may ask whether Taoism, as we perceive it in about the third to

fourth centuries of our era, does not retain the traces of a superposing of
gods who had contested for the supreme rank, without causing their

49. Wieger, Peres du systeme taoiste, p. 69-70.

50. rr, 1-13; Wieger, 1.
 394 Taoism and Chinese Religion

predecessors to be completely forgotten as the doctrines gradually

developed.
The most ancient layer would be represented by those Three Ones,
San-yi, lords of the three regions of the body, residing in those points in
the head, the chest, and the belly to which the Breath is guided during
respiratory exercises: the unimpressive consequence of an effort to
harmonize the notion of the Union with the One, proper to the mystical
school, and the necessity of having three centers for the circulation of the
Breath; and Mystical Union would have been replaced by the ecstatic
vision of each of the Three Ones or simply of the most important of
them. Dividing themselves thus by being localized within the body, the
Ones lost their importance, and it was no longer understood how
immortality could be obtained simply through the vision of these
divinities of the body.
But, already in the time of the Former Han, the multiplicity of
writings revealed (through automatic writing, dictated by a “controlled”
medium, according to the spiritualist expression, by a divinity, an Im-
mortal, and so on) led to believing in immortal Instructors, men who had
become Immortals, who are engaged in advancing those who “studied
the Tao” and sought immortality by advising them, by furnishing them
with books, by bringing them recipes. It is as a consequence of this
conception of the gods as Instructors that Lao-tzu took so important a
place in the Taoist pantheon, especially from the moment when the
influence of Buddhism caused—at least in certain circles—a search for a
Taoist equivalent of the Buddha. By the end of the second century A.D.,
the inscription of Lao-tzu's funerary temple, composed in 165 by the
Taoist Pien, minister of the kingdom of Shen,^‘ declares that he “was
born before Heaven and Earth” and that “he holds to the Breath of
Chaos, begins and ends with the Three Luminaries”, and avers that
“since Fu-hsi and Shen-nung, he came down to be Instructor for the
Saints”.
A century and a half later, the “Biographies of the Divine Immortals”,
Shen-hsien cliuan, supplies an echo of these beliefs, although the author
Ko Hung (died between 325 and 336), an alchemist who seems to have
had little sympathy for devotee circles, denies that he accepts them:

Some say that he was born before Heaven and Earth. According
to others, he is the Essential Soul, cliing-p'o, of Heaven, and is one
of a kind with the divine Transcendents.'*^"

51. Lao-tzu mini', in Li-shili, eh. 3, \a-4a.

52. SHC\ eh. I (HWTScd.).
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.l). 395

And he gives a list of thirteen successive existences of Lao-tzu as

Instructor of the Sage Kings who founded dynasties, first in the time of
the Three Majesties, when he was the Imperial Lord of the Golden
Portico, then in the epoch of Fu-hsi and that of Shen-nung, in that of
Huang-ti, and so on, down to Yii, the founder of the Hsia; to T’ang, the
founder of the Shang; and to king Wen, founder of the ChouT^ Finally
he adds legends, certain of which clearly show the Buddhist influence
which affected the conception of this personage:
According to some, his mother carried him for seventy-two years;
when he was born, he emerged by opening up his mother’s left side.
He was white-haired at birth; that is why he was called Lao-tzu
(literally, the Old Child). According to others, his mother was not
married: Lao-tzu is his mother’s family name. According to others,
Lao-tzu’s mother brought him into the world under a plum tree;
Lao-tzu w'as able to speak from birth; he pointed to the plum tree,
saying: “This shall be my family name.”
In these last legends, the traits borrowed almost unchanged from the
legend of the Buddha’s birth are easily recognized.

Thus by Han times the Taoists had made Lao-tzu into a god come to
earth to save men, not after the fashion of the Saviors of the
Mediterranean world, w'ho save the world by the sacrifice of their person,
but in the way of the Buddha, who saves it by his preaching. He was one

53. This list is found, with variants, in the Hua-hu ching [“Books of the Conversion of
the Barbarians”] of the T'ang dynasty (STCN, ch. 9, 6h, TT, 782), as well as in the Kao-
shang Lao-tzu pen-chi, the Hsikin-chung chi, and various other works quoted together in the
Yi-ch'ieh tao-ching yin-yi [“Glossary of all the Taoist Books”], 9a-h {TT, 760). —
According to the Wen-shih chuan [“Biography of Wen-shih”, that is of Yin Hsi] quoted by
Chen Luan, HTL, in KHC, ch. 9, 149i/, Lao-tzu was “from the Three Majesties on, from
generation to generation, the Instructor of the State, kuo-shiir. The Wen-shih chuan, also
called “Esoteric Biography of the Perfect Man Without Superior, Governor of the Passes”,
W ’u-shang chen-jen kuan-ling nci-chuan, contained a detailed account of Yin Hsi's journey
to the West, following Lao-tzu. This work was attributed to the Master of the Valley of
Ghosts, Kuci-ku Hsicn-sheng {SS, ch. 33, 86; STCN, ch. 9, 86); it probably dated from the
fourth or fifth century A.D. and is no longer known except by quotations. Kuo-shih,
“Instructor of the State”, is a title which Wang Mang gave to Liu Hsin a little before the
beginning of our era. It is known that in the Six Dynasties period the Buddhists borrowed
this title from the Taoists to translate the Sanskrit word purohita, and that the Buddhist
emperors conferred it upon Chinese monks. I do not know' whether Wang Mang himself
had borrowed it from Taoism in his time to bestow it upon Liu Hsin while laicizing it, or
whether—in contrary motion—it was the Taoists of the Later Han or Three Kingdoms
period who took over as their own this title which Wang Mang was supposed to have
invented.
 396 Taoism and Chinese Religion

of the Spontaneous Ones: that is, one of the gods who were produced
spontaneously by the knitting together of Breaths as Chaos dissolved. He
was none other than the Tao which gives itself a body so as to teach itself
to gods and men. He was the “Body of the Tao”, tao-shen,^'^ an
expression modeled upon that of the Buddhist “Body of the Law”, fa-
shen (Dharmakaya), but which is taken here in a concrete sense, as
Buddhist expressions borrowed by Taoism very often are. That is why,
according to the “Book of the Creation of Heaven”,he was already in
Chaos, at the middle of the Nothing of Vacuity. And that is probably
what the inscription of 165 already alludes to in saying that Lao-tzu is
“the Pure Quietude of the Nothing of Vacuity”.His emergence from
Chaos produced creation, which is obvious, since the world is merely the
external aspect, visible and changing, of the invisible and immutable
Tao.
But it seems that, as the persona of Lao-tzu grew, transfigured into
Huang-lao chiin, and as his divine role was afifirmed, he was envisaged
more and more as analogous to the divine prototype of the Three Ones;
he too had to have his place in the human body. He was given, beside the
One who is in the head, another cubicle in the cranium to live there as
master. Moreover, the theory of the Identity of Man with the Universe
made quite plausible the idea that Huang-lao chiin remained inside the
body. Since the human body is completely identical to the world, it must
contain in itself the same gods as the world. It is normal that Huang-lao
chiin. Instructor supreme, dwells at the same time in Heaven if one is
considering the macrocosm and within the cranium if one is considering
the microcosm. This is only one of the numerous cases of an analogy
pushed to the tiniest detail.

Finally, just as the appearance of the revealed books had cast the
Three Ones back into the shadow and put Huang-lao chiin in the
limelight, the development of great religious festivals and, in general, the
feeling of collectivity within the Taoist religion turned belief towards
sovereign gods, no longer internal but external to man and of a different
essence from his. These were the Celestial Venerables, and Buddhist
influence, exerted upon this new class of gods—still rather malleable
since their origin was not very ancient—turned them away from the
traditional divine type of Taoism and brought them perceptibly closer to
the type of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas.
It is the notion of “salvation by others”, as the Buddhists say, of
54. YCCC,ch. \62,a-h.
55. T’ai-shang luo-chiin k’ai-t’ien ching, “Book of the Creation of Heaven, (told by the)
Very High Old Lord”, in YCCC, ch. 2, 8/).
56. Li-shih, ch. 3, 2h.
 Au Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 397

salvation through the aid of supreme gods, which marks the chief
ditference between the two tendencies of Taoism during the Six
Dynasties. This is a ditference which in some ways recalls that between
the Little Vehicle and the Great Vehicle in Buddhism, although to me
this notion seems to have been formed spontaneously, without Buddhist
influence, and to have felt that inlluence only once it was established.
The influence of the Mahayana continues to be quite perceptible in
certain of the writings of the Ling-pao; it impregnates from one end to
the other the “Book of Salvation of Innumerable Men, by the (Celestial
Venerable of the) Original Beginning" (or “by the Sacred Jewel"), Yiktn-
shili (or Ling-pao) wii-Uang tu-jen ttiiao-cliing, that enormous work (in
sixty-two chapters) of the fifth century A.D., which since the Six
Dynasties has become the most important doctrinal work of Taoism.

E. ADDITIONAL NOTE ON THE CELESTIAL MASTERS OF THE CHANG FAMILY^^

Has the Taoist religion today, or did it have previously, a supreme chief?
We know that, for the modern period. Sinologists and European travel-
ers have generally responded to this question in the affirmative. They
attribute this function to the Celestial Master of the Chang Family,
Chang T’ien-shih. This Celestial Master claims descent from Chang Tao-
ling, the legendary ancestor who, from the Six Dynasties period, the
Taoists have given to Chang Lu, the religious chief of Han-chung in the
time of the Yellow Turbans. Imbault-Huart called him the “Pope of the
Taoists",and Robert K. Douglas, “the Hierarch".
What is this family and what is the role of this personage? The
genealogy of the Chang family is attested at a relatively ancient date. The
great collection of biographies of the Taoist saints published in 1294 by
Chao Tao-yi, under the title “General Mirror of the Real Immortals who
have embodied the Tao, in chronological order",devotes its chapter
XIX to it: it goes from the beginnings to the middle of the thirteenth
century. Otherwise, a special work from the Taoist canon is consecrated
to it, the “Genealogy of the Celestial Masters of the Han Dynasty",
which comes down as far as the Ming period. I have not examined this
closely enough to have a clear idea whether it is a relatively ancient work.

57. rr, 1-13; Wieger, 1.

58. [This note is taken from a manuscript fragment of 1944, which probably served as a
lecture at the College de France.]
59. Camille Imbault-Huart, La Legende dii premier Pape des Taoistes et I'histoire de hi
famille pontifieale de Tehang, J.As., 1884, ii, pp. 389-461.
60. R. K. Douglas, Confueianism and Taoism, 1879, p. 285.
ei.LCTT, TT, 139-48; Wieger, 293.
62. Han t'ien-shili shili-elua; TT, 1066; Wieger, 1442.
 39(S Taoism and Chinese Religion

from the Sung or Yiian period, or a complete recasting performed under

the Ming. The Chang family continued it into the present day, but this
supplement has not been published. It has, to be sure, only a slight
importance, the genealogy containing scarcely more than names up to
the eighth century and even since that date being only slightly developed.
It is clear that the authors, whatever period they were writing in, had no
document covering the period which goes from the Han to the T’ang,
and that their imagination alone attempted to establish relationships.
Such relationships, moreover, were reduced to the minimum. Between
Chang Lu, who died at the beginning of the third century, and Chang
Kao, who first received (from the T’ang emperor Hsiian-tsung in the
middle of the eighth century) the title of “Celestial Master of the Han”,
Han t’ien-shili, the “General Mirror” laboriously lays out eleven
names—that is, almost two names a century—and these personages
lived regularly from ninety to one hundred and ten years; the one who
died youngest died at eighty-five. Longevity for the Chinese has three
levels: eighty, one hundred, and one hundred and twenty years. None of
these personages falls outside those limits. It may be said that the
practises of long life had succeeded peculiarly with them; and even
though their deaths—as all had attained immortality—were only appar-
ent deaths, it was only with enormous difficulty that they decided to
quit this life and go to enjoy that of Paradise. Even for the T’ang period,
the number of generations is too few, and the lives are too long and too
poorly filled out. Only for the work’s last hundred years do the bio-
graphies become normal, starting precisely with Chang Chi-hsien, who
was Celestial Master until 1139, beginning from an unknown date. He
and his five successors, the first of whom died in 1262, are the only ones
who are more than names.
In summary, we have here a family of lay Taoist sorcerers and
exorcists who appeared suddenly in the eighth century, through the
caprice of a Taoist emperor who gives a title to its chief; but it has played
only an insignificant role in the Chinese world since that period. It is
quite absurd to say, as Imbault-Huart does, that the chief of that family
“exists adorned with the stately name of Supreme Pontiff of Taoism, and
goes along somehow as a peer of the official descendant of Confucius.”
Even with the qualification “somehow”, that is totally incorrect. Even
under emperors who were personally Taoist, the Celestial Masters never
had a very high influence or official status.

Did they have, at least among believers, privately, this position which
was officially denied them? I was supposed to pay a visit to the Celestial
Master some thirty years ago, when the outbreak of the last war in 1914
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 399

prevented me from doing so. I thus never saw him personally. But the
tao-shih who was supposed to lake me to him did not esteem him much,
viewing him with as much contempt as all other lay Taoist sorcerers,
though fearing him and being persuaded of his powers. The discussion
concerning my visit and a stay of several days which I proposed to make
with him had touched only upon questions of money. He promised
everything, provided that I pay. He was also considered an inveterate
opium smoker. Two lay exorcists whom I knew at about the same time
in the region of Sung-chiang-fu in Kiangsu told me that they sent him
money regularly to remain on good terms with him, first because they
needed him to chase the foxes away, and second because they feared
being victims of his evil spells if they stopped. In that whole region, some
thirty years ago, it seems to have been generally accepted that he alone
was capable of setting anyone free from possession by a fox-spirit.
Not that he came himself, but he sent papers stamped with his seal; and
when the fox had been closed up in a jar, it was sealed with this paper,
which was trusted to keep him fast. This belief already existed some fifty
years earlier, and the personage who was Celestial Master then was
hardly a more exalted character than the one in our day. Douglas states
that he is “a very ordinary man, of the slightest culture, and with very
little sense of the dignity of his office”, this last phrase a bit ridiculous,
especially since Douglas hardly understood what this personage was. It is
necessary to add that Douglas did not see him personally any more than
I did and speaks of him through hearsay. Imbault-Huart seems to have
seen, if not approached, him: he describes him as “a man of about forty
years, of middling stature, with a smooth face and oily manners”.
It seems that in our day the succession in direct line, normal among
lay Taoist chiefs, has yielded place to a sort of drawing by lot. Here,
according to J. H. Gray,^^ is how matters went on in the middle of the
nineteenth century. On the day chosen for the election (it seems to have
been the day of the Three Originals, san-yiuin, festival, one of the great
Taoist festivals, the day when as early as the twelfth century the new
Celestial Master was enthroned), all the male members of the clan met at
the Celestial Master’s residence. Each wrote his name on a piece of lead,
and these pieces of lead were dropped into a vase full of water. The
priests remained standing around this vase and recited an invocation to
the Three Pures, san-ch’ing, so that the piece of lead of him who should
become Celestial Master should rise again from the bottom to the
surface. When a piece of lead emerged, the name inscribed was sent to

63. J. H. Gray, China, a History of the Laws. Manners ami Customs of the People,
London, 1878, pp. 103-4.
 400 Taoism and Chinese Religion

the emperor for confirmation, and a decree permitted the one chosen by
lot to take the title of Celestial Master.

The Celestial Master dwells at the foot of mount T’ien-mu, in Kiangsi

province. At the beginning of this century, he lived in a real palace there,
affecting the ways of the Imperial Court, naming ministers and otficials
for chasing demons away, and receiving in solemn audience those people
who came before him; a throng of devotees made up his court. I do not
know whether he can still lead this sort of life: his palace was burned
down in about 1912 or 1913, and many of his magic objects—a drum in
particular—had disappeared. But he still kept his sword, which kills evil
spirits at a distance of one million leagues.
Chasing demons away has constituted his special business in all
periods. Legends regarding the ancestor, Chang Tao-ling, already por-
tray him with this capacity. The sword which the Celestial Master keeps
today is said to be Chang Tao-ling’s, and that was one of the reasons
which made me wish to pay him a visit. I should have liked to see this
sword close up, so as to ascertain its- origin and its date, and some
bargaining took place to the end that I might be shown it out of the
scabbard. But again I did not see it and could not go to mount T’ien-mu.
Imbault-Huart mentions among the curiosities of the Celestial Master's
palace “a long row of jars full of captive demons, whom he had disarmed
and put into bottles so as to prevent them from committing new
misdeeds”.
The Taoist clergy is divided nowadays into two clans: the tao-shih
living in communities in temples, kuan, after the manner of Buddhist
monks, having taken a vow of celibacy like them, reciting prayers and
practising Taoist asceticism so as to obtain immortality: and the sor-
cerers, living with their families and practising their hereditary business
as fortune-tellers, exorcists, mediums, and so on. It is only over this
second sort that the Celestial Master has a certain authority. His
influence costs money. Married Taoist sorcerers consider him, if not as a
chief, at least as a master more powerful than they. They rely upon him
at least once in their lives: he grants them a diploma of initiation, also
against payment. Aside from that, he hardly matters. In sum, he does
not today deserve this title of Pope of the Taoists with which some
people have wished to trick him out.

3, Taoism and the Beginnings of Buddhism in China

It was in the most flourishing period of Taoism, at the moment when
Chang Chueh’s missionaries were converting all of China, just before the
revolt of the Yellow Turbans which was to shatter the Han empire, in the
 An Essav on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 401

mid-second century A.D., that Buddhism began to make progress in

China. At this moment the first communities appear around the first
missionaries and translators. Actually, Buddhism had already been
known of for quite a long time. The Chinese had conquered Central Asia
early in the first century B.C.; since that time they had been in touch with
India and especially with the Indo-Grecian and Indo-Scythian empires
northwest of what is now India and Afghanistan. But these countries
were Buddhist, or at least Buddhism had an important place in them.
Chinese ofificials and soldiers in Central Asia must have known a little
about it. It was even said, in about the third century A.D., that a Chinese
ambassador in the barbarian kingdom of the Yiieh-chih, northwest of
India, had been instructed in Buddhism by the king’s son and had taken
the sacred books back to China in 2 A.D. But if this anecdote is true,
Buddhism enjoyed no success at that time. Only in the second half of the
first century do we see it as possessing trained proselytes in China.
A prince of the imperial family, king Ying of Ch’u (whose apanage
extended over the region which today makes up Shantung and Kiangsu
provinces, around the modern district town of P’eng-ch’eng, which was
its capital) had Buddhist monks and lay believers at his court and
presided over festivals in honor of the Buddha. This is mentioned in an
imperial decree of 65 A.D.* The monks in this period are surely foreign
missionaries, while the lay believers are Chinese converts. This is the first
community known in China. But we do not know what went on there:
these missionaries, indeed, must have limited themselves to oral preach-
ing without making translations of the sacred books; but the history of
Buddhism in China, as the monks of the sixth and seventh centuries
wrote it, is scarcely more than a history of translations of texts. We
know, however, that the community founded and protected by king Ying
at his capital, P’eng-ch’eng, was not dispersed by his deposition (70),
quickly followed by his death (implicated in a conspiracy, he committed
suicide in 71). We find that community indeed still living in the last years
of the second century, when a certain Chai Jung who governed the area,
more or less as a brigand to be sure, raised a stupa and a temple there
which could hold more than three thousand persons. Even allowing for
the exaggeration of a later writer, the P’eng-ch’eng community was
evidently sizeable.^
How had these missionaries reached P’eng-ch’eng, the capital of the
kingdom of Ch’u? What had attracted them there? Was it king Ying
himself who had called them and founded their community? Or had he

1. (K.) HHS, 72, la.

2. [Cf. Les Origines de la communaute houddhiste de Loyang, J.As., July-September 1934,
pp. 87-107; and p. 257 above.]
 402 Taoism and Chinese Religion

become interested in Buddhism because he had found a community

already set up in his principality? We know absolutely nothing about the
founding of this first community, nor of the way in which Buddhism
penetrated into China.
But when Buddhism began to flourish, Chinese Buddhists no longer
wished to be ignorant of how the religion had entered China; and the
church at the capital had its legend which told of the triumphal and
official entry of Buddhism under the protection of emperor Ming of the
Han, whom a dream had forewarned. We find this legend retold
everywhere down the centuries as the story of how Buddhism was
introduced into China. Here it is as given by the most ancient work
which tells it, the Mou-tzu of the early third century A.D.^
Question: “How, in this land of China, was the doctrine of the
Buddha first heard of?”
Mou-tzu replies: “In olden days emperor Ming saw in a dream a
god whose body had the brilliance of the sun and who flew before
his palace; and he rejoiced exceedingly at this. The next day he
asked his officials: ‘What god is this?’ The scholar Fu Yi said: ‘Your
subject has heard it said that in India there is somebody who has
attained the Tao and who is called Buddha; he flies in the air, his
body has the brilliance of the sun; this must be that god.'”
Then the emperor, having understood, sent twelve persons in
embassy into the land of the Great Yiieh-chih. They wrote down the
Sutra in Forty-two Articles which is kept in the Stone Chamber of
Lan-t’ai (the chamber of archives in the imperial library) in the
fourteenth inter-columnar space. Then he built a monastery outside
the Hsi-yung gate (to the west) of the capital. A thousand chariots
and ten thousand horsemen were arrayed, and they went three times
round a stupa.... Statues of the Buddha were made; and the
emperor, who was then having his tomb constructed, likewise placed
a statue of the Buddha in it.
In those days the land was prosperous, the people were calm. The
most remote barbarians practised justice. It is from this moment on
that the study of the religion spread.
The monastery thus constructed was the White Horse Monastery,
so called because Kasyapa-Matanga and Chu Fa-lan, the two Hindu
monks whom the ambassadors are supposed to have brought back with
them, had loaded their books on a white horse to transport them during
the long journey to China (white is the color of the west). Historians date

3. r/A'vol. 52, no. 2102, pp. 4-5; Bibl. Nat., Pelliot ms., TP. xix (1918-19), p. 311.
 A/I Essay on Taoism in /he Fiisl Ccnlnii'cs A./). 403

the dream and the embassy in 61 or 64 A.D. But this aceount is only a
pious legend."^
The origin of the Buddhist ehureh at Loyang was nothing like so
majestie; it had not been founded by an emperor, and there had been no
miraele. 1 believe in fact that it was originally only a branch of the P’eng-
ch'eng church which king Ying of Ch'u had protected. Everything seems
to show that its origins should be sought there. One of its characteristic
qualities was being half Taoist; that was also one of the traits of the
P’eng-ch'eng church. A mixture as peculiar as that of Taoism and
Buddhism has almost no chance of being produced twice in two different
places, and it was more probably transported from one community to
the other. That seems to be confirmed by the very name of the Buddhist
temple where, in the following century, certain translations of the sacred
books were made: the Hsii ClTang ssu. In fact, this name probably
recalls the founder or the first protector of this temple at Loyang, who I
think was a certain Hsii Ch'ang, marquis of Lung-shu, grandson of king
Ying of Ch'u’s maternal uncle. My supposition is that Hsii Ch’ang,
favorable to Buddhism like his uncle, received a group from the Buddhist
community at P’eng-ch'eng in 73, after the suppression of the kingdom
of Ch'u, the exile and the suicide of Ying, or at least when the death of
the /uei-jen Hsii (one of the wives of the emperor Kuang-wu and king
Ying's mother, she had been authorized to continue living in the royal
palace at P’eng-ch'eng with her daughter-in-law and her children) de-
prived the Hsii family of its chief, and when the suppression of the P’eng-
ch’eng marquisate (created in 77 for Ying's eldest son, Liu Chung, who
then received an augmentation of his apanage, but in another place, and
became marquis of Lu, near Yang-chou) had severed all links between
that family and the P'eng-ch'eng region. Hsii Ch'ang set himself up in
the town house w'hich the marquis had at the capital, and it was around
him and his house that the missionaries whom he lodged and protected
gradually formed the first Buddhist church of Loyang. At the end of the
following century, this church still had its center in the little sanctuary,
ssu, which he had offered to the monks or allowed them to set up in the
outbuildings of his tow n house, and which for that reason kept his name.
If this hypothesis is accepted, it would be towards the end of the first
century that the Buddhist church of Loyang was founded, under the
influence and as an offspring of the one king Ying of Ch'u had protected
at P'eng-ch’eng a half-century earlier.

4. Cf. Lc Songe et ramhassade de renipcreur Ming, etude eritique des sourees, BEFEO, x
(1910), pp. 95-130.
5. J.As., July-Seplember 1934, p. 106-07.
 404 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

If the Loyang church really goes back that far, we lose sight of it for
three-quarters of a century. It is probably during this period of obscurity
that the Siifra in Forty-two Articles was translated—a little Buddhist
catechism which is supposed to be the first of all the books translated
into Chinese. It has indeed the look of a manual for use by people who
are completely ignorant of the True Law: “pagans” to be converted or
new converts still untutored, to whom one wishes to give in a few pages a
general view of the religion by exposing them briefly to a certain number
of more or less important questions.^
It is about the middle of the second century that the Loyang church
returns into the limelight, when in 148 the first great translator of the
sacred books. An Shih-kao, arrived. He is said to have been the son of a
Parthian king who had renounced the throne and become a monk. He
has been looked for in the genealogy of the Arsacids; it was a fruitless
effort. The Parthian kingdom was not unified; it was a feudal state, with
numerous petty local dynasties. If the tradition is true. An Shih-kao was
the son of a petty prince on the borders of Afghanistan, areas where
Buddhist propaganda had always been lively.
It was he who reawakened the Loyang church, which until then seems
to have been a bit drowsy. He set to translating the sacred books en
masse. His activity was prodigious, and numerous translations are
attributed to him during the twenty years he remained at Loyang. The
fame which he had given to the Loyang church attracted numerous
educated monks from the West to that city, and after him his place was
occupied by more and more numerous foreign monks—another
Parthian, Indo-Scythians, a Hindu—who continued the work of trans-
lation. The destruction of Loyang by Tung Ch’o in 190 drove away a
certain number of the foreign monks, who fled, some to the bank of the
Yangtze River, where they contributed to creating, or at least to
developing, a church in the capital of the Wu empire (220-80), modern
Nanking.

How were the translations done? We know that quite well, owing to
6. Tokiwa Daijo, Kan-Mei-kyuho-setsu no kenkyu (Tdyd-gakuhd, vol. x, 1920, pp.
25-41), sought to demonstrate that the Sfnra in Forty-two Articles dates from the fourth
century, but his argumentation is not convincing. Mr. Tokiwa noted striking resemblances
between certain articles and certain passages of Hsiang Chieh’s memorial and a sutra
translated by Chih Ch’ien and he concluded that the Sutra in Forty-two Articles was
fabricated in China by using these texts and others. But he himself notes, as an alternative
which he discards immediately (p. 29), that the relationship could have been precisely the
opposite, and that these works could have used the original form of the Siitra in Forty-two
Artieles, which was changed later on. The quotation from Hsiang Chieh seems to me to
clinch the question against Mr. Tokiwa.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 405

the care which the translators of the time devoted to making the
conditions of their work clear in notes, some of which have survived. The
work was generally done in teams, a foreign monk explaining the text as
best he could in Chinese, and one or several Chinese “holding the
brush”—that is, writing up the translator’s explanations in correct
Chinese. We know of several of these teams. One of them consisted of a
Parthian, An Hsiian, who, arriving in Loyang in 181, met a Chinese
convert named Yen Fo-t’iao there and, for ten years or so, orally ex-
plained to him books which Yen wrote down and published, providing
them with a preface. The remarkable fact of this association is that the
missionary was a lay believer, while the Chinese convert called himself a
monk and took the title of dcdrya. Another team, which worked from
197 on, was made up almost the same way: a Hindu monk, Chu Ta-li,
evidently able to speak Chinese, explained the texts to a Chinese believer
who wrote them down. The most curious team was that of Chu Shuo-fo,
which in 179 A.D. translated a text entitled “The Book of Face-to-Face
Contemplation”—in Sanskrit Pratyutpanna-saniddhi-sutra.^ Chu Shuo-
fo was a Hindu who knew no Chinese. He recited the original, which was
explained in Chinese by the Indo-Scythian Chih Ch’an to the Chinese
Meng Fu, while a second Chinese, Chang Lien, was responsible for
putting it into the written language.^
We can understand how necessarily imprecise and loose translations
done in this fashion were, and especially how much the foreign mis-
sionary was at the mercy of his assistant or assistants, since he could not
control or supervise them. If the Chinese converts who helped him in his
work of translation had some preconceived idea, they could introduce it
at any point in the translation, without the missionary’s noticing it.
And this preconceived idea existed: it was a fixed tendency towards
Taoist interpretation. For it was within Taoist circles that Han Bud-
dhism recruited its first believers.

It is a very curious fact that, throughout the whole Han dynasty,

Taoism and Buddhism were constantly confused and appeared as a
single religion. The first protector of Buddhism, the king of Ch’u, was a
Taoist, as we have seen above. “He delighted in the practises of Huang-
lao,” says the History of the Later Hau\ and it is immediately after these
words that the text mentions the Buddhists whom this king kept in his
capital. A century later, in 166, emperor Huan made offerings to the
7. Pan-chou san-mei clung, TIK, vol. 13, no. 418. Kawakatsu adds here: the attribution is
to another translator, but cf. Kao Seng chiuin, vol. 50, 324/7. Cf. also ihid., 323-24, for Chu
Ta-li and An Hsiian.
8. Ch'u san-tsang chi chi, ch. 7, 48c' (TIK, vol. 55, no. 2145).
 406 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Buddha, but not to the Buddha alone: at the same time he sacrificed to
Huang-lao—that is, he too confused Buddhism and Taoism. The first
apologist for Buddhism, a late second century layman named Mou-tzu,
himself tells us that it was through Taoism that he was led to Buddhism.
I too, when I had not yet understood the Great Way (Buddhism),
had studied Taoist practises. Hundreds and thousands of recipes are
there for longevity through abstention from cereals. I practised
them, but without success; I saw them put to use, but without result.
That is why 1 abandoned them."^
Among the Yellow Turbans themselves. Buddhism was not unknown:
they had seen pious images, especially that of Pindola, whom with his
white hair and his long eyebrows they had taken for Lao-tzu. And by the
middle of the second century, there were people who made a connection
between the Buddha and Lao-tzu; the fact is mentioned in a report
addressed to the emperor in 166.
It was thus mixed with Taoism and carried along by the vogue of
Taoism that Buddhism made its beginnings in China. It was within
Taoist circles that it found its first adepts. The translations of the Han
period bear manifest traces of this fact. The most'curious example of this
is given by the first Life of the Buddha translated into Chinese under
Chih Ch’ien's direction at the end of the second century. In the midst of
the summary of the Bodhisattva's (that is, of the future Buddha’s)
successive lives, between the moment when Dipamkara, a Buddha of the
past, predicted to him that he would become the Buddha Sakyamuni and
his last existence, the Chinese editors have added'® that, among other
avatars, he had been “Ancestor of the Scholars’ Forest” and '"’tao-shih.
Instructor of the State”, thus annexing Confucius and Lao-tzu to
Buddhism and echoing the Taoist theory according to which the Buddha
would have been none other than Lao-tzu himself, gone to the West to
preach his doctrines to the barbarians there. No Yueh-chih monk could
have had the idea of introducing such a phrase into his translation; it
could only be due to the Chinese who “held the brush” and who
remained more or less imbued with Taoism.

When we examine the list of books translated by the first missionaries,

the choice strikes us as rather surprising. These books are far from being
the most important, those that deal with fundamental questions. There
are some such, to be sure; but the majority are books dealing with

9. Bibl. Nat., Pelliot ms., TI\ xix (1918-19), p. 319.

10. T'ai-tzuJui-yingpen-ch’i ching, p. 473A (TIK, vol. 3, no. 185).
 .'1/1 Essay o/i Taois/// in the First Centuries A.D. 407

insignificant details, which at first sight seem useless, at least when the
preaching is only beginning. The reason is that quite often these mis-
sionaries chose, within the enormous Buddhist literature, not the most
characteristic books, those which set forth the doctrine most clearly, but
those which had the liveliest interest for their entourage, even if these
books were not very important. And the entourage was Taoist.
We have seen that among Taoists certain of the practises in the search
for immortality had the advantage, when it was not possible to push the
search to the end, of prolonging life and avoiding sudden death. An
Shih-kao translated a little Buddhist book on this subject. It is the “Sutra
of the nine sudden deaths", Chiit-hettg citing.^ ^ It is an authentic
Buddhist text, not an arrangement but part of one of the aganut, the
Satnyiiktagatiut. although present-day collections do not contain it. This
text is so short that I can quote it almost in its entirety. It will be seen
that, for the uninformed reader or listener the book has nothing specially
Buddhist about it.
The Buddha was at Sravasti, in the Jetavana of Anathapindada.
The Buddha declared to the Bhikshus: “There are nine kinds of
causes for which life does not entirely finish and sudden death comes
about:
{1) Eating what is not to be eaten;
(2) Eating to excess;
(3) Eating what one is not in the habit of eating;
(4) Not vomiting when one has eaten too much;
(5) Having indigestion;
(6) Not observing the moral prohibitions;
(7) Coming upon evil things without recognizing them;
(8) Entering a village at an inopportune moment and behaving
badly there;
(9) Not avoiding what must be avoided
... Through these nine causes, among people whose life is not yet
ended, it ends suddenly. Intelligent people recognize them and
avoid them. Those who avoid them derive two items of happiness
from it:
(1) They attain a long life.
(2) Due to their long life, they attain comprehension of the
excellent w'ords of the Way, and they are capable of putting them
into practise."
The Bhikshus were very joyful; they accepted and put into
practise what they had heard.
11. TIK, vol. 2, no. 150, pp. 880, 883.
 408 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

In all this there is nothing clearly Buddhist. Moreover, among the

moral causes of premature death which are mentioned aside from
physical causes, the sixth, “Not observing the moral prohibitions,”
conformed exactly to the doctrine of the Yellow Turbans who began to
flourish in An Shih-kao’s period, since among them illness was con-
sidered the consequence of sin; and since, in speaking of the Buddhist
Law, the translators used the expression “the excellent words of the
Tao”, the Taoists who read or listened to this book did not get the
impression of a new doctrine. Buddhism appeared to them quite similar
to their own ideas.
Remember what importance respiratory exercises have for the Taoists:
that is the first step on the way of immortality. One must know how to
make the breath circulate through the Cinnabar Fields, from the belly to
the chest and to the head. Not only did these exercises have a theoretical
importance, but they were one of the practises imposed upon his
followers by Chang Lu, the chief of the Yellow Turbans in western
China during the Han period, and it was according to the progress they
had made in this practise that he distributed titles to them. An Shih-kao
had translated a book on the Buddhist respiratory exercises, the An-pan
clung: the two syllables an-pan are a shortened transcription of the
Sanskrit word dndpana, “respiration”.^- This was a book in perfect
conformity with Buddhist orthodoxy, and it too constituted a part of one
of the digama—that is, of the fundamental books of the Buddhist Canon,
those which represent the most ancient tradition.
The respiratory exercises described in this work differ from those of
the Taoists. The latter inhaled air for a long time, kept it in as long as
possible, counting the time during which they kept it in, and strove to
attain 12, then 120, then 200, then 1,000 counts before expelling the air.
The Buddhists, on the other hand, make regular, deep respirations, but
do not seek to keep the air in their lungs. They count respirations, giving
the number one to inhalation, two to exhalation, three to the second
inhalation, and so on up to ten. The important thing is to make the
inhalations and exhalations, which must be very long, as equal as
possible. Moreover, the procedure of counted respiration is accompanied
by meditation; it is in fact an exercise preparatory for contemplation.
This will be possible only when respiration has been perfectly regulated;
at that moment the counting can be stopped, in fact it must be, since it
would then become a hindrance. Once contemplation has been attained,
one is on the high road to Nirvana.

12. TIK, vol. 15, no. 602.

 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 409

The Buddha was asked: “Why leach men to concenlrate their

thought by counting respirations?"
There are four reasons:
(1) Because, through the use (of this method), one will not be sick.
(2) Because, through the use (of this method), one avoids scatter-
ing his thought.
(3) Because, through the use (of this method), one arrests the
production of causes and one will no more encounter birth and
death.
(4) Because, through the use (of this method), one reaches the
road of Nirvana.
At this point I cannot enter upon detailed explications of this book,
which is quite long and confused. But what I have just said suffices to
show that this practise can pass for a variant of the Taoist practise,
which is likewise supposed to lead on to ecstasy, to immortality. In short.
Nirvana is attained by Buddhist respiratory exercises, exactly as the
Taoists obtain immortality by their own exercises. But Buddhist Nirvana
and Taoist immortality, in the translations of that time, were hardly
differentiated. The normal term for translating Nirvana was wu-wei, the
Taoist Non-Action, which is the condition of him who has attained
Mystical Union.
Obviously, there were not only books of this genre, translations
genuinely derived from the setting in which they were made. They were
the minority, in fact, and there were a great number of books which
really dealt with the essential truths of Buddhism. But even in those the
Taoist terminology betrayed the original thought at every turn. This is
the case, for example, of the “Book of the Ten Laws of retribution",
S/iih pao-fct citing,^^ in which Taoist technical terms follow one after
another. It is all the easier to recognize how much these terms modify the
sense of the Buddhist original, since there exists another translation of
the same book—a more modern translation and one freed of that
terminology. The Ten Laws, in An Shih-kao’s version, guided him who
applied them to Non-Action. The practise of the six Paramitas, the
transcendent Virtues of Buddhism, become the practise of the six Virtues
of the Perfect Tao, Clieng-tao te. Buddhist contemplation becomes
Keeping the One, shou-yi. Regarding the Buddhist truths of Pain and the
extinction of Pain, An Shih-kao writes: “It must be recognized why the
men of this world get Pain; it must be recognized why they get
deliverance from the world, tu-shih." Tu-shih is only another name for
13. TIK, vol. 1, no. 13. This text belongs to the cycle of the Dirghaganut.
 410 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

the Deliverance of the Corpse, shih-chidu concerning which 1 have

spoken at length above.
And it must be remembered that the people to whom An Shih-kao
addressed himself had not been prepared for Buddhism. When he said to
them that they would avoid old age and death, they took this as all one
thing, just as it was expressed. Lengthy explanations would have been
required for them to understand that this did not mean they would
remain young and not die, but that after the next inevitable death they
would never be born again and, having avoided birth, would avoid all
pains henceforward, including old age and death. But far from giving
explanations. An Shih-kao's translations, even apart from the Taoist
terminology, are made in such a way as to say something quite different
from the original text.
In the stanzas of homage to the Buddha which begin the Yogdcdrah-
lidnii of Sangharaksha, we read the following verses:*'*
He helps us over (transmigration) through his unequaled
intelligence;
Birth, death, and fear are brought to nothing.
The Buddha, the Law, and the Community,
The virtue of these three is without equal.
Here is how An Shih-kao translates it in prose:
Those who had not been saved are saved. Those who died die no
more. Those who were old are old no more. All that comes from
practising the Law of the Buddha.
Quite clearly, this has to be understood in the Buddhist meaning; the
series of transmigrations is stopped, and those who die and are born
successively will henceforward be, thanks to the Law of the Buddha,
saved from all death, from all rebirth, and from the old age which
precedes each new death. But for neophytes who did not yet know
anything about Buddhism, is not the immediate meaning that the
practise of the Buddha’s Law leads to not dying and not growing old?
Buddhist Nirvana and Taoist immortality tended to be confused in the
minds of contemporaries. How could it be otherwise when the Taoist
expression mieh-tu, “Deliverance”, had been adopted to translate the
word NirvdmC. An Shih-kao must have felt this himself. Perhaps, after
having remained at Loyang for twenty years, he finally knew enough
Chinese to be able to carry on discussions with his disciples without the

14. Version of Dhamaraksha (c. 300 A.D.), TIK, vol. 15, no. 606, p. 182.
15. An Shih-kao's version, ibid., no. 607, p. 231.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 411

intermediacy of an interpreter. In any case, he translated a little book in

which the Buddha states that immortality is impossible.
In the old days there were four Brahmins who, having acquired
magical virtues, resolved to use them to escape death. The first of
them could live in the air: he withdrew' into the air, hoping that
death would not find him there, but he died there. The second could
live at the bottom of the ocean; he withdrew there, but death found
him there. The third could live in the heart of the mountains; he
withdrew' there, but death went to seek him out there. The fourth
could live in the earth; he withdrew there, but he too died. The
Buddha, by his divine glance, saw' each of them dead in the very
place "/here death had sought him out, and from that he drew an
argument to make his disciples understand that, since everything is
impermanent, immortality is impossible and death is inevitable.
These rather disheartening warnings were necessary to show that the
collusion of Buddhism and Taoism during Han times is not a mere
hypothesis, but emerges clearly from the Buddhist translations them-
selves.

It is as a new method of obtaining immortality that Buddhism

appeared to the eyes of Taoists, and that is what made it gather them in.
It brought new' procedures, but the Buddhist Nirvana was none other
than the Taoist salvation, and the Buddhist saints entered into Nirvana,
the Arhats, were assimilated to the Taoist saints, the Perfect Men, chen-
jeth since this is the term which translated the Sanskrit word. Buddhism
was considered a particular Taoist sect, the strictest of them, more
balanced and more reasonable than the Yellow' Turbans. Still more, it
had the advantage of avoiding alchemical researches and of being a
purely moral and contemplative method of immortality. That set it apart
and gave it a luster which the small number of its adherents and its
foreign character would otherwise not have allowed it to hope for. This
new sect joined up w ith the old mystical masters of Taoism, Lao-tzu and
Chuang-tzu, and from certain points of view came closer to them than
the Taoism of the time did. It was probably all this which brought about
its success. It was on this account, for example, that the emperor Huan,
making prayers for longevity, sacrificed at the same time to Huang-lao
(the god of the sect of immortality through morality, dietetic practises,
respiratory exercises and contemplation, combined with alchemy) and to

16. P'o-lo-nien pi-s.su-chin^, T/K, vol. 2, no. 131, p. 854. Another version of this little text
is to be found in the Ekottara^ania, ibid., no. 125, p. 688.
 412 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

the Buddha (the god of the sect of immortality through morality, certain
alimentary restrictions, certain respiratory exercises and contemplation,
without alchemy).

Such is the way in which Buddhism succeeded in gaining a foothold in

China, under the auspices of Taoism. We are so accustomed to consider-
ing Buddhism and Taoism as two contrasting religions that the first
scholars who, in a time when the Taoist Canon was not yet so accessible
as it is today, correctly perceived the connections between Buddhism and
Taoism in that early period, still dared not to see them as more than
borrowings of technical terms. “When Buddhism arrived in China at the
beginning of our era, the sole indigenous metaphysics which it en-
countered, the sole doctrine which tried to get at the secret of things, was
the Taoist philosophy. The newcomers in large part adopted Taoist
terminology for want of any other. However, the resemblance and some-
times identity of the terms did not result in any unification of system.”*^
Nowadays we are beginning to understand that there was more than a
borrowing of vocabulary, that there was, over a rather long period,
confusion of doctrines, at least among converts.
However, that lasted only for a while. If relations with India had been
cut after the Han', Buddhism would probably have continued to develop
as a Taoist sect and would have been absorbed into Taoism. But those
relations continued uninterrupted, leading to generation upon generation
of foreign Buddhists capable of struggling against that absorption, and
under their influence Chinese Buddhists gradually came to understand
the originality of their religion and its true meaning. But the confusion
did not end completely for all that because, if the Buddhists succeeded in
getting rid of it fairly quickly, the Taoists did not give it up; they
remained long convinced of the profound identity between the two
religions. Brought to a halt within Buddhism, thanks to foreign in-
fluences, syncretism continued to develop among the Taoists. They even
looked for an origin of it, and it was thus that they were led to think up
the fable of personal relations between the Buddha and Lao-tzu. Lao-tzu
probably never existed, and if he did he surely never left China to travel
in India. But the astonishing imagination of the Taoists gave itself free
rein on this theme, fabricating not one but several different stories
describing his journey and his transformations, mingling folktales with
pious anecdotes, for the purpose of putting him in contact with the
Buddha. That lasted for centuries, and it has only been since the Mongol
period that the echo of this legend has died away.

17. Bibl. Nat., Pelliol ms., Autour d’une traduction sanscrite du Tao-te-ching, TP, xiii
(1912), p. 67.
 An Essay on Taoism in the Firs! Centuries A.I). 4/3

4. Appendix: Historical Notes on the Origins and

Development of the Taoist Religion up to the Han Period

A. TECHNIQUES OF IMMORTALITY AND MYSTICAL LIFE

IN THE TAOIST SCHOOL OF CHUANG-TZU'S TIME

The Taoism of those who sought immortality seems so different from the
philosophical and mystical Taoism of Lao-tzu and of Chuang-tzu that
corruption and degeneracy have often been mentioned. Forty years ago
Chavannes declared that the Taoism of Ssu-ma Ch'ien was still “the pure
doctrine of Lao-tzu and of Chuang-tzu” and not “what Taoism has
become since”, that is “a jumble of vulgar superstitions”.* I believe in
fact that most Sinologists, in the West as well as in the Far East, are still
even today not far from sharing this somewhat simplistic Judgment; even
the more prudent ones who abstain from taking a position indicate no
less clearly the division they set up, by speaking of “Neo-Taoism”. It
seems to be accepted that Taoism began with Lao-tzu as a metaphysical
doctrine with a mystical tendency and, after a development in the same
direction, illustrated in late Chou times by the names of Chuang-tzu and
Lieh-tzu, was gradually transformed to reappear several centuries later,
in Later Han times, as “a demoniac doctrine”, kuei-chiao, to use the
term which the scholars of ancient times applied to it. This is a rather
superficial w^ay of seeing things.
The literary importance of Lao-tzu, of Chuang-tzu, and of Lieh-tzu
has given rise to the belief that they represented all of Taoism in their
time. That is not so at all. They were a branch of it, a small circle with
mystical and philosophical tendencies; they were educated scholars who
transformed the sect's often coarse teachings into philosophy. They left
incomparable books, but they were too intellectual ever to have been
very numerous.
Lao-tzu at the beginning of the fourth century, Chuang-tzu at the end
of the same century and the beginning of the third, Kuan-yin-tzu in the
second quarter of the third century,* Lieh-tzu in about the same period,
the poet Ch'ii Yiian, a contemporary of Chuang-tzu, these are the
principal known names; and most of them designate books rather than
persons. We must picture little groups of masters and disciples, in close

1. Chavannes, Les Memoires Historiques de Se-ma Ts'icn, vol. i, introduction, p. xviii.

[This volume of Chavannes dates from 1895. It was of course in about 1935 or a little later
that his appendix was written (under the same title that it bears here); but other materials
have been included farther on, some of them drafted earlier, some later.]
2. The Kuan-yin-tzu was lost after the Han, and the book we have today by that name (it
also bears the title IVen-shih-ching: TT, 667; Wieger, 662) is a T'ang forgery.
 414 Taoism and Chinese Religion

relation with the other elements of contemporary Taoism, but rather on

the margin of their general movement.
As early as that time, in fact, the search for immortality holds a
principal place in the Taoist religion and the Adept who “obtains the
Tao”, te-tao, the Perfect Man, chen-jcnu and with all the more reason the
Saint, shcng-Jcti, are immortal. The notion is so fundamental that
Chuang-tzu, who accorded the search for immortality only a secondary
place in his system, could nevertheless not forget that prolonged life is
one of the natural attributes of the Saint:
At the end of a thousand years, weary of this world, the Saint
leaves it and goes up among the Immortals, shang hsien\ mounted
on the white cloud, he goes to the land of the Lord on High. There
the three calamities do not reach him and his person is forever safe
from misfortunes. What shame can he suffer?^
We are informed about this rising to the land of the Lord on High
(that ancestor of the Paradise of the Immortals in modern Taoism) by
two mystical poems from Ch'u Yiian, a great lord of the land of Ch'u in
the fourth century, turned Taoist: the Li sao and the Yikin yu. The
Chinese interpret these as political satires, which only the first of them is,
in part. In reality, they are rather like a Chinese Pilgrim's Progress, with
a far less moralizing symbolism to be sure, and they describe the rising
of the soul in detail, aided by various gods who accompany and guide it,
to the heavenly city of the Lord on High. It is, moreover, less the
description of this journey than the symbolic description of Mystical
Union, under the guise of this ascent to the paradise of the Immortals, as
less sophisticated circles imagined it.
The two poems are not a double poetic scenario on the same theme;
they differ in several very important points. In fact, they mark two
distinct periods of life and of the poet, two different moments in his
religious development. When he wrote the first, the Li sao, Ch'ii Yiian
was already in search of Mystical Union, but he had not yet attained it;
thus, when he arrives at the gate of Heaven, the Gateman of the Lord on
High refuses him entry.
In the evening I come to Hanging Gardens;
I wish to stay a moment on this Sacred Stone.
The sun grows dim, it is setting;
I order Hsi-ho"^ to pull in the reins.

3. CT, section 12; Legge, i, 314. The two volumes of the Sacred Books of the East, .xxxix
and XL. containing Legge’s translation of CT, will be designated hereafter by i and ii.
4. Mother and chariot-driver of the sun.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 415

1 gaze upon Ycn-tzir'' but do not approach it;

The way is long, its span immense!
I would go up and down to seek [my heart's desire]!
1 shall water my horses at the Hsien pool;^’
I shall tie my chariot to the Fu-sang (tree);
I shall cut a branch from the Jo tree to strike the sun.
I shall ramble afar!
Before me, Wang-shu,^ to run ahead;
Behind me, Fei-lien^ as outrider;
The phoenix keeps order ahead of me;
The Master of Thunder tells me when all is not ready....
I ask the Lord's Gateman to open up for me;
He leans against the Ch'ang-ho gate‘s and looks at me.’^’
In the Yuati v//, “The Distant Journey'', on the contrary, he has come
to the end of the Mystical Way; thus nothing more stops him. Preceded
by the Thunder God, he goes directly in through the gate of Heaven,
goes to the T'ai-wei Palace, is received at the Court of the Lord on High,
and contemplates the Pure Capital.
I ask the Gateman of Heaven to open the gate;
He pushes open the Ch'ang-ho portals and looks out at me.
1 call Feng-lung‘ ‘ to be my guide ahead;
I ask where the dwelling of the Very Ethereal is.
I collect the double yang and enter the Lord's Palace;
I go to Hsiin-shih and look upon the Pure Capital
I transcend Non-Action and come to Purity;
And his roaming ends in Mystical Union;
1 draw near the Great Beginning. *-
The Mystical Union of Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzu is described in terms
that current Taoist belief would use to describe the ascent to the paradise

5. Mountain where the sun sets.

6. Pool where the sun bathes every morning before ascending into the heavens. The Fu-
sang tree, situated quite near it, is the one by which according to legend the sun climbs to
heaven; the Lo tree, on the other hand, is situated where the sun sets.
7. Mother and chariot-driver of the moon.
8. The god of the W'ind.
9. The Gate of Fleaven.
10. Li-sao, xlvii-lii, verses 188, 202, 209-10. [The translation of this passage and the one
above represents a compromise between Maspero and David Flawkes: Ch'u Tz'u, Oxford,
1959, pp. 28-29, 84, 87. Tr.]
11. The god of Thunder: that is his name. Master of Thunder, Lei-shih, is his title.
12. } 47-49, 89.
 416 Taoism and Chinese Religion

of the Immortals. The school of these authors is outside the Taoist norm
in its procedures, but not in its spirit. The founder of the school, who left
behind the work entitled Lao-tzu, had found in ecstasy a short cut which,
through union with the Tao, avoided the wearisome practises of the
other schools. By uniting mystically with the Tao, one could participate
in its immortality. Undoubtedly the Union, from simple means, became
in the eyes of some the end itself; they no longer dreamed of conquering
immortality, but simply of participating in the joys of ecstasy and the
Union. But this change of perspective is so frequent among the mystics
of all religions that there is nothing in it to wonder at, and we need not
hasten to conclude from it that the doctrine of salvation through
immortality did not exist for Chuang-tzu.

By the fourth and third centuries B.C. the Taoists are seekers for
immortality: from the beginning, Taoism had been a doctrine of in-
dividual salvation which claimed to guide the adept to immortality.
Chuang-tzu gives the name of a Taoist master, Kuang-ch’eng, who had
lived for twelve hundred years. Nii Yii possessed the recipe for keeping
a child’s complexion despite age, and transmitted it to Pu Liang-yi.^**
The procedures must have been very diverse: each master had his own,
which he kept secret and passed on only to a few chosen disciples. By
that time we find that most of the techniques which would be current in
the times of the Six Dynasties and the T’ang dynasty were practised.
Chuang-tzu is full of allusions to these practises, although they were
sometimes not those of his school. By merely gathering these allusions, a
collection of precise facts can be established which remarkably resemble
those of “Neo-Taoism”.
In the Chuang-tzu there is a very clear passage in which are enu-
merated the practises which lead to immortality:

Far away, on mount Ku-shih, dwell divine men. Their flesh and
their skin are like ice and snow; their manners are as reserved as
those of young girls.
(1) They do not eat the Five Cereals; (2) they breathe the wind

13. CT, section 11; Legge, i, 299.

14. CT, section 6; Legge, i, 245. (K.) Change “Master Kuei of Nan-po” to “Nii Yii”.
15. I have already shown (La Chine antique, p. 409 [China in Antiquity (CA), p. 308]) the
place of “practical exercises” within the school of Chuang-tzu, especially respiratory
exercises and procedures for Nourishing the Vital Principle, yang-sheng (or yang-hsing):
but I then knew the most recent forms of these techniques too poorly to be able to give
anything but general information. More recently, M. Granet (La Pensee ehinoise, 1934,
pp. 511-16) has taken the same idea up again and developed it at greater length than I had
done, though without bringing much more precision to it.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 417

and drink the dew; (3) riding upon clouds and air and driving Hying
dragons, they journey beyond the Four Seas; (4) when their Spirit is
concentrated, it causes creatures not to be attacked by pestilences
and grains to ripen every year.*^
There we recognize the principal practises which were current during
the Six Dynasties; (1) abstention from Cereals, (2) respiratory exercises,
and (3) concentration and meditation. The ‘‘journey beyond the Four
Seas” (4) corresponds to a manner of directing ecstasy, which was
practised in the time of Chuang-tzu but disappeared thereafter, or at
least no longer had the same theoretical importance. It consisted of
making the soul sail through the world and beyond the world limited by
the Four Seas, to look for the gods of the outer world and to enter into
communication with them.
Chuang-tzu elsewhere makes clear what the respiratory exercises
consist of and adds to that a description of several kinds of gymnastics.
This is very important, since we grasp the continuity of doctrines and
practises between his time and the fourth to sixth centuries of our era,
despite the long interval. Moreover, the passage ends by pointing out the
aim of these exercises.*^
To inhale and exhale in various ways, to spit out the old breath
and introduce the new breath, to act the bear, to stretch the neck
like a bird, all this only tends to attaining Eternal Life. That is what
they love, those who practise Gymnastics, tao-yin, those who
Nourish the Body, those who wish to live as long as P’eng-tsu.
Thus, exactly as in the Taoism of the Six Dynasties, people gave
themselves over to all sorts of exercises to obtain Eternal Life. Eternal
Life was the standard purpose of Taoist teaching and discipline, and
every master was supposed to teach this, each according to his particular
procedure. The masters of the mystical school, Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu,
are not from this viewpoint different from the others; this was asked
of them as well. Nan-jung Ch’u, understanding nothing of Lao-tzu’s
teaching, becomes impatient and says to him: “I wish to learn the means
of preserving life and nothing more.”^® And Lao-tzu explains what he
must do to that end. For Chuang-tzu, who is the author of this anecdote,
it was perfectly normal that a disciple should ask the way of becoming
immortal, and that the Taoist master should teach it to him. More than
that, in another Taoist collection, the Lieh-tzu, is found an anecdote

16. CT, section 1; Legge, i, 170.

17. CT, section 15; Legge, i, 364.
18. CT, section 23; Legge, ii, 80.
 4 IS Taoism and Chinese Religion

about a charlatan who boasts about having the recipe of immortality and
who sells it to the king of Yen, then dies before the arrival of the king’s
messenger to whom he is supposed to reveal his secret. After making fun
of the impostor appropriately through the mouths of various persons
who Judge him, the author notes clearly that the death of a master who
teaches the method of not dying cannot in any way impugn the method
itself:
Master Hu says: “There are men of the world who have recipes,
but who are incapable of putting them into practise; there are also
others who would be capable of putting them into practise, but who
do not have the recipes.”

And as an example he gives the anecdote of a master of Mystical

Numbers, s/uni shu-che (this is not merely a clever arithmetician, ein
tiiclitiger Reclienmeistcr, as Wilhelm translates it), who has learned his
father’s formulae and knows them well, but is incapable of putting them
into practise, while a stranger to whom he teaches the formulae puts
them into practise suecessfully.
This text from the Lieh-tzu shows that in that period, as later, there is
no unique doctrine of Life Eternal, but that the masters have their own
diverse recipes, s/iu. Each of them naturally boasted of the particular
efficacy of his method and denigrated the others. The mystical school
which claimed to stem from Lao-tzu had its own, in the name of which it
passed severe judgment on differing methods.
This method is easy to know, and I cannot tell why nobody has tried it
out. A passage in Chuang-tzu, in fact, is an actual lesson on Life Eternal
and the way of obtaining it according to the method of his school."®
I summarize the beginning of the anecdote. Huang-ti, the “Yellow
Lord”, here conceived of as a human sovereign, having governed the
world for nineteen years as Son of Heaven, hears of master Kuang-
eh’eng and goes to see him on the mountain where he resides. A first time
he asks the way of taking the essence of Heaven and Earth to help in the
growing of cereals and of controlling the yin and the yang: and master
Kuang-ch’eng sends him aw'ay. Huang-ti then leaves the Empire, with-
draws for three months into a hermitage, and after that returns to see
master Kuang-ch’eng and asks him “how to regulate oneself so as to last
eternally”. Here is master Kuang-ch’eng’s response:

Excellent, that question! 1 am going to speak to you of the

supreme Tao.... When you neither see nor hear and you gather
up your mind in such a way that it is calm, the body regulates itself.

19. LU’h-tzu, section 8; Wilhelm, 107.

20. CT, section 11; Legge, i, 297-300.
 A/I EV.SY/1’ (//i Taoism i/i the Fi/'st Cc/iln/i'cs A.I). 419

Be calm, be pure! Do not lire your body oul, do not disturb your
Essence, and you can have Life Elernal! Eel your eyes sec nothing,
let your ears hear nothing, let your heart {hshi) know nothing! Your
Mind {shell) will look after your person, and your body (hsiii^) will
live eternally. Keep watch over your inside, close yourself olf from
the outside; to know much is harmful.
1 shall go with you to the summit of Great Clarity; we shall reach
the source of supreme Yang.
I shall go in with you at the gate of Profound Darkness; we shall
reach the source of supreme Yin.
There, Heaven and Earth have their officers {kua/i)\ there, the Yin
and the Yang have their storehouses {tsan^).
Me, I keep my One, so as to keep myself in harmony: it is thus
that I have cultivated my self during a thousand two hundred years
without my body weakening.
After that master Kuang-ch'eng announces that he is going to Paradise:
I leave you and I enter through the Gate of the Infinite, to wander
in the Fields of the Limitless. I shall mingle my light with that of the
Sun and the Moon, and I shall last as long as Heaven and Earth.
This text shows how, according to Chuang-tzu, Life Eternal is at-
tained, and what w'as the fate of the Saint who had thus obtained
immortality. The final entry into Paradise is indeed one of his ideas, for
he comes back to it elsewhere, as we have seen above.-‘ It must be noted
how' little room there is, in this schema of preparation for immortality,
for respiratory exercises and other physiological procedures. That is one
of the characteristic features of Chuang-tzu's method.
Those who are eminent without having any fixed purpose, who
cultivate themselves without bothering with altruism or justice, who
govern without claiming merit or fame, wiio remain free and idle
without having (to withdraw' into a material solitude) near rivers or
seas, w'ho obtain longevity without doing gymnastics {tao-yi/i), who
forget everything and, by the same token, possess everything, who in
their unlimited calm are attended upon by all that is beautiful: such
men follow the Tao of Heaven and Earth and show the Virtue of the
Saints.““
This passage comes just after the one I quoted above,concerning
people who seek Life Eternal through respiratory exercises and gymnas-

21. CT, section 12; Legge, i, 314; cf. above, at note 3.

22. CT, section 15; Legge, i, 364.
23. Cf note 17 above.
 420 Taoism and Chinese Religion

tics; it is significantly set off against that passage. All the same, Chuang-
tzu’s turning away from physiological practises must not be exaggerated.
In reality, he considers them necessary. The importance of respiratory
practises is clearly highlighted when he says that “the Perfect Man
breathes from the heels, while common men breathe from the throat”,-*^
which means that the Taoist saint practises the circulation of the breath
through the entire body, while the ordinary man cannot make the breath
circulate. Chuang-tzu finds the exercises not so much useless as insuffi-
cient in themselves:

I pity those people of the world who think that (the procedures
for) Nourishing the Body (yang-hsing) suffice to make life last
eternally; in reality. Nourishing the Body is not sufficient to make life
last, and how can that be enough for the people of the world (to
obtain that result)? Yet, although it does not suffice them (to obtain
Life Eternal), they can do nothing but go on doing it, and they are
not capable of avoiding it. Ah! those who would avoid busying
themselves with their bodies have nothing better to do than to leave
the world! He who has left the world has no shackles; he who has no
shackles is at ease; he who is at ease thereby acquires a new life; he
who has a new life is near (the goal). Why is it enough to leave the
business (of the world)? Why does it suffice to relinquish life? (It is
because) when you leave the affairs (of the world), the body is not
tired; when you relinquish life, the essence is not exhausted. Ah!
when the body is whole and the essence renewed, you are One with
Heaven.

Some commentators have chosen to believe that this procedure of

“Nourishing the Body”, yang-hsing, which is insufficient for obtaining
Life Eternal, is ordinary nutrition, everybody’s food,^^ and Legge
followed them. But the expression yang-hsing is found elsewhere in
Chuang-tzu; I have already quoted a passage in which he explains it as
breathing procedures.He no doubt means that the procedures for
Nourishing the Body practised in other schools are insufficient. The result
sought remains no less the same, not to let the body and the essence be

24. CT, section 6; Legge, i, 238. Kawakatsu (note 264) supplies two interpretations of
“breathing from the heels”.
25. CT, section 19; Legge, ii, 11-12. Kawakatsu (note 265) points out that Maspero's
rendering of the last clause in the first sentence and the whole sentence thereafter departs
somewhat from the normal understanding of the text.
26. (K.) On this interpretation, cf. the T'ang dynasty commentator Cheng Hsiian-ying,
on a passage immediately preceding the one translated at note 25 above.
27. Cf. above, at note 17.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 421

exhausted; Chuang-tzu alone extols procedures other than those of these

schools.

In short, to the method consisting of “Nourishing the Body”, yctng-

hsing, or “Nourishing Life”, yang-slieng, through physical procedures,
Chuang-tzu opposes a less material method which, without excluding the
foregoing (since after all the body must be made to last in order to live),
nevertheless always relegates the physical elements to the background,
and puts up front a whole series of spiritual practises, especially a labor
of spiritual concentration. It is through the spiritual procedures of
concentration, ecstasy, and mystical union with the Tao that the Adept
achieves immortality. Material practises are useful and good; the great
immortals use them: abstain from cereals and do respiratory exercises.
But the essential thing is spiritual practise. The Tao being eternal, he
who is in union with it is by that very fact eternal; by ecstasy one ascends
to the paradise of the Lord on High and “rises among the immortals”.
Hence the importance of those journeys of the spirit which Lieh-tzu and
Ch’ii Yiian especially describe. The distinction between mystical union
and immortality is not very clear-cut; basically, immortality is only a
secondary consequence of mystical union. For the Taoists, as for the
mystics of all religions, the mystical experience, by its sharpness and its
liveliness, by the impression of transcendent reality which it brings, is the
sole fact that counts; the rest is only interpretation. They simply inter-
preted their experience in Taoist terms; that is, in terms of a religion
seeking immortality.
Lao-tzu likewise is a mystic. He alludes to immortality in several
passages of the Tao-tc citing: despite the brevity of these passages, it is
clear that his position is entirely the same as Chuang-tzu’s. If the school
which claims to be Lao-tzu’s, and which Chuang-tzu and Lieh-tzu
especially represent, was little interested in the techniques of the breath
(though not entirely neglecting them), of alimentation, and so on, this is
because they prefer mystical practises.

The word “mystic” is unfortunately fashionable, we don’t know why,

and it is too often haphazardly employed. For many it is simply an
elegant or a polite synonym for “irrational”, a word which is a little too
clear and risks being offensive. Some remember that this word has a
religious meaning but of that meaning they retain only the secondary
quality of ecstasy. These uses, the one abusive, the other too narrow,
have become so usual that, in order to avoid confusion, I think it useful
here to recall the proper meaning of the word and to give a definition of
it. A mystic is a person who has what William James calls religious
 422 Taoism and Chinese Religion

experiences in the course of which he has the impression of being in

direct and immediate relation with the-Absolute, in such a fashion,
moreover, that he comprehends that Absolute. Naturally, I need not
concern myself here with knowing whether these experiences have any
objective validity. The important fact is that they are so lively and so real
that the subject believes in their objective reality: he not only “believes”,
he “knows” that they are real;“^ for him they are facts which need no
more confirmation than the experience of everyday life for an ordinary
man.-*^
Mystical experience takes various forms, but they are not many and
they are similar in all countries, in all periods, and in all religions. More
than that, these various forms follow one another in a certain order
which remains very nearly the same. It is this sequence of experiences, in
the course of which the mystic passes gradually from worldly life to the
culmination of mystical life, which Christian and Muslim theologians
have called by the same name, the Mystical Way. And all the descrip-
tions we have of it, as numerous as they are varied, leave no doubt as to
the fundamental identity that obtains throughout this diversely inter-
preted series of experiences.
All mystics, whether they are Christians, Neo-Platonists, Muslims,
Jews, Hindus, whether they are scholars or illiterates, declare that one
does not pass directly from worldly life to the end of mystical life, but
that the mind must undergo a lengthy transformation. That is the
fundamental psychological fact which, properly speaking, constitutes the
Mystical Way, aside from any explanation within a given religious
system. Those mystics who have been able to describe and analyse their
personal experiences after the fact have divided this way into several
stages. Denys the Areopagite counted five, and most of the Christian
mystics of the Middle Ages adopted his division; al-Hallaj (c. 858-922),
and after him al-Ghazzali (twelfth century) and the Sufis in general,
counted only three. By contrast. Attar (beginning of the thirteenth
century) goes to seven in his allegory of the Seven Valleys. All that is of
no great importance: these are arbitrary divisions in the ongoing succes-
28. I borrow this opposition of “believe” to “know” from a famous formula of Gilles
d’Assise, who declared that he could no longer say credo in union Deunu but had to say
cognosco union Dcuni.
29. W. James, moreover, merely took up again, while broadening it to adapt it to our
knowledge of mysticism other than Christian mysticism, the beginning of the definition of
mystical theology given by Gerson (De Mysticci Theologia Speculatio. Works, vol. in,
p. 384, 1748 edition); E.xperinientali.s cognitio liahita de Deo.... The word “experimental”
comes back constantly in Gerson’s writing, and in general among all Christian mystics, or
again in a very different world in Vivekananda, Yoga Philosophy (1905): “Experience is the
only teacher we have”.
 .4// Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 423

sion of stales of consciousness which the Way consists of', and which
seems to have been perceptibly the same whatever the lime and whatever
the religion.
The point of departure for the Way'^’’ is what is called conversion,
most frequently (but not necessarily) sudden, the first vision of the
Absolute which suffices to overturn the convert’s whole system of values.
Then begins what Plotinus and after him Denys the Areopagite call the
catharsis or purification, what the theologians of the Middle Ages called,
following him, the via purgativa, what al-Ghazzali calls the purification
of all that is not God. This is the “Valley of Seeking” in the allegory of
Attar’s Seven Valleys: it is the period which the Sufis, analysing their
impressions in detail, call “the Stations”, magetm, because in its “Way
towards God” the soul must pass successively through the Station of
Repentance, of Conversion, of Renunciation, and so on, and finally of
Mortification. The convert strives to detach himself from all desire and
all affection, to banish all worldly attachment completely.
When this task, often long and painful, has been completed, the mind
has direct and immediate vision of the Absolute in ecstasy. This is the
phase of Illumination, Denys’ photisnios, that of Altar’s “Valley of
Awareness”, the phase which al-Ghazzali describes as the period of clear
spiritual perception, of visions, of voices, and so on, and which the Sufis
call the “Stales”, hdl. In short, the mind its old equilibrium snapped by
conversion—strives to reestablish a new one. It begins by eliminating the
whole part of itself which seems to be in contradiction to the self which is
trying to lake shape. This elimination, if one judges by the results, seems
to the external spectator to consist rather in a subversion of the hierarchy
of values than in actual suppression. Direct contact with the Absolute,
which brings about the visions, the ecstasies, the raptures, all the
phenomena of the Illumination period, brings a whole fiow of notions
shooting forth within the consciousness which present themselves in a
way acceptable to the new self, so much that this reconstruction of the
self, far from being only an impoverishment, is fell rather as an
enrichment.
Such is the description that can be given of the psychological states.

30. There is no reconciliation to be made between the proper meaning of the Chinese
word tao, “way. highway, road", by which the Taoists designate the Absolute, and the word
“W'ay” used by Christian and Muslim mystics to designate the progress of psychological
transformation. For one thing, the word tao in its philosophical meanings is not peculiar to
the Taoists, but is common to all the Chinese philosophical schools (besides which, each of
them understands it in its own fashion). And even among Taoists it in no way designates
the W'ay understood in its mystical sense, but rather the point of arrival: for Taoists, union
w ith the tao is the ultimate degree of the Mystical Way.
 424 Taoism and Chinese Religion

the succession of which makes up the Mystical Way, especially according

to Christian and Muslim authors. As I have already said, its charac-
teristic quality is that, through his first experience (even if it is not
renewed), the subject, wrongly or rightly, feels in himself, with a sharp-
ness that is more or less powerful from moment to moment, the real
presence of an entity which seems to him different from himself as he
knew himself. That is the mystical experience, properly speaking: it is the
brute psychological fact, upon which the subject afterwards embroiders
his interpretations—interpretations which vary according to the period,
the circumstances, the religion. There is no reason to confuse the psycho-
logical fact with the interpretation which is given of it and which, coming
after the fact, has no necessary connection with it, but is on the contrary
necessarily related to the setting in which the subject is developing.

Taoist mysticism as it can be found described in the Chuang-tzu and

the Lieh-tzu^^ differs only in its general outlines from the schema which I
have just sketched. Our manner of knowing it differs a little from our
manner of knowing Western mysticism. Western mystics have left
autobiographies and letters behind, or perhaps their lives have been
written up by a disciple, a servant, a contemporary admirer. Taoist
masters, on the contrary, relate their mystical experiences only in
anecdotes, in which they put on stage sometimes themselves, sometimes
various personages. These anecdotes are not necessarily actual, the
personages put on stage are often fictitious, but that doesn’t matter: they
can be used for their psychological value. It is sufficient that these are
personal experiences which the authors of the works set under the names
of Lao-tzu, of Chuang-tzu, of Lieh-tzu, and that the facts are psycho-
logically true. It can be rightfully asserted that within the school of Lao-
tzu, of Chuang-tzu, of Lieh-tzu, such-and-such a phase of the Mystical

31. I have described Taoist mysticism briefly in an article entitled Le Saint et la Vie
Mystique chez Laa-tseu et Tehouang-tseu, and still more briefly in La Chine antique,
pp. 408-11 [CA, pp. 307-10], In the same work will be found, on pp. 411-19 [CA, pp.
310-16. Both references to the French are to the edition of 1955 1965. Tr.], an explanation
of the philosophical doctrines of the Lao-tzu/Chuang-tzu school, to which I refer the reader
wishing to understand the fundamental ideas of that school. My opinion has not signif-
icantly changed since that time: it is mysticism which is the pivot of Chuang-tzu’s
philosophy, so by mysticism alone can his position regarding most problems and the
solution he gives for them be explained. M. Granet's elfort (La Pensee ehinoise, pp. 501-51)
to explain it from another point of view has only confirmed me solidly in this way of .seeing
it. [The manuscript fragment on the techniques of immortality and Taoist mystical life in
Chuang-tzu’s time, from which is taken the development preceding this, must date from
1935-37, as is said above, note 1 of this chapter.]
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.D. 425

Way is known. That is all that can be asked of these anecdotes, and it is
thus that 1 have used them.
The account that Chuang-tzu gives of his own conversion, when
he was wandering in the woods, hunting, is an example of abrupt
conversion.^’
When Chuang-tzu was wandering in the Tiao-ling park, he saw a
strange bird come from the South, whose wings had a span of seven
feet and whose eyes were an inch wide. It grazed Chuang-tzu’s fore-
head (in passing) and perched in a chestnut forest. Chuang-tzu said:
“What is this bird? With wings so large not to have continued its
flight! with eyes so big not to see me!” He tucked up his robe and
ran after it.
But as, crossbow in hand, he stood watching, he saw a cicada
who, having found a charming shady corner, forgot himself; a
mantis raised its pincers and attacked it, the sight of this prey
making him forget his own body. The strange bird then seized this
occasion (to seize both of them), forgetting its nature in the act of
the moment (so that Chuang-tzu killed it). Chuang-tzu sighed:
“Alas! creatures do wrong to one another; in both these cases, they
had drawn (their misfortune) upon themselves!” And, throwing
away his crossbow, he returned from there. The gamekeeper fol-
lowed him, berating him.
Back home, Chuang Chou remained three months without going
down into his courtyard. Lan Chiu then asked him: “Master, why
have you remained so long without coming into your courtyard?”
Chuang Chou replied: “Until this day, I kept my body while for-
getting my self; I looked upon turbid water while taking it for a
clear spring. I learned from my master that in mingling with the
common, one must do as they do! Now, wandering in the Tiao-ling
park, I forgot my real self. A strange bird grazed my forehead, was
killed in a chestnut wood and forgot its nature. The forester in the
wood insulted me. That is why I have not come into my courtyard.”
Chuang-tzu had been struck by the fact that, among the actors in this
little drama, passion had momentarily caused everything else to be
forgotten, and that they had immediately suffered for it. The cicada in its
pleasure, the mantis and the strange bird in their voracity, Chuang-tzu
himself in his hunter’s passion had drawn upon themselves evils which

32. CT, section 20; Legge, ii, 39-41. Kawakatsu (note 276) points out an alternative
reading for “do as they do” which somewhat alters the meaning of the last part of the
translated passage.
 426 Taoism and Chinese Religion

they could have avoided. Back home, he meditates. Until then he has,
“kept his body while forgetting his self”, that is, he has practised the
procedures of Nurturing the Body without looking after his moral self,
without Nurturing his Spirit. Suddenly he has understood; one moment
of forgetfulness makes the body perish, despite all the precautions taken
beforehand; and the passions are the cause of that moment of forgetful-
ness. By detaching himself from his passions, he will find the clear spring
for which he took that muddy water. But it took him three months of
concentration to get to this point, and for that reason he has not gone
out of his house, even to go into his courtyard.
After conversion comes the via purgativa, the period of purification
which Chuang-tzu calls the Fasting of the Heart, hsin-chai, the spiritual
fast as distinguished from the ritual fast which precedes sacrifices.
Chuang-tzu gives a definition of it, within which is found a whole
summary of mystical purification. This purification is followed by a
period of ecstasies, which lead to the Great Mystery, ta-miao, that is, to
union with the Absolute, with the Tao. It is then that the “journeys”, yz/,
take place, the great joy of Chuang-tzu and the Taoist mystics, those
voyages into the Infinite hymned by the greatest poet of the time, Ch’ii
Yiian, several of whose poems I have quoted above.
At the final end of the Taoist mystical life. Union with the Tao confers
Immortality upon the Saint. He remains distinct from the Tao; it is only
a question of a re-entry by a differentiated individual into the undiffer-
entiated Tao. But to what degree, united to the impersonal Tao, sharing
its nature, can he keep his personality? The texts do not say and it would
be dangerous to infer it logically; our logic is far from that of the Taoists.
From what destiny does he escape by this immortality? Not to what the
common people call death, which does not exist, but to Transformation,
hua. “The Unknowable is without form; the Transformations are with-
out definition”, says Chuang-tzu. The Transformations are all the
creatures and all the things which the Unknowable—that is, the Tao—
creates and transforms perpetually.

Such was the mystical life of the Taoists as it was practised in the
school of Chuang-tzu towards the year 300 B.C. China is geographically
far distant from the Western world; it was even farther away in that time
of difficult communications. But spiritually it was near enough, and the
lengthy efforts of personal religious sentiment to express itself in ancient
China were quite often like those of the West. The same experiences led
to apprehending the divine directly; and the Taoist mystics hardly differ
from Christian and Muslim mystics except in the explanations they give
for identical experiences.
 An Essay on Taoism in the First Centuries A.I). 427

B. TAOISM UNDER THE CH’IN AND THE HAN

Lillie is known aboul ihe Taoism of Ch'in Sliih-huang-li's lime, in ihe

second half of ihe Ihird cenliiry B.C., some tifly years afler Ihe period
when several disciples of Chuang-lzii assembled Ihe Lieh-tzu: bul lhal
lillle is inleresling because in il Ihe framework of Taoism for ihc
following period can already be seen in general oullinc. The Taoisls of
lhal lime devoled ihemselvcs lo ihe praclises by which one becomes
ImmoiTal, hsieu-tao, and knew how lo make “Ihe body dissolve and
change" by invoking ihe spirils:'^'"^ lhal is, excepl for Ihe word, ihe Ihcory
of ihe Deliverance of ihe Corpse, sitilt-chielt, which I have described
above,as ihe commenlalors lo ihe Clt'ien Hun slut recognized very
well."''' Searches for Ihe Isles of Ihe ImmoiTals in Ihe Eastern Sea must
also be menlioned; for il seems that a number of expeditions were
actually sent to sea in the course of the third century B.C.

By the time of the Former Han (second and first centuries B.C.), the
general lines of Taoist asceticism leading to immortality were well
established. Almost all of the practises were already in use; the tech-
niques might develop, hardly anything new would be created. Li Shao-
chiin, the alchemist of Emperor Wu's time who died in 133 B.C., is, in the
portrait left behind by his contemporary Ssu-ma Ch'ien, the complete
classic Taoist Adept: he abstains from cereals, escapes old age, knows the
procedure for not dying, and transmutes cinnabar: when he dies, he is
said lo have been transformed and, upon opening his tomb several years
later, no remnant of the corpse is found, only his cap and his gown
remain; that is to say, he has obtained the Deliverance of the Corpse,
which Ssu-ma Ch’ien describes precisely, although he himself does not
use the term.^^ By that time the triple career of the Taoist after
initiation—good works, contemplation, and finally alchemy—seems to
have been established. The biography which Ssu-ma Ch’ien gives of
Chang Liang^^ (died in 187 B.C.), one of the officers of Han Kao-lsu, is
already the biography-type of the Taoist Immortal, excepl that Chang
Liang did not succeed. Everything is found in it: there is the meeting with
the Immortal who initiates him by giving him a book; later, at the end of
his life, he wishes lo renounce the affairs of the world: “He wished to

33. S/ii/i chi iShC), ch. 28; tr. Chavannes, iii, 436.
34. See above, introductory section to Chapter 1, this Book.
35. CHS. ch. 25A, 5a.
36. She. ch. 28; Chavannes, iii, 463 64; CHS. ch. 25A, 8U.
37. She. ch. 55; cf. CHS. ch. 40. The empress Lit made Chang Liang give up these
practises after some years.
 428 Taoism and Chinese Religion

imitate the voyages of Ch’ih-sung-tzu”/^ and to that end “he studied the
doctrine of renouncing cereals”, and he practised “gymnastics, tao-yin,
to lighten his body”.^^
Chang Liang’s biography is partly legendary (in it his encounter with a
sea god is recounted);**^ it conforms to the schema of Taoist hagio-
graphy, since it was patterned on that schema, at least in the part which
deals with putting Taoist doctrines into practise. Thus, by the beginning
of the second century B.C., about a hundred years after Chuang-tzu, the
type of the Taoist life is fully established. And the central worship of
later Taoism, that of the divinity who became the particular god of the
Yellow Turbans in the second century A.D., Huang-lao-chiin, is also set
up. In the first years of the second century B.C., Ts’ao Ts’an (one of the
companions of Kao-tsu, founder of the Han dynasty), when he was
entrusted with governing the kingdom of Ch’i in the name of king T’ai-
hui, Kao-tsu’s eldest son (he was minister of Ch’i from 201 to 193), first
consulted numerous scholars on the art of government; these having
given him contradictory responses, he addressed himself to Sire Ko of
Chiao-hsi, who “excelled in putting the sayings of Huang-lao into
practise”. This master taught him to “cultivate the Tao by honoring
purity and calm” and, converted by him, Ts’ao Ts’an followed “Huang-
lao’s procedures” in his way of administration.*^^ In about the same time,
T’ien Shu established the practises of Huang-lao in Chao.*^^ Empress
T’ou, Emperor Wu’s grandmother, who died in 133 B.C., was likewise
interested in the practises of Huang-lao.**^ The father of the historian
Pan Ku, Pan Piao, who lived from 3 to 54 A.D., blamed Ssu-ma Ch’ien
(died in about 90 B.C.) for having honored Huang-lao more than the Five
Classics.

38. Ch'ih-sung-tzu had already been Ch'ii Yiian’s guide in his voyages (Yuan-yu, 12th
distich), and it is not impossible that there was, on Ssu-ma Ch’ien’s part, an allusion to this
famous poem of his day; but I think rather that, at the distance of a century, the author of
the Yikm-yu and Chang Liang had drawn from the same Taoist tradition, and that the
expression relates actually to the exercises of spiritual voyages themselves, and to the way
in which they are named.
39. She, ch. 55, 5/?; CHS, ch. 40, 5a, reproduces this passage from it, omitting abstention
from cereals.
40. Kawakatsu (note 284) observes that the name in Chang’s biography which Maspero
takes as that of a sea god is otherwise understood by most commentators.
41. She, eh. 54, 3a; CHS, ch. 39, 5a.
42. She, ch. 104, la; CHS, ch. 37, 2h.
43. She, ch. 28, 9a; Chavannes, MH, iii, 462. [The translation has been amended here in
the light of Kawakatsu notes.]
44. HHS, ch. 70, 2a; Chavannes, MH, i. Introduction, ccxli.
 A/2 Essay on Taoisni in the First Centuries A.I). 429

Under the Later Han, in the middle of the first century A.D., the future
emperor Ming, still crown prince, advising his father the emperor
Kuang-wu, who was worn out with work, to take a little rest, said to
him: “Your Majesty possesses the glory of Yii and T’ang, but has lost
the happiness (which is obtained by the procedure) of Huang-lao for
Nourishing the Vital Principle. Today when the world is in perl'ect calm,
lessen your worries, nourish your Essence and your Spirit, yan^ cliing-
shenC'^^
Taoism was very widespread in all spheres at that time. At court, the
emperor Kuang-wu (25-57 A.D.) had two Taoist counselors by his side.
In the provinces, the whole East of China was imbued with Taoism to
the point where two brothers of the emperor Ming (58-75 A.D.), the
kings of Ch'i and of Ch’u, were finally converted and practised Taoism
openly, summoning to their courts tao-shih or, as they were also called,
magicians, /d/?g-.v/7/7/, and submitting to their guidance. One of these, Liu
Tzu-clTan, surnamed Ch’un-ying, played an important role in the two
royal courts. He was among those magicians whom king An of Chi-nan
(who died in 97 A.D.), had invited from all corners of the Empire. He was
the instructor of Liu Ying, king of Ch'u, whom he required, as an ordeal,
to “eat filthy things", shih-pu-ch'itig. This king of Ch'u “loved the words
of Huang-lao", and gave himself over to a Taoism tinged with Bud-
dhism. It was a religion which called for ceremonies; he engaged in three-
month fasts, probably abstinences prefatory to ceremonies, and it was in
the course of one of these fasts that Liu Tzu-ch’an made him eat
garbage. He had made a sworn pact with the gods. Later, after 65 A.D.,
his religious zeal grew even more, and there is mention of talismans,
golden tortoises and jade cranes engraved with characters.
Several passages in the History of the Later Han show us the way in
which, during the first century A.D., the Taoist life was understood in
literary circles. Fan Jui, father of Fan Chun (died in 93 A.D.), who “loved
the words of Huang-lao", devoted himself to “purification and the
diminution of desires".*^" The same is said of Jen Wei, marquis of E-ling,
son of Jen Kuang (died in 25 A.D.), who from his youth “loved Huang-
lao": that did not prevent him from going to court when he was invited
by the emperor Ming (58-75) or from accepting various official posi-
tions; but he used all his salary for the care of orphans and the poor.*^^
This scorn of wealth is found again in Cheng Chiin, who renounced his
45. Tung knan Han-chi, ch. 1, ]la: HHS, cli. I B, 10/>.
46. (K.) HHS 72, biographies of Liu Ying and Liu K’ang.
47. HHS, c/i. 62, ?>a.
48. HHS, ch. 51, 16.
 4M) Taoism and Chinese Religion

father's fortune and gave it over to his nephews/*^ Some refused to

beeome officials, as Shun-yii Kung did;^^ some finally withdrew into
grottoes, Chiao Shen for example.'*'’
A non-Taoist writer of this period, Wang Ch’ung, precisely describes
exercises to which Taoists of his day devoted themselves: they “consume
the essence of gold and of jade, so that their bodies are light and they
become Immortals";^- they “abstain from cereals”;^^ they “by Guiding
the Breath and Nurturing the Vital Principle, attain Deliverance and do
not die”.^"’ He speaks of the Deliverance of the Corpse, the true nature
of which makes him wonder;*'^ and certain details which he gives show
that the technique of breath circulation was set by his time: “(the
Taoists) think that, if the vessels which are in the body are not in
movement, dilating and contracting, there is interruption of communi-
cation, from which comes illness and death.”

Taoism was so widespread in all classes of Chinese society in the

second century A.D. that the sudden expansion of the Yellow Turbans
sect seems to me to have been due less to the conversion of non-Taoist
outsiders than to the attraction which the new sect exerted upon
numerous Taoists. The Three Chang brought in those particular cere-
monies of which I have spoken, and they also provided a constitution in
a hierarchically organized church; but all in all their ideas do not seem to
have differed from those of other Taoist groups. It must have been only
gradually that some of their innovations altered the fundamental ideas of
ancient Taoism. They were probably not the first to introduce organiza-
tion and ceremonies along these lines, but they were certainly the ones
who succeeded best and on the broadest scale, and they have caused their
predecessors, if there were any, to be forgotten.

49. HHS, c/i. 57, 6/7.

50. HHS. ch. 69, 3/7.
51. HHS.ch. 113, 6«.
52. Wang Ch'ung, LH. ch. 7, 2h\ tr. Forke, i, 339.
53. LH, ch. 7, 4/7; Forke, i, 347.
54. LH. ch. 7, Forke, 1, 348.
55. LH, ch. 7, 4^/; Forke, 1, 345.
56. LH. ch. 7, 5^/; Forke, 1, 348.
 BOOK VIII

How To Communicate with

the Taoist Gods
l»

%
Of the three religions which vied for control of the Chinese spirit during
the first ten centuries of the Christian era — Confucianism, Buddhism,
Taoism—the last is the least known. Dazzled by the genius of the great
Taoist philosophers of antiquity, Lao-tzu and Chuang-tzu, Chinese and
Europeans have seen in the religion of the ensuing epochs only a corrupt
and degenerate descendant of the ancient masters’ doctrine. The fact is
quite otherwise. In the centuries when the antique religion finally died
out, just before and after the turn of the Christian era, Taoism was the
specifically Chinese solution to the great problems of religious morality
and metaphysics which agitated men’s minds in all countries once the old
social primitive religions had ceased to be sufficient for them, so that
they felt the need for personal religions.
Taoism is indeed a salvation religion. That is, like Buddhism, Islam,
and Christianity, it sought to guide its believers, beyond this transitory
life, to a happy eternity. But Taoists did not conceive of that immortal
Life they wished to attain as a survival in spirit, like the destiny of an
immaterial soul continuing the human personality after death. For them
it was the survival of the material body, of our mortal body, which by
appropriate means escaped death and was transformed into an immortal
body with bones of gold and flesh of Jade.
Such a belief could not spread and be generally accepted without some
interpretation of precisely how death could be escaped. It was too easy to
see that even the most fervent Taoists died as other men did. The
accepted interpretation was that in order not to cause trouble in society,
where death is a normal event, the Adepts who had become immortal
suffered an apparent death. They made a semblance of dying and were
buried, but in reality they had replaced their own bodies with some
object which took on their shape, ordinarily a sword or a cane, and they
were gone to the paradise of the immortals.

Communication to the Institut de France, Academic des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 19

November 1937.
 434 Taoism am/ Chinese Religion

To make the body immortal was no simple thing. One had to submit
oneself to a series of exercises of all sorts, each of them more onerous
and complicated than the last. The most important of these consisted of
replacing common food, especially cereals, with what was called “feeding
upon breath” and, when this had been achieved, swallowing cinnabar.
For the Taoists the world was made of breaths which had in various
degrees undergone a modification, expressed by the Chinese with the
words “to entwine” and “to coagulate”, with the result that they were
materialized more and more. At the beginning. Breaths were mixed
together, and that was Chaos. Little by little they separated into nine
distinct breaths. The gods and the universe emerged almost simul-
taneously from Chaos, though the gods—despite a slight seniority—had
nothing to do with creation. “The Divine King of the Nine Heavens and
the Heavenly King of the Original Beginning were born before the
beginning breath. (At that time) light did not yet shine. Chaos was the
great void. At the end of 7,000 ages and more, light and darkness
separated from one another. The nine breaths existed: each was 99,999
years distant from the others. The pure breaths ascended on high, the
impure breaths spread out below. The Divine King of the Nine Heavens
and the Heavenly King of the Original Beginning were produced spon-
taneously, born from amidst the breaths which entwined and took their
shape. The nine breaths mysteriously coagulated and completed the
scheme of the nine heavens; the sun, the moon, the planets, and the
constellations shone”.
Thereafter other gods and goddesses were born. Each of them built
himself a palace, and in each of the palaces were established divine oflfices
and bureaus where the gods and immortal officials worked. Even in the
divine world, the Chinese could conceive of no felicity greater than being
an official. These divine officials are legion. The first Heavenly Palace, the
Palace of Purple Eragility, has in itself 55,555 myriads of levels making so
many bureaus, and in each of them are 55,555 myriads of divine officials,
all made up of breaths, all spontaneously born, all clad in winged
garments of green feathers. And there are many palaces in the eighty-one
levels of the heavens! All are full of gods, though as these descend in the
divine hierarchy they are made of less subtle breaths.
Thus the gods and the material world alike are made of breaths. But
what has been neither entwined nor coagulated continues to circulate in
the world to vivify it; that is what the Taoist Adept must seize to feed
upon. When the common man, by eating cereals, daily replaces the
matter of his body with a coarser matter, the Taoist, by contrast, feeding
upon breath, replaces it with a matter which is purer and purer. When
this replacement is complete, the body becomes light, it ascends to
 IIow to Coniniunicatc with the Taoist (iods 435

heaven and becomes immortal. Immortality is achieved by absorbing

elements which make one indestructible; jade, gold, cinnabar. But first of
all spirits and gods must be prevented from leaving the body, their
departure being a cause of death.
These gods inside the body are extremely numerous. One Taoist book
counts 36,000 of them. Fortunately it does not enumerate them all. The
Sacred Books cite several hundred whose appearance, stature, and dress
they describe and whose names and surnames they give. Every part of
the body has its god or gods—head, trunk, limbs, internal and external
organs. The two eyes and the two ears each have their gods, and so
within the mouth do the tongue and the teeth and, on the head, the hair.
In the brain there are nine palaces full of gods large and small. The chief
of the gods within the body is the Great One; it is he who coordinates or
rather unifies (as his name indicates) the separate efforts and wills of all
these transcendent beings.
But all these gods inside the body are without exception the gods of
the exterior world: gods of the heavens, of the earth, of the constella-
tions, of the mountains, of the rivers, and so on. The Taoists considered
that the human body and the world are constructed exactly alike. This is
the universally current theory of the macrocosm and the microcosm; but
for the Taoists it is not a simple symbolism, it is reality itself. The round
head is the vault of heaven, the rectangular feet are the square earth;
mount K'un-lun which holds up Fleaven is the skull; the sun and the
moon, which are attached to it and turn around it, are respectively the
left eye and the right. The veins are the rivers, the bladder is the ocean,
the hair of the head and that of the body are the stars and the planets,
the grindings of the teeth are the rolling of thunder. And all the gods of
the sun, the moon, the rivers, the seas, the thunder, are found again in
the human body. How are they in the world and in every man’s body at
the same time? This is a question which the Taoists seem to have asked
themselves only quite late, and then they borrowed from the Buddhists
the power of “dividing the body”, which the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas
had, and bestowed this on their own gods. The men of old were satisfied
to accept the fact without considering it any further. The gods go, come,
leave the body and re-enter it, communicating by messengers from
outside to within it and messengers from within to outside it, without
anybody’s apparently thinking to ask what these goings and comings
which are described in detail correspond to.
“Above the gap between the two eyebrows, inside the forehead, there
are at the right the Yellow Portico, at the left the Scarlet Terrace which
are arranged to guard the space of an inch (the entrance hall of the nine
palaces within the skull). The great gods of the nine palaces, when they
 436 Taoism and Chinese Religion

enter and leave, all take the gap between the Yellow Portico and the
Scarlet Terrace as their route. The gods who guard the Terrace and the
Portico allow the divine officials of the nine palaces (inside the skull) to
go in and out, as well as those who carry the orders of the Lord on High,
the Jade Youths and the imperial chariots which come and go. But the
two great gods do not allow anyone else to pass. (When a messenger
appears) the god of the Heart gives responsibility to the gods of the two
ears to let him in. These strike gongs and bells to warn the deputies of
the nine palaces, so that they know he has entered and they prepare
themselves respectfully (to receive him). These gongs and bells men hear
as a humming in the ears; when one hears his ears singing, this is because
they are admitting messengers from outside. Then one must place the
hands over the ears to block them and must say this prayer:

Divine Child who is in the Scarlet Palace (the heart),

And you, nine immortals who are in the chambers (of the head).
If it is a divine order, let him enter.
But may the ill-omened be judged for ever!
And may the liquid fire of the Great One
Destroy the ten thousand evil ones!
“When the prayer is finished, the opening of the ears is struck with the
hands in two rolls of seven beats each. If at that moment one has a
sensation of warmth in the face, that is a good sign; if on the other hand
one feels cold between the forehead and the nape of the neck, that is a
sign that an evil breath has entered. In that case one must hasten to lie
down, close the eyes and address the Great One, so that with his little
bell of liquid fire he drives away the evil breaths which have managed to
enter.”
Here is the description of this Great One, chief of all the gods in the
body, which will show you how the Taoists imagined their divinities:
“(Within the head) in the Palace of Mysterious Cinnabar is Lord Great
One, who has the appearance of an infant at the moment when it has just
been born. He is seated on a golden throne, in a jade veil; he is dressed in
a garment of silk with purple embroideries. From his belt is suspended a
little bell of liquid fire: the bell of liquid fire is without substance, it is
nothing but a red light; when it is shaken, the sound is heard at a
distance of ten thousand // ”
These gods, whether they are inside or outside the body, govern
neither the body nor the world. The Taoists believe, as the Chinese
always did, that the world governs itself perfectly all by itself, and that
there is no need for the gods to intervene. Heaven produces beings and
things. Earth nourishes them, the four seasons succeed one another
 How to Communicate with the Taoist Gods 437

regularly, the live elements replace one another by triumphing one over
the other in an unending cycle, the yin and the yany, succeed one another.
All things go very well by themselves. If somebody ventures to wish to
control them, everything goes awry, as Chuang-tzu explained already in
the third century B.C. If catastrophes sometimes come, it is the fault of
men. Man can act well or badly, that is, in conformity to Heaven or not
in conformity to it. In the latter case, this kind of revolt reacts upon the
general system of the world, and that is what causes cataclysms, eclipses,
earthquakes, fires, floods, and so on. Thus the gods, the saints, the great
immortals, who would have the power to govern the world, let it run so
as not to disturb its mechanism. Their role is quite different. All of them,
from the greatest to the smallest, are instructors; and what they teach are
the procedures of salvation, not doctrines or beliefs, but physiological,
medical, or alchemical recipes which make the body immortal, or moral
recipes which prepare the faithful and make them worthy of receiving
those recipes.
When Chaos was broken up by the separation and coagulation of the
breaths, not only were the world and the gods produced spontaneously,
but also the Sacred Books. These were formed of the purest breaths in
characters ten feet high. Only the firstborn of the gods, the Celestial
Venerable of the Original Beginning, is pure enough to read this primor-
dial edition of the Taoist Books, hovering above them. Any other being
who might inadvertently pass above these sacred characters would feel
his body dissolving and the breaths he is made of disentwining and going
off into vapor. The Celestial Venerable recited these books to the highest
gods, and these in turn wrote them in characters of gold on sheets of
jade; they explained them to the gods below them, and thus from level to
level each class of gods and immortals received knowledge of the sacred
books and the procedures of salvation, a knowledge that lessened with
each level, proportionately as the power to understand the mysteries
diminished. From time to time, the gods taught them to men, choosing
for this the most deserving of the faithful, those who are worthy to write
their name in the register of immortals. As a matter of fact, it would not
do to have a revelation made, once and for all, of all the sacred books
and all the procedures of salvation (at least of those which are within the
scope of human intelligence). For it is not enough to know the best
recipes, one must also know the way to use them. A certain celebrated
Taoist is said to have known the method of fabricating gold, but he
never managed to do it for want of having encountered a master who
would teach him how to implement the method.
At the beginning of the career which leads to immortality, the believer
makes himself worthy of receiving the teaching of the gods by his good
 43H Taoism and Chinese Religion

deeds. You must, says a fourth century alchemist, have performed 1,200
good deeds to be able to become immortal; and any evil deed interrupts
the series and requires starting again at the beginning, even if 1,199 had
been reached. Taoist good deeds do not differ from those of other
religions: to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, care for the sick, and so
on. The Tzu-yang chen-jeu nei-chuaiu a fourth century work which
recounts the life of the imaginary immortal Chou Yi-shan, describes this
period in Taoist religious life very well. “On the first of each month he
went to wander in the marketplace, in the roads and in the squares, and
when he saw the poor and hungry, he took off his clothing and gave it to
them One year there was a great drought and famine at Ch'en-liu: the
price of a bushel of rice rose to 1,000 cash; the roads were covered with
the starving. He spent his fortune, he used up his property to help them
in their distress; and he did this secretly, in such a way that people would
not even know that these generous gifts came from him." He was re-
warded for his virtue by the apparition of an immortal. “Huang T’ai
lived at Ch’en-liu then. He had neither wife, nor children, nor relatives,
and nobody knew where he had come from; he was always dressed in
patched garments, and sold old shoes. Chou Yi-shan saw him while
crossing the marketplace, and found his clothing extraordinary. He said
to himself: ‘I have heard that the eyes of immortals have square pupils.’
And it was thus with Huang T’ai. Very happy, he bought shoes from him
several times. In the end, Huang T’ai went to his house and said to him:
d have heard that you love the Tao; that is why I have come to see you. I
am the Immortal of the Central Peak, Su Lin ’ Chou Yi-shan asked
him to teach him how to become immortal.’’ Thus at this beginning
stage, it is the immortals and gods who seek out the faithful who are still
ignorant and themselves initiate communication with men so as to direct
them.
But when they are farther advanced along the road of Immortality, the
faithful know that they must not wait for somebody to come and seek
them out, and that it is for them to go in search of the gods. Some search
for them across the world, in the mountains, and even into the palaces of
heaven. It is a long and tedious method, and so useless! It is within
themselves that they ought to search. This Chou Yi-shan of whom I have
just spoken had spent many years traveling the world in search of the
Triad of the highest gods, climbing mountains and exploring grottoes. In
the end he discovered them and greeted them by prostrating himself
before them. Then, having greeted them, “he closed his eyes to look
within himself; then he saw that for a long time these three great gods
had actually been in his head.’’ One of them broke out laughing and
cried out: “O wonderful! It is meditation you ought to practise!’’
 Uow' to Conummicatc w ith the '/hoist Gods 439

It is indeed in meditation that, by becoming used to seeing the inside

of one's body and wandering about there in thought, one manages to
enter into communication with the gods. That is what is called Interior
Vision. Settle in a calm, secluded place, sit or lie down, close the eyes so
as to efface exterior vision and, after several exercises, you will succeed in
seeing the interior of the body, the five viscera, twelve veins and all the
organs, the blood which circulates and the breath which runs through
them. Turned towards the interior, the eyes, which arc the sun and the
moon, illuminate its darkness, and if they are not enough, there are
formulas to make the sun and the moon come down from heaven and
make them enter the body so as to light it up.
Internal Vision is Taoist meditation and ecstasy. But if you do not
wish to content yourself with the vision of the material body (certainly
useful for curing diseases, though insufficient for attaining immortality),
if you wish to see the gods who live in the body, that demands a long
preparation, for you must expel from the mind (from the heart, as the
Chinese say) all external preoccupations. The mind must first be cleansed
so that it will not be untidy, purified so that it will not be impure,
rectified so that it will not be evil. With the mind thus set right, it must
get accustomed to meditation so that external things do not disturb it
and must be held firmly fixed so that it does not agitate itself. Then it has
only to be emptied of all content to obtain interior vision. If the Adept,
going farther, can eliminate even the awareness of the mind itself, he will
attain the supreme level, and the Tao will come to dwell in him.
But in order to enter into relation with the gods, you need not
“eliminate the heart", as the Chinese say; it is enough to empty it. To
empty the heart is to enter into meditation; and when the Adept has
entered into meditation, he may see transcendent beings at will. But he
must take care: if the heart is not calmed, if thought is agitated, it is evil
spirits, wicked and ill-omened beings, that will be seen. It is only when
the heart is perfectly calm and empty and when, in the course of
meditation, old thoughts do not reappear nor new thoughts arise, that
you see the gods. These are inferior gods to begin with: they help the
Adept with their advice and give him their recipes, so that he progresses
on the long and painful path to Immortality and, little by little, with
time, he will come to see the highest gods.
The believer who has acquired “Interior Vision” no longer addresses
the gods without first paying them a visit w'ithin himself. To begin with,
this is more polite towards them: it is taking the trouble to go out of
one’s way, to go and see them, rather than merely sending them a letter.
It is also safer than an ordinary prayer: the believer sees the god and
addresses him directly; he is sure that the request has reached the god.
 440 Taoism and Chinese Religion

The procedure is so simple for those who know how to perform it that it
is used at every turn. It is not only to ask the gods for an opinion or help
in the practise of exercises or for revelations of new procedures that one
approaches them. The gods may be importuned over the slightest
difficulty: in case of illness, to drive away the evil spirits or malign
influences which cause it; or even without illness, simply to keep them
within the body and prevent them from going away. Taoist books are
full of formulae for addressing the gods when one is to visit them. For
example, the yellow-clad god who dwells in the Yellow Chamber in the
middle of the chest above the heart is one of the most important
divinities in the middle portion of the body, controlling the three
superior souls and the seven lower souls. To be assured that he does
indeed remain at his post, one must close the eyes every day at dusk, to
observe him by interior vision and, after having twice ground the teeth
seven times, to say this prayer:

Perfect Man in the center of the Yellow Chamber,

Yellow Essence with long gown.
Breath in the flow of Harmonious Reality,
Permeate my whole body!
Call my higher souls {him), rule my lower souls {p'o)\
Make me live eternally!
Even if you are drawn to the right or pushed to the left,
O yellow transcendent, remain concealed in my body!

By virtue of visiting his gods for all purposes, the Taoist comes to be
extremely familiar with them. Not that he ceases to address them in
respectful formulae, but they no longer have any mystery for him. If he
is sufficiently informed, he knows their names and where they come
from, he knows where they live, he even knows where they wander for
pleasure, he knows how they are dressed and how their hair is done, he
knows exactly what their power is and what he can learn from each of
them. He never has any difficulty getting in touch with them and
consulting them about anything at all. He knows them too well to have
overmuch respect for them. He knows that, despite all their knowledge
and their power, they can quite easily be frightened. The story is told
that after an old man dislocated his jaw in a fall, his teeth began to
chatter and grind constantly, day and night, waking and sleeping. But
the grinding of teeth are in the body what peals of thunder are in heaven,
and thunder being the weapon with which the Lord on High punishes
guilty spirits and destroys them, it is the terror of gods and spirits. So the
gods inside this old fellow dared not emerge, terrified by the thunder of
these teeth chattering constantly. The fixed end of his life was reached.
 How to Communicate with the Taoist Gods 441

but he did not die, since the gods could not leave his body. In vain the
Director of Destiny sent messenger after messenger to order them to
leave; the messengers coming near this man also recoiled before the
clashing of this thunder. Years and centuries passed and he did not die.
In the end he considered himself immortal. But, going out one winter
day, he was so gripped by the cold that for a moment his teeth ceased to
grind. The gods, no longer stopped by the thunder, immediately seized
the opportunity to flee his body, and he died on the spot.
Too great a familiarity with the gods was certainly one cause for the
decadence of Taoism. To start with, that familiarity debased the level of
the religion, by discouraging all intellectual effort and all philosophical
discussion. What was the good of painstakingly seeking to elucidate
difficulties by reasoning? It is a waste of time: better to labor zealously
over physiological procedures or spiritual exercises which, through the
progress they helped you make, brought you close to the moment when
you could consult the greatest gods and learn from them the true
solution of the problems which concerned you. But above all, that
familiarity gradually alienated from Taoism all those whose conception
of the divine world was not satisfied by these too-well-known gods: such
people turned to Buddhism, which offered them broader perspectives,
and later to Confucianism, which—after its renewal in the twelfth
century—offered them a more philosophical representation of the world.
In these later centuries, the Taoist divine world became, even in the eyes
of the Chinese themselves, a bit ridiculous. And today, even though cer-
tain Taoist ideas still hold a great place in the Chinese mind, which they
contributed to shaping, one can say that if this religion still has temples
and monks it has hardly any believers. In their extreme desire for
immediate relations with their gods, the Taoist masters of the first
centuries A.D. lowered the barriers between the human world and the
divine world too far. They made communication too easy: they set the
gods much too close to man.
 I

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 BOOK IX

Methods of “Nourishing
the Vital Prineip/e”
in the Aneient Taoist Religion
■<rnV/,'.'»n>V' VS' '(•WiAvjVi,
iuiVA WilV l
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 Introduction
One of the most curious characteristics of Taoist religion^ is its constant
and intimate intermingling of practises of a very absorbing public and
private worship—mystical practises seeking concentration and ecstasy,
and practises of moral life, almsgiving, teaching and so on—with
practises which (as even Taoists admit) have only a physiological value
and interest: regimens of diet, sexual intercourse, breathing exercise,
general gymnastics, and so on. To be sure, other religions also have their
dietary practises, as well as sexual taboos or indulgences. But in other
religions these practises always have a religious character which Taoism
never gives them, although it attributes great importance to them and
even makes the scrupulous observance of them an absolute condition for
salvation.
This peculiarity relates to the Taoists’ very conception of salvation.
For them salvation consists in obtaining Eternal Life or, to translate the
Chinese expression literally,^ Long Life, ch’ang-slieng, which they under-
stand as a material immortality of the body itself. Naturally this does not

Reprinted from Journal asiatique, April-June and July-September 1937.

1. The collection of Taoist Books, Tao-tsang (TT), first printed in 1506-21 [but see
foreword, p. xxxii], was reprinted in a photographic reproduction by the Commercial Press,
Shanghai, in 1924. It is to this republication, the only one which is easily accessible today,
that all my references are made, except for the Chuang-tzu {CT, edited by Wang Hsien-
ch’ien), the Pao-p'u-tzu (PPT, the PCKTS edition), and the Yun-chi ch'i-ch'ien (YCCC,
edited by Chang Hsiian, seventeenth century, and reproduced in SPTK, Commercial Press,
Shanghai, 1922). To facilitate research, I have added the number given to each work in
Wieger, Lc Canon tao'iste (Ho-chien-fu, 1911) under the abbreviated form; Wieger,...
[Thus a standard form of reference is TT, 13; Wieger, 2, meaning "Tao-tsung, fascicle 13;
Wieger, number 2.”]
2. Like all religions, Taoism has its own vocabulary of special terms, some of them
invented for its use, others borrowed from the ordinary language and diverted from their
regular meaning to a special one, often far removed from the common usage. Naturally,
my translation of these terms reflects, or at least endeavors to reflect, this technical
meaning.
 446 Taoism and Chinese Religion

mean that the Taoist religion claims to instruct all the faithful in the
means of avoiding death entirely: not to die, in the strict sense, is the
privilege of only a few of the most eminent saints. For ordinary believers,
salvation consists in the fact that the apparent death of the body is
followed by a material resurrection into an immortal body: this is what is
called the Deliverance of the Corpse,^ sliili-cliieh. “The people of the
world have little virtue, their accomplishment of virtuous acts is not
complete; (but) though they cannot tly away in the flesh, they can free
themselves from the Corpse and be saved.”
But this immortal body is not born spontaneously, nor is it bestowed
by the gods. This latter idea, certainly the simplest, came to the Taoists
only later, when they thought up the Refining of Souls, lieu-hwu through
which the dead person received a new and immortal body; but this was
only an expedient for them, designed to enable the faithful, by their
prayers and by appropriate ceremonies, to save their deceased ancestors.
They never thought of making it the normal way of salvation, even
though they did allow the extension of the ceremony to the living, as well
as the possibility that in certain conditions they might thus assure
themselves of immortality through the rites which served normally to
give it to the dead.
It must be remembered that the development of Taoist ideas regarding
the salvation of the common faithful (the “people of the world”, shih-jen,
who do not give themselves over to the intensive religious life of the
Taoist adepts, tao-sliifi^) was soon interrupted by the massive invasion of

3. [Prof. K. M. Schipper notes that the deliverance “from” or “of” the corpse can also
be understood as deliverance “by” it. Tr.] “Among the methods of Deliverance of the
Corpse, there is that one which consists of dying and being resuscitated, i7/-.v.s7/ erh keng
sheng-cho, # [ft] ^T. ^ -" Pao-chien sliang clung (Book of the Precious Sword) in T'ai-
p'ing yii-lan (TPYL), ch. 764, Sa.
This is the procedure of “Refining in the Hells,” (a yin lien, of which the Pen-
hsiung dung speaks; Refining by Water or by Fire, shui hiio lien, which began with a
drowning or a cremation, was also of this kind (ibid., Yihin-sliih wu-liang tu-jen shang-p'in
nuao-ching ssu-chu, YlVTSAfS, ch. 1, 246, TT, 38). In other procedures the believer does
not die; it is an object (particularly a sword or a bamboo cane) prepared in accordance with
certain rituals which takes on the appearance of his corpse and takes its place for burial,
while he himself goes aw'ay. —1 have adopted the everyday pronunciation of the character
chiai, which is that given for this character in fan-ch’ieh characters by the Yiian-shih wu-
liang tu-jen shang-p'in nuao-ching chih-yin, YWTSMC (TT, 13; Wieger, 2), b/; chia nuii
c/i’ieli, The Yiian-shih nu-liang tu-jen shang-p'in miao-ching ssu-chu shih-yin,
YWTSMSS (TT, 39), b/, gives a special pronunciation, chia, g'.
4. Li Shao-wei, in YWTSMS, ch. 1, lAh(TT, 38).
5. Commentary of Hsieh Yu-ch'i (doctor in k’ai-yiian, 713-49, cf. LCTT, ch. 39, 106 (TT,
146; Wieger, 293); the preface of his commentary is dated chia-wu (without the nien-
hao = 754), YWTSMS, ch. \ ,2Aa(TT, 38).
 Methods of “Nourishiim the Vita/ Principle" 447

Buddhist ideas. The theory of sueeessive lives, by envisioning salvation

by degrees over a series ofexistenees, spared them the trouble of devising
a special procedure of salvation for ordinary believers. It was sulhcient to
accept the idea that these believers, having spent more or less time
progressing within the religious life, would someday themselves also
attain such a degree of advancement that they would seek to carry on the
life of Adepts.
Since Eternal Life is a life within a body and since the believer does
not normally receive a new body after his death, where does his immortal
body come from? It is he himself who must produce it within him during
his life. Herein lies the importance of the dietetic, gymnastic, alchemical,
and other practises in Taoism, aside from the strictly religious practises:
they are used in producing the immortal body. That body takes shape in
the same fashion as the embryo develops and, when it has reached its full
development. Deliverance from the Corpse takes place. The believer
appears to die^ and his body seems to be buried; but what has really
been laid in the tomb is a sword or a bamboo cane to which he has given
his body’s semblance, and the body, rendered immortal, has left the
corpse as the cicada leaves the chrysalis.^ It has gone away and can
return to live among men at its pleasure, though with a changed name,
or can go to dwell in the paradise of the immortals. All that remains in
the tomb is merely an empty shell, and if by chance the tomb is opened,
the coffin is found to be very light.
The immortal body is produced mysteriously inside the mortal body,
the perishable elements of which it replaces little by little with im-
perishable elements. The bones are said to have become gold and the

6. “The Deliverance of the Corpse is a false death," /i/ shih-chieh t’o-ssu-c/io, M

(}’CCC. ch. K4, 4(/). “Deliverance of the Corpse means that a false body is
transformed ( = dies) without its being known (that it is only a false body), and that the
person within becomes immortal," g'isTI'?-'fhfill (t'HT.SA/S, la). —The sword or
cane actually replaces the body: in the prayer to the sword one says: Liau^ fei, |iJl- (the
name of the sword) Tzu-kmu TT (the surname of the sword) ... with you I replace my
person so that my body may be invisible; I am going to hide myself, you will enter my
tomb," and so on. (}'CCC\ ch. 84, la.) And the same to the cane (%, \()h). The
appearances are complete. “The sword becomes a corpse, no different from a real one; and
there is a whiff of decay; and worms are born." gljhic , f.'it lA 4' %, '>L {i H, X
{ibid., 84, 7a).
7. “When Perfect Men use a precious sword for the Deliverance of the Corpse, this is the
highest degree of transformation in the same way as the cicada," (H: A hCfr lU ^
ft A.-t nn tli ( ) CCC\ ch. 84, 4/d. “The Deliverance of the Corpse is the transformation
of the body : the Fundamentally Real sheds its skin, and Corporeal Matter is modified
secretly," A T ^ iK', T ft tii. T Cft ^ Hi, illii : Preface of the T'ai-chi
chen-jen fei-hsien pao-chien shang-ching (Supreme Book of the Precious Sword [told] by the
Flying Immortal Perfect Man of the Great Summit), in )'CCC. ch. 85, la.
 44H Taoism and Chinese Religion

flesh jade. There is no real break between mortal and immortal life, but
an imperceptible passage from the one to the other. It could not have
been otherwise. For the Chinese, who believed in multiple souls—and
still more for the Taoists, who added to these souls a considerable
number of spirits living within the body and presiding over its various
organs—the body was the sole principle of unity. Only within the body
was it possible to attain an immortality which would continue the
personality of the living person and which would not be divided into
several independent personalities each functioning by itself. It is this
necessity of conserving the body, as the common dwelling of all that
constitutes the life and self of man, which gives birth to all the
physiological practises I have mentioned above. Their variety is related
to the fact that man is composed of a body {hsiug), inside which are
Essence (cliing). Breath (c7/7), and Spirits {s/ien), the sum of which
constitutes the person {shen). The development of each of these consti-
tuent elements becomes the raison d’etre for numerous special procedures
consisting of “nourishing” {yang) them: a procedure of “nourishing
the Breath” {yang-ch’i), of “nourishing the Spirits” {yang-slien), of
“nourishing the Body” (yang-hsing), the totality of which make up what
is called “nourishing the Vital Principle” (yang-hsing).^
All these procedures, by which it is believed specific physiological
effects can be obtained, were established in conformity to the principles
of Chinese medical science. To understand their practise as well as the
theory, it is thus necessary to know how the Chinese thought the organs
of the human body were arranged internally and how they imagined the
various organs functioning, especially in respiration, circulation, and
digestion.

CHINESE ANATOMY AND PHYSIOLOGY

/. The Physieians
Chinese physicians divided the body into three regions (san-pii): the
upper region (shang-pu), the head; the central region (ehang-pu), the
chest; and the lower region (hsia-pu), the abdomen. The limit of the
upper region was the neck and the arms; that of the central region was
that portion of the torso which is protected by the ribs and whose lower
limit was the diaphragm (Ac), which they saw as attached to the lungs.

8. These two terms are not homophones: yang-hsing ( to nourish the vital
principle); to nourish the body).
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vi ted Prineiple” 449

What is above the diaphragm is .iY//7g, what is below it is yin. The Five
viscera, wu-tsaug, (lungs, heart, spleen, liver, kidneys) and the Six
Receptacles, liu-fu (stomach, gall bladder, bladder, small intestine, large
intestine, and the “Three Burning Points”, san-chiao: the Upper Burning
Point or Esophagus, the Central Burning Point or internal space of the
Stomach, and the Lower Burning Point or Urethra) were divided
between the central and lower regions. The heart and lungs belonged to
the central region. The spleen and the receptacle corresponding to it, the
stomach; the liver and its receptacle, the gall bladder; the kidneys with
their receptacle, the bladder; the small and large intestines, which are
respectively the receptacles corresponding to the heart and the lungs,
belonged to the lower region. The Three Burning Points, which among
them form a single receptacle, were divided between the two regions, the
esophagus being in the middle region, the stomach passage and the
urethra in the lower region.
The ancient physicians had described the three principal internal
functions—respiration, digestion, and circulation‘s—but they had not
recognized exactly how the organs came into play for each of these.
Respiration is divided into two phases; exhalation (hit) and inhalation
(hsi). As the yang tends naturally to rise and the yin to descend,
exhalation, which is rising, is yang and consequently belongs to the yang
portion of the body, being connected to the two internal organs of that
area, the heart and the lungs. Inhalation, descending, is yin and belongs
to the yin part of the body, being connected to the two viscera of that
region, the liver and the kidneys. The spleen, which is in the middle,
receives exhalation and inhalation at the same time. When one breathes,
the air taken in descends by the force of the yin directly to the kidneys
and the liver, passing through the spleen, but bypassing the heart and
lungs. At the moment of exhalation, air, returned to the spleen, rises
again by the force of the yang to the heart and lungs, which preside over
its expulsion. Such is the mechanism of breathing.
That of digestion is as follows. The food ingested, liquid or solid (or.

9. A detailed description will be found in Dabry de Thiersant, La Medccine chez les

Chinois, pp. 1-18: it is clear and easily comprehensible if one remembers that he translates
yang as “chaleur animale,” yin as “humide radical,” tsang (the five viscera) as “membres,”
fu (the six receptacles) as "entrailles.” 1 have used the books of Han and Six Dynasties
physicians, especially the Huang-ti nei-ching su-wen (HTNCSW), the Nan clung (NC), and
the Shang-han tun (SHL), as well as their commentaries {SPTK ed.).
10. NC, ch. 1, 5h-la, and commentaries of Lii Kuang (third century), ihid., 6h, 19(/; of
Ting Te-yung (mid-eleventh century), ihid., 19t/; and of Yii Shu (mid-eleventh century),
ihid., la.
 450 Taoism and Chinese Religion

to use the Chinese expression, “water and grain”, shui-ku) descends

into the stomach,” where it is transformed under the influence of the
spleen'- in such a way that each of the flve flavors (sweet, sour, salty,
bitter, pungent) becomes a breath, ch'i (flat, rancid, fragrant, burnt,
rank). Each of these breaths corresponds to a flavor and consequently to
one of the Five Elements and also to one of the Five Internal Organs,'^
since the Five Internal Organs are set in relation to the Five Elements:
the lungs are metal, the heart fire, the spleen earth, the liver wood, and
the kidneys water. Also when the five breaths thus produced bathe the
five internal organs, each of them absorbs the breath of its element and is
nourished by it. This is why it is said that the spleen nourishes the four
other internal organs.'"^ It is the five breaths which, by mixing with the
essence of water, turn red under the influence of the spleen and produce
blood. They say that blood is produced by the heart, but in fact it is
produced spontaneously.''*' When food is transformed in the stomach
under the influence of the spleen, the impure parts leave by the lower
orifice of the stomach (the pylorus) and are excreted; the pure parts
become breath {ch'i) and leave by the upper orifice of the stomach (the
cardia), and become blood.
It is during the interval between exhalation and inhalation that the
spleen “receives the breath of water and grain” and presides over their
transformation. After transformation, the inhaled air passing through
the spleen pushes out the breaths produced by digestion. It is in fact
respiration which causes circulation. At each inhalation the blood is
pushed three inches in the veins, at each exhalation it is again pushed
three inches. What pushes it and makes it move along is the passage of the
inhaled and exhaled exterior breath within the spleen. This movement
takes the quantity of the five breaths, newly formed in the spleen by the

11. The stomach, which is one foot five inches high, two feet six inches long, with a
diameter of five inches, contains 3.5 ton (about seven liters: the Han dynasty ton equals
about two liters), of which two ton (four liters) are grains and 1.5 ton (three liters) water
NC\ ch. 4, 3/q. The commentator Yang K'ang-hou adds that all food enters through the
mouth and gathers in the stomach, where the solid foods are cooked and from where they
enter the small intestine. After having passed through the intestines, the grains (solid food)
leave through the anus, while the water enters the bladder (Yii Shu's Commentary, -Xa-h).
12. VC, Yang K'ang-hou's Commentary, eh. 4, 5h.
13. The pungency of the liver, the sourness of the lungs, the bitterness of the heart, the
saltiness of the kidneys, the sweetness of the spleen {HTNCS\\ \ eh. 7, 8A).
14. A'C, Yii Shu’s commentary, eh. 1, 5a-b.
15. It follows from NC and from the explanations in the commentaries that the blood is
formed by the five breaths from solid food and the water in liquid food; but I have found
this theory clearly expounded only in an eighteenth century book, the "Book (in phrases)
of Three Medical Characters,” Yi san-tzn einng, 8/i.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vita! Ih inciple" 451

digestion of the five flavors during the intervals between exhalation and
inhalation and between inhalation and exhalation, and drives them out
with each pulse. Since a man has 13,500 respirations {hsi) a day, each
composed of an inhalation {ch'i) and an exhalation (////), this advance of
six inches per respiration makes a total distance of 81,000 feet a day.
Moreover, since the water clock divides the day into a hundred quarters
of an hour, there is a progress of 81 feet per quarter-hour at 135
respirations, the complete tour of the body takes two quarters of a hour
and is 162 feet long, and in a day there are fifty complete tours of the
body. For the sake of convenience, circulation is counted as from one
beat of the pulse to the next. But it is known that in reality the course of
the circulation begins at the Middle Burning Point, chung-chicio (the
inside of the stomach), goes out through the upper opening of the
stomach (the cardia), ascends to the Upper Burning Point, shang-chiao
(the esophagus), from where the blood discharges into the Great Yin
vein of the hand, shou f'ai-yin, which takes it from the chest to the end of
the thumb. Then it takes the Light yang vein of the hand, shou yang-
niing, which leads it back from the end of the fourth finger to the head.
From there it enters the Light yatig vein of the foot, tsu yang-niing,
which causes it to go down from the head to the end of the fifth toe;
and thus in succession, passing from vein to vein until it has passed
through the twelve vessels, it makes the complete circuit of the body
so as to return to its point of departure and begin again without
cease.
The Taoists had naturally accepted these notions, which for them as
for everybody else were a correct and precise representation of reality.
We find them again unchanged in the Taoist books of the Six Dynasties,
of the T'ang, and of the Sung. Yet on certain points the Taoist
understanding of anatomy seems more rudimentary than that of the
physicians. Thus they hardly speak of the diaphragm. It is named,
together with its particular god, in the books of the early T'ang or even
a little earlier,*" but it plays no role in their theories. Similarly, their
central internal organ, corresponding to the element Earth, to which like
the physicians they give the name spleen, seems, I think, to be both
spleen and pancreas; for they describe it as situated above, before, and

16. SHL, Ch'eng Wu-chi's commentary (twelfth century), ch. 1, 236-24u. These
figures are purely theoretical and do not relate to any reality; the yang number 9
(9x9 = 81 advances in a quarter of an hour, from which the total advance in 100
quarters of an hour, 8,100 feet = 81,000 inches) has simply been combined with the yin
number 6 (advance of 6 inches). The number of respirations is the quotient of the division
of ihe yang number by the rm one: 81,000 -T 6 = 13,500.
17. Tung-chen tsao-hsing tzu-yikin erh-shih-ssii shen-cliing, in U'STy', ch. 5, 8u-6.
 452 Taoism and Chinese Religion

behind the stomach and as being a foot and two inches long‘d (twenty-
nine centimeters if, as I believe, this figure is a traditional measurement
going back to the Former Han or even earlier), quite large for this small
gland, which the medical treatises place more correctly beside the
stomach, giving it a width of three inches and a height of five.'^ This can
hardly be explained except by granting that the Taoists are reflecting to
us a state of knowledge older than the medical treatises, which is to say
earlier than the Western Han. They have taken the ideas current before
that period and have not followed the progress which the physicians
made afterwards.
Furthermore, the progress of anatomical knowledge among physicians
was slow. Unlike the Greeks and the Hindus, the Chinese never practised
dissection as a regular procedure of study. Two series of dissections are
cited, a thousand years apart, one in the first years of the first century
A.D., the other in the middle of the twelfth century. In 16 A.D. Wang
Mang, following the capture of a rebel, Wang Sun-ch’ing, “sent the
Chief Physician, T’ai-yi, an (employee of the Bureau) of Artisans, shang-
fang, and a skilled butcher, to dissect him completely, to weigh and
measure the five internal organs, to follow the track of the veins with the
aid of a bamboo probe in order to know where they ended and where
they began, so that he could cure diseases”.
The second dissection took place in 1106, and it too was performed
on a person condemned to death, probably in imitation of the first.
Unfortunately, the detailed circumstances in which it was done are not
precisely known, various versions attributing the initiative for it to
different persons and placing the scene in different locales. Some set it at
Ta-ming, in present-day Hopei. A bandit chief, Yang Tsung, having been
captured by a trick and condemned to death, the district officer Liang
Tzu-mei-‘ “when the moment of execution came, ordered the official
physician (of the district) and his draftsmen to sketch it.” Brigands from
Hsii-chou are also mentioned. Their chief, Ou Hsi-fan, and some thirty

18. I derive this precise figure from a book of the beginning of the eleventh century,
YCCC, ch. 58 (quoting a book which probably dates back to the T’ang dynasty); but the
measure is an ancient tradition, since the Huang-t’ing wai-ching yii-ching (HIVY), fourth
century, gives it as “a foot and more” in length. See below. First Part of this Book, note
100.
19. NC, ch. 4, 5h: “The spleen weighs two pounds and three ounces, it is three inches
wide and five inches high.”
20. CHS, ch. 99 chung, 15a.
21. Liang Tzu-mei (grandson of Liang Shih, who died in 1070 at the age of 70) left Ta-
ming in the third month of 1107 at the latest, since at that time he was named shang-shu
tso-ch'eng, {Sung-shih [S’wS], ch. 20, 2h): but his sojourn as prefect of Ta-ming is
not mentioned in his biography. He died in 1122 and received the posthumous title of
Shao-pao, (ihid., ch. 285, 1 \a).
 Methods of “Nourishing, the Vital Prineiple” 453

of his men had been condemned to death, and similarly “it was ordered
that draftsmen should be at the execution ground, that the chests and
abdomens of the men should be opened, and that (the draftsmen) should
observe and draw in detail".Finally, others mention Ssu-chou in the
same period: “During the ch'ung-miug period (1102-06), brigands from
Ssu-chou having been executed in the marketplace, district officer Li Yi-
hsing ordered physicians and draftsmen to go and see the vessels and the
membranes, to examine the area between heart and diaphragm as well as
the circumvolutions of the intestines and to sketch these in such a way
as to investigate everything from top to bottom, down to the smallest
details."”^ In the twelfth century there were at least two different works,
one of which (the title of which I do not know) contained Ou Hsi-fan’s
anatomy drawn by Sung Ching (it was published at the beginning of the
Ming dynasty, with a preface by Wu Chien).-*^ The other, entitled Ts’im
cheu t'li, contained that of the Ssu-chou brigand drawn by Yang Chieh.
This latter was much better than the other and was considered very
useful to physicians.But I am not sure that there really were several
dissections made in this period and that we are not speaking of the same
one, preserved in good or bad drawings which had been passed on by
various copyists from various sources.
There is no great interest in knowing whether the Chinese carried out
one or several dissections in the beginning of the twelfth century. The
important thing is that they did at least one, and that from it they
learned a whole series of anatomical facts, elementary to be sure, but
new to them. A sixteenth century author, Chang Huang (who lived from
1527 to 1608) summarizes the discoveries that were made as follows:"^
As for the three openings in the area of the throat, (namely) one
for water, one for (solid) food, and one for breath, upon exami-
nation we can see that solid food and liquids have only a single

22. Chang Huang, T'u-shu pien {TSP), ch. 68, 33b. This work, begun in 1562 (under the
title of Lun-.shih pien, which Chang Huang later abandoned in favor of the present title)
and finished in 1577, was published in 1583. This is not a medical work, but a small
encyclopedia, the medical section of which takes up only a few chapters. —The edition of
1623, the only one at my disposal (Courant, Catalogue des livres chinois de la Bihliotheque
nationale, N. 7652-63), having—at least for this chapter—a very faulty text, 1 have
translated from the quotation in TSCC, Po-wu hui-pien, Yi-shu tien, ch. 115 ( Yi-pu hui-k’ao,
ch. 95, Tsang-fu men, ch. 3) bh-la, the text of which is much better.
23. WHTK, ch. 222, 9a.
24. TSCC, he. cit., 5h.
25. Ch'ao Kung-wu, Chun-chai tu-shu hou-chih, ch. 2, 2ba (photo-reproduction of the
Yiian dynasty edition of 1250 (first edition) in SPTK, San pien, 1935, Shanghai). Cf.
WHTK, ch. 222, 9a.
26. TSP, ch. 68, 336-346.
 454 Taoism and Chinese Religion

common opening, which ends in the uterus and goes into the upper
opening of the stomach. The other opening (that of the breath) leads
on to the lungs, passing through the abdominal cavity reaches the
spine, twists around the navel, goes down to the kidneys and joins
with the three veins /V/?, ch'ung, and tu.^^ The Cinnabar Field is the
Ocean of Breath, ch'i-hair^
Below the trachea, hoii-kuan, are the lungs with their lobules, yelu
which form the Flowered Canopy, hua-kai\ they cover all the (other)
internal organs and receptacles.
Under the lungs is the heart, the outside of which is of yellow fat
and the inside of which is yellowish-red in color, cli’i-huang. When
in the course of dissection, the hearts (of the thirty men executed)
are examined, each (of the hearts) is different; some have open-
ings,-^ some have none; some have hairs on them, some have none;
some are pointed, others elongated.
Below the heart is the diaphragm, lo-ke, and below that the
stomach. If the curvature is filled out, it can hold one ton. On the
outside it is of yellow fat and is like the pennon of a banner.
To the left is the liver, which has one, two, three, four, or five
leaves (varying from person to person, since) it too was not the same
in all (of those executed). (In one the liver) had gone bad inside, and
he had ailments of the eyes. (In another), there were two spots with
white and black dots on the liver: he panted when he breathed and
coughed as well, and his lungs were rough and black. This is what
one calls the correspondence of the interior with the exterior. On the
short fold of the liver is the gall bladder; to the right is the stomach;

27. The Jen vein begins in the lower belly, goes upwards and ends at the throat; it is the
confluent of the yin. The tn vein begins at the lower end of the spine, goes up along the
back to the rear of the skull, and ends in front of the upper lip, after having passed through
the top of the skull; it is the confluent of the yang. The chung vein begins between the two
kidneys, passes to the navel, and goes up to the w indpipe; this is the Ocean of all the veins
and also the Ocean of the five viscera and six receptacles. These three veins have a single
source and form three arms; according to the “ancient sketches”, the /V/; and tu veins form
a continuous circuit, the posterior part of the back being called tu and the anterior part,
from the lower belly to the head, being called /Vu. These three veins are outside the series of
twelve veins of the pulse, which are the three yang veins and three yin veins of the hands
and feet. Certain contemporary authors have tried to rediscover this fantastic anatomy in
reality, and identify the /V// vein with the thoracic lymphatic canal, and the tu vein with the
main nerves of the sympathetic nervous system (Liao P'ing, Ying-weiyiin-h.sing k’ao, 2h).
28. See below , p. 459.
29. As we know, according to the Chinese the Superior Man's heart has seven openings;
the ordinary man's has a smaller number. Chinese physicians have maintained this notion
from popular folklore due to a systematization of the entry and exit openings in the heart
vessels.
 Methods of “Nourishi}!^ the Vital fh ineiple” 455

to the left is the spleen, which is in the same membrane as the

stomach and which is shaped like a horse’s liver; it is purplish red.
Below is the small intestine, which has sixteen folds and is
extremely shiny; this is the path for the passage of transformed
food. To the right is the large intestine, which also has sixteen folds;
inside is the path through which residues go out, outside is yellow
fat, which adheres (to the sixteen folds) and makes it a single lump.
Below is the bladder, which is located in the lower abdomen and
is very shiny; it has no external opening for access: it is entirely
owing to the breath that the saliva is carried along and enters the
bladder, where it becomes urine.
Such are the ditferences between the body of the Superior Man
and those of ordinary people.

//. Specifically Taoist Anatomy and Physiology

Taoist physiology, as it appears in the books of the fourth and following
centuries, is not only more archaic than that of contemporary physicians.
It also presents a number of differences due to the Taoists’ having added
to the descriptions in the medical treatises certain peculiar ideas which
were not intended to take account of observed phenomena or experience
but simply to make the anatomical facts agree with their theories.
According to them there are three major regions in the body, one for
each of the three sections: the first in the head, the second in the chest,
the third in the abdomen. These are called the Cinnabar Fields, echoing
the name of the essential element in the drug of immortality, cinnabar.
The best known of these is the Upper Cinnabar Field, shang-tan-t'icn.
For this alone have I found a complete description, with the names of its
nine chambers arrayed under the skull, between the forehead and the
nape of the neck, in two rows, five below and four above, and the names
of the divinities who dwell there. This is perhaps a fanciful interpretation
of the internal brain in the interhemispheric region, the callous body w ith
the ventricle of the septum lucidum apparently constituting the upper

30. Cf. HTNCS\\\ ch. 3 (section 8), \h: 'The bladder ... is the receptacle of the sali\a;
the breath transforms (the saliva into urine), and it can go out." It is the breath of the
Ocean of Breath, ch'i-hai, situated nearby, which produces this transformation.
31. The classical medical treatises are the work of Huang-ti, who described the body of
the Superior Man, chiin-tzu: the Sung drawings were made from the bodies of brigands
condemned to death and represent the bodies of simple people, hsUio-jen. In consequence, if
there are difierences between what the classical medical treatises say and the drawings, this
is not because the treatises contain errors, but because the Superior Man's body is not like
that of simple people.
 456 Taoism and Chinese Religion

level, and the scissure itself (the entryway) and the third and fourth
ventricles, plus the epiphyse, making the lower level.
Here is the detailed description given of it in a book from the middle
of the fourth century, the “Marvelous Book of the Great Being (Heaven)
of Pure Transcendence (expounded) by the Very High”, T’ai-shang su-
ling ta-yu miao-cliing.^-

1. -l. The space between and above the two eyebrows, penetrating
(into the skull) 3/10 of an inch is the Twin Fields occupying the
space of an inch, Shou-ts’un shuang-t’ieu.^^
Penetrating one inch further is the Palace of the Government
Chamber, Ming-t’ang kung.^"^
2. Behind, penetrating two inches,is the Palace of the Chamber
of the Arcane, Tung-fang kung.^^
3. Behind, penetrating three inches, is the Palace of the Cinnabar
Field, Tan-t’ien kung.
4. Behind, penetrating four inches, is the Palace of the Moving
Pearls, Liu-chu kung.^^
5. Behind, penetrating five inches, is the Palace of the Jade
Emperor, Yii-ti kung.
IF—6. One inch above the Hall of Government is the Palace of
the Heavenly Court, T’ien-t'ing kung.
1. One inch above the Chamber of Mystery is the Palace of the
Reality of the (Great) Summit, Chi-chen kung.
32. Tung-cheh T'ai-shang su-ling timg-yilan ta-yu miao-chiug {TSTTM): such is the
complete present-day title in TT (1026; Wieger, 1295), 196 (cf. 136, 156, 16r7-6, 17c/, etc.,
for partial repetitions of this passage): it is quoted in WSPY. ch. 5, llc/-12c/. This text,
which is not always very clear, has fortunately been explained by T’ao Hung-ching, a great
Taoist writer of the sixth century who reproduced it verbatim in his TCYC, ch. 1, 3c/-4c/
(TT, 193; Wieger, 418), adding a commentary to it. See also Shang-ch'ing wo-chimg chueh
(S'fTC), ch. 3, lc/-6 (TT, 60)—I introduced the division into paragraphs to make the
description clearer.
33. “The space of an inch” is the first position in the lower row, that which is mentioned
just after the Ming-t’ang kung. In the 3/10 of an inch there are a Terrace and an Entrance
Porch to mark the passage through which the divinities enter and leave the inside of the
head.
34. T’ao Hung-ching explains that the 3/10 of an inch is judged by the surface inch of the
Ming-t’ang.
35. An inch, two inches, and so on are always counted starting at the entry.
36. Tung is really a grotto. In Taoism this word signifies the three principles presiding
over the triple division of the collection of sacred books, San-tung, and the Three Pure
Ones, San-ch'ing, which embody these three principles: it thus occurs in various expressions
with the meaning of mystery, mysterious. I have always reserved the word Mystery and its
derivatives to translate hsiian, and I have chosen Arcanum to translate tung.
37. “Moving Pearls” is another name for mercury. Li Lan, Lou-k’e fa, in Ch'u-hsueh chi,
ch. 25, 126.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle" 457

8. One inch above the Cinnabar Field is the Palace of the

Mysterious Cinnabar, Hsikm-tan kung.
9. One inch above the Moving Pearls is the Palace of the Great
Sovereign, T'ai-huaug kung.
In all, nine Palaces in a single head.
(The gods) penetrate through the front and proceed (within)
towards the back, which is behind the top of the skull. The
Cinnabar Field Palace of the Ni-huan is square, each face being one
inch long^^ ... The heart^^^ is the Middle Cinnabar Field; it is called
the Scarlet Palace, Chiang kung: it governs the heart. It is square,
each face being one inch long*^® ... Three inches below the navel is
the (lower) Cinnabar Field, called Gate of Destiny, Ming-men ...; it
is square, each face being one inch long.*^^
Of the nine divisions in the head, the most important are the three in
front in the lower row: the first, which serves as an entry; the second, the
Ming-t’ang, where Huang-lao chiin and his assistants reside; and the
cubicle in the center of the head, the Cinnabar Field or Palace of Ni-
huan, where the Superior One resides and whither the breath is first led
during the exercises for the absorption of the breath. The name of this
last signifies literally Mud Pill, but it is at the same time the transcription
of the Sanskrit word Nirvana.This shows that the definitive elabor-
ation of this complicated system of anatomy had scarcely been com-
pleted in the third and fourth centuries, in the period when the most
ancient books we possess regarding this question were written; for it was
with the Later Han at the earliest that the influence of Buddhism could
have been exerted thus. The general theory of the Cinnabar Field is
certainly ancient, but the detailed description of the Cinnabar Field in
the head, with its nine cubicles, of which the central one is that of
Nirvana, must be relatively recent and must have been set up in the last
years of the Han or in the time of the Three Kingdoms.
The description of the other two Cinnabar Fields has not come down
to us, or at least I have not found it. Still it must have existed (at least

38. T'ai-shang su-ling ta-yu niiao-ching, 32a.

39. More precisely, three inches below the heart.
40. IhUi., 33a.
41. Ibid., 34a.
42. Taoists always write ni-wan iftK-. a form that is never found among Buddhist
translators and authors, who always write ni-huan, one may consequently pause
before identifying these two terms. But all the ancient quotations of Taoist books in the
anti-Taoist Buddhist pamphlets always have ni-huan for the Taoist term (see, for example,
Fa-lin, PCL [TIK, vol. 52, no. 2110], ch. 2, 500/^) precisely as for the Buddhist expression.
Perhaps the reading nan was adopted by the Taoists after the seventh century in order to
differentiate themselves from the Buddhists.
 75(V Taoism and Chinese Religion

orally), since allusion is often made to the points of the middle and lower
Cinnabar Fields; but these passages are insufficient for us to know their
arrangement entirely. They seem to have been similar to those of the
head, though not absolutely identical, to judge from what I know of the
Middle Cinnabar P'ield or Scarlet Palace, Chiang kiing. This must have
had two rows, like the head: one of five one-inch cubicles, the other of
four one-inch cubicles, though they were arranged vertically in the chest.
Only the row of five cubicles is known to me."^'^ On top is the throat
iyifig),'^'^ the esoteric name for which I do not know. Below that is the
Many-tiered Pavilion (cITung-lou), also called Many-tiered Hall {ch’ung-
t’ang), or again the Tiered Rings (ch’ung-luian).'^^ This is the trachea,
hou-lung, which has twelve degrees, chi. Below that is the Ming-t’ang: still
farther below, the Arcanum Chamber {Timg-fang)\ and still farther
below, the Cinnabar Field {Tan-f’ien), placed one inch from the end of the
heart, three inches into the middle of the chest. The heart itself is a sixth
cubicle, the lowest of the whole row'; it is the Moving Pearl (Liu-chu) of

43. Commentary in the Hiuing-t’ing nei-ching yii-ching (HNY) attributed to Liang-ch’iu-

tzu {TT, 190), ch. hsici. \4h. —There are several "Books of the Yellow Court," Huang-t’ing
ching, of which I shall speak further later on: they are distinguished by the w'ords nei and
wai—literally "inner" and "outer" (a third, designated as cluing, "middle,” is more recent
and is different)—but I cannot tell what these words refer to. Liang-ch'iu-tzu relates them,
respectively, to the interior and exterior of the body and of the spirits presiding there; but
since HNY and //MT'discourse upon precisely the same spirits which are, in both books,
those within the body, this explanation is irrelevant. The same commentator interprets the
word clung as meaning "spirit," shen, and as having a sense different from the one it has in
the works w hich deal w ith the pa-clung (eight ching) of each of the three regions in the body.
1 do believe, though, that Liang-ch'iu-tzu only contrived this distinction because he reckons
thirteen spirits in HNY, a figure which does not correspond to the traditional eight or
twenty-four (3 x 8); but this difference of number may merely indicate a difference in date
or setting. 1 see no reason whatever to give a difi'erent meaning to the word ching in the two
expressions: the titles would thus allude to the three regions of the body, each of which has
a Yellow Court (the eyes in the upper region and the spleen in the central region) and eight
or another number of ching. Unfortunately, the meaning of the word in the expression pa-
ching is far from clear. [On this note, cf. M. Strickmann, in Facets of Taoism (Yale, 1979),
p. 174. Tr.]
These books are quoted often as nei-ching and wai-ching, which would signify something
like "Esoteric Book” and “Exoteric Book.”
44. [In the Corrigenda to J.As., July-September 1937, p. 430, Maspero explains that "the
throat,” ying, in this passage should more properly be understood as the larynx. He cites
HH'Y, which calls it "the Mysterious Chest,” hsiian-ying (see below. Second Part of this
Book, notes 25 and 26); he guesses that this may be the esoteric name; and he remarks that
the vagueness and confusion of Chinese doctors regarding the anatomy of this area is due
to their belief that there are three, rather than two, openings and conduits in the throat.
Tr.]
45. Ihicl., ch. sluing, 9a. The mention of the twelve rungs of the trachea is taken from the
same work.
 Methods of “Nourishing l/ic Vita! Principle" 459

the Supreme One in the Middle Cinnabar Field.The Lower Cinnabar

Field or Yellow Court Palace of the Gate of Destiny {Min^-nicn huau^-
t’ifig kufig)'^^ also had its Ming-t'ang, which was the spleen,and the
position of the Cinnabar Field itself was three inches below the navel. 1
know neither the names nor the distribution of the other seven cubicles.
Among them or near them is the Ocean of Breath, ch’i-hai, which plays a
great role not only in Taoist practises but also in Chinese medicine, and
which I shall have to mention frequently.

7. First Part: Breathing, Techniques

Among the methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle", yang-hsing,
those which relate to Breaths are (along with those which relate to the
Spirits) among the most important. It is the entry of the Breaths into the
body which gives it life, as it is the departure of the Spirits which causes
death.* The principal feature of all these procedures is the circulation of
certain breaths throughout the organs. The breaths chosen vary accord-
ing to the result to be obtained: there is the “living breath" (the opposite
of the “dead breath", which must be avoided), there are the breaths of
the Sun, the breaths of the Moon, the breaths of the Five Shoots, and so
on. Moreover, the theoretical conception of at least one of the breaths,
the Original Breath, varied from period to period. I cannot take up in
succession each of the methods of absorbing and circulating the Breaths.
1 shall confine myself first to studying in detail the most important
method, wdiich could almost be called the typical method, that of
Embryonic Respiration, t'cii-hsi. Then I shall examine more briefly a few
others among those which have seemed to me most characteristic.

A. EMBRYONIC RESPIRATION

/. Definition
Embryonic Respiration had received this name because its aim was to
recreate the embryo’s breathing in its mother’s w^omb.
In the uterus it is the foetus; at birth it is the infant. So long as the
foetus is in the (mother’s) abdomen, its mouth contains mud {k’ou-
46. Ibid., ch. Iisia, section 19.
47. YH-li-ching, in HNY chu, section 15.
48. Ibid., section 19.
1. THC (“Book of Embryonic Respiration”). Yi (TT, 5); YCCC\ ch. 60, 226; Wieger.
127.
 460 Taoism am! Chinese Religion

han ni-t’u) and the respiration {cITuan-hsi) does not penetrate; it is

through the navel that it absorbs breath and its body is nourished;
and thus it achieves completeness. From this we know that the navel
is the Door of Destiny {ming-men). Every infant born alive does not
take in (the exterior air) for a brief moment; but when the umbilical
cord is moistened with lukewarm water which is spread upward
towards the belly, and after three or five times (that the warm water
has been received on the cord), they start to breathe again, su. From
this we (again) know that the navel is the Door of Destiny {ming-
men): assuredly we are not mistaken. Those who practise the Tao, if
they wish to obtain Embryonic Respiration {t’ai-hsi), must first
know its source and thereafter put it into practise, (that is to say)
breathe {cITuan-hsi) as the foetus does in the womb. This is why
(this exercise) is called Embryonic Respiration. In coming back to
the base, in returning to the origin, we drive away old age, we return
to the state of the foetus. Truly (this exercise) has a raison d’etre -

//. The Breath: Successive Theories

What is the Breath which the Adept absorbs when he practises Embry-
onic Respiration so as to make that Breath pass through the vital centers
within his body? Ideas on this point changed completely towards the
middle of the T’ang dynasty.
One author of the eighth century, whom we know only under the
fanciful appellation which he chose for himself. Master of the Great
Nothing {T’ai-wu hsien-sheng) of the Sung-shan mountain (peak of the
Center), indicates the difference between ancient and modern ideas very
well in the preface to his Book of the Breath:^ “The most important recipes
2. Preface of the T'ai-hsi k’ou-chiieh (Oral Formula for Embryonic Respiration), in
YCCC, ch. 58, t2a.
3. Sung-shan T'ai-wu hsien-sheng Ch’i ehing (STHC), preface, \h (TT, 569, Wieger, 817;
cf. YCCC, ch. 59, 76, though that collection reproduces only the preface and the first
paragraph).
This work is from the last quarter of the eighth century; the preface, which is undated,
mentions the ta-li period (766-79), which is the time when the author met Master Wang of
Mount Lo-fu, Lo-fu-shan Wang-kung, whose teachings he reproduces. The preface with its
date is ancient, being already found in the book during the eleventh century, since the Hsin
T'ang-shu, eh. 59, 46, summarizes the book as follows: “7”a/ (yuan) v\u hsien-sheng Ch’i-
ehiieh in one chapter. Shih-nhng (anonymous). In ta-li (the author) met Master Wang of
Lo-fu, who passed on to him the recipe (for the absorption) of Breath.” In the twelfth
century Cheng Ch’iao {T'ung chih [Tc], eh. 67, 43(/) gives the author’s name as Li Feng-shih
and, in another note—the one on T'ai-wu hsien-sheng Ch'i-ehiieh (ihicl.), the date as ta-
ehung (847-59), which is certainly an error for ta li ehung (i.e., during the ta-li period) in
the Hsin T'ang-shu. This unknown Taoist from Sung-shan (YCCC, eh. 59, 216), who lived
 Methods of'Nourishing the Vital Prineiple” 46!

of Taoism are not in the written text of books, they are in the Formulas
which arc passed along orally. The (methods of) absorbing breath given
in the nei-chiiig and wai-ching versions of the {Huang t'ing) chitig (chcti-
ching), those of the Five Shoots (U7MY/), and of the Six Mou {liu-nwu),'^
deal only with the external breath. The external breath is hard and
energetic, it is not something coming from the interior (of the body), it is
not to be swallowed.'’ As for the internal breath, this is precisely what is
called Embryonic Respiration;^ it exists naturally in the body, it is not
(something) borrowed which must be sought outside.” In the ancient
books, in fact, the breath w'hich must be circulated is the inhaled air; it is
not this “internal Breath”, which had not yet been discovered. A serious
error, say the authors of Tang and Sung times: “What the ancient books
{chiii-ching) say, that ‘the nose inhales the external breath and absorbs it’
is not at all the correct procedure.” ^

a. The Ancient Theory: External Breath According to the ancient

theory, it is the exterior air, absorbed in breathing according to a
particular technique which gives life to the body and contributes to
knitting the embryo together and to making the body immortal. The
“Book of the Great Peace” {T’ai-p’ing-ching) says this explicitly when it

in the T'ang period, had indeed written a book on Breath, and his “Method of Absorbing
Breath,” FCF, is quoted in YHCHFC, 6/?; but this book must be different from T'ai-wu
hsien-sheng's, sinee the quoted passage is not to be found in that work, and I do not believe
this identifieation should be retained. On the other hand, STHC must sometimes have been
published eonjointly with another similar book, the “Formula for Absorbing Original
Breath” by Master Huan-chen, Huan-clien hsieu-sheug fu-ua yikin-ch'i ching (TT. 570;
Wieger, 821; cf. FCCC, ch. 60, 106-236, where the author is called Yu-chen hsien-sheng),
for its preface has remained attached to the latter in the present TT, the only difference
being that the date given is t'ien-pao (742-55) in place of ta-li. The copy reproduced in
YCCC had no preface. 1 am not sure which of the two the preface really belongs to: to be
sure, the T'ang-shu shows it only in the middle of the eleventh century, yet it appears at the
head of STHC. Besides, the question is unimportant. Regardless of whom one may think
the preface should be attributed to originally, both books are certainly from between the
end of the eighth century (since the older of them, whichever it may be, quotes a nien-luio
of that time) and the beginning of the tenth century (since both are quoted in YCCC).
4. These tw'O methods are concisely described below.
5. I translate according to the reading in >X'C‘C, ch. 59, 76; w ei yi fu yeh, T Yl! IflFtli • That
in TT makes no sense.
6. Embryonic Respiration, t'ai-hsi, consists essentially (as we shall see farther along) in
making the breath enter the Ocean of Breath, ch'i-hai, below the navel. The breath that is
thus absorbed is sometimes the external breath and sometimes the internal breath, varying
according to procedures and to time periods, and not always internal Breath, as the Master
of the Great-Nothing wrongly asserts.
7. T'ai-ch'ing t’iao-ch’i thing (TCTCC), 96 {TT, 569; Wieger, 813, begins this title Shang-
ch 'ing ...).
 462 Taoism and Chinese Religion

speaks of the method of “nourishing oneself by airy Breaths” {sliili feng-

c/Ti).^
The Breaths, r//V, are the sole reality. In Chaos the nine Breaths were
mixed; when Chaos dissolved and the world began to be organized, the
first thing that happened was that the Breaths separated: “each of the
nine Breaths being distant from the others by 99,000 years,” the pure
Breaths ascended on high, impure Breaths were spread out below,the
hrst forming the sky and the others the earth. All beings and all things
are made of Breaths, more or less pure: “the nine Breaths coagulated
mysteriously and completed the pattern of the nine heavens, the sun, the
moon, the planets, and the shining stars.” Among the beings, the gods
were formed first from the knitting of Breaths. Just as, in the world.
Breaths are transformed into spirits (slien), so in man Breaths are
transformed into spirits which are within the body. Breaths, which are
the substance of all being, are what give life to all beings. Breath—that is
to say, exterior air—serves not only for respiration and thereby for the
formation of blood: it is the ideal nutrient and, for the Adept, must
replace ordinary foods. “To be nourished by Breath” is what is called
“Embryonic Respiration” (T’ai-lisi), a particular technique of which I
shall speak later. For the moment it will suffice to mention that air must
be inhaled slowly through the nose, held for as long as possible, and
hnally exhaled through the mouth.This was the practise of Chou Yi-
shan, an imaginary immortal of whom a biography dating from the

8. TPC, section 145 (lost), in STCN, cli. 4, 3>a (TT, 781). “Question: The upper, middle
and lower (Immortals) who obtain the Tao and are saved—what do they eat?—Answer;
The upper ones of the first rank feed upon airy breaths; those of the second rank feed upon
the flavors of drugs, and so on.” These airy breaths are not like common breaths inhaled
on earth, but those that circulate in the sky; “as the sky is far away and there is no way to
get there, how can the Celestial Principle be circulated swiftly without eating airy breaths?”
(Ibid.) It is explained that, in order to get these airy breaths one must be friends with the
spiritual oflflcials, shen-li (ibid.)- —TPC, attributed to Yii Chi (or Kan Chi), of the Han
dynasty, is a fifth century compilation in 172 chapters, of which about half is lost today.
9. T’ai-slking san-t'icn cheng-fa clung, \(i-2b (TT, 876; Wieger, 1188). —This work is
earlier than the middle of the fourth century: its title is mentioned in TYMC, 51r/, 52^/ (TT,
1026; Wieger, 1295), which is itself mentioned in TCNC, Ha (TT, 152; Wieger, 300), a work
which cannot date earlier than 399.
10. Chen-chimg chi (CCC. TT, 569; Wieger, 830, 106; YCCC, cli. 33, 10a; TCTCC,
126-13a, TT, 569; Wieger, 813). —In Sung times CCC was attributed to Sun Ssu-mo, a
famous Taoist physician of the seventh century: the Chiu T'ang-shii, ch. 191,46, mentions it
among his works; YCCC, ch. 33, 2a-106, quotes the first ten pages almost complete,
putting them under this author's name; and the Tao-shu (TS), ch. 30, 116-126 (TT, 643;
Wieger, 1005), devoting a section to Chen-chung, does the same for the passages it quotes,
some of which are to be found in the first pages of the book. In the form we have today, it
consists of a small, anonymous, ten-page treatise, to which a copyist has added a series of
notes drawn from various books: first (1 Ia-13a) are the first three pages of the Hsiu-chen-
pi-hi of Fu Tu-jen (TT, 573; Wieger, 843), then (186-20a) excerpts from Wei Shu-ch'ing's
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vito! Principle" 463

fourth century has been preserved: “Each day after dawn, just as the sun
was rising, he stood erect, facing due East and, having rinsed his mouth,
he swallowed his saliva; (then) he absorbed his Breaths {fu-ch'i) more
than a hundred times: (after which) turning towards the sun, he bowed
to it twice. This is what he did every morning.” ''
But not everybody could do things with as much facility as this
personage endowed with particular aptitudes for the quest of immor-
tality. Most Adepts required more preparation, if only to achieve the
concentration of spirit which had to accompany these exercises. “One
must settle oneself into a secluded room, close the doors, take position
upon a bed with a soft mat and a pillow two and a half inches high, lie
flat with the body in correct position, close the eyes and hold the breath
locked into the chest by the diaphragm so that a hair set upon the nose
or mouth would not move.” An author in the end of the sixth century,
Li Ch’ien-ch'eng, says briefly but precisely how to do this: “Lie down,
eyes shut, hands closed, hold the breath in tightly up to 200 counts, and
then let it back out from within the mouth.”Being able to hold the
breath firmly in {pi-ch'i) is one of the most important points: not only is
it necessary to prevent the breath from escaping through the mouth or
the nose but it must also be “held in firmly and not allowed to escape
below {hsiu-hsieh)." What this means is brought out by the texts:
“Below there are two openings which communicate with the nose and
the mouth (which are two of the seven) upper (openings)’^... You must
not eat highly spiced food so that, when you let the lower breath out, it
does not smell too bad. If it is after cereals have been abandoned, even
though some air escapes, it does not smell bad.” The air was held in
for as long a time as possible, while counting according to the rhythm

Yu-kuei su-s/iu (YCCC, ch. 75) on mica, yun-niu, and its use; and tinally other passages
(\3h \Ha, 20h-21h) on various recipes, the origin of which 1 have not found but at least
some of which come from a mid-seventh century work, since the author speaks (21 A) of his
voyages during the chen-kuan period (627-49).
TCTCC is a w ork from the end of T'ang or the beginning of Sung and follows the theory
of Original Breath, though it criticizes the ancient theory of external breath circulation,
quoting "ancient Books,” chiu-ching, and thus bringing in pieces of information I have not
found elsewhere.
11. TCNC\ \a{TP 152; YCCC, ch. 106, Ha: Wieger, 300).
12. SPCY, ch. 82, 5a (TT, 818; Wieger, 1149), under P’eng-tsu's authority but without
the title of the book; C’CC, lOu. The texts are identical except for insignificant variants:
SPCY has "warm,” naan (a quilt), where CCC has chuan (downy); it excises the character
hsi and adds c/uiiig in the phrase f/] n fjil@ ■ ^hus giving a clearer text.
13. Li Ch'ien-ch’eng, commentary to THCC (TT, 1050, 5a: Wieger, 1382).
14. TCTCC, 13a.
15. Ibid., 46. "Man has seven upper openings, and two lower ones.”
16. Ibid., 14a.
 464 Taoism and Chinese Religion

which was that of the suppressed normal respiration,'^ so that one

knew how long it was possible to keep the air held in the chest. This
required painful effort, since asphyxiation came quite soon, with buzzing
in the ears and dizziness: “after three hundred respirations, the ears
no longer hear, the eyes no longer see, the heart thinks no more; then
you must stop (holding the breath in) little by little.”'^ Sometimes
(when the air has been held in a long while) beads of sweat form and the
head and feet become heated: this is because the breath is passing
through them”;'^^ at other times from the strain of “holding the breath
firmly, after some time, the belly aches.” Moreover, the student did
not manage to hold the air penned in very long at the first attempt.
He had to undergo a whole apprenticeship. At the start he learned to
hold his breath for three, five, seven, and nine respirations; when he
reached twelve, that was called a small series, hsiao-t’ung; a hundred
and twenty was a large series, ta-t’ung, and from then on he began
to be able to treat himself and cure his maladies through breathing.
Other authors, no doubt addressing adepts who are already proficient,
suggest less elementary exercises: “At the hour of the living breath, lie
down with the eyes closed, hands tightly clenched, hold the breath closed

17. In fact, counting is done by respirations, hsi, but the characteristic of these exercises
being the stopping of respiration, this can only be a fictitious count, according to the
respiratory rhythm. In about the tenth century, Huang-yiian chiin, in his commentary on
CSYFC ( YCCC, ch. 60, 9a) advises having the respirations counted by a person standing
beside the exerciser; but this procedure, easy to use in that period when those who engaged
in these exercises were ordinarily monks living in a community and easily able to find
novices or disciples to perform this service, was not so easy in pre-T’ang times, when the
tao-shih were married men and living with their families. Thus in ancient times the Adept
tried to do the counting himself. Ko Hung counted heartbeats (PPT, NP, ch. 8, 2h; and see
below, at note 89). CCC, \0h advises marking the time by means of counting-sticks, ch'ou:
they are let fall one at a time, and at the end, by counting them, the precise number of
breaths suppressed while holding the breath can be counted. Others advise making little
white dots as big as grains of rice ( Y'CCC, ch. 35, 46); I do not know where this passage is
taken from, though it is attributed to Lao-chiin; it is ancient, since what he describes under
the name of Embryonic Respiration is holding the breath.
18. Sun Ssu-mo, SPCY, ch. 82, 5a (TT, 818) puts this passage under the authority of
P’eng-tsu, without giving the title of the book from which he takes it. But these books
attributed to P'eng-tsu, or in which P’eng-tsu was one of the speakers, were legion. See also
CCC, lOu, where P’eng-tsu’s name does not appear. Sun Ssu-mo having died in 682, we
find then the admission that trouble was caused by “holding the breath” in a book
pertaining to the ancient doctrine of external breath circulation, in which this retention was
fundamental—if we could be sure that this passage is not one of those which were revised
when the work was published under the Sung.
19. Mao-shan lisicn-chc fii-na ch'i-chiich ( TCCC, ch. 58, 4a). This is also a book of recent
theory, but one which discusses the drawbacks of the ancient practises.
20. TCTCC, 13u, speaking of the “students of old times,” hsi wang-hsueh che.
 Methods of “Nowishm^ the Vital Prineiple" 465

in the heart, count to 200, and then spit it out through the mouth. Every
day increase the number (counted while the breath is held).”^' This was
still only a beginning, and one had to learn to continue well beyond these
periods without letting oneself be stopped by the physiological troubles
which, as we have seen, appeared at around 300. A count of a thousand
respirations had to be achieved to draw near attaining immortality.^^

h. The T'ang Dynasty Theory: Internal Breath Towards the middle of

the T’ang, the tao-shih seem to have noticed that the circulation of the
external Breath was in no way specifically Taoist, since physicians
recommended breath circulation throughout the entire body which,
though going through other ways (of blood circulation), was not much
different. They discovered then that the men of old had interpreted the
books wrongly, and that Embryonic Respiration was something else.
The new theory was as follows:
There are two breaths: internal breath (nei-eh’i) and external
breath {wai-eh'i). That which, dispersed, is like a cloud of smoke
and, gathered together, is like hair, which is seen on the skin, which
has the five colors, green, red, yellow, white and black, is the
external breath. But lo! the (internal) breath'of man comes from the
Cinnabar Field, his breathing is deep; what it nourishes is distant,
what it emits is thick. In ordinary people, the (internal) breath rises
from the liver and the diaphragm: they breathe like monkeys and
puff like rats.^^
This interior breath, personal to every man, is the Original Breath
{yiian-eh’i). The Original Breath in man is what corresponds to the
primordial Breaths which formed Heaven and Earth at the time of crea-
tion.“In being born man receives the Original Breath of Heaven and
Earth which becomes his spirits (s/ien) and his body (hsing): he receives
the Breath of the Original One {yiian-yi chih ch’i), which becomes his

21. Commentary on the preface of the T’ai-ch'ing chin-yi shen-tan citing ( TT, 582) ch. 1,
5a', YCCC, ch. 65, 3a, quoting “a Book of Immortals,” Hsien citing.
22. CCC(TT, 572), lOa-6; ch. 33, 9h-]0a.
23. Tung-yuan citing, quoted by Hsiieh Yen-nien, commentary on Chang Hsing-chien,
Jen-lun ta-t'ung fu, ch. 1, 5h (ed. Shih-wan-chiian lou ts'ung-shu, hrst chi). This commentary
is from 1313 (Hsiieh Yen-nien’s preface, 2a), the work itself being from the end of the
twelfth century.
24. Yiian-ch’i hot (YCL: “Treatise on Original Breath”) in YCCC, ch. 56, \h'. “When the
breaths were not yet separated as they were taking shape, they were knitted up and
resembled an egg, the breaths were a perfectly-formed globe, known as the Great One. The
Original Breath (that is, those breaths still united in the Egg Chaos) being initially pure,
rose to become the sky; Original Breath, being later murky, descended and was Earth.”
 466 Taoism and Chinese Religion

saliva and his essence.And again: “The Original Breath of

Heaven and Earth (in the universe) begins at the tzu (North) position,
belongs to Water, has for its trigram k'an (the trigram of Water),
presides over the northern region and the Heng mountain (the northern
peak) and over the Chi region (the province of the North in the division
into Nine Provinces). —The Original Breath of Man is like that of
Heaven and Earth; in man it is born in the kidneys (which correspond to
Water and the North).” It is the vital principle. “The Original Breath
is the source of the living breath; it is the breath in movement between
the kidneys;^^ this is the foundation of the five viscera, the root of the
twelve arteries, the door of exhalation and inhalation, the source of the
Three Burning Spaces. This breath is man’s root. If the root is cut, the
viscera, the receptacles, the nerves, and the arteries are like the branches
and leaves (of a tree whose root is cut); when the root is destroyed, the
branches wither.” The Original Breath, though born in the left kidney,
leaves that to pass through the Door of Destiny and go into the Ocean of
Breath {clTi-lhii).~^ In this lower region the identification of names with
actual organs was less well established than in the other areas of the
body, probably because the belly, where the whole task of forming the
embryo is accomplished, had from the beginning been the object of
physiologically oriented speculations among Taoists. This tendency had
been so strong that old theories and old identifications going back to an
era when ideas were less precise regarding the very arrangement of the
organs involved in Breath circulation ran counter to the more modern
theories and confounded them. The Door of Destiny and the Ocean of
Breath are sometimes the Cinnabar Field itself and are sometimes behind
it, and the expression Door of Destiny is sometimes applied to the left

25. Shang-ch'ing tung-chen p’in (Section on the Arcane Reality of Great Purity), quoted
in ibid., 8/i.
26. Ibid., 9a-b.
27. “Treatise on Original Breath,” YCL, in YCCC, eh. 56, \0a: “It is asked: What does
breath moving between the kidneys mean? Answer: The right kidney is called the Gate of
Destiny, ming-meir, the breath of the Gate of Destiny begins to move and goes out between
(the gate-posts)....” —1 have not found YCL as an independent book in TT. Reproduced
in >T’C’C’(hnished in 1019), which shows that it dates from the end of the tenth century at
the latest, it is certainly a book written (or copied) under the T'ang dynasty, as is shown by
the use of the character //, Ji, for C/IUK fa (^^h)- On the other hand, it quotes the Yin-fu
dung, which Li Ch’iian fabricated in the first half of the eighth century (Li Ch’iian
occupied provincial offices during the k'ai-yikiu period; see YCCC, eh. 112, 7a) and a piece
of verse by Lo Kung-yuan, a Taoist at the court of the Ming-huang emperor who was
among those who followed the emperor in his flight to Shu in 756-57 [YCCC, eh. 112B,
26-36); it was composed in the last years of the eighth century or during the ninth.
2H. YCLdbuL, \2a).
29. Ibid., lOr/.
 Methods of “Nourishing, the Vital Ihinciple" 467

kidney alone and sometimes to the space between the two kidneys. In
any case, all are agreed that Original Breath must occupy the Cinnabar
Field, and must till it.
Since it is the principle of life. Original Breath must be carefully
conserved. Thus “with all men Original Breath which is within the body
escapes constantly from inside the mouth and the nose. Regulate it and
prevent it from leaving, so that the Cinnabar Field situated below the
navel is constantly full."'^^ One must watch over this with all the more
care since it is so small: “Original Breath measures six inches, three
inches inside and three inches outside"C^ and, for each inch which one
can keep or which one loses, life is prolonged or shortened by thirty
years. If one keeps the six inches entire, one attains Eternal Life. It is
Original Breath that has to be kept circulating throughout the body, and
not external air. The “Oral Formula for the Absorption of the Breath,
propounded by Old Man Wang of the Great Purity" {T’ai-ch’ing Waug-
lao { fu-ch'i) k'oii-chiieh) enumerated the “ten things" which make up the
whole absorption of the breath. These are ten internal and external
breaths, of which the Original Breath is the last named. The formula
then adds: “When (Breath) is sw'allowed correctly, Cheng-yen, one is not
concerned solely with absorbing the internal breath. As for the external
breath which is absorbed, it is like a stranger in a strange place
This internal breath must never be mixed with the external breath, so as
not to be swept along with it at the moment of exhalation: this is
repeated to satiety by authors of all ages. “External breath and internal
breath must absolutely not be mixed," says an author from the mid-
T’ang dynasty, who adds a little later: “The spontaneous internal and
external breaths must not be mixed";'^^ and again: “If you perform

30. T'ai-ch'ing U'ang-lcio k’ou-ih'uau fa (TWKF) in ch. 62, 56. This work is the
same as the T'ai-ch'ing fu-ch'i k’ou-chuch (TT, 569; Wieger, 815), but the }'C'CC’ eopy
contained a long final section by one Li Yi, as well as a portion serving as an introduction
and a postface attributed to the Immortal Wang, who was considered the editor of the
work. The copy in TT does not contain these parts, which must be additions made to the
original work between its composition and the eleventh century. Ch'ao Kung-wu must
have seen a copy like that in TT during the twelfth century, for he was not aware of the
attribution to the Immortal Wang and put the work under Lao-tzu's name (WHTK, ch.
225, \9a). The shorter copy was probably the one taken into TT as early as Sung times,
while the separated editions had been extended earlier. For the parts they share, the YCCC
version is clearly better than that in TT, which has several gaps. -For passages that have
been translated, references are made as a rule to both copies; when they are made to one
only, that is because the quoted passage is missing in the other version.
31. YCL, from YCCC, ch. 56, 256.
32. T'ai-ch'ing IVang-lao (fu-ch'i) cITuan k'ou-chuch, in YCCC, ch. 62, 8</-6. [Cf. notes
30 above and 35 below.]
33. T'ai-hsi ching-wei lun, in YCCC, ch. 58, 3rt.
 46H Taoism and Chinese Religion

Embryonic Respiration, internal and external breaths are not min-

gled.” And another says, in almost the same terms: “Original Breath
and external breath must never be mingled.”

Hi. The Circulation of Internal Breath, Theory and Practise

Since the theory and technique of internal breath circulation have been
described in detail by the authors of the late T’ang and of the Sung era,
they are much better known than those of the external breath which were
accepted in ancient times. So I shall begin with them here. Knowledge of
the modern theory will aid in understanding the ancient theory, with
which it has retained certain affinities, despite the changes which have
occurred.
Since it is the Original Breath and not external breath which must be
kept circulating through the body, and since its natural place is within
the body, there is no need to make it enter or hold it in by effort as the
ancients did: no retention of the breath, which is exhausting and in some
cases harmful. But it does not follow that to make the breath circulate is
an easy thing; on the contrary, it requires a lengthy apprenticeship. “The
internal breath... is naturally in the body, it is not a breath which you go
outside to seek; (but) if you do not get the explanations of an enlightened
master, (all efforts) will be nothing but useless toil, and you will never
succeed.” Common ordinary respiration plays only a secondary role in
the mechanism of Breath circulation, which goes on outside it. The two
breaths, internal and external, carry on their movements in perfect
correspondence. When the external breath ascends during inhalation, the
internal breath contained in the lower Cinnabar Field also rises; when
the external breath descends, the internal breath descends too and
returns again to the lower Cinnabar Field. Such is the simple mechanism
which governs the circulation of Original Breath.Somehow this is
done in two phases: “swallowing the breath” {yen-clTi)f^ and making it
circulate. And if there is only a single way of absorbing the Breath, there
are two distinct ways of making it circulate. One consists of leading it
34. Ihid., ch. 58. 6h.
35. T’ai-ch’ing Wang-lao ( fu-ch’i) ch’uan k'ou-chiieh [TT, 569), bw, cf. YCCC, ch. 62, 86.
36. T'ai-nu hsien-sheng fu-ch’i fa, in YCCC, ch. 59, Sa.
37. HCFYC: TT, 570; cf. YCCC, ch. 60, 12i/-13a, sections “Formula for Swallowing
Breath,” ycn-ch’i chiieh, and “Formula for Guiding Breath,” hsing-ch’i chiich. —Master
Huan-chen is known especially for his commentary to the “Book of Embryonic Respira-
tion,” THC chu {TT, 59; Wieger, 127). He is generally considered to be also the author of
the text itself. His family name and personal name are unknown; the books attributed to
him are from the second half of the T’ang dynasty (eighth to ninth centuries).
38. Ycn-ch'i: (itt^or
 Methods of “Nourishinf^ the Vital Principle” 469

so as to guide it where one wishes it to go, to an afflicted area if it is to

cure a malady, to the ni-huan if Embryonic Respiration is the purpose,
and so on. This is what is called “guiding the breath” {hsin^-ch’i). The
other consists of letting the breath go where it will through the body
without interfering by guiding it. This is what is called “refining the
breath” {lieii-ch’i). I shall point out in succession the methods for
absorbing the breath, for guiding it, and for refining it. It is the first of
these two pulses. Absorbing the Breath, which is properly to be called
Embryonic Respiration {t’ai-hsi): but the expression is applied also to the
exercises in toto.

a. Absorbing the Breath Swallowing the breath is a method which is

better understood within the context of the circulation of the external
breath than within that of the internal breath. In the first case, not only
is it comprehensible, but it even refers to something real. It is probably a
voluntary spasmodic swallowing of air that is facilitated by constant
swallowing-down of saliva, “the jade broth” {yit-chiang), in great quan-
tity. But in the second case, what is the good of swallowing a breath
which is already within the body, and how is one to go about it? It is
swallowed to prevent it from escaping with the breath of respiration (the
external breath) and to make it circulate throughout the body.
The manner of swallowing the internal breath is expounded thus by
master Huan-chen^‘^; “The most marvelous part of absorbing the breath
is swallowing the breath. The uninitiated swallow^ the external breath
This is an error.... The Breath from the Ocean of Breath, after (the
external breath) is expelled, rises and goes straight to the throat; but at
the last moment when the throat spits out (the external breath), the
mouth is suddenly closed, the (celestial) drum is beaten several times,
and (the internal breath which is in the throat) is swallowed with a noise
like water running. In men it descends through the left hand (passage)
and in women by the right hand one, it passes the twenty-four articu-
lations (of the esophagus) like running water, drop by drop; it is heard
distinctly. Thus it is clear that the internal and external breath are
different. It is guided by thought (v/), it is massaged with the hand, so
that it quickly enters the Ocean of Breath. The Ocean of Breath is three
inches below the navel: it is what is also called the Cinnabar Field.” The
Master of Great Majesty, Ta-wei-yi hsien-sheng, specifies what happens
at the moment when the breath is swallowed:*^^ “Nose and mouth both

39. HCFYC, 2h-3a(TP 570; YCCC, ch. 60, \2a~h).

40. Ta-nei-vi hsien-sheng Hsuan-su-ehen-jen yung-eh'i ehneh, in YHCHFC, 10« {FT, 578);
YCCC\ ch. 59, 19a.
 470 Taoisni and Chinese Religion

being closed and completely empty, let the (internal) breath fill the
mouth; beat the (celestial) drum fifteen times, or even more, which will
be all the better; (by doing) as though you had swallowed a large gulp of
water, make (the internal breath which is in the mouth) enter the
abdomen; through concentration of thought, lead it into the Cinnabar
Field."
This exercise is not without difficulties, at least for novices. Indeed, the
road which the breath must travel to enter the Cinnabar Field is obstruc-
ted and it is only by dint of perseverance that, thanks to repeated exer-
cises, the student will succeed in establishing communication. That can
take a very long time: some will establish communication in ten months,
some in a year, others in two or even three years. Those who do not
succeed in overcoming the obstacles to the breath so that the passage is
freed and cleared will not attain Immortality.'^^ These obstacles are
described by Old Man Wang of Great Purity {T’ai-ch’ing Watig-lao):'^-

ON THE OBSTRUCTIONS {S/luo ke-c/lieli)

All men have in their bellies three spots where there is obstruc-
tion.
In the first place, there is obstruction in the heart. Those who
begin studying the Absorption of Breath feel that, below the heart,
the interior of the stomach is filled. You must eat little: when you
have done this for a long time, (the Breath) will be felt to pass
below.
In the second place, there is obstruction below the raw viscera,
sheng-tsang.'^^ The interior of the intestine is felt to be full.'^'^ After a
certain time. Breath is felt to arrive at the navel.
In the third place, there is obstruction in the lower Cinnabar
Field. This can be overcome by a firm will.

41. Hsiang-tzu Shih-ch’i fa (“Procedure of Feeding upon Breath, by Hsiang-tzu”) in

yCCC\ch. 59, \5h-\6a.
42. TH KF, in YCCC, ch. 62, 16.
43. “The raw viscera are above the spleen, the cooking viscera below it (sheng-tsang tsai
p'i-shang, je-tsang tsai p'i-hsUi)\ the inhaled breath goes down from the raw viscera to the
cooking viscera.” (TWKF, in YCCC, ch. 62, 12a). The raw viscera, sheng-tsang, are thus
the heart and lungs; the cooking viscera, shu-tsang, the liver and kidneys. These terms refer
to digestion; the spleen, which controls digestion, is in the center; the two viscera which are
above it are in the middle region of the body, where digestion is not carried out and
consequently where food (or breaths) are raw, sheng-, the two viscera which are below it are
in the lower region, where digestion is carried out, and in consequence where food (and
breaths) are cooked, shu.
44. For this author, the breath passes through the intestine to get to the Cinnabar Field;
other Taoists object to its passing through the intestine, as will be seen farther on.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle’’ 471

It is at'lcr (having overcome these three obstacles) that, for the

first time. Breath is felt to pass throughout the whole interior of the
body. When traveling within the body (the Breath) suddenly enters
the sternum; it can be felt to leave through the sternum. Then one is
capable of curing the maladies of others.
Most Taoist writers do not specify the course by which the swallowed
Breath passes into the Cinnabar Field: it is led by thought in such a way
as not to disperse, and that is enough. For the Chinese the interior of the
body is a cavity where breaths and humors circulate among the various
organs without always needing particular ducts. Thus it is that, if blood
runs through the twelve veins, the wei that is, the subtlest part of the
breaths which have formed the blood circulates in the body outside the
veins. Likewise the saliva, having descended into the intestine, penetrates
the bladder (where through the influence of the Ocean of Breath, it is
transformed into urine) although according to the Chinese the bladder
has no entry but only an exit. Old Man Wang of Great Purity has Breath
descend into the intestine, from where it passes into the Ocean of Breath
without having any particular channel, probably in the fashion of the
saliva passing from the intestine to the bladder. Fie is more precise than
most of the authors of his day.
His very precision earned him an adversary who rose up vehemently
against this opinion regarding the passage of the breath through the
intestine. It is the anonymous author of a book from the ninth or the
tenth century, the “Book of the Absorption of the Breath (deposited) in
the Jade Chest in the Central Mountain” {Chimg-shati yii-kuei fit-ch'i-
chitig). Here is how he explains his ideas.
Lie down (head placed) correctly on the pillow Wait for the
respiration to go entirely out, then close in the Breath of the
Mysterious Female {pi hsiktn-p'in ch'i)f^ Let the teeth keep busy
drumming and not stay clamped shut; when you wish to swallow

45. CSYFC, in YCCC, eh. 60, Sh-lci (section 2). This book, in one clnian, mentioned in
Tc, ch. 67, 43^/, and SiiS, ch. 205, la, no longer e.xists separately in TT, at least not under
this title, but has been inserted into YCCC, ch. 60 and 83, though we cannot be sure
whether or not the work is complete. It is attributed sometimes to Chang Tao-ling of the
Han dynasty, sometimes to “Taoist Chang" of the Blue Jade Slope. Pi-yen Chang tao-che
(SiiS, ch. 205, la), sometimes to the Master of the Blue Jade Slope, I’i-yen hsien-sheng
(J'CC'C’. ch. 60, h/). The commentary placed under the name of Huang-yiian-chun is not
known to me.
46. The “Mysterious Female," hsiian-p’in, a term borrowed from TTC, designates
the nose and mouth to Taoists of pre-T'ang times. To modern Taoists it designates the
Ocean of Breath. The Ocean of Breath is what is meant here, and the “Breath of the
Mysterious Female" is Original Breath.
 472 Taoism and Chinese Religion

(the Breath), bring the teeth lightly together. Then you must
“receive the inhalation” {shou-hsi)'^^ in one very light breath, con-
tract the belly,**^ and make it go down by swallowing (yen-hsia).
Take the successful swallows as your measure and satiety through
swallowing as your limit, but without any limit of time.
This method differs from all the authors' methods of swallowing
the Breath. (For) if you do not “receive the inhalation” in a very
light breath by contracting the belly, so as to make it go down with
the swallowing, the breath will not enter the belly; moreover, it will
not enter the canal of solid foods. The breath which penetrates into
the throat by swallowing has three natural channels: the first enters
the intestinal canal and the stomach {cITang-wei tsnng-mai), the
second enters the canal of the five viscera {wu-tsang tsung-mai), the
third enters the canal of solid foods {shili-mai)^'^ If you do not
follow this method of the very light breath and the contraction of
the belly, that breath is swallowed in vain: you can only make it
enter the intestine, without making it enter the canal of solid
foods,^^ and you can get no benefit from it. (In fact) if it goes
directly down into the belly (without passing through the solid food
canal), it gets into the area between the belly and the stomach, (and)
in the stomach there are many obstacles^ ‘ which cause it to push
Lip^- or to leak away downwards: the food retreats into the in-

47. CSYFC, la, itself explains this expression. “When it says above ‘receive breathing,’
shou-hsi (this means that) you must receive the breath with the head bowed: the breath
penetrates absolutely without noise and vigorously dispels all impurities, so that it pushes
the food obstructing it back rapidly into the intestine.” To push back is what we would call
“to make advance,” since it is pushed towards the exit. The movement of the head by
which one “receives breathing” is explained more precisely in Master Huan-chen’s “Book
on Absorbing Original Breath,” HCFYC. “Turn the head once to the right; stretch the
neck like a tortoise; when the rising Embryonic Respiration gets to the throat, swallow it”
{YCCC, ch. 60, 216). Obviously, when one “receives breathing,” this is not external but
internal breath, and one does not make air come in (through the nose) at that moment.
48. She-fu, I iini not sure precisely what the meaning of the expression is. The
commentary gives the pronunciation but not the meaning.
49. The first canal is for liquid food, the second for breath, and the third for solid food.
50. The intestine serves only for the evacuation of food, according to the Chinese; so
making the breath enter the intestine is to evacuate, and thus to lose, it. But the breath that
has been swallowed is Original Breath, which must be carefully conserved. If, however, it
takes the solid food canal, it can, like the breaths of the five flavors produced by digestion,
go out of the stomach by its upper entrance and from there either enter the veins as blood
or circulate within the body outside the veins as “guardians,” nei.
51. See above, at note 42.
52. “With beginners, breath sometimes rushes upwards and tries to get out through the
mouth; saliva must be swallowed and guided below; swallow the saliva without swallowing
breath, for fear external breath may enter” ( YCCC, ch. 62, 6a-h).
 Methods of ‘'Nourishing the Vital Principle" 473

leslines, the four limbs grow weak and are without strength, the
interior of the body will inevitably have a feeling of hunger;'**^ (even)
while eating and drinking and taking drugs, the mouth inevitably
dries up and the tongue becomes rough.
If (on the contrary), doing as the method dictates, you wait till the
Breath has filled the mouth and has been eaten in leisurely fashion,
you swallow it with a contraction of the belly, the Breath itself is
divided and goes into the solid food canal; through this the internal
breathing of the five viscera becomes entirely pure. If, before the
Original Breath has reached the inside of the intestine, this canal of
solid food has already been completely filled, this will be just as with
nourishment: there will be no feeling of hunger If (on the
contrary), without conforming to this (method), you swallow the
breath however you like thirty to fifty times a day, the inside of the
belly will inevitably be exhausted, you will think constantly of food:
this is not what should happen
As can be seen, this is an opinion opposite to Old Man Wang’s at
every point, even though the latter is not named. In any case, neither of
the two theories seems to have prevailed: even after this semi-polemic,
most works continue to show no interest in the detailed route that the
Breath follows. This lack of curiosity is easily explained. Each Adept
follows the breath by thought, not in imagination but in reality, through
“inward vision” {uei-shih or uei-kucm), by which he observes the interior
of his body. This is not an extraordinary power; it is, rather, quite
common. “By closing the eyes you have inward vision of the five internal
organs, you distinguish them clearly, you know their position At
the same time diverse opinions could understandably emerge, according
to each man’s personal vision, but such opinions did not much trouble
the Adepts who pursued these practises, since their own “inward vision”,
by showing them the breath safely led to the Cinnabar Field, proved to
them that their method, whatever it was, was the right one.

b. Guiding the Breath When the Breath has been swallowed three
times, the Ocean of Breath is full and you perform one circulation of
Breath.
The Breath must be guided carefully the whole way by thought. The
way of guiding it seems to have dilfered from person to person. Some
were satisfied to imagine the breath visually as it ran its course through

53. Vacuum, hsii, in its five forms, is one of the two causes of illness, the other being the
contrary: fullness, shih.
54. TWKF, in YCCC\ ch. 62, 15a.
 474 Taoism aiul Chinese Religion

the body: “lo see in imagination the two lines of white breath (which had
entered through the two nostrils) and to guide both of them Others
used a method common among Taoists, devising for themselves in
imagination a manikin whom they commissioned to guide the Breath
and whom they followed in thought through the whole passage: “you see
a little imaginary fellow three or four inches in height (six to eight
centimeters), who can be placed wherever you wish.” Thus the breath
is led through the entire body, as slowly and as completely as possible.

c. Refining the Breath Rather than “guiding the Breath”, you can let it
circulate freely through the body without trying to direct it. This is what
is called “refining the breath” (lien-e/Ti), a name of which I do not know
the origin but which designates a practise different from “Refining the
Form” {lien-hsing), which I shall mention later.As in this latter, the
name must come from likening the Breath to fire, though I have found
nothing on the subject.
The Process of Refining the Breath by the Master of Yen-ling
( Yen-ling hsien-sheng lien-eli'i
Whenever, after absorbing the Breath, you have some time to
spare, go into a quiet unoccupied room, undo your hair, loosen

55. HCFYC\ in YCCC\ ch. 60, 136.

56. YCCC, ch. 33, 5a. —I translate the espression ying-Jen A (literally "copied man")
as "manikin.” Here is how the ying-Jen is produced: "By detaching it from yourself make a
manikin, ying-Jen, about three to four inches high. Put it on the nose so that it may seize
upon the Great Harmony Breath of the Original Void from the side of the Sky, which
comes down from the Sky, and make it pass right into the head. The four limbs and the
hundred veins, there is no place the manikin cannot penetrate." ( YCCC, ch. 35, 5^/).
57. See below, p. 486.
58. All expressions in which the word lien, "refine,” occurs refer to transformation by
fire: besides the "Refining of Breath," lien-ch’i, and the "Refining of (bodily) Form," lien-
hsing, there is also the "Refining of Souls,” licn-hun, the transformation of the souls of the
dead, or even of the living, through the "liquid fire broth,” liu-huo chih kao, of the
Southern Palace, Nan-kung, which refines their matter, chih, so that they are transformed;
and just at that moment the Celestial Venerable of the Original Beginning, Yiuin-shih t'ien-
tsun, creates for them a body which ascends to the Palace of Life Eternal, Ch'ang-sheng
chih kung, and which will last for 100,000 kalpas, {Ling-pao nu-liang fu-jen shang-p’in miao-
ching ssH-chu [TT, 38], 2, 386-39a). At the base of these expressions is a comparison of
these procedures to the material refining of cinnabar and its transformation by fire,
analogous to that which causes the method of "making the Essence return" to be called
yin-tan cinnabar method as against alchemical methods, which are those of yang-tan
cinnabar.
59. YHCHFC, 25a-h {TT, 570; cf. f'CCC, ch. 61, 19^/; Wieger, 818. —This same formula
is found in shortened form in two other collections of books on the breath compiled at the
end of the T'ang dynasty, HCFYC, 5a-h (TT, 570), and STHC, la-h (TT, 569; Wieger,
817). These last two collections abridge the text of the formula in the same way and are
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple” 475

your clothing and lie down on your back, stretch out hands and
feet, without closing (the hands). Use a clean mat, the sides of which
reach the floor; comb your hair and let it lie loose on the mat. Then
harmonize the breaths {t’iao-ch'i)\ when the breaths have found
their place (= the organ which corresponds to each of them),
swallow (the Breath). Then shut the Breath in until it becomes
unbearable. Darken your heart so that all thought is stopped;^^ let
the Breath go where it will and, when it cannot be held in any
longer, open the mouth and let it go. When it is gone, respiration is
quick; harmonize the breaths; after seven or eight breaths, it calms
down quickly. Then begin again to refine the Breath in the same way.
If you still have some time to spare, stop after ten refinings. When
new at the work, you must be careful (lest) the Breath not penetrate
but be retained in the skin, which would cause illness. If you have
time to spare, refine it again. Add five or six at a time, up to twenty,
thirty, or even forty or fifty; there is no limit. Whatever way you do
it, when the work of absorbing the Breath is accomplished little by
little, the barriers give way, the pores open. When the Breath is
refined twenty or thirty times, it will be felt circulating throughout
the entire body. Sometimes you will break out in sweat. If this
symptom is obtained, it is the best result. When you are new at
refining (the Breath), stop when you have succeeded in making (the
Breath) communicate; the sweat will slowly start to come out, which
is excellent: that calms the heart and balances the Breath.^^ You
must not stand up too soon or let the air penetrate too quickly; you
must act like a sick man who has just perspired, rest a while without
doing anything, put on your clothes, take a few careful steps, speak
little and save the breath, do little and clarify the thoughts. The body
is light, the eyes perceptive, circulation is perfect in the hundred

surely derived from one another: the Master of the Great Nothing incorporated the entire
first collection in his compilation, adding a few texts on the same subject at the beginning
and at the end. But the relations of these two collections with the Master of Yen-ling's are
not so easy to establish. The “Master of the Great Nothing” knew the Master of Yen-ling’s
collection, from which he took his first section; but this is according to Master Huan-chen's
abridgement, of which he has reproduced the section on Refining Breath, as well as the
following two. The texts are so corrupt that it is impossible to determine whether certain
characteristic differences betw'een Master Huan-chen's and Master Yen-ling’s are due to
their having each independently reproduced the same original, the first in abridgement, the
second at more length, or are due to faulty transmission of the text.
60. Remember that for the Chinese (non-Taoists as well as Taoists) the heart is the organ
of thought.
61. 1 read this ho-ch’i, ^11, according to the reading of STHC and of HCFYC, rather
than wen-ch'i, as TTh'ds it.
 476 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

veins, the four limbs are penetrated everywhere. This is why the
“Book of the Yellow Court” (Huang-l’ing-ching) says:

“The thousand calamities are warded off, the hundred illnesses are
cured,
“The cruelty of tigers and wolves is not to be feared,
“And likewise the years of life are prolonged and you will live
forever.”

Refining the Breath cannot be done every day: every ten days or
every five days if you have the time, or if you sense that there is not
communication throughout the body, if the four limbs feel an un-
bearable heat, then you should do it! Doing it every day is useless;
you must not use (this procedure) continuously.

d. Using the Breath Embryonic Respiration could be practised by

oneself when one wished to “feed on Breath”. But quite often it was only
the necessary preliminary to the Refining and Guiding of Breath. This is
what was called “Using the Breath” {yung-elTi). The whole body of
ordinary practises of “using breath” through the combining of several
procedures is given in a series of collections of the eighth and ninth
centuries. From one of these, the “Collection of Books New and Old on
the Absorption of Breath Gathered by the Master of Yen-ling” {Yen-ling
hsien-sheng ehi hsin-chiu fii-eh'i ching),^- I take the following description,
which is the most precise I have come across:^^

Formula for the use of Breath by Perfect Men of Mysterious

Simplicity, expounded by the Master of Great Respect {Ta-\vei-yi
hsien-sheng hsuan-su-chen-jen Yung-eh'i ehiieh).
In all prescriptions for the use of breath, one must first do
gymnastic exercises on the right and left sides of the body, so that
the bones and the joints will open and connect, so that the nerves
{chin) will be soft and the body relaxed. After that, sit down, the

62. TT, 570; Wieger, 818. Twelve of the fifteen sections that make this up are scattered in
ch. 58, 59, and 61 of YCCC. That collection can only have been made towards the middle
of the eighth century, since its first and last three sections are reproduced in STHC (TT,
569; Wieger, 817), another similar compilation from the last quarter of the eighth century.
On the other hand it quotes (18«) the Yin-fu clung, composed in the first half of the eighth
century, and the second section {4h-5a) is a formula of Chang Kuo tao-shih who,
summoned to the court in the beginning of the t’ien-pao period (742-46) by the Ming-
huang emperor, “pretended to be dying” (Shen Fen, Hsii hsien chuan, ch. 3, in YCCC, ch.
113, 2k/). It is accompanied by a commentary from Sang-yii-tzu, who dates from the ninth
or tenth century.
63. YHCHFC, 10//-116(cf. YCCC,ch. 59, 186-206).
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vita/ Principle" 477

body in correct position, and exhale and inhale three times, so that
there are no knots of obstruction. Calm all thought and forget the
body so that the breath may be drawn in peacefully. After a while,
first very gently expel the impure breath (tu-ch’i) through the
mouth, and inhale the pure breath {ch’ing-ch’i) through the nose.
Do all this six or seven times. This is called “harmonizing the
breaths” {t’iao-ch’i).
When the harmonizing of breaths is finished, then, with both
mouth and nose closed and completely empty, let the breath fill the
mouth. Then beat the drum^*^ in the mouth fifteen times; if it is done
more, better yet. (Swallow the breath) as if a great gulp of water had
been swallowed, and make it enter the belly. Concentrate your
entire attention (on the breath’s going) to the Ocean of Breath and
remaining there for a long time. After a while, swallow again
according to the above procedure and, determining (the number of
times to do it by) when the belly is satisfied, but not fixing a specific
number of times. After that, empty the heart^^ and fill the belly.
Close the mouth, massage both sides of the belly with the hands so
that the breath will flow along; and let the respiration penetrate very
gently into the nose without breathing heavily for fear of losing
harmony. After that, the body lying in a correct position, place
yourself on a couch with a pillow. The pillow must be such that the
head is level with the body, both hands tightly closed. Extend the
open hands to a distance of four or five inches from the body, the
two feet likewise to a distance of four or five inches from each other.
After that, breathe through the nose: with the mouth and nose both
closed, let the heart concentrate itself upon the breath and make it
circulate throughout the body. This is what is called “making the
breath circulate” {yiin-ch’i). If you are ill, let the heart concentrate
upon the breath and apply it to the ailing area. If the breath is rapid,
chi (panting?), release it inside the nose (in a) very fine (current of
air) so as to make the breathing communicate, without opening the
mouth, and wait until the breathing is even. Then hold it closed in
again according to the above methods. Move the toes of both feet,
the fingers of the hands, and the bones and joints: for measure take
(the moment when) perspiration appears. That is what is called the
penetration of the breath (ch’i-t’ung).

64. “To beat the (celestial) drum” is a technical term designating the act of gritting the
teeth.
65. “To empty the heart,” hsii-hsin, is not a physiological act like “absorbing breath” or
“emptying the abdomen.” The heart is the organ of thought; to empty it is to drive away
all thought relating to “things”—that is, to the external world.
 47H Taoism and Chinese Religion

Then very gently, lying down, bend the legs, first touching them
to the ground on the left side (for the time of) ten breaths, and then
touching them to the ground on the right side, also for the time of
ten breaths. This is what is called “making up for the diminution”
ipu-sun).
While following these methods, at the end of one month, walk-
ing or standing (still), seated or lying down, when the belly is
empty, beat the drum and swallow (the breath) without time limit,
as if eating. When a meal of emptiness {k'lmg-fan) of one or two
mouthfuls has been eaten, add to it some water which is swallowed
and made to go down. This is what is called “washing the five
viscera” {hsi-wii-tsang). Then warm up again and rinse the mouth
with pure water, empty the heart and fill the belly, so that the
viscera and the receptacles have their layers dilated, swallow (the
breath) so that the five viscera do not hold the breath of the five
flavors in.
Having finished this, (you must) first spit the impure breath out
through the mouth, and inhale the pure breath through the nose
without counting how many times; it has to be ejected entirely. If
one soiled breath is allowed to escape by the lower orifice, set
yourself again to beating the drum and refine one mouthful, joining
it to the breath so as to complete it.
If you eat or drink tea in the ordinary way, those are all exterior
breaths entering. When they have remained in the mouth a moment,
it is closed and when it is closed, the exterior breaths which have
entered it go out into the nose. But the breath which enters through
the nose is the pure breath; therefore you must always eat with the
mouth closed so that no breath enters through the mouth, (for) if it
does, it is a deadly breath.
Whenever men speak, and the breath within the mouth goes out,
it must enter through the nose. This is exhalation and inhalation as
they are carried on ordinarily.
If in walking, in pausing, in sitting, or in lying down, you are
always moving the toes, that is called seeing constantly that the
breath succeeds in going down below'. This is something to practise
constantly, something you must think of while at rest as well as
when moving.
If attention is not given to time, so that exterior breath suddenly
penetrates into the belly and a light bloating is felt, you must
massage the belly a hundred times: the breath will escape below. If
the breath goes up and cannot get out, make it go down by pressing
with the hand. This is called “putting things in order” (li-shun).
Abstain from things which interrupt the breath, and from fat
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Ih ineiple” 479

things or things which stick together or which produce chill; you

must not eat cold things which disturb the breath.
If this method is followed without mistake and practised con-
stantly for nine years, the result will be attained; you will walk upon
emptiness as one walks on substance, on water as if on earth.
Nothing shows better what Embryonic Respiration was to the tao-shih
of the end of T'ang and of the Sung era, how' it was practised, how its
mechanism was represented, and what questions arose on this score,
than a dissertation which is found in the same collection, "‘Books New
and Old on the Absorption of Breath Gathered by the Master of Yen-
ling.” Despite the title, which speaks of “various methods”, this de-
scribes a set method, which the author particularly commends: what he
calls “method of the drum and of effort” {kit-iiu chih fa). I shall give a
complete translation here, except for a few' lines which are concerned
with another subject.
The effecti\e and secret oral formula relating to various methods
of absorbing the Breath^’^ {Fu-ch'i tsa-fa pi-yao k’oit chiieh).
Let internal Breath be in the Celestial Tollgate {T’iett-kuau).^^
Let external breath be in the Divine Hut {Sheu-lu).^^
Every time you absorb Breath, choose a yang-shih hour, midnight
or dawn. Then, turned towards the east, calm (chitig) and seated
correctly, grind the teeth in three series, rinse the mouth three times
with saliva and swallow' (that saliva). Rub the hands together so that
the heart is warmed up, rub the face and the eyes; then, with the
thumb and the index finger, rub the bones of the kidneys high and
low' (the lumbar vertebrae) seven times; then take the closed fists,
beat the drum of the breath so as to fill the Celestial Barrier, letting
the equalization be the measure, close the mouth and swallow' (that
air), (push it) by an effort (into) the belly. That done, make the air
which is in the Celestial Hut come out very gently; within the
Celestial Hut you must control it (in such a way that) the drum
(-rolls) and the effort answer one another at each instant: a (roll of
the) drum, a swallow (of breath), and effort corresponding. During
this rolling of the drum and this swallow'ing, do not let the Celestial
Barrier be open, for fear that the living Breath may penetrate into
the belly and make (you) sick.
To absorb the Breath, it is necessary to calm the spirit and firm

66. YHCHFCiTT. 570), 18^-226; YCCC\ ch. 61, 146, 19^/.

67. Commentary: “The mouth is the Heavenly Barrier, ... the hand the Human Barrier,
Jen-kuan, ... the feet the Earthly Barrier, ti-kuan." Cf. T'ai-shang Huan^-t'iug nci-ching yii-
ching {TT, 167), 66 (section 18).
68. “The Divine Hut is the nose."
 4H0 Taoism and Chinese Religion

ihe will. Swallow it gently, make it arrive quickly in the heart and in
the chest (so that) the Breath does not disperse. If it is for curing an
abscess, each swallowing should consist of fifty absorptions; little by
little increase this and get to a hundred, two hundred, three hundred
absorptions. If it is for some other cause, perform twenty or thirty
absorptions (by swallowing) and stop; and in a little while you will
find that (the ailment) will dissipate of itself and cease. The reason
why the continuous practise is esteemed is that you will not lessen
your days. If, when you begin to absorb, you imagine that Breath is
ascending, then beat the drum and immediately swallow without
letting the Breath get out. If the lower region (the belly) holding the
Breath suddenly lets it escape, do not impede it. Every time the
drum is beaten and the Breath swallowed, it is necessary to har-
monize them very delicately so that there is no noise in the Celestial
Barrier. If (the Breath) is swallowed too quickly, there is a danger
that Breath (which is already) in the lower region will be closed in
there, so that it is expelled through the anus. Be careful about this.
If you absorb the Breath, it will penetrate by itself after a certain
time; if it penetrates, you will absorb it heedless of the moment;
(but) it is only to be absorbed when you are hungry, and when full,
you must stop. At each moment of drumming or of swallowing, con-
centrate the thought constantly upon the Breath entering the five
viscera and circulating there, then passing through the hands, the
feet, the heart and the top of the head, the three Barriers, the nine
orifices and the joints, and (finally) leaving. If you suddenly fall ill,
concentrate upon overcoming the ailing area through the Breath.
What malady will not be cured (thus)? If you absorb Breath so as to
cease (eating) cereals, do not concern yourself with the number of
swallowings, the rollings of the drum or the efforts; take for your
measure that your belly be full, though without weighing upon the
intestines. If you are hungry, absorb three or five swallowings. Be
sure that your breathing is regularized by itself. You need not be
lying down. When you are, the Breath has diflhculty in going down;
it causes discomfort in a man’s heart or chest. Every time the
breaths expand, there is noise in the belly. The ignorant assert that
when the intestines are empty there is noise, and when there is noise
it causes illness in man. That is completely false. It is like when the
thunder resounds and the lightning strikes, the yin breath is refined;
the Breath expands through the hundred barriers; that is the truly
important profound gateway.
There are many recipes for absorbing the Breath, but aside from
the procedure of the drum and of effort there is none that is truly
 Methods of "Nourishing the Vita/ Principle" 4H1

marvelous. Sometimes there are men who are not yet liberated who
absorb the Breath. As the Breath does not circulate when penetrat-
ing, when they empty their hearts and forget their bodies, even
though they try to put themselves into ecstasy {tso-wan^), they are
inevitably getting nowhere; and they exhaust themselves extremely.
The procedure of the drum and of effort (consists in the follow-
ing). The main thing is to absorb the Spontaneous Original Breath
{tzu-jan yihtn-ch'i), and to spread it throughout the viscera and the
receptacles; when the Breath is conserved for a long time, the man
does not die. Why borrow from the exterior and seek to inhale
external breath?
When a man’s Breath is exhausted, the Spirit dies; when the Spirit
dies,^° the Body is abandoned. This is why, in him who knows how'
to hold onto the Original Breath and lose none of it, the Embryo is
completed. All this is what the Secret Formulas teach and it leaves
no room for doubt.
At the times when you are guiding the Breath, beat the drum and
perform ten swallowings, twenty swallowings, so that your intestines
are filled. After that concentrate upon guiding (the Breath) and
making it penetrate into the four limbs. When you are practising
this method, guide the Breath once for each time you swallow. The
hands and feet should be supported on things; wait until the Breath
has penetrated, and then the heart must be emptied and the body
forgotten; and thereupon the hot breath {fan-cheng chih ch’i) will be
dispersed throughout the four limbs; the breath of the Essential
Flower {c/iing-hua chih ch’i), being coagulated, will return to the
Ocean of Breath. After some time, the Embryo will be completed
spontaneously. By holding the joints of the members firm, you can
succeed in having (the Breaths) answer one another with the sound
of thunder; the drum resounds in the belly so that the Breaths are
harmonized.
In seeking the Breath and doing gymnastics, you must first open
the hands and feet completely, (then) beat the drum and swallow,
and roll the body to right and to left, meditating upon (the Breath)
entering into the bones and the joints, to guide it in such a way that
it spreads, and making it penetrate everywhere without hindrance.
This is what is called guiding the Breath and doing gymnastics.
Moreover, as you roll yourself back and forth, concentrate on the
Breath passing through the hands, the feet, the barriers, and the

69. Variant: “and while meditating upon the Hut, breathe in the external breath?”
70. Variant: “goes away.”
 4H2 Taoism am! Chinese Religion

joints and spreading (throughout the body). The ancient Books {ku-
cliing) say (only) that there is guidance of the Breath and exercise
(without explaining them in detail). If there had been no oral
transmission of the doctrine, one would hardly have known of it.
In guiding the Breath and doing exercises, if you have swallowed
(the Breath) when hungry, you must wait until the belly is full
before doing (these things). After you have eaten your filF' they can
be done at once. (Finally) if you swallow the Breath and do exercises
all at the same time, you must wait for some little time to do them;
this is not (an exercise) that can be done at any time. Ah! Those who
swallow the Breath and do exercises should live in a calm and
isolated dwelling, not in too high or windy a place for, if there
should be an epidemic caused by a violent wind, when the rain
pours down and soaks everything, when there is a brisk chill or too
much heat, that would oblige you to stop. You must wait until the
body is dry and the Breath harmonized. Only then can it be done. If
the four limbs are always thin, do exercises several times.If the
absorption of the Breath and exercises are done without a hitch,
then Spirit and Breath will be always pure, the appearance of the
body will not change, neither excessive fat nor empty flesh will be
produced, and you will never be sick.
The people of the world {shili-Jen) often say that the absorption of
the Breath is different from Embryonic Respiration. This is a
profound error. The Embryo is knitted up by the absorption of the
Breath; the Breath ceases through the existence of the Embryo.It
is when (the Breath) has been absorbed several times that it can
coagulate and become the Embryo, and that impure breath is dis-
71. Sang-yii-tzu, Commentary (TT, 570), 20a. “The character pao is a mistake for yin
(to drink). Those who practise (the method ofl feeding on (breath) act in moderation
ip’ing-cini, T^) and do not gorge themselves (pao, |fe), and those who guide the breath
are even better otf." —VCCC, ch. 61, 166, made the correction and omitted the
commentary: “After having eaten and drunk, it can be practised immediately.” Sang-yii-
tzu’s commentary naively points out the bias of this correction. Moreover, he mis-
understood: what is “eaten to satiety” is breath.
72. Sang-yii-tzu: “This means that, in order for the flesh and skin to be w'ell filled, you
must do a great deal of gymnastics.”
73. 111?Tlin, This phrase seems to mean that the existence of
Internal Breath and that of the Embryo are linked to one another: when by absorbing
Breath you make it enter completely into the Ocean of Breath, it is united to the Essence
and thus knits up the Embryo; with the Embryo knitted up, the Breath no longer exists
separately. On this point as on some others, the ideas of the Yen-ling Master, if I
understand them correctly, are not those most generally adopted by Taoist masters. A little
farther on we shall see a statement against which the commentator Sang-yii-tzu protests
vehemently.
 Methods of "Nourishing the Vital Principle" 4H3

persed and leaves the Womb. You can then go into water (with-
out drowning) or walk upon fire (without being burned). I'he people
of the world either rely upon ancient formulas or accept false
doctrines. They hold (the breath) and count (the time during which
they hold it in), and they take pride in the length of their breathing.
Is this not still another error? They do not know' that the five viscera
have a Breath that cannot be swallowed ordinarily. How do they
know that the intention of the Spontaneous (Breath) of the Womb
Interior is to be always closed in and held back by the barriers and
doors? They do nothing but heat up and fatigue the body and the
spirit, without e\’er drawing any advantage from it. When men of
our times absorb the breath, many close the mouth and clasp the
nose, blocking them completely w'ith the hand. They take account
only of the length of respiration, and do not know' that they do
themselves harm in this way.
Question: When Breath is absorbed, since the two breaths, the
internal Breath and the external, both go out from the five viscera,'"^
how can you manage to have the internal (Breath) and the external
(breath) exhaled and inhaled separately? Answ'er: When the internal
Breath is absorbed, at the moment of the drum and the effort, then
the Stomach Ocean {wei-hai) opens to receive the Real Breath and
hold it firmly. When that reception is accomplished, it closes again;
quite gently the external breath is rejected, they separate by them-
selves. Ah! When mouth and nose are closed with the hand, the
breaths do not penetrate, and the fact that they do not penetrate
causes harm to the five viscera. This is, in seeking a benefit, to
receive an injury instead. Thus those people who hold the breath
often become ill, their strength diminishes, and it is difficult to cure
them. How can this (practise of holding the breath) not be a very
grave error? When internal Breath is absorbed, very little force is
used and the results are many; (thus) it must be practised zealously.
Question; The higher Adepts do gymnastics first and then breath-
ing; the lower Adepts do breathing first and then gymnastics. Which
(is better)? Answer: In the way the higher Adepts do exercises first,
the impure breath is agitated because (of the exercises) and spreads
(throughout the body); if the lower Adepts do the exercises after-

74. Sang-yii-tzu: “When it is said here that ‘both breaths come out of the five viscera,'
this is a gross error. E.xternal breath is the breath of respiration, not the breath of the
organs; it is merely (a breath which) enters and goes into the blood; it is not a breath which
is naturally inside. How can it be said to come out of the five viscera?" Remember that the
Chinese consider external air and respiration as playing quite a difl'erent role with regard to
the blood and circulation than our physiological theories give them.
 484 Taoism and Chinese Religion

wards, it is because they tear lest their impure breath enter into the
joints and not disperse.For among those who labor over the
absorption of Breath and over exercise, there are some who succeed
and others who do not. The Celestial Master {T’ien-shih) says: “To
receive the breath there is one procedure, to expel it there are six.”
When the absorption of the Breath is completed, concentrate
upon the Planet Mars {ying-hiio) of the southern region, the red
Breath of which, big as a pearl, penetrates into your Celestial
Barrier, spreads out within your viscera and your receptacles.
Concentrate upon your body’s becoming entirely breath; (do that)
once a day. This is refining the yin by means of the yang, and it
drives away the evils due to the three Cadavers. There is still the
old oral Formula left behind by Chiian-tzu, through which one
imagines the body refined by fire and becoming glowing embers;
but the breath of fire is not the spontaneous yang breath, and one
should beware lest it injure the Spirit; it must not be done
When you perform gymnastics and the absorption of the Breath,
your clothing and girdle should always be loose; if they are tight,
they diminish the Breath, and the Ocean of Breath will be troubled
by that. In summer and in winter, the place where you lie, and
(where) you eat and drink should always be warm. Do not eat
things that are sour, salty, oily, or fatty; to eat these things does
harm to the five internal organs; when harm is done to the five
internal organs, the Spirit is ill. Dog meat and pork, and raw fruit,
are also entirely forbidden.

iv. The Circulation of the External Breath

Detailed descriptions by Sung dynasty authors allow us to understand
the less precise allusions of the writers from the ancient period. Clearly,
the general pattern has been changed only insofar as the substitution of
the internal Breath for the external has made change necessary. All the
technical methods of the modern period had already been enumerated in
the fifth century by the Very High Old Lord, T’ai-shang Lao-chiin, in the
orders he gave to K’ou Chien-chih for reforming Taoism: “Most espe-
cially place moral precepts in the forefront; add to them (the practises
of) absorbing, nourishing, holding in, and refining (the Breath) { fu shih
pi lien)d'^^ I shall not go over each of these practises again. I have just
75. Sang-yii-tzu: “Superior and inferior mean more or less advanced ” (lac. cit., 18u).
76. Wei-shu, ch. 114, 116, translated in Ware, The Wei Shu and Sui Shu on Taoism, in
JAOS, vol. 53 (1933), p. 231, but the technical terms eluded Professor Ware’s grasp. —Lien
an exchange common in Taoist texts, and even outside them.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple" 4H5

been studying them for the T’ang period."^ Furthermore, it is not

particularly those practises which have changed, but rather, together
with doctrine, the general practise of breath circulation, and I shall
restrict myself to studying that.
Already in the ancient period, the breath was supposed to pass
through the whole body. ‘The breath passes through the whole body,
from the nose and mouth to the ten toes”;^” and “the breaths of the nine
Heavens enter through man's nose, travel throughout the body, and are
discharged into the Palace of the Brain." Or, still more precisely:
“from the Long Valley to the Dark District, (the Breath) makes the tour
of the Suburbs and the Domain",says one of the most famous and
most studied Taoist books at the end of the Six Dynasties and the
beginning of T'ang. Translated into popular language,^* this means that

77. Absorbing, )jl?, breath, 7, see above p. 469; feeding on, breath, shih-ch'i,
p. 462; closing breath in fJi], pi-ch’i, p. 463; refining, M or |^, breath, lien-cli’i, p. 474.
78. Yikin-yang citing, in Yang-hsing yen-nting lu ( YHYML), ch. 16, TT, 572; Wieger, 831.
YHYML is attributed sometimes to T'ao Hung-ching {ch. sluing, la; ch. h.sia, la), the great
Taoist writer of the sixth century, and sometimes to Sun Ssu-mo (preface, 16), who died in
682 {Chiu T'ang-shu, ch. 191,46; Hsin T'ang-shu, ch. 196, 26); a Taoist author from the end
of the T’ang dynasty {WHTK, ch. 225, 216), Shen Fen, Hsii hsien chuan, ch. 2, la-46 {TT,
138; cf. y^CC'C, ch. 113, 196) says that he died in 652, which is all the more surprising since
the whole beginning of Sun Ssu-mo's biography in the two T’ang histories is taken from
either the H.sii hsien chuan or from the same source that it derives from. The biographies
are also full of inconsistencies, due chiefly to Sun Ssu-mo’s wish, and that of his followers,
to exaggerate his great age. The only date which seems certain is the 659-74 period, when
the emperor Kao-tsung sent for Sun and then kept him at the capital: he claimed that he
was ninety years old.
In fact, this is a Sung work: it was composed between 1013 and 1161, since on the one
hand it gives Lao-tzu the title of Hun-yiian, which was bestowed on him in 1013 {H.m tzu-
chih t'ung-chien ch’ang-pien, ch. 81, 8a; SuS, ch. 8, 36) and on the other hand it is
mentioned in Tc, ch. 67, 456, a collection finished in 1161. The Yiian-yang citing, which it
quotes, is thus earlier than this period. 1 believe, in fact, that this is the same work as that
quoted in Wu-ch’eng-tzu’s commentary on HNC (FC’CC, ch. 11, 20a, 256, 31a, and so on)
under the name of Yikin-yang-tzu. Yiian-yang-tzu’s family and personal names are
unknown (Wieger, p. 336, has this name as Hsii Tao-ling’s hao. This is a confusion, due to
the fact that the character was tabooed under the Manchu dynasty and customarily
replaced with Tc, so as to avoid K’ang-hsi’s personal name; for Hsii Tao-ling’s hao is really
Hsiian-yang-tzu). However, the name certainly refers to the person called Yiian-yang of the
Yellow Court, Huang-t'ing Yikin-yang, by Chen Luan in the middle of the sixth century
{HTL, 31, in KHC, ch. 9, TIK, n. 2008, vol. L). SO the work is definitely from the first half
of the sixth century at the latest. This hypothesis is made likely by the fact that the Yikin-
yang citing, judging from what is quoted from it, still followed the ancient doctrine on
breath circulation.
79. Fa-lin; PCL, ch. 6 {TIK, vol. L, 2010), 357a.
80. HNC {wilh commentary by Liang-ch’iu-tzu), ch. chung, 19a: 1^x15 §.•
81. Ihid., Liang-ch’iu-tzu’s commentary on the preceding passage.
 4H6 Taoism mu! Chinese Religion

the breath inhaled through the nose (Long Valley, c/Tang-ku) goes down
to the kidneys (Dark District, yu-hsiang) and travels through the Five
Viscera (Suburbs, chiao) and the Six Receptacles (Domain, yi). This is, as
1 have said above, speaking of external breath, of what is taken in by
respiration, as it concerns the books of this period, and not of internal
breath as in more recent books which I have quoted before. In this era.
Embryonic Respiration does not differ from the breathing of the unin-
itiated except in its technique and in the length of the course the Breath
travels; it does not yet differ from such ordinary breathing in its very
essence, as it will later do when not only the technique and the course but
even the Breath itself will be peculiar to the Taoists.
A book of the fifth or sixth century, which seems to have been rather a
popularized manual of Taoist procedures in the form of a novel, the Han
\Vu wai-chiuifu^- enumerates and briefly defines three practises in the
following fashion;^^ two of them are the respiratory exercises themselves,
and the third deals with dietary practises, which I have left out of this
article.

Every evening concentrate upon the Red Breath (C/Tih-c/Ti)

w'hich enters through the Celestial Door {T'ien-nien),^'^ makes the
round of the body within and without, and is transformed into fire
in the brain so as to consume the body and so that the body has the
same brilliance as fire. Concentrate (above it), that is called
“Refining the Form” (lien-hsing).
Practise holding the breath in {pi-cITi) and swallowing it (/’////);
that is called “Embryonic Respiration” {t’ai-lisi).
Practise making the spring which is beneath the tongue^^ gush
out and swallowing the liquid; that is called “Embryonic Nourish-
ment” {t'ai-shih).

82. TT, 137; Wieger, 290. I quote from the Shou-shan-ke ts'ung-shu edition of the Han
II I/ nei-cin/aih in which the wai-chuan forms a separately paginated supplement, fu-h/.
—The ll 'ai-chuan is clearly later than the Nei-chuan\ it must have been initially an addition
placed at the end of the latter (which is why 5'5', ch. 33, 9a. gives three chiian for the A'c/-
clii/an), and the division into two distinct works must have come about simply because of
the identification of differences between the Taoist copies which had a long tradition and
the lay copies which did not share that tradition.
83. Han Wu nei-c/nianfu-lu, \2a (ed. Shon-shan-ke ts'ung-shu).
84. “The Celestial Door is the mouth”. Ibid.. \2h.—The Red Breath is born spon-
taneously in the heart. Therefore it is an internal Breath that enters the mouth from inside
and not from the outside, and there is no contradiction of the constant rule which has the
mouth used as the e.xit for the external breath and the nose alone used as its entry.
85. The saliva.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle” 4H7

And this work gives a little formula in three-word verse which, in

cryptic terms, summarizes the whole body of respiratory practises which
lead to immortality. It is a mnemo-technical formula which makes sense
only through the explanations which the author appends to it:”^’
Dress your head with the golden turban;”^
Make entrance into the Celestial Door;^”
Exhale long and gently;
Swallow the Mysterious Source;^‘^
Beat the Celestial Drum;
Nourish the Ni-huan.
Of these respiratory exercises, Ko Hung, who speaks of them often
enough, describes hardly more than the externals:*^^^
Those who begin to study how to make breath circulate {hsing-
ch'i) (must) inhale breath through the nose and hold it in. While it is
held fast, the number (of beats) of the heart is counted up to 120,^^'
and it is expelled very gently through the mouth. Neither when
expelling it nor while inhaling it should you with your own ears ever
hear the breath entering or leaving. Much of it must always enter

86. Ihid., \2a: [fl^rfl, A^(Q), Regular rhymes:

men, ch'ikin, wan (circled).
87. Ibid. "The formula words, ‘Put on the golden turban', mean to concentrate
continuously upon the Breath of the Lungs, make it enter the Ni-huan, and make it
circulate little by little throughout the body, which will become luminous.”
88. The mouth. You must make sure that the breath enters into the mouth and not
through the mouth. The Chinese text naturally has no specificative particle (ju t'ien-men)\
but entrance through the nose and exit through the mouth constitute explicit rules of Taoist
technique, and it is said unendingly that making the breath enter through the mouth is
extremely dangerous. In this passage, as in the sentence concerning the Red Breath quoted
previously from the same work, "to make the breath enter into the Heavenly Gate” does
not mean inhaling external air so as to make it penetrate into the mouth, but rather to
catch in the mouth the Breath which has come from within the body. In this period there
could be no question of circulating Internal Breath; but the lines before and after show
what is meant in this one: after the Adept has "put on the Golden Turban”, i.e., made the
Breath enter the Ni-huan and circulated it throughout the entire body, he makes it go from
within the body into the mouth (Heavenly Gate) before “exhaling long, soft breaths.” The
"entry into the Heavenly Gate”—that is, the passage of breath into the mouth — is thus
indeed the preliminary to its expulsion, in conformity to the rule.
89. Ibid., 12a. "To swallow the mysterious source means to make the saliva gush out into
the mouth and to swallow it, which causes men not to grow old; (it is enough) to practise
that seven days to get results.”
90. PPT, NP, eh. 8, 2b.
91.
 488 Taoism and Chinese Religion

and little must leave: if you set a feather on the nose and mouth
(you must) exhale the breath without the feather’s moving. In
proportion to your practising, increase (the time of the breath’s
retention): the number of heart beats should little by little attain
1,000. When it reaches 1,000, from being an old man you will
become a young man again.
The Celestial Master Shen {Shen T'ien-shih), in the first half of the
eighth century, has given a description of what occurs internally during
respiratory exercises. His description is very precise at the beginning and
the end, but passes quickly over the middle.^"
Beginning from the fifth watch, after rising, rinse the mouth with
water; stretch, extending the arms and legs. Expel the breath very
gently a series of twenty times and wait until the breath of cereals is
drained away little by little and the heart is quiet. Then close in the
breath and enter upon meditation. Turn your thought to the interior
of the Breath Ocean of the Cinnabar Field below the navel. Remain
calm without moving and swallow the breath three series of twenty
times. Again close in the breath, guide it by thought into the (lower)
Cinnabar Field. Little by little, the breath will be perceived to make
a noise; below it is entering into the Ocean of Breath, it is very dark.
This is the moment to guide the breath. After some time, the gui-
dance of the breath having been completed, the mouth is opened
and the breath expelled very gently. Then the closing in and
expulsion of the breath is begun again thus for a series of twenty
times following the above procedure
Celestial Master Shen does not describe the guidance of the breath, no
doubt because he subscribes to the same sentiment which causes the
author of the Huang-t ’ing wai-chitig yii-ching to say, at the end of that
willfully obscure work: “My words are ended: take care not to pass them
on.” To this the commentator Liang-ch’iu-tzu adds yet a bit more: “Do
not pass them on to wicked people so that the Tao will be unclear; watch
out for that, watch out for that!”^^ And yet other factors caused

92. Shen T'ien-shih fu-ch’i yao-chiieh (Efficacious Formula for Absorbing Breath, by
Celestial Master Shen) in YCCC, ch. 59, \6h. This short passage is probably only an
excerpt from the work bearing that title mentioned in Tc, ch. 67, 43h. —Shen Yiian-chih
(Celestial Master Shen) was one of the Taoists at the court of the emperor Ming-huang
during the k’ai-yikin period (713-41), LCTT, ch. 39, 6h-la {TT, 146; Wieger, 293).
93. HWY (TT, 167), ch. hsia, 3a\ edition with commentary by Wu-ch’eng-tzu in TCCC,
ch. 12, ba-h\ edition with commentary by Liang-ch'iu-tzu in Hsiii-chen shih-.shu (HCS), ch.
60, 14u: 'llB^(4 (or, variant:
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle" 4H9

numerous Taoist formulas to remain long unwritten, transmitted only by

word of mouth from master to disciple, and among them most of those
which are considered the most important, as master Wang of Lo-fou
recognized in the eighth century in a passage I have quoted above.
The fact is, he judged this portion of the doctrine too precious to be
written and reserved it for his personal teaching. This is, indeed, the
proper Taoist form of promulgation. From Buddhist authors we know
that, as early as the beginning of the T’ang dynasty, the circulating
breath took the breath passage by way of the brain before being
expelled.
This circulation of the Breath is described in esoteric terms in the first
verses of the “Book of the Yellow Court" {Huang-t’ing citing)a book
which goes back to the second or third century A.D. and which is
probably the most ancient extant treatise to describe in detail the various
practises of the search for immortality. It is a book in seven-foot verse, a
verse of a popular rather than a scholarly type, without parallelism and
without those alternations of tone from one verse to the next which had
begun to be more and more strictly prevalent in scholarly poetry from
Han and Three Kingdoms times on. Rhythm is marked by an absolutely
regular return of the caesura between the fourth and fifth foot, which
cuts each line into two segments, the first of four and the second of three
words; and the tie between successive lines is secured only by the
rhyme^^ with which all lines are provided (not the even lines alone, as in
scholarly poetry) and which remain the same for a whole series of
successive verses, though the author does not bind himself either to the
composition of equal stanzas or to making the change of rhyme coincide
with the change of subject. All the practises of the Adept aspiring to
Immortality are described there in succession: the circulation of breath,
the procedure for making the Essence return, practises for augmenting
the Essence, nutrition, and so on. The whole work is always in wilfully
obscure terms, for these are things which must not be transmitted
lightly.It is in fact so obscure that the commentaries which have been

94. HWY (TT, 167; Wieger, 329). —This book is mentioned in LHC {ch. 2, 86) and in
PPT, AT, ch. 19, 3a.
95. In some cases the rhymes are of an ancient type which disappeared from scholarly
poetry in Chin times (i.e., in the fourth century A.D.). For example, lines 30 to 34 rhyme
what modern readings would give as u u, yeh, hsia, hu, and che. Even if we admit that this
book (the origin of which is obscure) may reflect some dialect pronunciation which was
archaic within the general evolution of the language, these rhymes would show it to be
really ancient.
96. HWY[TT, 167), ch. hsia 3a; cf. warning at note 93 above.
 490 Taoism and Chinese Religion

preserved and which dale, one from the beginning of the T’ang and the
other from the end of that dynasty or the beginning of the Sung,*^^ rarely
agree, and so that one Taoist writer of the fifth or sixth century thought
he should rewrite it entirely in a form which is indeed much clearer, but
which sets forth ideas that often seem to be quite different from those of
the ancient work."^^
Here are the verses from the beginning dealing with Breath circulation,
just after the introduction*^^^;
97. These two commentaries do not exist separately in TT, but are found in two
collections of ancient Taoist texts compiled in the Sung period, YCCC of the tenth century
and HCS of the thirteenth (TT, 121 31; Wieger, 260). They are placed under the names of
mythical immortals:
(1) Wu-ch’eng-tzu's Commentary, YCCC, ch. 12, 30u-60u. Wu-ch’eng-tzu is the name
Lao-tzu took when he came down as teacher into this world in the emperor Yao's time
(SHC, ch. 1, 16, //UT5 edition).
(2) Liang-ch'iu-tzu’s Commentary, HCS, ch. 58-60 {TT, 131).
The first of these two commentaries is still aware only of the ancient theory regarding
circulation of the external breath and, unless he w'as a late follower of this doctrine, its
author must have lived at the beginning of the T'ang period at the latest. Since, on the
other hand, he knew HNC (compare the commentary, ch. 12, 31u: 0 J±1 b] A, etc., to
HNC, ch. 11, 126; 0 A bl, etc.), it can hardly be from much earlier times. The second
commentary, by contrast, conforms its explanations as much as possible to the recent
theory of the Original Breath circulation, which places it in the eighth or ninth century at
the earliest.
98. HNC [TT, 167; Wieger, 328). Of this book we have, in addition to a kind of
paraphrase in four-word verse by a certain Liu Ch'ang-sheng {TT, 189) an extensive
commentary attributed to Liang-ch'iu-tzu {TT, 190; Wieger, 399; HCS, ch. 55-57). There
also existed a one-chapter commentary attributed to Wu-ch’eng-tzu {SiiS, ch. 205, 66), and
indeed we find this name in f’CCC, ch. 11-12; but its text—which differs from Liang-ch’iu-
tzu's only in the first sections and is identical for all the rest—shows that since the tenth
century only the first sections of the commentary have survived, the other, lost ones having
been fleshed out with the help of Liang-ch’iu-tzu’s Commentary. —There is no w'ay to
know whether the unknown Taoists who took these names of immortals are the same as
the authors of the wai-ching yii-ching commentaries.
99. HIVY, verse 3. The three texts—the separate text and those accompanying each of
the two commentaries—present numerous variants, some unimportant because they are
due to copyists' errors, others due to the fact that, this book having been preserved orally
rather than in writing for a long time, homophonous characters were sometimes substituted
for one another (e.g., the reading of the text with Liu Ch'ang-sheng's commentary
[386] and of that with Liang-ch'iu-tzu’s [ch. hsia, 146, cf. HCS, ch. 57, 106; YCCC, ch. 12,
18a] as against that in the text without commentary [TT, 168], [both are read hsiian-
y/ag], the trachea “which is suspended” in the chest). Finally there are some due to actual
difterent readings. In the notes below' 1 indicate the variants in the three texts by the
following letters:
A = YCCC text (with Wu-ch'eng-tzu’s commentary)
B = HCS text (w'ith Liang-ch’iu-tzu's commentary)
c = TT text without commentary
We must note the constant use of the character li, fl, for chih, '(0, in HCS, which shows
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle” 491

[3] Above there is the Yellow Court, below the origin of the
Barrier; Behind there is the Dark I\')rtal, before the Door of
Destiny.
[5] When inhaling and exhaling in the spaee of the Hut (you
make) the Breath enter the Cinnabar Field,

that the compiler used a T'ang manuscript (chih was avoided under that dynasty and
regularly replaced by // because it was the personal name of the Kao-tsung emperor,
649-83). In consequence that text has a certain interest because it marks the earliest limit
for the composition of Liang-ch'iu-tzu's commentary.
100. Wai-cli'eng-tZLi {loc. cit., 30(/); The X'ellow Court, means the eyes; the
Dark Gate, Yu-ch iich, the kidneys. - Liang-ch'iu-tzu {loc. cit., 16) gives two different
explanations of the expression “the Yellov\ Court": in the first, these are the three cubicles
of the Sacred Palace, Xfing-i'an^, of the Chamber of the Arcane, 7'////g-/u/;g, and of the
Cinnabar Field, Tan-t'ien, "in the head.... In the Ming-t'ang there are the sovereign and
the ministers; behind, in the Tung-fang, are the Father and Mother; in the Cinnabar Field
are the Spouses.” According to the second, the Yellow Court would mean the spleen, "a
foot or more long and situated below the Great Store, Ta-ts’mig (stomach), three inches
above the navel." which is the residence of the Center God, Chung-yang shen, Huang-lao.
—The Dark Gate means the two kidneys; the Gate of Destiny, Ming-men, is below the
navel. Finally, the Origin of the Barrier, Kuan-yiiaih is three inches below' the navel,
together with the Gate of the Original Yang, Yikin-yang chih men, in front of it, and the
Essence, suspended like a mirror (for it is the place where men enclose their Essence:
Commentary in //A'}', ch. chiing, 9^/, S. 16), illuminates the entire body; this is a point
localised precisely between the acupuncture points 101 and 337 on Dabry de Thiersant's list
(La Medccine des Chinoi.s, p. 442. 472, and plate); cf. HTNCSH’, ch. 15, 4^/, 8u; SPCY, ch.
87, 66. ! am convinced that we see in these two lines the description of the position of the
Lower Cinnabar Eield (that in the belly, below the navel), between the spleen (Yellow
Court) above, the fold of the epiploon (origin of the Barrier) below, the kidneys (Dark
Gate) at the back, and a point under the navel (Gate of Destiny) in front. The text begins
with the description of the Lower Cinnabar Field, since it is there that the mixture and the
"subtilization,” ue/, of Breath and of Essence occur, which is of the first importance for
“bringing back the Essence” and for developing the Embryo and the body of immortality.
By interpreting the text otherwise than the two commentators do (there is no reason for
not doing so, since they are in complete disagreement) I do not imply that they have given
us any wrong explanations. Their explanations (both of them) are correct in themselves,
but 1 believe that they are poorly applied to the text. Each of the three regions of the body
being similarly constituted, we find in each a Ming-t’ang, a Yellow C’ourt, a Dark Gate,
and so on. Lor example, Wu-ch'eng-tzu quotes six four-word lines on the Dark Gates;

The Dark Gate of the Lower Section is the Norm of the Dismal Lake (bladder).
The Dark Gate of the Middle Section is the Pair of two kidneys.
The Dark Gate of the Upper Section is the tv\o ears which stand opposite one another.

Likewise the eyes are the b ellow Court of the Upper Section, and the spleen of the
Middle Section. It is in the choice among the various possible identifications for certain
passages that the commentators often disagree, and never about the identifications
themselves; and this relates to the fact that their ideas regarding the practises to which the
text refers are not the same.
 492 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

(While) the Pure Water of the Jade Lake bathes the Tran-
scendent Root;*^*
Whoever studies that to its depths and is capable of practising
it gets Continual Life.'^“
In the Yellow Court (are two) persons clad in vermilion,
(Who with) key and lock of the door of the Barrierhold its
two leaves shut.
[10] The Dark Portal, on both sides, is dizzyingly high;
In the midst of the (Lower) Cinnabar Field, the Essence and
Breath are made subtle;
The Pure Water of the Jade Lake, rising, produces fat,
(Him whose) Transcendent Root is firm, old age does not
enfeeble.

101. According to the two commentaries, the Hut {Lu) is the nose, the Jade Lake {Yii-
ch’ih) is the mouth, its Pure Water (Ch’ing-shui) is the saliva, and the Transcendent Root
{Ling-ken) is the tongue. Liang-ch’iu-tzu adds: “That denotes the procedure of spitting out
the (old) breath to receive the new (breath) ... It means that, when inhaling the Breath, it
should enter through the nose into the Cinnabar Field.” —These two lines precisely
describe the circulation of air which, entering through the nose, is guided to the Cinnabar
Field, while the mouth must remain full of saliva.
102. Liang-ch’iu-tzu {loc. cit., 2h): “If a man practises that night and day without
interruption, he will obtain Eternal Life, Ch'ang-sheng." —Wu-ch’eng-tzu {loc. cit., 31/)):
“By practising that day and night. Corpses are driven away and subdued; the three Worms
are killed, the hundred Calamities are avoided, skin and derma are replenished, correct
breaths return, evil demons are not let loose. Life Eternal {Ch'ang-sheng) is obtained, the
face has a luminous radiance.”
The expression Ch’ang-ts'un, [here translated “Continual Life”], is equivalent to
Ch'ang-sheng, “Eternal Life.”
103. According to Wu-Ch’eng-tzu, who continues to identify the Yellow Court as the
eyes, these two persons are the pupils of the eyes, mu-chung hsiao-t'ung, who are husband
and wife, the one on the left being the Lord King (of the East, Tung) Wang-kung, and the
one on the right being the Lady Queen (of the West, Hsi) Wang-mu. —Liang-ch’iu-tzu,
abandoning his earlier theory that the Yellow Court is identified with the three cubicles of
the Ming-t’ang, Tung-fang, and Tan-t’ien in the head, so as to adopt “the other
explanation” which he had shown as second, identifies the Yellow Court with the spleen,
which in my opinion is the correct interpretation here, as it is in line 4. For him also,
though the text does not say so explicitly, there are two persons, a man and a woman,
chung-yu tzu mu. According to the drawings of Yen-lo Tzu, an unknown Taoist master of
T'ang or Sung times, these two individuals are Huang-lao yiian-chiin and Huang-lao yiian-
mu, which is consistent with the fact that the god residing in the spleen is indeed Huang-lao
(the spleen is the Ming-t’ang of the Middle Section and Huang-lao is the god who resides in
the Ming-t’ang of any section of the body).
104. Liang-ch’iu-tzu says simply that “the lock of the Gate to the Cinnabar Field is not
opened lightly.” —For Wu-ch’eng-tzu, who makes the Yellow Court the eyes, the lock is
the teeth and the key the tongue.
105. Each of the terms in these four verses has been explained previously, so it is useless
to go over them again here. The general meaning of lines 3 to 14 is as follows. In Breath
circulation, the air which enters through the nose goes down naturally into the upper part
 Methods of “Nowishiu}^ the Vital Principle” 493

In the Central Lake'^^ is a gentleman clad in red and in

vermilion;
[15] (The area situated) three inches below the Cinnabar I'ield (is)
the dwelling of a god,“^”

of the Lower Section, to the space between the liver and the kidneys; but in order for it to
go down lower, into the Lower Cinnabar Field, it must go through a door which the
divinities living in the spleen keep closed and do not open lightly. Laymen are incapable of
practising Breath circulation because for them the divinities of the spleen keep their door
double-barred, stopping the Breath at the top of the belly (is this bolted door the
peritoneum fold?) and not letting it go further. By contrast, for the Taoist Adept, who
knows how to address them, they open the door and let the Breath pass into the lower part
of the Lower Section, so that it can get to the Lower Cinnabar Field. There Breath meets
Essence and both are “subtilized,” n-ei, That is, if I am right. Essence, which is liquid,
and Breath, which is inhaled air, become— through a “refining” or “sublimation,” lien,
a very tenuous homogeneous mixture, wei, which is able to complete the circulation begun
by the Breath alone.
106. For Liang-ch'iu-tzu the Central Lake, Chimg-eh'ih, is the heart and the “gentleman”
is Ch’ih-tzu, god of the heart. For Wu-ch’eng-tzu the Central Lake is “the inside of the
throat.” Finally, according to the Nei-cliing commentary attributed to Liang-ch'iu-tzu, the
Central Lake is the gall bladder, tan. All that I know of Taoist tradition favors this last opin-
ion: the three lakes are actually the Jade Lake, yu-ch’ib, which is the mouth; the Middle
Lake, chung-ch'ih, which is the gall bladder; and the Mysterious Lake, hsiian-ch'ih, which is
the bladder. In this case, the Cinnabar Field mentioned in line 15 is the Middle Cinnabar
Field (whereas in Wu-ch’eng-tzu’s interpretation it would be the Upper Cinnabar Field).
107. A. c: d'iilli lii B; ... The same line is found also in HNC, like A
and c. The reading of A, C, and HNC is the only one in which the rhymes work {elm,
rhymes with chii, K); in the B reading, yi rhymes w ith the stanza before and elm remains
alone, unrhymed.
108. A, B: c: “fhe place (situated) three (inches)
below the Transversal is the residence of a venerable god.” Cf. HNC, sect. 5:
^ “(the point placed) three (inches) from the Transversal Ford is the
dwelling of a venerable transcendent being.” T.sun, tf:. is impossible: it makes sense only
together with what follows it, and the caesura is never placed between the third and fourth
words, but between the fourth and fifth. This is certainly a mistake for ts'un, T; chin,
in HNC is not a variant of hsia, F: the word has been added purposely to clarify the term
heng, and hsia has been omitted so as to keep the meter. But t’ien. 111, and heng, which
are compatible in neither form nor sound, seem to be two distinct readings, each giving a
different meaning, A and B concern the spleen, actually situated three inches below the
Middle Cinnabar Field; c and HNC refer to the Lower Cinnabar E'ield, situated below the
Transversal—that is, below the spleen. If I have set this reading aside to follow that of A
and B, it is because the Lower Cinnabar Edeld is not three inches below the spleen but three
inches below the navel, the spleen itself being three inches above the navel. These figures
are intangible, and any such false indication as that resulting from reading c is in-
admissible. It is probably for this reason that Wu-ch'eng-tzu abandoned the interpretation
of “Transversal” as spleen and made it the Upper Cinnabar Field. But then there is no
“dwelling of a god” in the throat, and he has to bring in the eyes again, three inches from
the Cinnabar Field. The text then becomes totally incoherent. It is also hard to see why he
begins by describing the god of the throat, only to say that you must close your eyes at
certain times.
 494 Taoism and Chinese Religion

(When) interior and exterior are separated, close it tight.*

[17] The interior of the Hut (where) the gods (pass) must be set in
order.' ***
1 stop this quotation here because the verses which follow no longer
concern Breath, but rather Essence. These are questions which meet at
certain points, and the method of making the Essence return is the
continuation of Breath circulation; but I am not concerned with that at
this moment. Moreover, there are other questions relating to Essence
(conservation, increase, and so on) which have nothing to do with
Breath.
In sum, the “Book of the Yellow Court” describes the circulation of
Breath very well. It begins by indicating the location of the Lower
Cinnabar Field, in the middle of the belly; and immediately afterwards it
explains what must be done to guide the Breath there: you must inhale
the Breath through the nose, the mouth being full of saliva, then guide it
before the Door of the Passage, a locked door, the gods of the spleen
watching over the key and lock. This difficult passage cleared, the Breath
is guided to the Lower Cinnabar Field where, as it encounters the
Essence, both “are subtilized” by sublimation. During this time the
mouth must always be kept full of saliva. Finally, when the method of
making the Essence return is not practised (the method by which the
“subtilized” Breath and Essence are brought back again from the Lower
Cinnabar Field in the belly to the Upper Cinnabar Field in the head) the
Breath is exhaled through the mouth. At this moment, when the old
Breath has been expelled and the new Breath not yet inhaled, you must
be very careful to hold the Door of the Passage between the Middle
Cinnabar Field and the Lower Cinnabar Field solidly closed. Con-

109. Liang-ch'iu-tzu {loc. cit., a-h): “Let man contain his Essence and concentrate upon
it, and let him not give it away lightly. Let him close (the door) with the jade key of the
Golden Barrier, Chin-kiian yii-yao." This is to close in the Essence so as not to let it escape
at the critical moment when the external (breath) is about to go out through the lungs and
mouth, since it had mixed with the internal (Essence) in order to circulate; but the latter
must not leave with it. — Wu-ch’eng-tzu (he. cit., }2>a-h, who follows the theory of internal
Breath circulation), gives a completely different explanation: “When the internal Breath is
about to go out, and the external breath is about to enter, if just at that moment the Three
Barriers are closed and the two breaths are separated P] ( = f¥]) Hll§ H IS. , the
Heavenly Tao occurs spontaneously.” The Three Barriers are the Heavenly Barrier, T'icn-
kiian (the mouth), the Earthly Barrier, Ti-kiuin (the two feet), and the Human Barrier, Jen-
kuan (the two hands). Cf. HNY (TT, 167), 66; ( YCCC, ch. 11); and above, p. 477.
110. Liang-ch'iu-tzu, loc. cit., 26: “The Hut is the nose. The hairs in the nose must be put
in order and removed; to let the breath pass through the nose, what is bad must be
removed.” Wu-ch’eng-tzu, loc. cit., 336: “(This line) teaches removing the hairs from
within the nose. In its comings and goings on the path of the gods, (Breath) builds itself a
Hut; day and night it passes there, ceaselessly.”
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineip/e" 495

eluding, the author adds one pieee of detailed adviee: pluek out the hairs
inside the nose so that the passage of the Breath will not be impeded.
It ean be seen that, in their main outlines, the eireulation of internal
Breath as eoneeived under the T'ang and that of the external breath in
earlier epochs hardly differ from one another. Basically the tao-shih, if
they found the new' system more satisfying from the theoretical point of
view', were singularly hampered in practise. The most famous books on
breath circulation, the two “Books of the Yellow Court”, both very
ancient, knew' only the external breath and did not mention internal
Breath. The commentators had to stick to interpreting these books in the
light of the new theory, which was not easy. Moreover, the faithful did
not follow them. The very dissertations which have been preserved to us
show that the Taoists who did not live in community, those whom the
religious authors called the people of the world {shih-jen), continued to
practise the “ancient methods”.

V. The Expulsion of the Breaths

The expulsion of breaths was a complicated technique, very ancient in
origin, for Chuang-tzu already knew' something of it and used many of
the names designating the methods of exhalation. Physiologically, it
seems to me that the more the retention of air {pi-eh'i) was prolonged,
the more necessary it was to control its exit carefully so as to avoid too
abrupt a decompression. And besides, from the Taoist theological
viewpoint, it was necessary to take care that in expelling the air one did
not at the same time expel the Essence, which had been mixed with the
Breath through the procedure of “Making the Essence return so as to
repair the brain”, which I shall describe later. One would have expected
to see that technique disappear along w'ith the ancient theory of
Embryonic Respiration, since in later theories exhalation is no longer a
part of Breath circulation. But the various methods of expelling the
Breath had their own virtues, especially in curing diseases, and it could
not be renounced. Also, far from disappearing, the technique of exha-
lation w'as more flourishing than ever in T’ang and Sung times; it had not
then acquired any new methods;*** but it had become very widespread.
111. I have found few precise allusions to this technique in pre-T'ang Taoist books
(which does not mean that none could have eluded me); meanwhile, the technique was
sufficiently widespread to draw the attention of Buddhist polemicists (Fa-lin, ch. 6, 357u. in
r/A', vol. L, 2010). .At the beginning of the seventh century. Sun Ssu-mo, a Taoist physician
contemporary to the Buddhist monk Fa-lin, described in detail the action of the six breaths
for curing diseases involving the five viscera and the three burning spaces (SPC)\ ch. 82,
la-^h). The oldest detailed description that 1 know of is by one of the most celebrated
Buddhist monks of the late sixth century, Chih-yi, founder of the T'ien-t'ai sect, who lived
from 538 to 597: it is at the end of the first part of the ninth chapter in his Mo-ho-chih-kuan
(TIK, vol. XLvi, 1911), 108-09, where its presence was noted for me by M. Demieville.
 496 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Its vogue was probably due to precisely the thing that might have
destroyed it: to the transformation in the ideas and practises of
Embryonic Circulation. Indeed, by detaching itself from this to become
an independent method, the respiratory technique took on an import-
ance and a value of its own which attracted the attention of theoreticians
to it. Thus it is from this time that the texts especially devoted to it are
dated.
There was “one way of inhaling the air and six ways of exhaling it”
{nei-c/Ti-c/ie yi t’u-ch’i-che This is “the six breaths” (liu-ch’i),^^^
and each of these six breaths, which was set in relation to one of the
organs of the body, had received a particular name:^^’^ ch’ily^^^ ho
(variants: hid^'’), hsii, c/Tui, and hsi (variants: /’/V*® hsi^^"^). The
precise significance of these names is ill understood. In fact, the Taoist
authors’ explanations deal with the effects of each breath in therapeutic
terms, rather than with the method of carrying them out. The relations
of the breaths, organs, and diseases seem well established. C/Tih presides
over the lungs, ho over the heart, hu over the spleen, hsii over the liver,
cITui over the kidneys, and hsi over the Three Burning Spaces.
Through ch’ih one gets rid of consumption, through ho headaches,
through c/Tui chills, through hsi rheumatisms, through hu fever; and
through hsii one drives away accumulations of phlegm.
Master Huan-chen describes the six breaths as follows:

112. Fu-ch’i tsa-fa pi-yao k'ou-chiieh (TT, 570), 22^/; YCCC, ch. 61, 19^/.
113. /6/V/., STHC, 9a (TT, 569; Wieger, 817).
114. These terms show variation in either pronunciation or written form; there should be
a contemporary Taoist tradition on this point, but I do not know it. For greater
convenience, I have adopted in my presentation those variants which let me attribute a
different sound to each breath. In the translations 1 of course preserve the forms of writing
peculiar to each author.
115. This character has two pronunciations, both apparently equally acceptable to
Taoists, since the Master of Yen-ling gives them side by side. \n fan-ch'ieh, that is hsiijch'i
or [in Ancient Chinese] X(io+ k’)iei^ = Xiei^: modern pronunciation hsd\ and ch’ou-li or
[in Ancient Chinese] t'(i3u + 1 )i = t'i^; modern pronunciation ch'ild ( TCCC, ch. 61, 18^/).
—Chih-yi, Mo-ho-chih kuan, ch. 8u, 1086 (TIK, vol. XLVi, 1911), gives a variant, a
character which 1 find in no dictionary but which, given its phonetic, should today be
pronounced shih, chih, or ch’ih.
116. See Sang-yii-tzu’s commentary (T'ang or Sung?) in YHCHFC (TT, 570) 22a
(YCCC,ch.6\) 18r/.
117. This is the form used by Chuang-tzu. See also PCL, ch. 6, 2Sla (TIK, vol. L, 2010).
118. YHYML, ch. 3, 2a (TT, 572; Wieger, 831).
119. Chih-yi, lac. cit.: see note 115 above.
120. T’ai-shang Lao-chim yang-hsing chiieh, 2a-h (TT, 569; Wie'ger, 814); HCFYC. la-'&a
(TT, 570; Wieger, 821), cf. TCCC, ch. 60, 166.
121. Ch'i-fa yao-miao chih-chiteh, \a (TT, 571; Wieger, 824).
122. HCFYC, la-^a(TT, 570; Wieger, 821); cf. YCCC, 60, 166.
 Methods of "Nourishing the Vital Prineiple" 497

The six breaths are hsii, ho, ch’ih, ch'ui, hit, hsi. (Of) these breaths
(five) each belong to one (of the five) viscera; the (last) remaining is
related to the Three Burning Spaces.
1. Ch'ih belongs to the lungs, which govern the nose. If you are
too hot or too cold, or you are very tired, you expel and inhale (the
air) in ch’ih. It controls the skin, the derma and abscesses; if you
have one of these maladies, by controlling the ch’ih correctly you
will be cured.
2. Ho belongs to the heart, which governs the tongue. When the
mouth is dry and the tongue rough, the breath does not move
around and when you speak you have a bad breath. By breathing in
the ho manner, you get rid of this; if you are very hot (fever), the
mouth is opened very wide; if you are a little warm, the mouth is
opened a bit. If the ho is carried out while focusing the desired
attention upon it, (the ailment) will be cured.
3. Hu belongs to the spleen, which governs the Central Palace
(chung-kung). If you have a little fever and are feeling unwell, if the
belly, stomach, and intestine are full, their breaths are sad and do
not flow; you cure it through the breath which the character hu
designates.
4. Ch’ui belongs to the kidneys, which govern the ears. If the waist
and belly are chilled and virile power {yang-tao) declines, this
ailment is cured by the breath which the character ch’ui designates.
5. Hsi belongs to the Three Burning Spaces {.san-chiao). If the
Three Burning Spaces are unwell, they are cured by (the breath in
the mode oO hsi.
6. Hsii belongs to the liver, which governs the eyes. Red tumors,
trouble with the vision are both cured through (the breath in the
mode of) hsii.
Although each of these breaths will cure (the ailments of the
organ with which it is connected), nevertheless the five viscera and
the Three Burning Spaces, cold, heat, extreme fatigue, bad breath
and diseases, are all related to the heart; (and) since the heart
controls (the) ho (breath), (thus) by caring for all diseases through
the ho (breath), all will be cured; it is not necessary (to employ all)
the six breaths.
As for the method of executing the six breaths, instructions are sparse,
and it is outside the Taoist authors that one must seek them. Yen Shih-
ku states that hu and hsii are expelling air through the mouth opened
wide {cluing [var. k’cti] k’ou ch’u ch’i).^~^ The Sheng-lei, a dictionary of
123. Yen Shih-ku, commentary to CHS. ch. 64B, 6a.
 49H Taoism and Chinese Relii^ion

the third century, defines this same word hsii as “expelling the air gently"
{cITu-cITi Inuin)^-'^ and ch'ui as “expelling the air sharply" {cITu-cITi
c/ii):^-^ moreover, these two are, the first a hot breath, and the second a
cold breath.*-^ I have found nothing precise regarding the other
terms.That is at least enough to show that the “six breaths" were
indeed definite ways of exhaling air. The two methods hsu and ch’ui are
well enough described to be easy to understand and even to execute.
They are opposites to each other, hsii being executed with the mouth
wide open while sending the air out quite gently from the bottom of the
lungs, so that, placing the hand in front of the mouth, one gets the
impression of a lukewarm air; c/Tui, on the contrary, is done by closing
the lips {ts'u-ch'un),^-^ with the mouth barely opened in a thin crack, by
breathing the air held in the mouth very strongly, so that the hand held
in front of the mouth gets the impression of a cold air. I believe that one
can thus describe the ho breath (/?//, for Yen Shih-ku): it is done with the
mouth wide open as in the hsii, but by breathing very strongly (like
ch'ui), and in addition tightening the throat at the base of the tongue, so
that the air in going out produces a kind of noisy snoring. It too is a hot
breath, since it serves to expel burning heat. The three others must be of
the same kind.
The chief use of the six breaths is to cure illnesses. In a general way,^-*^
the illness which is due to the heart is fever: the two breaths hu and ch ’ui
cure it. The fullness {man) of the chest, of the back, and of the intestines
are ailments that relate to the lungs: the hsii breath cures them. The
malady connected to the spleen is a wandering breath rising within the
body which little by little makes the body swell up: the hsi breath cures it.
Ills of the eyes relate to the liver, as does melancholy: the ho breath cures
them.
The six breaths do not serve solely for curing illnesses: they are used
for everything. If you have eaten, “the meal finished, do the ho to drive
out of the mouth the impure breath poisoned by the food." Have you
been drinking wine? (Taoists, unlike Buddhists, do not absolutely con-
demn wine, rejecting only drunkenness which “wounds the Spirit and

124. Sheng-lei, in K'ang-hsi tzu-tien, on hsii, P^.

125. IhUl., in Yii-pien, on ch'ui, I'i;.
126. Hung-n u cheng-yiin, on /?.v»; cf. K'ang-hsi tzu-tien, note 124 above.
127. Hsi is defined as the sound of sighing; but that is its common meaning, not its
technical Taoist sense. As for hu and ch'ih, I have found only vague definitions: “to exhale
air” for the former and “to breathe” in a general sense for the latter.
128. Hung-W'u cheng-yiin, loc. cit.
129. YHYML, ch. 2, Aa. Note that nothing is said about the ch'ih breath.
130. HCFYCixn YCCC ), ch. 60, 18/>.
 Mel hods of "Nourishing!, the Vital Principle" 499

diminishes longevity”, but sanelioning drink taken moderately and at an

appropriate time, such as one or two cups of wine when the winter is
humid or the summer is chilly.) ”lf you are not drunk, but have (simply)
let yourself drink a bit too much, do the ho three or live times, at the
same time opening the mouth wide at least ten times to drive away the
poison of the cakes (eaten while drinking).”When you arise in the
morning, you must first do hsiid^- “When the weather is cold, do clVui:
when it is warm, do hu."

vi. Preparations, and Other Details of the Teehnitpie

These exercises were too important for anybody to be able to do them in

an offliand manner; their practise was subject to manifold conditions of
place, of time, of preparations of all kinds. This held true for all periods,
ancient as well as recent.

a. The Place The “Book of the Absorption of Breath of the Central

Mountain Jade Chest”, a work of the ninth or tenth century, contains
the most complete description I know of the place where Embryonic
Respiration is practised.
In the search for immortality, ceasing to eat grains is the begin-
ning; and in the method of ceasing to eat grains, the base is the
Absorption of Breath; in the practise of the Absorption of Breath,
fasting and prohibitions come first. In order to keep fasts and
prohibitions, you must choose a good day, retire into a room where
a bed and a mat have been put
This is why, when you wish to engage in this practise, you must
take a room away from others, well plastered with a layer of good
perfumed clay, w'ith subdued light, high and spacious, with a bed
having a deep warm mattress, with freshly washed covers and
pillow. It is essential that casual strangers with their impurities not
go into it. Within it, the soil is to be turned to a depth of two feet
and sifted so as to take out the mud and gravel. You must remove
every dirty thing, then, w ith a layer of good earth, build a platform
of pounded earth, then pound the earth again with fine-sifted earth,
so that it is w'ell compacted Into the room put only a writing-
table and the chest of books, ching-kuei; and each time (you go

131. I hid., \9a.

132. TWKF, 6h{TT, 569).
133. YHYML, ch. 2, 3^/.
134. CSYFC, in YCCC, ch. 60, Aa-b (section 1). On this book, sec note 45 above.
 500 Taoism and Chinese Religion

there) burn incense and meditate upon the Mysterious Original

Celestial Venerable without Superior, Hsuan-yiian wu-shang t'ien-
tsim\ and think also upon the Great One True Lord, T’ai-yi c/ien-
chiinr^^^

h. The Time These exercises may be done only at certain times. Indeed,
it was a standard notion among the Chinese that the universe (or, as they
expressed it. Heaven and Earth, t’ien-ti) is a sort of living creature, and is
quite similar to a man’s body. The Taoists inferred from this that, like a
man, it breathed and circulated its breath. But they differed among
themselves as to the detail of this circulation of the world’s breath. All
were agreed in accepting that, just as a man’s breath is divided into two
strokes, inhalation of the new breath and exhalation of the old, the
circulation of the world’s breath likewise consisted of two, that of the
living breath {sheng-ch’i) and that of the dead breath {ssii-ch’i). But the
agreement ended at the point where they wanted to define the meaning
of these expressions.
All acknowledged that the day is divided into two parts; but while
some followed the natural division into night and day, the former being
yin and the latter yang, others preferred a division which took for its
point of departure the official beginning of the day, midnight, probably
because the beginning and end of night belong to two different days. For
the first, the time of living breath corresponds to the yang and is
consequently day, the time of dead breath corresponds to the yin and is
night. Moreover, there are two particularly important moments for the
living breath: the morning at the fifth watch when the air warms up
before sunrise, is the “living Breath that rises” {shang-sheng-cITi); and
the evening at sunset, at the moment when the air is cooled, is the
“Breath of the living air which goes down” {hsia-sheng-ch'i). Thus at
these two moments, morning and evening, it is fitting to perform the
respiratory exercises.
For the second group, from midnight to noon was the time of the
living breath (sheng-eh’i), from noon to midnight was the time of the
dead breath {ssu-eh’i)d^^ This second system was interpreted in various

135. Huang-yiian-chiin’s commentary: “Moreover, you must attach your mind to the
Three Ones (San-yi), the Three Originals (San-yiian), the Five Viscera, the Six
Transcendents { Yuan-ling) and the Spirits of the entire body (yi-shen chih shen), darken the
heart, grit the teeth ”
136. SPCY, ch. 82, 5a (TT, 818).
137. PPT, NP, ch. 8, 3a'. “Of the twelve hours that comprise day and night, the six hours
from midnight to noon are the living breath; the six hours from noon to midnight are the
dead breath. Practises performed in the hours of dead breath are worth nothing.”
 Methods of “Nourishinf' the Vitcd Prineiple" 501

fashions. Some, such as Celestial Master Shen {Shen t’icn-shih) and

Perfect Man Wang (Wang chcn-Jcn), did their exercises only once a night,
after midnight, at the beginning of the fifth watch,that is, a little
before sunrise, since the fifth watch is the last of the night. Others by
contrast had the exercises done at all the hours of the living breath, like a
certain Book of the Immortals {Hsien citing), which is named with no
further precision:
From Midnight on, the hour tzu (11 in the evening till 1 in the
morning), (tlie Breath) is swallowed 9x9—81 times.
At the time of Cock-crow {chi-niing: 1 to 3 in the morning),
8 X 8 = 64.
At the time of Sunrise {Jih-ch’n: 5 to 7 in the morning), 6 x 6 = 36.
At Meal-time {shih-shih: 7 to 9 in the morning), 5 x 5 = 25.
At the time before Noon {yii-chung: 9 to 11 in the morning),
4x4 = 16.
Taoists of the Sung period were no more in agreement than those of the
Six Dynasties regarding the times to adopt. The theory of the respiration
of the universe was always the basis for various opinions; but the manner
in which this respiration was represented had changed with that of
Embryonic Respiration. The circulation of breath in the world was now
conceived as a closed circulation. It was no longer ordered by exhalation
and inhalation, but by successive risings of yin and yang. “From tzu
(North and winter solstice; midnight) to ssu (East and vernal equinox;
five to seven o’clock in the morning) is the time when the yang is rising;
from w'u (South and summer solstice; noon) to hai (West and autumnal

TCTCC, 2a [Book of Agreement of Breath (told by the Lord) of Great Purity] {TT, 569;
Wieger, 813, who writes sluing. ... ): ‘The ancient Books, chiu-ching. say: Before noon it is
the living breath; after noon it is the dead breath. What you must absorb is the living
breath; the dead breath must not be absorbed.” Cf. CCC (f'CCC, ch. 33, lOu).
138. Shen T'ien-shih Fu-ch'i yao-chueh [Celestial Master Shen's Efficacious Formula for
Absorbing Breath], in YCCC\ ch. 59, 166-176; this work in one chium {Tc, ch. 63, 426; SuS,
ch. 205, la) no longer e.\ists separately in TT. Wang chcn-jcn c/Ti-chiich [Perfect Man
Wang's Breath Formula], ibid.. lla-\Hh. —YCCC. in chapters 58 to 59, gives a collection
of texts relating to breath circulation, with Sang-yii-tzu’s commentary, which is perhaps the
Sang-yu-tzu hsin-chiu fu-ch'i ching in one chikin o^i SuS, ch. 205, la. This author, whose true
name is unknown, had annotated YHCHFC {TT, 570; Wieger, 818) of the eighth century,
which has come down to us only together with his commentary. It is difficult to know
w hether the eleven sections which Sang-yii-tzu commented upon, which y'CCC gives and
which are not in YHCHFC, disappeared from that work, which then became incomplete
like many in TT, or whether they constitute his personal share of the compilation, which
earned him the mention of his name in SuS.
139. Quoted in TCTCC, \a.
 502 Taoism and Chinese Religion

equinox; five to seven o'clock in the evening) is the time when the yin is
rising; when the yin dominates, the yang is born; when the yang is
dominant, the yin is born ” The only difference is that everything
on that level takes longer to accomplish: “The Breath of Heaven makes a
complete cycle in one year {yi-nien yi-clion); the Breath of a man's body
makes a complete cycle in a day {yi-jih yi-chou)."
Taoists of Sung times did these exercises every day, but they divided
them in various fashions throughout the whole day. The only point on
which all were in agreement was that the number of times these exercises
should be done is controlled in such a way as to match the numbers of
the yin and the yang according to the hour.
Furthermore, the practises in Sung times were extremely varied. To
start with some remained faithful to the ancient custom of doing the
exercises at the time of the Living Breath, though they were no clearer
than the men of old as to what moment that expression meant. But in
addition a number of new methods were advocated. Some of these took
account of the hour-by-hour alternation of yin and yang all day long,
desiring that the exercises should be done at six o'clock yang, at
midnight, at sunrise, and so on: that is, at intervals corresponding pretty
closely to four hours in our system." '■*-
Rule of the six yang hours:
At Midnight (11 o'clock in the evening to 1 o'clock in the morning),
absorb (the Breath) 9x9 = 81 times.
At Sunrise (3 to 5 o'clock in the morning), absorb (the Breath)
8 X 8 = 64 times.
At the Breakfast Hour (7 to 9 o'clock in the morning), absorb (the
Breath) 7 x 7 = 49 times.
At Noon (11 o'clock in the morning to 1 o'clock in the afternoon),
absorb (the Breath) 6 x 6 = 36 times.
At Sunset (3 to 5 o'clock in the afternoon), absorb (the Breath)
5 X 5 = 25 times.
At Dusk (7 to 9 o'clock in the evening), absorb (the Breath)
4x4 = 16 times.

140. Yin-yang sheng-cliiang Inn [Treatise, on the Ascent and Descent of the yin and
in HCS, cli. 4, la (TT, 122; Wieger, 260). This little treatise is probably by Po Yii-shan,
since it is found in a chapter containing various works by that author, whose literary
activity took place between 1205 and 1226. —HCS (TT. 121-31) is a collection of
important Taoist books compiled about the middle of the thirteenth century.
\4\. Ibid.
142. T'ai-shang yang-sheng t’ai-hsi ch'i clung [TYTC: Book of the Breath of Embryonic
Respiration to Nourish the Life (Principle told) by the Very High], \a-h (TT, 568; Wieger,
812).
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle’’ 503

An aulhor of the Sung period who is known only by the sobriquet he

gave himself, Ching-hei hsien-sheng, attributes to a certain Ch’i
Chien,'*^^ of the Central Peak {Chitng-yiieh), a “Procedure for Feeding
on Breath" {Shili-ch'i fa) which is again difi'erent from any of those
above. It divided respiratory exercises from hour to hour throughout the
whole day and night, without distinction between yin and yang periods
or times.
Rules of the Breath for the twelve hours:
At Dawn {p’itig-tan: 3 to 5 o'clock in the morning), 1 x 1 = 49
respirations.
At the Rising of the Sun { jih-ch’it: 5 to 7 o’clock in the morning),
6 X 6 = 36 respirations.
At the Hour of the Meal {shih-shih: 7 to 9 o'clock in the morning),
5 X 5 = 25 respirations.
At Almost-noon {yii-chitng: 9 to 11 o'clock in the morning),
4x4 = 16 respirations.
At Noon {Jih-chung: 11 o’clock in the morning to 1 in the afternoon),
9x9=81 respirations.
At the Declining Sun {Jih-tieh: 1 to 3 o’clock in the afternoon),
8 X 8 = 64 respirations.
At the Middle of the Afternoon (pu-shih: 3 to 5 o’clock in the after-
noon), 7 X 7 = 49 respirations.
At Sunset { jih-jir. 5 to 7 o’clock in the evening), 6 x 6 = 36
respirations.
At Dusk {huang-hun: 7 to 9 o’clock in the evening), 5 x 5 = 25
respirations.
At Man’s Rest { Jen-ting: 9 to 11 o’clock in the evening), 4x4 = 16
respirations.
At Midnight {pan-yeh: 11 o'clock in the evening to 1 in the morning),
9x9 = 81 respirations.
143. This name is borrowed from a famous literary piece, Pien-iao tun {PTL): [On
■ludging the Tao] of Ts'ao Chih, King Ssu of Shen (third century A.D.). Ch’i Chien is named
there as one of the famous tao-shih entertained by Ts'ao Ts'ao, his specialty being
abstinence from cereals. He was a native of Sheng-yang (PPT, NP, in Yi-\ven lei-ehii, ch. 77,
and TPYL, ch. 720, lOu, 931, 2c/. This passage has disappeared from the modern te.xt of
PPT): and his tzu was Yiian-chieh (PPT. NP, ch. 15, 2h) or Meng-chieh { YCCC, ch. 87,
17c/). See also Po-wu chih, ch. 5, 2b, 3c/, 3//, 5c/-//.
144. Ching-hei hsien-sheng, Cluing-yiieh Ch’i Chien shih-ch'i fa [Procedure for Absorbing
Breath by Ch’i Chien of the Central Peak], in Shen-hsien shih-ch'i chin-kuei miao-lu
[Marvelous Register of the Golden Coffer on Breath Absorption by the Divine Immortals],
3c/-// (TT, 571; Wieger, 829); cf. YCCC, ch. 61, 11//. The title is correct in TCCC, while
TT writes “eleven,” shih-yi, by error; but in YCCC the three hours of the Sun's Decline.
Midnight, and Cock-crow are missing.
 504 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

At Cock-crow {c/ii-niing: 1 to 3 o'clock in the morning), 8 x 8 = 64

respirations.

Finally there are some who, not satisfied to vary the exercises each day
hour by hour, wanted them to be modified each month in such a way as
to better follow the movements of the yifi and yang during the year,
movements which are clearer than those in the day. To the legendary
Immortal Mao, Director of Destiny, an arrangement of this sort is
attributed, one in which two exercises a day are prescribed, one in the
morning for the yang, the other in the evening for the yin.^^^^

Rules for absorption of the Breath for the twelve months:

In the first month, morning, absorb the yang breath 160 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 200 (times).
In the second month, morning, absorb the yang breath 180 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 180 (times).
In the third month, morning, absorb the yang breath 200 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 160 (times).
In the fourth month, morning, absorb the yang breath 220 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 140 (times).
In the fifth month, morning, absorb the yang breath 240 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 120 (times).
In the sixth month, morning, absorb the iw/zg breath 220 (times),
evening, absorb the v//? breath 140 (times).
In the seventh month, morning, absorb the yang breath 200 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 160 (times).
In the eighth month, morning, absorb ihe yang breath 180 (times),
evening, absorb the t7>? breath 180 (times).
In the ninth month, morning, absorb the yang breath 160 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 200 (times).
In the tenth month, morning, absorb the yang breath 140 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 220 (times).
In the eleventh month, morning, absorb the rr//?g breath 120 (times),
evening, absorb the yin breath 240 (times).
In the twelfth month, morning, absorb the breath 140 (times),
evening, absorb the yifi breath 220 (times).

145. Shang-ch'ing Ssu-ming Mao chen-chiin lisiu-hsing cliili-ini chiieh (TT, 571; Wieger,
825; YCCC, cli. 61,12h-136). This book of the ninth or tenth century, while recommending
the circulation of external breaths, accepts criticisms of ancient practises and in particular
of holding the breath: “No holding or guiding of breath: the mouth has only to expel the
breath, and the nose has only to let it penetrate without letting bad breaths in (lu).”
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple” 505

The yang breath is one that is taken in through the nose; the yin
breath is one that is taken in through the mouth. Whoever is
capable (of absorbing) these two breaths during the twelve months,
every day, morning and evening, without interruption,’*^^’ makes a
complete tour of Heaven; another (and second) complete tour will
suffice to make him have the same longevity as Heaven.

c. Preparation for Respiratory Exereises When the hour has been

chosen, you must put yourself in condition to perform the exercises. You
must first of all prepare yourself through fasting, and the reason for this
fast is explained crudely: when Immortality is being sought, you must
first abolish excrements, then absorb the Breath.But I do not know in
what form this fast was carried out by those who practised the Absorp-
tion of the Breath every day. Moreover, you have to bathe and to burn
incense to purify the house; then at midnight you sit on the bed, at the
exercise hour you sit in correct position in a dark room. It is necessary to
be seated, since if you are lying down the breath descends poorly.To
ward off evil influences, the Celestial Drum is sounded thirty-six
times,which is to say that three series of twelve tooth-grindings are
done.’^° Then before commencing the “Absorption of the Breath” (/w-
cV/V), the air is expelled at length two or three times.’
The preliminaries thus finished, the Adept really commences “the
Absorption of the Breath”.

d. The Absorption of Saliva The absorption of saliva is an extremely

important practise, and the Taoist books contain a great number of
formulas and procedures on this subject. But the study of it will be in its
proper place within the examination of the whole group of Taoist dietetic
practises, to which it strictly belongs. It is enough here to indicate that it
ordinarily accompanies the practises of Breath. You take advantage of
the fact that the mouth is closed to gather the Jade Liqueur {yii-yi: that
is, saliva) abundantly under the tongue, filling the mouth with it and, by
bowing the head, swallowing it so that it goes upwards to repair the
brain and downwards to bathe the five viscera.

146. I translate according to the reading in KC’CC, 61, 136: [J p Ihe TT

(66) reading, 4'ft is obviously faulty.
147. CSYFC, in FCCC, 60, Aci.
148. Fu-ch'i tsa-fa pi-yao k’ou-chuely in YCCC, 61, 146.
149. CSYFC, in ibid., pref., 60, 4a.
150. Fu-ch’i tsa-fa pi-yao k’ou-chueh, ibid., 61, 146.
151. YCCC, ch. 35, 46.
152. 766/., c6. 60, 216.
 506 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

B. BREATHING PROCEDURES OTHER THAN EMBRYONIC RESPIRATION

One of the most remarkable consequences of changes in the doctrine of

Embryonic Respiration towards the end of the T’ang dynasty was the
importance acquired by practises which had until then remained second-
ary but which took on an independent existence. In fact, the new theory,
by completely setting aside the truly Taoist circulation through the
Cinnabar Fields, which from then on were attributed to an internal
breath peculiar to man, and by separating this absolutely from ordinary
circulation (of external breath, which must never be mixed with internal
Breath), dismantled the vast assemblage of practises which had gradually
gathered around the absorption of external breath. For most of them,
based upon the absorption of outside elements with external breath,
there was no longer a place in the new ideas. Yet each practise had an
efficacy peculiar to itself, and nobody wished to lose that. They were
therefore kept as particular and independent practises, and some of them
seem to have enjoyed a great popularity.

Holding the Breath

None was set aside, not even holding the breath, pi-eh’i, although it was
condemned by the theoreticians of the new doctrine as having serious
disadvantages. Yet the very quality of violence for which it was blamed
in general was used specifically to cure illnesses. Since diseases are always
due to an obstruction which prevents the free circulation of the breath,
the force of the air pent up and held in is used to make the obstruction
disappear and reopen the passage. Breath is harmonized, then swallowed
and held as long as possible. You meditate upon the ailing area, directing
the breath there by thought, and thus through thought it is made to
struggle against the disease by trying to force the obstructed passage.
When the breath is ended, it is expelled; then the procedure is begun
again twenty to fifty times. It is stopped when sweat is noticed flowing in
the ailing spot. It is begun again every day at midnight or at the fifth
watch until the illness is cured.
The procedure of the Five Shoots, wu-yad^''' which the Master of

153. HCFYC\ in >'C’CC, ch. 60, 156 16a.

154. The character ya, which is ordinarily used in this expression, is the equivalent of
yci, see the T'ai-ch’ing chung-huang chen-ching (Wieger, 810), in which the separate
edition of TT (568, ch. 1, 86, 9a) writes the latter form, while the edition contained in
YCCC, ch. 13, 136, writes the former. —The Commentary to this work gives the following
explanation {ch. 1, 86): “The Five Shoots are the correct breaths of the Five Elements born
in the Five Viscera." Cf. Tao-chi clung (TCC: in ff'S'f*}', ch. 76, 106): “The Cloudy Shoots
 Methods of “Nourishiui^ the Vital Prineiple” 507

Great Nothing of Mount Sung mentions among the ancient methods

which are incomplete because they deal only with the external breath,'
was considered an excellent preparation for the exercises of Embryonic
Respiration. This is how one of the greatest Taoist priests of the T’ang
period, Ssu-ma Ch'eng-cheng, describes it in his “Dissertation on the
Meaning of (the Expression) Absorbing Breath and Essence”, Fu-ch'i-
ching yi Inn:'

The Method of swallow ing the Eive Shoots:

Each (day) at dawn, say this secret Prayer: [Note: the books do
not give the direction towards which you must turn: it is that of each
(of the Five Shoots).' *^" Sit quietly while concentrating steadily, eyes
closed, do three rounds of grindings of the teeth and say the
prayer.For the Center Shoot, turn towards the four intermediate
points.]
“Green Shoot of the East, be absorbed so as to nourish the Green
Shoot.1 drink you in the morning Flower.” The prayer over,
pass your tongue along the outside of the upper teeth, lick your lips.

are the Breath and Essence of the Five Old Men, H'u-lao ( — the Five Elements), the vapor
of the Great Summit.”
155. STHC\ pref., \h(TF 569).
156. Ssu-ma Ch'eng-cheng, Fu-ch'i thing yi lini (FCL), sect. 1, H'n-yti hin, in YCCC, ch.
57, 2h-5a.
157. That is, towards the cardinal point corresponding to that one of the Five Elements
to which the Shoot belongs for which the prayer is said; East is for the Green Shoot, and so
on.
158. The prayers which follow are found in TYTC\ (FT, 568; Wieger, 812) and in the
Tung-hsiian yikin-shih ch’ih-shn thing (FYCC) in ITS’f’)', ch. 76, E/-86 (FT, 776), with a
certain number of variants which are sometimes better than Ssu-ma Ch’cng-cheng's text
and w ith a number of explications which I have used in the notes to my translation. —FCC
has put the formulas into four-verse stanzas, rhyming at the second and fourth lines, while
adding a useless verse wishing longevity; some of its variants are due to the requirements of
the rhyme.
159. “The Green Shoot is the liver” {FYFC, 3u). If 1 understand it correctly; the first
Green Shoot is the breath, external to Man, of the Wood element born in the Eastern
region, and the second is the breath, internal to Man, of the same element born in the liver.
The external breath of Wood is asked to nourish the internal breath of the liver. FYCC
gives the piece in this form: “May the Nine Flowers of the East nourish the Green Shoot
and prolong the time allotted to my life: I drink them in the Morning Dew” ch.
76, 26). The Nine Flowers of the East are the nine breaths proper to that region. See below .
160. Chao-hiHO is the reading in FYFC, 3u, which adds: “The Morning Flower is
the root of the upper teeth,” like FCC (U'S'E’)’, ch. 76, 8u), though the text of the latter is
difi'erent. FYCC writes ”the Morning Dew”; FCL writes The word reappears
in a similar prayer given in TCC ( ch. 77, 86): “Green Shoot of the East, Dew which
flows from the Purple Clouds ■ • •”
 508 Taoism and Chinese Religion

rinse your mouth by filling it (with saliva) and swallow (that

saliva).(Do this) three times.
“Vermilion Cinnabar, chu-tan, of the South, be absorbed so as to
nourish the vermilion Cinnabar.I drink you in the Cinnabar
Lake, tan-ch’ihC The prayer over, pass your tongue along the
outside of the lower teeth, lick your lips, rinse your mouth by filling
it (with saliva) and swallow (that saliva). Three times.
'"‘Wu and chi of the Center, majestic Great Mountain T’ai-
shan,*^^ be absorbed so as to nourish Essence and Breath. I drink
you in the source of Liqueur, li-cITiian." The prayer over, pass
your tongue over the top of the throat*and take from it the Jade
Water,lick your lips, rinse your mouth by filling it (with saliva)
and swallow (that saliva). Three times.
“Brilliant Stone, ming-shih, of the West, be absorbed to nourish
the Brilliant Stone. I drink you in the Transcendent Liquid, ling-
v/.”i7o The prayer over, pass your tongue over the inside of the
upper teeth, lick your lips, rinse your mouth by filling it (with saliva)
and swallow (that saliva). Three times.

161. Shu k’ou-man er/i yen-chih. We may understand: “Rinse the mouth, fill it (with
saliva),” and so on. Given the role of saliva in Taoist exercises and prayers (its use is so
constant that here Ssu-ma Ch’eng-cheng does not even bother to mention it, and the reader
does not need the word to understand), I believe that the mouth is to be rinsed with the
saliva itself.
162. “Three times” refers not to the last act carried out (swallowing the saliva), but to
the whole exercise. Cf. TYTC, 36, the commentary to which puts at the end of the whole
series: ke san-t ’ung, “each (series of exercises) is done three times.”
163. The Heart (TYTC, 36).
164. The root of the lower teeth (ibid.)- —TCC, 4a, gives the formula in this version (in
which the second verse is clearly wrong): “Vermilion cinnabar of the South, nourish it
( = my heart) for the good of my face: I drink you in the Cinnabar Lake, protect me
eternally and give me health forever,
“The Great Mountain is the place where the Essence is kept,” T'ai-shan die, shou
clung yeh (ibid.).
166. “The source of Liqueur is at the root of the molars, in front of the throat,” ^
IS IW tiu IL (ibid., 36); cf. Liang-ch'iu-tzu, HNY, ch. shang, 96, this is “the saliva inside
the mouth.” This piece is given unvaried in TCC, 56, probably because it was already in
four verses in the original.
167. $14 JiiW - The character ying, here is the equivalent oi ying, lf|, which the
Commentary of TYTC, 36, gives in a passage which is otherwise incorrect. On the
expression hsiian-ying, designating the trachea, cf. HNY, in YCCC, ch. 12, 18a.
168. The saliva.
169. “The lungs” (TTrC, 36).
170. “The saliva inside the lips” (ibid.). —Variant: TYCC, 86: “Brilliant Stone of the
South, be absorbed to prolong my years. I drink you in the Transcendent Liquid; may I
attain (the state of) divine Immortal!”
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple” 509

“Mysterious Sap, hsiian-tzu, of the North, be absorbed to nourish

the Mysterious Sap.*^’ I drink you in the Jade Syrup, yii-yif^''^
The prayer over, pass the tongue over the inner side of the lower
teeth, lick your lips, rinse your mouth by filling it (with saliva) and
swallow (that saliva). Three times.
When the number of times (each prayer and the exercises which
follow must be done) is reached, take in as much air as possible
through the nose and release it slowly. If that is done five times or
more, the true procedure will be accomplished. [Note: To put
yourself into agreement with the cardinal points, it is well to breathe
each breath according to its number: i.e., nine times for the East,
three times for the South, twelve times for the Center, seven times
for the West, five times for the South.
According to my former master Yi, Yi hsien-shih, the prayer of
the Central Liquid Source is:
“Crag of white stones to cross, gushing depth of the springs for
Jade Broth, I drink you so as to live eternally, let my life be
prolonged!”
This is the recipe according to the Book of the Five Talismans of
the Sacred Jewel, Ling-pao wu-fu citing. In the Book of Supreme
Purity, Shang-ch’ing citing, there is another recipe, that of the

171. ‘The kidneys” (TYTC, 3h).

172. “The tongue” (ibid.). —Variant: TYCC, Sa: “Mysterious Sap of the North, be
absorbed so as to drive the Corpses away. I drink you in the Jade Syrup, may my body be
raised to the Great Void!” The Three Corpses, san-shih, or Three worms, san-ku, are
wicked beings that reside near the three Cinnabar Fields and cause old age and decrepi-
tude: they must be destroyed to obtain Immortality.
173. These numbers are those of the breaths of each region, as the subtitles of Tung-
hsiiun yikin-shih ch'ih-shu cliing, \h, show: “Method of the Green Heaven for feeding on
the Green Shoot and fetching the Nine Breaths of the East” \
~b, “Method of the Cinnabar (-colored) Heaven for feeding on the Cinnabar
(-colored) Shoot and fetching the Three Breaths of the South” (
and so on. The gods of each region are clothed in them: “the Old Lord
Transcendent Beginning of the Blossoming Forest, Calm Jewel of the East (
)’ has Yen for a family name. Beginning Light (K'ai-ming) for his personal name,
and Ling Wei-yang for his surname; he is nine inches tall; he wears the characteristic green
jade cap, he is clothed in the winged green garment (made) of the nine breaths ...” {ibid.,
\by. when he is addressed he is called Venerable Spirit Majestic Old Man Supreme Essence
of the Original Beginning, Green Heaven of the Nine Breaths ( A Tc ^n ± ^
ibid., 2a). He of the South is three inches tall, is clad in the winged cinnabar-
colored garment of three breaths, he has 300,000 followers (3a); he of the Center is tw'elve
inches tall, is dressed in the winged yellow garment of twelve breaths, and has 120,000
followers; he of the West is seven inches tall, is dressed in the winged white garment of
seven breaths, and has 700,000 followers {5by, he of the North is five inches tall, is dressed
in the winged black garment of five breaths, and has 500,000 followers (7a).
 510 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Clouded Shoots of the Four Extremities, Ssu-chi Yiin-ya chih fa.

This prescription is extremely secret and must not be told lightly.
All those who absorb the Breath should first practise the Five
Shoots so that there is communication (of the breaths) with the Five
Viscera, and should then follow the ordinary procedures. They will
have an excellent (result).
Green-colored East, come in and connect with my liver, open the
openings in my eyes, be the veins in my body!
Red-colored South, come in and connect with my heart, open the
openings in my tongue, be the blood in my body!
Yellow-hued Center, enter and connect with my spleen, open the
openings in my mouth, be the flesh in my body!
White-colored West, come in and connect with my lungs, open
the openings in my nose, be the skin of my body!
Black-hued North, come in and connect with my kidneys, open
the openings in my ears, be the bones in my body!

All those who absorb the breath of the Five Shoots must meditate
upon the entry of each one into his internal organs so that its liquid
spreads and communicates, each one according to the internal organ
over which it presides, and circulates throughout the body; and thus
they will defeat diseases. For example: when the Green Shoot is
swallowed, meditate upon the breath's entering the liver, see the
green breath, the green liquid by singling it out all the time: then see
the breath in the ta-tim vein of the foot (breath and liquid) reunite in
the vein and spread for a long time
Ssu-ma Ch’eng-cheng at the end of his “Dissertation” describes what
happens inside the body while this exercise is being carried out:*^"*
Those who absorb the breaths of the Five Shoots should follow
them by thought when they enter their viscera, so that the liquids (of
their viscera) are penetrated (by the breaths), each (breath) in
conformity to the (internal organ) over which it presides, and thus
they can circulate throughout the body and cure all diseases. (For
example) if the Green Breath is absorbed, it is followed by thought
when it enters the liver, the breath is seen to expand, the green liquid
is vaporized, distinct for a long time: then the breath of the great tun
of the foot*^'*' is seen to arrive after the absorbed breath, meeting it

174. YCCC\ ch. 57, 4h.

175. ■ 1 think this concerns the vessel of the liver, though the name of that is
on the other hand, that of the gall bladder is called The vessels tsii-ta-vin
and tsu-ta-yang, Wj)^ respectively are those of the bladder and the spleen, and have
nothing to do with the liver.
 Mcthoils of “Nourishing the Vita! Principle” 511

in the veins, and they expand through the veins Have a hat and
proper clothing, go into a special room to burn incense, sit down
turned toward each region, calm the heart, fix your attention to
carry out (this exercise).
This method of the Five Shoots is only one among all those which
advocate absorbing the breaths of the Five Elements so as to reinforce
the F'ive Viscera. Ssu-ma Ch'eng-cheng describes another of them which
divides the exercises over the whole year in such a way as to take
advantage of the correspondence of the seasons with the elements, not
without noting moreover that it has resemblances to the procedure of the
Five Shoots, to which he refers for certain details.
Method of the Breaths of the Five Elements to Nourish the Five
Viscera:’
In spring, on the six ping days at the ssu hour (0900 to 1100 in the
morning), eat the breath 120 times and guide it to the heart, in such
a way that the heart outweighs the lungs, but without the lungs’
harming the liver. This is the breath which nourishes the liver.
In summer, on the six mu days at the wei hour (1300 to 1500 in
the afternoon), eat the breath 120 times to help the spleen, so that
the spleen outweighs the kidneys, but without the kidneys harming
the heart.
In the third month of summer, on the six keng days’at the shen
hour (1500 to 1700 in the afternoon), eat the breath 120 times to
help the lungs, so that the lungs outweigh the liver, but without the
liver's harming the spleen.
In autumn, on the six /V/? days at the hai hour (2100 to 2300 in the
evening), eat the breath 120 times to help the kidneys, so that the
kidneys outweigh the heart, but without the heart’s harming the
lungs.
In winter, on the six chia days at the yin hour (0300 to 0500 in the

176. FCU 116-12^/; {TT, 571); cf. YCCC\ ch. 57, 126-13a: Wieger, 821. Since each
season, being three months, contains \\ times the sixty-day cycle, nine days of the same
name thus belong to the denary cycle, and not Just six days; but the third month is not
counted because of symmetry with summer, the third month of which is considered as
forming a season by itself alone. No explanation is given as to how this passage should be
understood. A month, having only thirty days, can contain only three kent^ days. I suppose
that this central season is actually made up of the third month of summer and the first
month of autumn.
177. There can of course be only three ken^ days in a month, since Ac/ig belongs to the
denary cycle and since a month has thirty days at most; there cannot be six of them. This
supplementary season is perhaps composed not only of the third month of summer but also
the first month of autumn, which would actually give it two months and consequently six
ken^ days.
 512 Taoism and Chinese Religion

morning), eat the breath 120 times to help the liver, so that the liver
outweighs the spleen, but without the spleen’s harming the kidneys.
The above is the most important among the absorption pro-
cedures of the breaths of the Five Elements.(Since) for each
(season) it is performed nine times, that makes 1,080 absorptions of
the breath in all.*^*^ Each (breath) nourishes its internal organ; when
it has gone its route, it is begun again; they must not harm one
another. Perform it with care.
The following recipe, which Ssu-ma Ch’eng-cheng gives without expla-
nations, seems again to refer to the breaths of the Five Elements.
Method of swallowing the three, five, seven, nine^^^ breaths,/f/
san n’u c/i’i chin chih fa.
Very gently through the nose draw the three breaths in and make
them penetrate.Expel the dead breath once through the mouth,
get used to the three breaths over a long time. Then guide the five
breaths (through the nose), spit out the dead breath once through
the mouth, get used to the five breaths over a long time. Then guide
the seven breaths (through the nose), spit out the dead breath once
through the mouth, get used to the seven breaths over a long time.
Then guide the nine breaths (through the nose), spit out the dead
breath once through the mouth, get used to the nine breaths over a
long time. Thus the three, five, seven, nine breaths having been led

•78. • read this:

179. This is the number of breath absorptions in each season. In fact, since in each
season there are nine ping days, nine man days, nine keng days, and so on, and since on
each of these days there are 120 breath absorptions, the total is 120 x 9 = 1,080. The
difficulty is that, in the table preceding, the author counts only six of these nine days for
each season, which makes only 720 absorptions instead of 1,080. Perhaps we must accept
that the original text had chin (nine), instead of lin (six) in the first and fifth paragraphs
(spring and winter), but lin as it is today in the second, third, and fourth paragraphs
(summer and autumn, from which the fifth season is taken), and that an inept later copyist
reduced them all to the number six.
180. FCL, sect. 2, I2a (TT, 571); YCCC, ch. 57, \2a-/r, Wieger, 823.
181. We have seen above that the three breaths are those of the south: thus it is to the
South that the Element Fire and among Viscera the Heart correspond. The five breaths are
those of the North, to which Water and the Kidneys correspond; the seven breaths are
those of the West, to which Metal and the Lungs correspond; the nine breaths are those of
the West, to which Wood and the Liver correspond. The twenty-four breaths together
probably correspond to the Center, the number of which is twelve (24 = 12 x 2), and
consequently to Earth and the Spleen.
182. TT. \ YCCC: ... P
I read this in accordance with the similar phrase in the lines following: ...
 Methods of “Nourishing' the Vital Principle" 513

together, the twenty-four breaths’are made to penetrate through

the nose, and through the mouth the dead breath is spat out once,
to get used to the twenty-four breaths over a long time.
There were moreover all kinds of variations, almost individual. Each
Adept who had attained a certain level had his personal method, received
directly from his master, human or immortal. Thus for some it sufficed
to feed upon breaths corresponding to the three cardinal points marked
by the sun in its daily course, the East (rising), the South (noon), and the
West (setting), which are also those of the Three Originals, san-yikin.
The “Memoirs on the Hua-yang Caves”, Hua-yang chu-tung chi,
says: Fan Yu-ch’ung, a native of Liao-hsi, received the method of
changing form through embryonic splendor, t’ai-kuang yi-hsiug chili
It consists in this, that he constantly absorbed three breaths.
“Method of the three breaths:
“Constantly fix your attention, ts’un, on the three breaths, one
green, one white, one red, like ribbons which come from above the
sun, in the East, and penetrate directly into the mouth. Breathe
them,’®^ V/, ninety times and stop. When they have been absorbed
for ten years, three shining breaths of (these) three colors, sem-se
kuang-ch’i, are born by themselves within the body and in con-
sequence you become a divine Immortal. This is the procedure of
the Inward Radiance of Great Simplicity, Ta-su nei-cliing, of the
Very High Original Lord, Kuo-shang yuau-chimN
The procedure is performed every morning at sunrise, turned towards
the sun, even if it is concealed by rain. Settle yourself standing or sitting,
and squint your eyes. When the three breaths are seen together, the green
breath is to the right, the white in the middle, the red to the left, you

183. 24 = 3 + 5 + 7 + 9.
184. The name is explained by the method itself; that consists, as will be seen a few lines
later, in creating in oneself, within the uterus of the immortal body, a splendor of three
colors which transforms the body and makes it immortal. T’ao Hung-ching’s Chen-kao
(CA") erroneously writes fE instead of j{:.
185. “An exhalation and an inhalation make one respiration; ^^ PW tii . T'ao
Hung-ching's explication in his TCYC, ch. 2, \9a (TT, 193; Wieger, 418).
186. CA, ch. 10, \a-h: YCCC, ch. 61, \4a-h. The procedure is explained in exactly the
same terms in SH'C, ch. 2, \4h-\5a (TT, 60; Wieger, 137), which also attributes its origin
to the same Fan Yu-ch’ung (to whom he gives his title of Immortal, Inspector, chicn) and
which simply calls Kao-yiian chiin the divinity who transmitted this procedure to him. See
also TCYC, ch. 2, \9a-h {TT, 193; Wieger, 418), which calls this personage simply Fan-
shih. He was supposed to be a .sluing-.shu-lang of the Han period who obtained immortality
in the grottoes of mount Hua-yang and received the title of Inspector of Hua-yang (CA, ch.
10, 146-15a; ch. 13, 66; LCTT, ch. 20, 14/)-15a, TT, 142; Wieger, 293).
 514 Taoism and Chinese Religion

exhale and then inhale. During inhalation the breath enters the throat
and it is made to spread out within the Five Viscera and the Six
Receptacles.

This procedure of the Three Breaths seems to be a rehnement upon

absorbing the breath of the sun.
Method of absorbing the breath of the sund^^
At dawn (0300 to 0500 in the morning), at the moment when the
sun rises, seated or standing (but) concentrating your attention, grit
the teeth nine times, call up from the bottom of your heart the him
of the sun, jih-hwu which shines like pearl with green reflections
changing into a red halo, adolescent red, a mysteriously flamboyant
image. Then close your eyes and, holding them tight shut,
meditate upon this: that the five colors which are in the sun spread
into a halo and all come to touch your body, getting as far down as
the feet, and as high as the top of the head. Still more, make the
middle of the brilliant cloud have a purple breath like the pupil of
an eye. This is done ten times over: you make the five colors come
all together and enter your mouth; and you swallow them. The
breath (of the sun) is swallowed forty-five times. In addition, the
saliva is swallowed nine times, and the teeth are gritted nine times.
Absorbing the breath of the sun is not enough; it is better to absorb its
image, fu jih-hsiang, according to the procedure which the Perfect Men
of the Eastern Flower Palace, Tung-hua chen-jen, follow,and which
they have revealed. It is not the real sun which descends from the sky to
be swallowed; it is something coming from we know not where, says
T'ao Hung-ching gravely.We write the character for “sun” in a
square or a circle^nine inches high, in vermilion on green paper, and
every morning, turned towards the East and holding the paper in our left
hand, we concentrate upon it so that it becomes the resplendent sun
itself. We swallow it and let it remain in our heart; then we grit the teeth
nine times and swallow saliva nine times as well. This procedure may be

187. TCYC, ch. 2, 19a.

188. ch. 1, 5h-6a. I have not translated the final prayer.
189. I am not sure of my translation of the terms qualifying the hun of the sun.
190. TCYC, ch. 2, 15/>; ch. 2, 14a. This procedure is peculiar to men; women
absorb the image of the moon which they represent with the character yiieh written on
yellow' paper, and this they hold in their right hand while carrying out the procedure.
191. TCYC\ ch. 2, 16a.
192. Ihid.,ch. 2, 15a.
 Methods of “Nowishinif the Vital Principle” 515

completed by that of absorbing rays from the sun, /// //7/-/;?^//?.g chilt
which is done three times a day, in the morning turned towards the East,
at noon turned towards the South, and in the middle of the afternoon,
pit, turned towards the West. After an image of the red sun and of a red
brilliance as big as a large coin has been brought into the heart, the nine
rays rise from the heart into the windpipe and reach the inside of the
teeth. We do not let them pass the teeth, but send them back to the
stomach. After a moment, in meditation, we see them distinctly in the
heart and the stomach; then they are expelled with the breath, and saliva
is swallowed thirty-nine times. On the other hand, the “method of
meditating upon the sun in one's heart", is'itn Jilt tsui hsiti which is
the base of the two procedures above, can be followed separately
according to the Esoteric Method of the Red Eord of the Southern Peak,
expounded by the Perfect Man of the Great Void, T’ai-hsu-chen-jcn ncin-
yiieli cli'ili cliiiti iiei fa. It is done on the fifth, fifteenth, and twenty-ninth
day of the month, and it consists of "meditating upon the sun entering
through the mouth into the heart and illuminating the whole inside of
the heart so that it shines like the sun. They are left together for a while
and the heart is warmed up."
These procedures seem to me originally based simply upon the visual
phenomena produced by looking at the rising sun and then closing the
eyes: the three breaths, green, white, and red, are the color-phantasms
that are seen after having stared at the sun for a while, and so is the
image “as big as a large coin". But, like all Taoist procedures, they were
gradually detached from their real basis to become procedures of pure
imagination, so that they are practised even at midnight.
These are relatively simple procedures. Hsi-wang-mu had revealed
others more complex, in which the absorption of the sun served only as a
prelude. In one of them, when, “seated in a correct position, the body
erect, you meditate upon the red solar globe, as big as a coin, which is in
the middle of the heart", the sun is made to circulate throughout the
entire body, first in the Lower Cinnabar Field, and from there to the tip
of the left foot and then that of the right foot, and going through the
chest it illuminates the Five Viscera. From the Cinnabar Field it goes
also into the bladder and the kidneys and, through the two canals of the
vertebral column, the while breath ascends to the ni-hiutn and from the

193. Ibid., ch. 2, \4a-h. Likewise a proeedure peeuliar to men; women absorb the rays of
the moon, (llz
194. Ibid., ch. 2, 16^-/^ ^ILC, ch. 2, \?>b: .Shang-cli'inj^ san-chcn chih-yao yii-chiich, 1 L/
(TT, 193; Wdeger, 419), quoting the H.siao Mo clung.
 516 Taoism and Chinese Religion

bladder the black breath ascends towards the heart.In another

procedureone must begin by concentrating upon the sun like an egg
in the middle of the ni-huan. This concentration achieved, one of the
three breaths of the sun is expelled, the black breath (called Corpse
Breath, shih-c/Ti): then the second breath, the white breath (called Old
Breath, ku-cITi) is expelled; and finally the third breath, the blue breath
{ts’ang, called Breath of Death, ssii-ch’i). And expelling each breath, you
concentrate upon it, its color and its name. After that the yellow breath
is inhaled ever so lightly four times and, when that is done, saliva is
swallowed three times. Then you concentrate upon the sun which,
situated in the middle of the ni-huan, goes out through the eye and takes
its place in front of the mouth at a distance of nine inches. The eyes
are lowered, then as they are raised again the red breath is inhaled seven
times, and again saliva is swallowed three times. After that, move the
four limbs, stretching them out and bending them back again so as to
suppress all obstructions in the veins. When this is done, you concentrate
upon absorbing the green-colored breath. Naturally there was also an
analogous procedure in which the moon replaced the sun in the ni-huan.

195. HCS, ch. 24, \a-h. The procedure is explained in a rather confused fashion and, if it
is only a matter of two breaths of the sun, the problem perhaps arises simply because the
passage in which the third one w'as mentioned has been omitted by the compiler or by a
copyist.
196. Shang-cil’ing san-chen chih-yao yii-chueh, 9^/-10^ [TT, 193; Wieger, 419). This
anonymous work is quite similar to CK and TCYC and, if it does not come from T’ao
Hung-ching as those two do, it is in any case from his school and belongs to the sixth
century. —The same procedure is explained at the beginning of the Shang-ch'ing ming-t’ang
yiian-chen chmg-chiieh, \a-2a (TT, 194; Wieger, 421; I keep this title, which is that in TT,
but hsuan-chen, should be read rather than yikin-chen, xM, that being the correct
form given from the second line of TT itself); and since this work is attributed to Hsi-
wang-mu, it must be the present-day form of the text quoted in the Shang-ch’ing san-chen
chih-yao yii-chiieh: but like many ancient Taoist texts, it has been greatly altered; in this
passage the whole beginning, relating to the three breaths of the sun, is lost. 1 have
translated a resume of the ancient quotation more complete than the present-day text,
adding a passage from the commentary as a footnote.
197. “You begin by swallowing the Jade Daughter’s saliva, 3E (I have not been
able to discover what this expression denotes); the sun or the moon comes into the mouth
their rays having flowed to the back return to the Ming-t’ang, then are made to penetrate
and ascend By day you concentrate upon the sun, at midnight on the moon The
light of the sun is red, that of the moon yellow; the sun has a purple brilliance and nine
rays; the moon has a white brilliance and ten rays. The sun and moon are placed facing the
mouth at a distance of nine feet. The rays penetrate into the mouth At the beginning,
when you concentrate upon the sun and the moon, they are in the sky, as big as they are
seen to be, shining as usual. Little by little, as they descend, their size diminishes, they are
placed nine feet away from the mouth, they are perfectly round like a ball ” {Shang-
ch 'ing ming-t 'ang yiian-chen ching-chiieh, \h-2a).
 Methods of “Nourislii/ii' the Vital Principle” 517

It followed the phases of the moon, and was to be performed only from
the first day of the month to the fifteenth, while the moon was waxing,
and never from the sixteenth to the last day, when it was waning.
It is not only the breath of the sun which is absorbed: that of each
natural phenomenon has its significance, since after all Man is identical
to Earth and to Heaven. The Immortal Chang Wei-tzu had learned from
a Jade Princess (of the) Eastern Flower (Temple), Tung-hua yii-fei, the
method of absorbing Fog, ///-n z/: that is, “the quintessence, liutt-cliing, of
the Water and Fire of mountains and lakes, the abundant Breath, ying-
ch’i, of metals and stones." If I correctly understand the explanation,
which is not very clear, the procedure consists of expelling the five-
colored breaths of the five viscera through the mouth and inhaling, also
through the mouth, the five-colored breaths which circulate between
Heaven and Earth, so that each according to its color goes to its proper
internal organ.
Another procedure consists of “receiving the First of the 10,000
breaths of the Original Beginning," Yiian-shili wan-wit chili fsit, which is
done five days a month, on the third, the fifth, the seventh, the ninth, and
the fifteenth. After having fasted and recited the text once at midnight,
you go outdoors into the courtyard of the house, into the open air, and,
raising the head, meditate that, in the Flowery Canopy of the Great
Bear, there is a breath of purple cloud which, turning to the left from the
Bushel, successively traverses the twenty-eight mansions and then returns
above the Golden Gate, Chin-men. The meditation finished, raise the
purple cloud up four times, grit the teeth three times, and say a prayer.
Then, drawing in the purple cloud, breathe twenty-eight times. For
whoever practises this procedure for three years, spirits will descend and
seat themselves on his mat; his body will have a purple breath which
illuminates him entirely; his name will be inscribed in the ninth heaven;
he will surely obtain immortality.

2. Second Part: Methods of Uniting Yin and

Yang to Nourish the Vital Principle
The Breath, r/zV, by transformation produces Essence, c/zz/zg, the Essence
by transformation produces Spirits, shem and one of the objectives of the
Taoist Adept is to keep all his Spirits within his body: to prevent their

198. rerC ch. clumg, \9h-20a.

199. Ling-pao ching-ming ta-fa wan-tao yii-chang pi-chiieh, 36^/-37^/ (TT, 315; Wieger,
555).
 5J(S Taoism and Chinese Religion

dispersing, and even to reinforce them. Breath Circulation develops the

Breath within man and thereby maintains health, cures illness, and
prolongs life. But aside from these procedures there were others designed
to develop the Essence, to husband it, to keep it, and finally to unite the
yin and the yang in order to obtain results of curing illness and
prolonging life like those obtained by developing the Breath. The two
series of procedures completed each other when “the Essence was made
to return", liuan-cliing. There were sexual practises, some private and
some public, which Chinese modesty has shoved into the background in
modern times, but which played an important role in ancient Taoism,
despite a lively opposition, at least in certain circles, from the Six
Dynasties period on. A number of special books were devoted to them.
All of them had disappeared from the Tao-tsang of Ming times; but long
fragments, quoted in Japanese medical collections, have been preserved, ‘
and in addition at least one text on this subject escaped the ban, since
rather than forming a separate book it was only one chapter of another
work.- Things are stated in it rather bluntly and without circumlocution.
It deals with recipes for Taoist medicine and hygiene, and medical
treatises cannot be encumbered by circumlocution. Neither will my
translation.
Every person has his own Essence, cliing, which he himself produces in
the Dwelling of the Essence, ching-she, near the Lower Cinnabar Field,
Hsia tan-i'ien: “men hide their sperm there, women their menstrual
blood," nan-tzii yi tsang-ching, nii-tzu yi yueh-shiii.^ It has its prime
importance in prolonging life, since “every time the Essence is small, you
are sick, and when it is exhausted, you die,""^ declares the Immortal
P’eng-tsu. So you must not only save as much of it as possible but also
increase it by shaking it up and moving it about under the influence of
the yin without spending it. That demands a special technique: you must

1. Yeh Te-hui, Shuang-mei cliing-an ts'img-shu (ShCT), fasc. 1 (pub., 1903)—In this
fascicle are gathered excerpts from ancient Chinese medical books collected in the /shin ho,
(that is the title according to the Japanese bibliography Kokuslio kaklai by Samura
Hachiro; Yeh Te-hui adds the character ^), composed by Tamba Yasuyori between 982
and 984.
2. Section 6 of YHYML [Charm for Nourishing the Vital Principle and Prolonging Life],
ch. 2, 8a tl'. {TT, 572; Wieger, 831). —The colophons of each chapter attribute this book to
T’ao Hung-ching (sixth century A.D.), and a note in the preface attributes it to Sun Ssu-mo
(died c. 682; see above. First Part to this Book, note 78).
3. y'CCC, ch. 58, 6a. The Dwelling of the Essence, Ching-shih, is “opposite the navel, at
the level of the vertebra (counting downwards) in the empty space of the spinal column, at
the place where the spine comes near the bladder from below.” This name is probably to be
applied to the seminal vesicles.
4. YHYML, ch. 2, 9h (section 6).
 Methods of “Nourishi/m the Vital Prineip/e” 519

know “the art of the yin and of the yany which prolongs life,” yin-yan^
yen-niing chih s/nt, and must practise it.
Nothing is so dangerous for the prolongation of life as reckless sexual
union. “Lying with a woman is like guiding a galloping horse with rotten
reins; it is like approaching a deep pit the bottom of which is arrayed
with swords, fearing to fall into it.”'** This is one of the acts which most
shorten the life span. The forbidden things which diminish life are
enumerated thus in progressive order:^

Forbidden (under pain of) a day’s (diminution) of life: eating by

night, do not gorge yourself. [Note: Whoever gorges while eating at
night diminishes his life by a day.]
Forbidden (under pain of) a month's (diminution) of life: drink-
ing by night, do not get drunk. [Note: Whoever goes to bed drunk at
night diminishes his life by a month.]
Forbidden (under pain of) a year's (diminution) of life: stay away
from the interior apartments at night. [Note: A single copulation, yi-
chiao, diminishes life by a year.]
Forbidden (under pain) of life: By night you must protect the
Breath. [Note: When you are in bed, get accustomed to keeping
your mouth closed; if the mouth is open, the Breath is lost;
moreover bad (influences) go in through the mouth.]

By contrast, the man who knows will not only not suffer, but will draw
advantage from this. “The Yellow Emperor lay with twelve hundred
women and became Immortal; common folk have but one wife and
destroy their lives, Huang-ti yit ch’ien-erh-pai nit erh hsiety su-jen yi yi-nit
erh fa-ming. Knowing and not knowing, how could these not produce
contrary results? When one knows the procedure, the ills deriving from
lying with women become few.”^ Simple continence cannot replace it,
since it is against nature. “The Yellow Emperor asked the Daughter of
Simplicity, Sit-nii: ‘Now I wish to go for a long time without copulation;
how shall I do it?' The Daughter of Simplicity replied: That is im-
possible. Heaven and Earth have their (successive moments) of opening
and closing; the yin and the yang have their (successive moments) of
spreading and changing. Man imitates the yin and the yang. If you do
not copulate. Spirit and Breath will not spread out, the yin and yang will
be held in and obstructed. How- can you restore yourself.. .?"'^ This is

5. Su-nii chin^ {SNC), \h (ShCT).

6. YHYML (sect. 6), ch. 2, 572).
7. Yii-fan^ chih-yao {\YC). \a (ShCT).
8. SNC\ \h.
 520 Taoism and Chinese Religion

not suitable even for the aged. “The Chosen Daughter, Ts'ai-nii,'^ asked
P'eng-tsu; ds it possible for a man of sixty to keep his essence held in?’
P'eng-tsu replied: ‘No. Man does not wish to be without woman; if he is
without woman, his attention, r/, is disturbed; if his attention is dis-
turbed, his spirits, shen, are tired; if his spirits are tired, his longevity
diminishes When the Essence is retained by force, it is hard to keep
and easy to lose it, so that it is allowed to escape, the urine becomes
cloudy, and you catch the disease of intercourse with a succubus, kuei
chiao chill * By contrast, sexual union is useful to those who
know how to handle it, and a Taoist author rather naively has the
Chosen Daughter say: “One does not struggle against man’s natural
inclination, and one can manage to increase longevity: isn’t this also a
pleasure?”—pu-ni jen-hsing erh k 'e yi-shou, pu yi lo tsai. ‘ “
A Taoist Adept who wishes to have a child (this was not unusual, at
least up to the T’ang dynasty, since the tao-shih married, and even those
who lived communally in phalansteries, kiuin, lived there in families with
their wives and children) is required to take certain precautions to avoid
doing himself injury. He should, to start with, “increase his Essence”
sufficiently so that what he spends of it will not diminish his life. “You
must not be reckless, you must be diligent. If you have a single ejacu-
lation after several copulations, as the Essence and the Breath have
become large, that cannot cause a man’s life to be diminished; but if you
have several, the Essence cannot increase and is consumed.” All the
authors agree on this. “P’eng-tsu says: Recipe for having a child. Essence
and Breath must be nourished; avoid ejaculating several times. Have
intercourse with a woman three or four days after, having finished her
menstrual period, she is purified.^** (When in these conditions) you have

9. Ts’ai-nU was the lowest of the three grades of untitled women in the Imperial Palace
under the Han dynasty: the Beauties, Mei-jen, the Secluded Ones, Kung-jen, and the
Chosen Daughters, Ts’ai-nu.
10. This is the generally accepted opinion even among Taoists: “The Daughter of
Simpleness, Su-nii, says: At twenty, an emission every four days; at thirty, every eight days;
at forty, every sixteen days; at fifty, every twenty days; at sixty, the man must keep his
Essence contained and no longer discharge it.” (SAC, \a)
11. YHYML, sect. 6, 9a. —Regarding the “malady of the succubus,” see SAC, \ \h:
“The Chosen Daughter asked: Whence comes the malady of the succubus? —P’eng-tsu
replied: It comes from this: when there is no union of the yin and yang, nature desiring it
greatly, demons, kuei-mei, in false guises make (those who are too abstinent) copulate.”
12. SAC, \h.
13. YHYML, ch. 2, 9/) (sect. 6).
14. Cf. Tnng-hsiian-tzu, 5a\ “From the first to the fourth day (after menstruation), it is a
boy; from the fourth to the fifth day, it is a girl-; after the fifth day, you do nothing but
diminish your Essence and use up your strength without benefit.” SAC, 10/), gives the same
indications, but adds the advice to choose the hour before sunrise: “after midnight, at the
 Methods of "Nourishing the Vital Principle" 521

a child, if it is a boy he will be intelligent, full of talent, long-lived, noble;

if it is a girl, she will be wise and will marry a nobleman.” Thus you
can to a certain extent remedy the fatal danger of the sexual act and the
discharge of Essence that it causes. But this is only a palliative. What is
necessary is not only to know how to render it harmless, but to know
how to use it and draw benefit from its performance for curing ailments,
prolonging life, and obtaining Immortality.
The simplest procedure is described in crude terms which I have muted
a little:*^ “The Taoist Liu Ching says: The procedure to use every time
you lie with a woman consists in first disporting yourself very gently so
that the Spirits will be brought in tune; it is only when they are perfectly
aroused for a long time that you can have intercourse. Penetrate when
(the penis) is flabby, withdraw it when it is firm and strong;penetrate
only without ejaculating {jo erh nei chilu chien-ch’iang erh t’ui, tan chieh
erh pu-shih). He who can perform several tens of copulations in a single
day and night without letting his Essence escape will be cured of all
diseases, and his longevity will grow. If you change women, yi-nii, several
times, the benefit increases; if you change women ten times in a night,
this is excellent to the highest degree.” And the Su-nii-ching has P’eng-tsu
explain clearly:*® “The essential rule consists in lying with many young

hour of Cock-Crow (0100 to 0300 in the morning),” contrary to the Tung-hsuan-tzu, 5h:
“Lao-tzu says: A child made at midnight has superior longevity; a child made before
midnight has middling longevity; a child made after midnight has inferior longevity.” —
Tung-hsiian-tzu is Li Tung-hsiian, Director of the School of Medicine at the capital, yi-po-
shih, in the mid-seventh century (Chou Mi, Ch'i-tung yeh-yu, ch. 13, \9h, ed. Pai-hai).
15. Yu-fang pi-chiieh ( YFP), 6a (ShCT).
16. YFC, \h.
17. “What is it called when one enters weak and comes out strong? The Jade Shaft, vw-
ching, is introduced between the Lute String, ch'in-hsien, and the Indentation shaped like a
wheat grain until it becomes big; then it is pulled back. Putting it in while it is weak is what
is called making it enter weak and come out strong. If the decrease (of V/>J) and the increase
(of yang) are done in eighty(-one) movements, which is the number of the yang, that
is best. Lao-tzu says: Whoever enters weak and comes out strong knows the art of
(prolonging) life; whoever enters strong and comes out weak, even if he had the better
destiny, will perish.” ( YHYML, ch. 2, \3a-h.) —Regarding the eighty-one movements and
the procedure of penetrating nine times shallowly and once deeply {— ), cf.
YFP, 4a; SNC, 3h. —-For the meaning of anatomical terms, see T'ien-ti yin-yang chiao-
huan ta-lo fu, 2h (Commentary): “The Jade Shaft is the male shaft, nan-ching— The
Daughter of Simpleness, su-nii, says: The feminine sexual parts at one inch deep (two
centimeters), are called the Lute String; at five inches deep (twelve centimeters) are called
the Wheat Grain, ku-.shih; if one goes past the Wheat Grain (the woman) dies.” The Wheat
Grain is the neck of the uterus; but the indentation in the form of a Wheat Grain does not
seem to denote the same point. There is in fact a series of special terms designating various
points in the vagina, terms mentioned (though without definition) in YFP, 4a-5a.
18. SNC, \b.
 522 Taoism and Chinese Religion

women without ever emitting the Essence several times ( fa c/iifi yao-chc
tsai to yii sliao-nii crh nio shii lisieh-ching). That makes the body light and
wards oti'all disease.”
This simple procedure is sufficient if one is satisfied to nourish the vital
principle so as to prolong life. But it is only an elementary exercise; what
must be attained is to practise the art of “making the Essence return to
restore the brain,” huan-ching pii-nao. “A Book of the Immortals says:
the principle of making the Essence return to restore the brain consists in
copulating so that the Essence is very excited; (then) when it is about to
come out, you rapidly grasp (the penis) with the two middle fingers of
the left hand behind the scrotum and in front of the anus, press strongly,
and expel the breath slowly through the mouth at the same time that the
teeth are gritted several tens of times without holding the Breath. Then,
when the Essence is emitted, it cannot go out but returns to the Jade
Shaft, yii-ching (the penis), and goes up and enters the brain. This
procedure is transmitted by the Immortals; they take an oath by drinking
blood not to transmit it at random.”
No more than the Breath exercises can these procedures be practised
without preparation. There must be a definite day and hour so that one
can devote himself to them, and they must be preceded and followed by
concentration. The most important part, which is the ascent of the
Essence to the brain through the medullary canal, must be accompanied
by a mental image which allows following and directing things. A little
hagiographical novel which seems to date from the fifth century, the
“Biography of the Perfect Man of Pure Transcendence Master P’ei”,
shows the broad lines of this practise, among the five prescriptions which
the Immortal master Chiang hsien-sheng had revealed to Chih Tzu-yiian
and which the latter in turn passed on to P’ei Hsiian-jen at the time
when, still young, he began to seek Immortality;-^

Begin on a k'ai or a ch’ir^ day in the first ten days (of a month,
ten days) of which the first is chia-tzu (the first of the sexagenary
cycle), at the hour of living breath after midnight. Be neither drunk
nor full of food, do not have an unclean body (since) all that begets
diseases. Through perfect meditation you must banish (all external)
thought; then men and women can practise the method of Eternal

19. YFC\ \h.

20. Teng Yiin-tzu, Ch'ing-Iing Chen-jen P'ei-chun nei-chium. in >'CCC, ch. 105, 3a-/>.—
This imaginary immortal is supposed to have been born in the second year of the emperor
Wen of the Hand 78 B.C.). The books quoted and a few other indications make me date the
composition of this little work at the beginning of the T’ang dynasty.
21. The divinatory cycle of twelve days, called chien-cli'u from the names of the first two
days; k'ai is the eleventh day. Cf. Melanges sur la Chronologie chinoise (Varietes sinolo-
giqaes, 52), pp. 29-30.
 Methods of "Nowishiu}!, the Vita/ Prineiple" 523

Life. This procedure is absolutely secret; pass it on only to sages! It

is performed by men and women together taking the Breath of life,
nourishing themselves with Essence and with blood. This is not a
heterodox procedure; (it is a procedure which) pertains particularly
to diminishing the yitt so as to increase the yan^. If you perform it
according to rule, breaths and liquids will circulate like a cloud, the
Liqueur of Essence will coagulate. Whether you be young or old,
you will become adolescent again.
Each time (this procedure) is practised, enter into meditation.
You must first lose consciousness of your body and lose awareness
of the exterior world, watig-hsitig n'ctug-wu. Then grit the teeth for
seven series and say this prayer: May the Original White Essence of
Metal, Pai-yikitt chin-ching, spread life among my Five Flowers (the
five viscera). May the Lord Yellow Old Man of the Center Chitng-
yang Huung-lao-chitn harmonize my souls, hwu and put my Essence
in order. May the Great Essence of the Supreme Majesty, coagulat-
ing the liquids, make the Transcendent as hard as a bone. May the
six breaths of the Great Actual Without Superior coil up within!
May the Mysterious Old Man of Superior Essence make the Essence
return to restore my brain! Let me unite (the yin and the yang), let
the Embryo be refined, and the Jewel kept.
The prayer finished, men will keep (the spirit fixed upon) the
kidneys holding tight to the Essence and distilling the Breath, which
follows the spinal column and ascends to the Ni-huan against the
current. That is what is called “return to the Origin”, huun-yikin.
Women will keep (the spirit fixed upon) the heart nourishing the
spirits, distilling an immutable fire, making the Breath descend from
the two breasts to the kidneys, from which it ascends again through
the spinal column-- and also goes to the Ni-huan. This is what is
called “transforming the real”, hua-chen .. After a hundred days,
you reach Transcendence. If (this procedure) is practised for a very
long time, you become a Perfect Man spontaneously, and live
eternally through the centuries. This is the method of not dying.
The Huang-t'ing wai-ching yii-ching, that ancient esoteric manual in
verse on the Taoist religious life for use by Adepts, the beginning of
which I have quoted earlier,-"^ naturally spoke of the procedure for
making the Essence come back. But this book, the obscure form of
which is designed to exclude the ignorant who must not understand,

22.3>5( =W)W.
23. I don't understand these four words.
24. On this work and its commentaries, see above, pp. 488-94. Remember that A

designates the text of YCCC, B that of//C.S', c the separate text of TT, 168.
 524 Taoism and Chinese Religion

proceeds chiefly by allusion; and as it is addressed to Taoists who are

learned and already have at least an empirical knowledge of these things,
it limits itself to theoretical considerations and does not describe the
procedures. The twenty verses which refer to them are nonetheless
interesting, given the age of the book, and I give their translation here,^^
despite some slight uncertainty in interpreting some of them.
The Mysterious Chest^^ of the Breath Tube^^ is the
receptacle"^ which receives the Essence;*^
Take care to hold onto your Essence firmly^® and restrain
yourself.
[20] In the house^* there is a nobleman clad in scarlet:

25. HWY, verses 18-38, in HCS, ch. 58, 3r/ (with commentary by Liang-ch’iu-tzu);
FCCC, ch. 12, 33/5 (with Wu-ch’eng-tzu’s commentary). This passage immediately follows
the one referred to in note 24, just above.
26. A, c; hsiian-ymg, Wu-ch’eng-tzu: “The middle of the inside of the throat (hou
chill chung-yang) is the Mysterious Chest.” —B: h.siian-ying, ^.1^, which would mean:
“The Tube of Breath suspended in the Chest ” —I have translated hsiian as “myste-
rious”; it should perhaps rather be given its basic sense, “dark.” —This is the larynx: see
above, introduction to this Book, at note 44.
27. The tracheal artery.
28. A: /w, 1^; B, C: /W, This latter character is probably not a copyist’s error, but
rather a graphic variant of that in version A.
29. Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “Under the tongue is the receptacle ( fu, see footnote above) of the
Essence. The trachea is the tube of Breath. Essence and Breath go up and down in it;
through it the Superior Original reassembles the subtlest of breaths; Perfect Men follow it
to go up and down; it is the road of communication for the Spirits.” —Wu-ch’eng-tzu:
“The center of the inside of the trachea is the Dark Thorax; through it the Original Breath
descends, from there it begins to move. That is why it is called the receiving receptacle.” —
The word fu, “receptacle,” is used only figuratively here: it is the esophagus and not the
trachea which is one of the three cooking places, san-chiao, the three of which
constitute one of the six receptacles. See above, section ii of introduction to Book ix, first
paragraph.
30. Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “Man should hold the Breath in (pi-ch'i), make the Essence return
(huan-ching) and restrain himself, he should not discharge it. Making the Essence return so
as to restore the brain is the method of not dying.” —Wu-ch’eng-tzu: “Concentrate upon
the Essence so that it will not go away.”
31. According to Liang-ch’iu-tzu, the House is the heart; according to Wu-ch’eng-tzu, it
is the face. The former is certainly right: the god of the face, if there is one, plays no role in
the two HTC, nor in the Ta-tung clung, nor in any of the books of this period; by contrast,
the heart, or Scarlet Palace, chiang-kung, has a god clothed in red, ch’ih-tzu, who is
constantly mentioned in them. Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “If you keep your thought constantly fixed
upon the heart whose Spirit, clad in garments of scarlet and cinnabar color, goes in and
out, you will have no misfortune and will escape all ills.” —Wu-ch’eng-tzu: “The face is the
House (the height of which is) one foot. A Perfect Man official is placed in the middle of it;
he is clad in clothes of red and vermilion color; he shines with a gleaming brilliance, red
scarlet.”
 Methods of "Nourishing the Vital Principle" 525

if you are capable of seeing him, you will not be sick.^^

What is kept crossways, a foot long, and holds tight what is
below, like a chain,
if you are capable of keeping it,^*^ you will be without
affliction.
Please yourself^** by exhaling and inhaling in the Hut;^^
[25] if you protect^^ and keep (Essence and Breath) complete and
hi m, your body will receive prosperity;
the interior of the Square Inch,^” close it carefully and store
up (its contents):^*^

32. Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “Meditate upon the Spirit of the heart: if your thought beholds
Ch'ih-tzu unceasingly with inner vision, your body will be without illness.”
33. The spleen. Wu-ch'eng-tzu: “The spleen is a foot long; it clasps the stomach like a link.
It is the Ming-t'ang of the Lower Section (see above, introduction to this Book, at note 48);
Lao-chiin strolls about and dwells there during the day.” —Liang-ch’iu-tzu; “The spleen, a
foot or more long, is above the Great Storehouse ( = the stomach).”
34. Liang-ch'iu-tzu: “The spirit of the spleen.” Wu-ch'eng-tzu: “To guard the spleen is
to guard the place where Lao-chiin dwells.”
35. THI Li. I'i • 1 take fg; as equalling The beginning of the verse repeats verse
5.
36. The nose, see above. First Part of this Book, at note 110. Wu-ch’eng-tzu: “After
having closed the Three Barriers firmly, curve the fingers and clench the fists tightly; and
exhale and inhale the Original Breaths: they wall be reassembled in the head and will go
down into the mouth; take them in the mouth and absorb them: you will nevermore be
hungry or thirsty and you will drive away the Three Corpses.” —Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “Inhale
the breath through the nose, make it go (from the nose) into the mouth and absorb it.” —
After having made the Essence go up into the trachea (v. 19) and having trapped it there,
breath is inhaled through the nose, it is made to go down from the nose into the mouth
and, w hen it is in the mouth, it is swallowed so as to join it to the Essence.”
37. A:
38. The “Square Inch,” ’////, 77'f, is a general designation for the Cinnabar
Fields, w'hich have this dimension (see above, introduction to this Book, at note 38). This
concerns the Lower Cinnabar Field situated in the belly below the navel, as Liang-ch’iu-tzu
recognized (see the following note). Wu-ch’eng-tzu, however, for whom the House is the
face, has to look for the “Square Inch” in the head; and rather than simply making it the
Upper Cinnabar Field, in the brain, he sees in it “the eye which is neither square nor
round”: in that case it would be a matter of closing the eyes to practise inner vision and see
the spirits inside the body. This is not absolutely impossible, since at every moment the
gods of the body are a concern; but it would be a rather singular way to express the notion
of inner vision, which consists in closing the eyes on the external world so as to open them
to the inner world. The inside of the eyes, even when they are closed, contains nothing to be
stored up.
39. Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “The Cinnabar Field is the Square Inch. By thought to keep Essence
and Breath and conserve them carefully and purely is (what the text calls) closing carefully
and storing up.”
 526 Taoism and Chinese Religion

when the Essence and the Spirit come back and turn
around/^^ the old man comes back to the prime of
life;
squeezing"^' the Dark Door"^- they all flow ouf^^ below;
nourish your Jade Tree'*'^ so that it will be strong.
[30] (He who has) the perfect Tao is not troubled,'*'*’ he does not
lose good direction."*^
From the Transcendent Terrace"*" (the Essence and the
Breath) join and approach the central plains;

40. Liang-ch'iu-tzu, 5h: “When the Essence is brought back and the body refined, so as
to master the breaths of the brain, the teeth are strengthened, the hair becomes darker, the
body does not age.” —Wu-ch’eng-tzu, 35a: Essence and Spirit wish to go away like flying
images; when the Essence from above does not escape, when the Essence from below does
not diminish, when the Inoi and the p’o within are kept, you are as if in the prime of
life.”
41. c: B: A: -E'ln----

42. : the kidneys. Dark Door of the middle section; see above. First Part of this
Book, note 100. Essence and Breath go down together from the trachea, along the
kidneys (Dark Door) into the Lower Cinnabar Field, three inches below the navel.
43. A, B, c: Ja, &, correct to Hu, Wu-ch’eng-tzu and Liang-ch’iu-tzu both have the
correct character Hu in their commentaries, despite the mistake in the text they are referring
to.
44. The body: the result of this joint descent of Essence and Breath from the trachea to
below the navel is to nourish the body and to give it youthful vigor again. Wu-ch’eng-tzu:
“The body is the Jade Tree ( Till): it must be kept strong always; the yin (of the body) is
the penis (TM). They obey and command one another by turns. When the Essence is
returned to restore the brain, you are not sick but live in eternal Joy, without sorrows.” —
Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “We must constantly hold onto the Lower Original, hsia-yuan (which
resides in the Lower Cinnabar Field): Essence and Breath will be as firm as jade. Who-
ever holds the Essence in and watches over the Spirit is robust.”
45. Wu-ch’eng-tzu, 35h: “The Great Tao is spontaneous, it has neither sadness nor
affliction; it is brilliantly luminous: it is the very root of man. The perfect Tao is difficult to
obtain but easy to practise.” —Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “(If the Tao) is not perfect, there are
troubles; when the heart has been calmed and the thought fixed, you turn straight to the
South; he who turns his back to the North so as to face South wears East and West on his
belt.”
46. Wu p'ang-wu ( te^''T)n literally “he does not turn aside from the direction of the
south.” The expression p'ang-wu corresponds almost precisely to the French expression
“lose the north” (perdre le nord = “lose your bearings,” “get confused”).
47. For Liang-ch’iu-tzu the Transcendent Terrace, Ling-t’ai, is the heart, for Wu-ch’eng-
tzu the head; the latter adds that the intestines are the Central Plain, chung-yikin. —The
Transcendent Terrace cannot be far from the Ming-t’ang, if that is not (within the body as
in the empire) another name for the same place; there are, to be sure, three Ming-t’ang in
the body, one in each of the three sections (head, chest, and belly), but the lower section is
excluded from communicating with Heaven. On the other hand, verse 28 has indicated that
Essence and Breath go down through the body from the trachea “right to the bottom”;
verses 31 and 32 describe this descent. Thus it is in the middle section that this
Transcendent Terrace must be sought, near the heart.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vi ted Principle" 527

from the inside of the Square Ineh/” they arrive below the
Barrier;**
at the Gate and the Wicket of the Spirits'’^’ who are within the
Jade Chamber.

48. In my opinion, this concerns a Cinnabar Field: that in the lower section is excluded
since Essence and Breath go “belo\\ the Barrier” from there; so this is the Middle Cinnabar
Field. —Wu-ch'eng-tzu, faithful to his interpretation of verse 26, sees the eye here; for
Liang-ch'iu-tzu it is “the trachea an inch wide; the Perfect Man within the Ming-t’ang goes
down to harmonize the Cinnabar Fields and goes back up to the Ming-t’ang.”
49. The Barrier is, I think, what is called above (verse 3) the “origin of the Barrier” and
whieh I have supposed to be the fold of the epiploon. (See above. First Part of this Book,
note 100.) The commentaries have nothing on this subject. —This verse and the preceding
one describe exactly the same thing in different terms: the descent of the joined Essence and
Breath from the middle section (verse 31: Transcendent Terrace = heart; verse 32: Square
Inch = Cinnabar Field near the heart) to the lower section (verse 31: Central
Plains = intestine; verse 32: below the Barrier = Lower Cinnabar Field).
50. Wu-ch’eng-tzu: “The Gate and Wicket of the Spirits are those through which the One
passes.” These are the Yellow Portal and the Purple Wicket, cf. TTN, 2a {TT, 59): “In the
Purple Hall, tzii-fang (another name for the Tung-fang or Yii-fang: see note below), is the
YellovN Portico, huang-ch'ueh, next to the Yellow Court, huang-t’ing, the center of
which is the Purple Wicket, tzu-hu, ^ . The Purple Wicket is also called Court of Clouds,
yiin-t'ing, ; within it Huang-lao resides.” There are three Yellow Courts, one in each
of the three sections of the body (see above. First Part of this Book, note 100): these are
the Gate and Wicket of the Yellow Court in the lower section.
51. Wu-ch’eng-tzu: “The Jade Chamber, yii-fang, 3s J^, is also called the Arcanum
Chamber, tung-fang, Purple Chamber, tzu-fang, Scarlet Palace, chiang-kung,
; and Hall of Government, niing-t'ang. It is the Land of the Golden Coffer, chin-kuei,
below the Jade Elower, yii-hua 3E||.'’ —Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “The v//; and yang are the
Gate and Wicket of the Spirits, they govern sperm and menstruation: for men we say
sperm, for women menstruation ” Wu-ch’eng-tzu took his enumeration of the names of
the Jade Chamber from the Commentary in TTN, \a (TT, 59; Wieger, 130), which he
reproduces verbatim: it presents a difficulty, however, since the Tung-fang and the Ming-
t’ang are two different cubicles of the Nine Palaces, whether in the head (see above,
introduction to this Book, at notes 32 to 36), or in the chest (following note 45 of the
introduction to this Book), or in the belly; and the Scarlet Palace, which is in the middle
Cinnabar Eield, is yet another cubicle when it does not mean all Nine Palaces in the middle
section. The same commentary, after having given the names of the two divinities of the
Tung-fang, states that “they are the great divinities of the interior of the Yii-fang.” Given
the importance of precise localization of gods within the body among Taoists, he could
hardly have been wrong on this point, and we can accept the equivalence Yii-fang = Tung-
fang; the equivalences with the Ming-t’ang and the Scarlet Palace relate to cases when these
words are used imprecisely to signify the totality of the Nine Palaces, or the group of three
cubicles which constitute the Yellow Court of each section (see above. First Part of this
Book, at note 100) and which are, in hierarchical order: (1) The Hall of Government.
Ming-t’ang', (2) the Arcanum Chamber, Tung-fang', and (3) the Cinnabar Field, Tan-t'ien
(on the hierarchy of the Nine Palaces, see TCYC, ch. 1, 36 [TT, 193; Wieger, 418]). Here it
is the Tung-fang of the lower .section. We must add that the term Jade Chamber alludes to
sexual practises: several books concerning these are called “Secret Formulas of the Jade
Chamber,” YFP (Tc, ch. 67, 456).
 52H Taoism and Chinese Religion

All that is what the Princes*’" have taught me.

[35] “From the Government Chamber,penetrating in the four
directions (the Essence and the Breath) flow out^‘* towards
the marine plains.
The Perfect Man, Tzu-tan,*^^ is before me;
when Essence and Breath are buried deeply inside the Three
Barriers,
if you don’t want to die, carry out (the practises of the)
skull.”
The intended reticences of the author of the “Book of the Yellow
52. “Princes,” Wu-ch'eng-tzu: “To the right is the Divine Prince, Shen-kung-tzu
(W'u-ying-chiin), to the left is the Original White Lord, Po-yuan-chiin,
they nourish me, they make me live; they always want to make me become Immortal; like a
father and a mother, together they nourish Tzu-tan (the god of the heart): (like) sun and
moon, they are three inches (from one another).” These are the gods of the Tung-fang. —
Liang-ch'iu-tzu: “The heart is the Grand Constable Duke, t’ai ( fii — ) wei kung,
i;( the left kidney, the Duke Director of the Masses, the right kidney,
the Duke Director of Works, [these titles were chosen, not from their relations to
the functions of the heart and of the two kidneys, but simply because they are one of the
lists of the Three Dukes of the imperial court]; they receive Essence and Breath, and do not
let them flow away: whoever is capable of watching over the One sees them.” —Wu-ch’eng-
tzu’s interpretation matches the usages of the Book of the Yellow Court (HTC) rather better
than Liang-ch'iu-tzu's does.
53. One cubicle of the Nine palaces (the first, hierarchically), in the three sections of the
body; I suppose that, here as always, this concerns the middle section, in which it is just
below the trachea.
54. The two texts give/a, i^: I have read Hu, following the text of the commentaries.
55. . Neither of these two commentaries gives an explanation of this term. 1 have
never encountered it as a mystical designation of a part of the body, and the silence of the
commentaries leads me to believe that it is not in fact this sort of designation. 1 think it
must be taken in its proper sense: man’s body and the world are identical and within the
world you can constantly pass from one to the other; the influence coming from the Hall of
Government, Ming-t’ang, spreads to the extremities, which are the Four Seas; likewise
within the body the influence emanating from the Hall of Government spreads to the
extremities of the body, figuratively called the marine plains, by allusion to the Four Seas,
the extremities of the world.
56. The god of the heart. —Liang-ch’iu-tzu: “Ch’ih-tzu is a Perfect Man, he has the
surname Tzu-tan, he is in the Ming-t’ang. Whoever is capable of meditating upon him will
see his life-span lengthened.”
57. The Three Barriers are the Celestial Barrier, which is the mouth; the Terrestrial
Barrier, which is the feet; and the Human Barrier, which is the hands. See above. First Part
of this Book, note 67.
58. K'un-lun: Wu-ch’eng-tzu: “The head is K'uu-lutv, the Tao has its seat in the middle.”
—Liang-ch’iu-tzu: "K'un-lun is the head. (This practise) makes men nourish the ni-huan
which is inside the brain, not die, and obtain Eternal Life.” —-Cf. the commentary on TTN,
\h (TT, 59): “K’un-lun is the head It resembles the hanging gardens of Mount K’un-
lun.”
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple" 529

Court” make these verses unintelligible when we study them in isolation.

But when they are set beside the texts which I have just quoted, we
readily recognize the image he had of what happens within the body
when one tries to “make the Essence return to restore the brain.” The
Adept has the Essence come up from the lower section so that it goes to
meet the Breath. He shuts it up in the windpipe; then he expels the old
breath through the mouth and inhales the new breath through the nose
and, making this breath pass from the nose into the mouth by way of the
back of the throat, he swallows it and sends it to find the Essence again
in the windpipe. Breath and Essence Join, then they go down towards the
lower area, circulating throughout the body, which this circulation
nourishes, giving it the vigor of youth. They move from the heart
towards the intestine, flowing along the kidneys to get “below the
Barrier” in the Lower Cinnabar Field. After this descent. Essence and
Breath are kept close in behind the Three Barriers, and “the practises of
the skull are performed”—that is, the Breath and Essence are guided
from the Lower Cinnabar Field to the Ni-huan inside the brain. To me
this theory seems to differ from later theories in that Essence ascends to
meet Breath again and joins with it in the windpipe. Later on this ascent
of the Essence is no longer accepted; rather it remains closed up in the
Lower Cinnabar Field, and there the Breath joins it.
Most Taoist authors are less concerned with theorizing about what
goes on inside the body than with describing the practises that must be
carried out. They insist especially upon changing women, which is one of
the essential features of these procedures; “You must change women
after each stimulation; it is through changing the woman that Eternal
Life is obtained.” And they explain the reason for it. “The Tao-shih
with the Green Ox, Chfng-niu tao-shihsays:... If you lie constantly
with one single woman, the Essence and Breath of the woman are
enfeebled and she cannot give much benefit to a man; moreover, it
makes you thinner.”Changes should be frequent; but the precise
details that the authors offer on this point are more theoretical than real.
According to the Immortal P’eng-tsu, twelve exchanges in one session
are a procedure which allows one in old age to keep a young man’s
complexion. The more the number of exchanges increases, the more the

59. YFP, \b\ cf. YHYML, ch. 2, 9a (seel. 6).

60. This is Feng Heng’s appellation, hao., his tzu is Chiin-la. He was a Taoist who is
supposed to have lodged with Ts’ao Ts’ao in the first quarter of the third century A.D. (PO-
w'u chih, ch. 5, 2a-h, quoted with an important variant in TPYL, ch. 720, 96; LCTT, ch. 21,
\a [TT, 143]).
61. YFP, 16; cf. YFIYML, ch. 2, 9a; “If you sleep with one woman only, the yin breath
diminishes and the benefit is small.”
 530 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

Adept makes progress, and if he gets as far as nine dozen exchanges his
life will attain ten thousand years, always on condition that he interrupts
the coitus in timed’-
The choice of women who must serve as the Taoist Adept’s partners in
these exercises is of great importance. P'eng-tsu recommends avoiding
those who know the procedure themselves.In fact women too can
practise it and obtain the same advantage as men. There is at least one
famous example. “Hsi-wang-mu was (a woman) who obtained the Tao
by nourishing the yin'\^‘^ and she also became immortal.A woman
who knows will seek her own development and will consequently be of
no benefit to her partner. But age is especially important. “If one finds
girls above the age of fourteen or fifteen and below eighteen or nineteen,
the benefit will be greatest; in any case they must not be over thirty, and
even a woman who is under thirty cannot be of any use if she has had a
child.” Some recommend choosing pretty girls.Others do not insist
upon that: “They need not all be beautiful and charming; they are to be
chosen young, the breasts not yet full, but well fleshed out.”^® Another
adds that they must have “fine hair, small eyes ... the sound of the voice
harmonious, the bones of the four limbs disappearing in the flesh and the
bones not large, the sexual parts and the armpits not hairy, or if they
have any, it must be fine.”^*^ But what is most important is to avoid
those who have certain defects, a long list of which is given:those who
have thick skin, very thin bodies, masculine voices and rapid breathing,
or hair on the legs, those who are jealous, whose sexual parts are cold,
who eat too much, who are over forty years old,^* whose bodies are
always cold, who have strong, hard bones, whose armpits smell bad, and
so on.
The practise of these exercises demands a certain number of conditions

62. YHYML, eh. 2, 9h (sect. 6); (should be H) AM Chiii-

shih-erh must be understood as 9 x 12^ not as 92.
63. YFP, \a
64. Ihu/., \h.
65. This is not the notion which has prevailed as to Hsi-wang-mu’s origin. She is the
Original Breath of the Great Yin, T'ai-yin yiian-ch'i, as her counterpart Tung-wang-kung is
the Original Breath of the Green Yang, Ch'ing-yang yiian-ch'i (LCC, eh. 1, in TC’CC, ch.
18, 2a, 2>a). These are not humans who have become immortal, but divinities produced
spontaneously.
66. YFP, \a.
67. I hid.
68. YFC, \a.
69. YFP, la.
70. Ihid., la-h. I have translated only part of the list.
71. A-MAfA- ■ Perhaps hsi, 40, should be corrected to .sa, ftf, 30, to bring this passage
into accord with the one quoted above.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vi ted Prineiple’’ 531

of lime, place, and so on, so as not lo harm those who are performing
them, and still more for the good of the children if any eventuate.
In uniting the yiti and the {ho yin ycttiy), there are seven
forbidden items {chi):
First prohibition: Last and first day of the month, first and last
quarter, full moon. If the yin and yang are united (on those days)
the Breath will be diminished. If in these conditions you get a child,
it will be malformed. You must keep this well in mind.
Second prohibition: Thunder, wind, disturbances of the heaven
and the earth. If the yin and yang are united (at these times) the
vessels (where the Breath and the blood circulate) become jumpy. If
in these conditions you get a child, it will have abscesses.
Third prohibition: When you have just drunk or eaten and the
Breath of cereals has not yet passed. If the yin and yang are united
(at these times), the inside of the belly is swollen, the urine is white
and cloudy. If in these conditions you get a child, it will be an idiot.
Fourth prohibition: When you have just urinated and Essence
and Breath are exhausted. If the yin and yang are united (at this
moment), the vessels (where the Breath and blood circulate) are
rough. If in these conditions you get a child, it will be very ugly.
Fifth prohibition: When you are very tired, and the Will {chih)
and Breath have not yet recovered. If the yin and yang are united (at
this moment) the nerves and waist are swollen. If in these conditions
you get a child, it will die prematurely.
Sixth prohibition: When you have just washed the hair and the
skin is not yet dry. If the yin and yang are united (at this moment),
that shortens the breath. If in these conditions you get a child, it will
not be complete.
Seventh prohibition: When you (feel) as firm as a weapon and
very excited,and the veins of the penis are painful, (the yin and
yang) must be united. If you do not unite them (at this moment),
you will suffer lesions internally and will fall sick.
This passage especially stresses diseases that may alflicl children if these
prohibitions are not observed. Another passage of the same book, re-
calling the same conditions, w'arns that those who transgress the prohibi-
tions will also have to suffer, and it clarifies or fills out these themes.

72. YFP, 5a-h.

73. Sheng-nu, For this particular meaning of the word iiii, see T'icn-ti yin-yang
chiao-hnan ta-lo fu, 2h: T Mlis ifll iiA • (Commentary: Nan-yin).
74. YFP, 7h-Ha. See also another series of recommendations and prohibitions on the
subject of the positions to take, relations to other natural functions, and so on (ihid.,
2h-3h).
 532 Taoism and Chinese Religion

P'eng-tsu says:... Avoid great cold, great heat, great winds, great
rains, eclipses of the sun and moon, earthquakes, thunder, and
lightning: these are prohibitions of Heaven, t'ien-chi. Drunken-
ness,^^ over-eating,^^ joy, anger, sadness, pity, fear, terror: these are
prohibitions of Man, jen-chi. Places where there is a mountain, a
watercourse, a mound of the Earth God, a stack of grain, a well, a
hearth: these are prohibitions of the Earth, ti-chi. Avoid these (three
kinds of) forbidden things. If these prohibitions are contravened,
you will fall sick and children will not live.
All those who, having swallowed remedies, find them useless and
without effect, and whose ailments are not cured, if they again set
about uniting the yin and yang, will do themselves injury.
On the death days of the month, yueh-sha,^'^ the yin and yang
must not be united; it is inauspicious.
On chien, p’o, chili, ling days,*'® and the days of the blood
prohibition, hsiieh-chi,^^ the yin and yang must not be united: that
would cause harm.
The Su-nii ching^^ forbids these practises on the days of the four
phases of the moon, and also the last day of the month (the twenty-ninth
or thirtieth), as well as the twenty-eighth day, and finally days of lunar
eclipses. This is not absolutely useless, pre-T’ang calendars not being
always well enough adjusted so that lunar eclipses would not sometimes

75. Ihid., 3a, states that the sexual act in a drunken condition causes illness.
76. Ihid., 3a: “If the belly is filled with what is called the midnight meal, the Breath does
not diminish....”
77. The fifth, fourteenth, and twenty-third of each month, also called “Prohibitions of
the Month,” yueh-chi, days on which business deals, going on trips, and so on must be
avoided (Ch’i-tung yeh-yu, ch. 20, 86, ed. Pai-hai).
78. These are the first, seventh, sixth, and fifth days of the twelve-day astrological cycle
about which I spoke above. Second Part of this Book, note 21. I don’t know why the p'o,
chih, and ling days are quoted in inverse order. —In the present-day calendar, p’o is
generally inauspicious and ting auspicious; chien and chih have no set character.
79. The days of blood prohibition are those when one should not see blood and when,
consequently, victims are not killed for sacrificial offering (Wang Ch’ung, LH, ch. 24
[section 70], 63a; tr. Forke, ii, 396); I have not found which days of the month they fall on.
This prohibition has nothing to do with the menstrual period, yueh-ching, ^ or yiieh-shih,
, during which sexual union is the cause of a particular illness, white discharge mixed
with red, pai-po, which is perhaps gonorrhea: see Huang-ti t.sa-chin-chi fa, in SPCY,
ch. 83, 66 (TT, 817; Wieger, 1149); but it is perhaps related to defloration, recent or past.
On the relation between the sexual act and blood, see the anecdote regarding the union of
Heaven and Earth on the sixteenth day of the fifth month: if on that day a new piece of
fabric is attached to the East window of the house, it will be found soiled with blood the
next morning (SNC, 116); but perhaps this mythological act accompanies an actual
defloration of the earth, which has become virgin again each year, like Hera.
80. SNC, 1 la.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple" 533

fall outside the day set for the full moon. There are also the six ting days
and the six ping days of the sexagenary cycle, and the p’o days of the
twelve-day cycle. Aside from these monthly prohibitions, there are yearly
ones: the periods of Great Cold, tu-han, and of Great Heat, ta-shu (that
is, the fifteen days immediately preceding the two equinoxes); the days on
which the four seasons change; the two days ping-tzu and ting-ch’ou,
which follow the summer solstice, and the days keng-shen and hsin-yu
which follow the winter solstice; and finally the sixteenth day of the fifth
month, when “Heaven and Earth act as male and female”, tlen-ti p'in-
niu Jill Beyond these there are occasional prohibitions, such as great
wind, violent rain, thunder and lightning, earthquakes; and in another
set of ideas, having just washed the head or returned from a long
journey, or again feeling powerful emotions, such as great joy or great
anger.
As we see, the number of days on which the uniting of the yin and
yang may be carried out is quite restricted. Counting only the regular
prohibitions, there are already more than two hundred days a year on
which its practise is forbidden. If days of bad weather and of all the
occasional prohibitions are also taken into account, there must remain
only a few days a year. Moreover, our lists are not even complete,®^ since
the texts have come down to us only in a fragmentary state.
All these are private practises for use by adepts of the religious life,
designed to make the Essence grow and thereby, through nourishing the
Vital Principle, to lead on to Immortality. But the union of the yin and
yang was also carried out in collective ceremonies in which it took on a
totally different meaning. All the faithful, except for unmarried girls,
took part in them (probably in small groups), so as to be delivered from
their sins, shih-tsui, and to ward otf the misfortunes which proceed from
sin. This was what the Taoists called the “Real Art of equalizing the
breaths”, chung-ch’i chen-shnf'^ to which the name of “uniting the
breaths”, ho-cIVi, was popularly given, since its purpose was to unite the
breaths of the yin and the yang, or that of “mingling the breaths”, Iwn-

81. 1 \h.
82. To give an example of this, SPCY, ch. 85, 5h (TT, 817; Wieger, 1149) summing up
one or more of the uorks quoted above adds, to the meteorological events which cause
prohibitions, heavy fog and rainbows, which have disappeared from the present-day lists.
83. They had their particular ceremonies. “For unmarried girls aged fourteen or over,
there is the practise of Huang-shu, in Fa-lin, PCL, 531c (T/A', vol. Lii). 1 have
not found any information on this practise. In view of the youth of the girls and the
meaning of the word chiieh, /li, “let the water flow,” 1 think it refers to menstruation
holidays. One might think of a ceremonial defloration; but the word tao is better applied to
practises repeated on one unique holiday; and moreover, boys are not mentioned.
84. Chen Luan, HTL, in KHC, ch. 9, \ 52a(TlK, vol. LII, no. 2088).
 534 Taoism ami Chinese Relif^ion

c/Ti,^^ which has the same meaning, or again, more simply, that of
“Union”, ho-ho.^^
The origin of these ceremonies is attributed to the “three Chang”,or
again to the chiefs of the yellow Turbans, Huang-chin^^ of the mid-
second century A.D.; and the ritual for them was laid down in the form of
a “Decree of the chici-tzu year”,^‘^ so as to tie it closely to the Yellow
Turbans, for whom the chia-lzu year was supposed to be the beginning
of the Great Peace, T'ai-p'ing. But no great importance is to be attached
to these sayings, since it is to the Three Chang that all the public
ceremonies of Taoist worship are generally attributed. All we know is
that in the second half of the fourth century Sun En, who died in 402,
had these ceremonies celebrated by his followers in orgies in which “men
and women mingled exactly like animals.”It is not impossible that we
should look for their origin much earlier and that they may have been an
adaptation of the popular spring and autumn festivals of antiquity; but
since we know nothing regarding either the origin of the Taoist festivals
or the history of the disappearance of the ancient popular orgies, we can
scarcely go beyond noting a possible connection. In the fourth and fifth

85. T’ao Hung-ching, CK, ch. 2, la.

86. Ho-lio, fp U-, means “union, reunion,” and Buddhist translators use this expression
to translate the word sangha, “assembly of monks.” I do not believe, however, that the
meaning here is “assembly.” In fact, it is the Taoist technical term to designate the union
of yin and yang, “when the yin and yang are not separated. Union is achieved,”
t#Tl fn , says the Ha-ha hsiang-chia ka, in YCCC. ch. 73, 6a-6; this is an
alchemical union, as in the verse I have just quoted, or union of the sexes, as in this
ceremony. Besides this name, we also find ha-ch'i (“harmonize the breaths”) several times,
but strictly speaking that is the technical designation for the preliminaries (SNC, 2h).
Buddhist writers never use ha-ha. but always say ha-ch'i. either because it was the current
popular name of the ceremony, or to avoid a term which had quite a difl'erent meaning for
them.
87. Tao-an, ECL, in KHC. ch. 8, 140c [TIK. vol. LII, no. 2102), in which after having
enumerated a series of practises, among them the “union of breaths” (140c,
^ “some unite breaths to be delivered from their sins”), he ends by saying: “All
these are the demonic procedures of the Three Chang.”
88. Hsiian-kuang, PHL. in Hung-niing chi. ch. 8, 486-c (TIK, vol. Lit, no. 2102): “In Han
times, the chiefs of the Grasshoppers practised this false doctrine,”
lltH ( = 111) On the name of the “Brigands (as numerous as) Grasshoppers,” yi-l.sei.
given to the Yellow Turbans, see HHS. The word is to be found, correctly written, in PHL.
on the page following, 49a. —PHL. which mentions Lu Hsiu-ching (405-72) and which
has been in Seng-yu’s Hung-niing chi since its first compilation in ten chapters, is from the
last quarter of the fifth century.
89. Ihici., 486.
90. Chin .4114. ch. 10, 3a; ch. 100, 116.
91. Hsiian-kuang, PHL. 48c: “In Sun En’s time, irregularities grew enormously; men and
women came together exactly like beasts.”
 Mclhods of “Nourishini' the Vital Principle" 535

centuries these were regular festivals, though unrelated to any seasonal

period, and the Taoist festivals of spring and autumn (for there existed
great festivals at the two equinoxes) were of quite a different kind.
The ceremony was carried out on the days of the new moon and the
full moon.'^- ‘The coiling of the dragon and the play of the tiger were
prepared as the Yellow Writing, Hiuing-shu, explains.”Dragon and
tiger, animals of East and West, represent the yemp, and yin respectively,
and their “games” are the union of r//? and yang. I do not know, since
the authors are quite reticent, whether the festival consisted of a
pantomime, a dance with dragon and tiger played by a man and a
woman, climaxing in the coupling of the dancers in a sort of hierogamy,
in which all those attending participated by joining pell-mell, or whether
these unions in promiscuity constituted the whole festival; whether they
were in themselves those “games of dragon and tiger”, without any
preliminary representation.
Like all Taoist festivals, this took place under the direction of an
Instructor, shih: but unlike most others, for reasons which are easily
understood, it was not carried out in the open air, but inside “the private
chamber”, ssn-fang. Those who intended to take part fasted during the
three preceding days, then they were supposed to “go before an Instruc-
tor so as to gain merit. (It is) the twofold offering of the yin and yang and
submission to destiny (which) gain merit. When they finish, they leave;
(during the period of) a day and a night (on the days of the new moon
and the full moon), during the six hours, they are constantly gaining
merit.”An ancient Taoist converted to Buddhism, Chen Euan, has left
us a brief description of this festival.“When I was twenty years old, I

92. Chen-jen nei-ch’ao Hi [Rule for Esoteric Morning (Ceremonies) for Perfect Men],
quoted by Fa-lin, PCL, ch. 8 {TIK, vol. LII, no. 2110, 545e; and by Chen Luan, HTL. in
KHC, ch. 9 (TIK, vol. LII, no. 2008), 152^. —Note the difference between these public
ceremonies and private practises: the first are done on the days of the new and full moon,
forbidden days for the second.
93. Tao-an, ECL [Discourses on the two Religions (Buddhism and Taoism)], in Ku-chin
Fo Tao Iwi-hcng. ch. 2 (T/A', vol. LII, no. 2009), 373«; KHC\ ch. 8 {TIK, vol. LII, no. 2008),
140r. —ECL is dated 567.
94. Chen-jen nei-ch 'ao lii, loc. cit.: ^ K El, H iS', J'L ‘i; kU TTi)] ^ ^ 11 , 'A: 'ilf H Id ,

I have combined the two quotations, each of which abridges the original in a different way
(the text of PCE is the less complete, but the less good); but I am not sure that the text is
complete.
95. HTL [Dissertation making fun of the Tao], in KHC, ch. 8, \52a-h. 1 have translated
by fleshing out this often abridged text with the aid of the fuller quotation of this passage
given by Fa-lin, op. cii., 246a. —Chen Luan quotes phrases from the Yellow Writing word
for word. “The Yellow Writing says; Men and women have the procedure of Union, ho-ho,
(that) of the Three, the Five, the Seven, and the Nine, and the practise of coitus. Those who
 5J6 Taoism and Chinese Religion

loved Taoist practises and I went to the phalanstery, kuan, to study

them. First I was taught the procedure of mingling breaths, of Three,
Five, Seven, and Nine, and of the union of boys and girls (ordained by)
the Yellow Writing. The four eyes, the four nostrils, the two mouths, the
two tongues, and the four hands (are joined) in such a way that the yin
and yang are precisely opposed.For an example they take the number
of the twenty-four breaths (of the year).^^ Those who give themselves
over to this practise realize the True Formula in the Cinnabar Field; but
they are watching over the Forbidden Secret and do not emit on the way;
they must not be jealous of one another. For those who give themselves
over to this practise, all ills and dangers are eliminated. They are called
Perfect Men; they are saved and see the number of their years grow.
Flusbands are taught to exchange their wives; they place lust above
everything. Fathers and elder brothers stand there and cannot blush.
This is what they call the True Art of equalizing the breaths, chnng-cITi
chen-shu. Nowadays the tao-shih are all following this practise, through it
they seek the Tao. There are things which cannot be explained in detail.”
The ritual of this festival has not come down to us. It was probably
eliminated from the Tao-tsang at a time when the Taoists themselves had
been so strongly influenced by worldly morals that they were ashamed of
these practises. It was contained in two books the titles of which are
given to us by Buddhist polemicists; the Yellow Writing, Huang-slny^^
which was supposed to have been revealed in the first year han-an (142

follow these practises realize the True Formula in the Cinnabar Field [the Cinnabar Field is
the Jade Gate]; but they guard the Forbidden Secret: it is not permitted to discharge on the
road [the road is the urinary orifice].” Fa-lin, op. cit., 53<; . The two passages that I have set
between brackets are Fa-lin’s explanatory notes.
96. Compare HNY, sec. 15, YCCC, ch. 11, 37a. “The Father in Tao and the Mother in
Tao look each other in the face.” Commentary: ""The yin and the t’ung being two halves (by
uniting) form the (entire) whole: this is why it is said that they look at one another.” HTC
and its commentator take symbolically what the ceremony renders materially; but the
memory of the ceremony is so deeply in the mind of the Taoist author that he expresses the
symbol by one of the ceremonial gestures.
97. Allusion to the procedure of the Three, the Five, the Seven, and the Nine: 3 + 5 + 7
+ 9 = 24.
98. TT, 1031, contains a little work entitled Tung-chen huang-shiy which in its present-
day form seems to allude to the union of the yin and yang only by presenting it in the form
of numerical and calendrical combinations. 1 believe, however, that this is an expurgated
fragment of the work the immorality of which Buddhist writers of the sixth and seventh
centuries denounced violently. In it we see constantly recurring the formula designating the
gods of the inside of the body: .san \vu ch'i chin (the three, five, seven, and nine); and the two
phrases, are found inverted there, in a passage referring to neither sun
nor moon (106). —The book called Yellow' Writing in eight chapters, Pa-chiian huang-shii,
is supposed to have been given by Lao-tzu to Chang Tao-ling in 142 {la, Ih, 126).
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vi ted Principle" 537

A.D.)‘^^ to Chang Tao-ling, and the “Ordinance of the year chia-tzu\^^^^^

The purpose of the ceremony was primarily to deliver the faithful from
their sins, shih-tsui, and thus “to diminish misfortunes and disperse
calamities”,*which were supposed to be their lot in punishment
for unexpiated sins. By carrying out the ceremony, the believer was
protected against all demons and hostile influences, as the following
imprecation shows, although on certain points its interpretation
remains a little uncertain:
The Heavenly Procedure is ended. May the Three and the Five
be complete,may the Sun and Moon be perfected;when they
rise may it be clear, when they set may it be dark. May the Breaths

99. Fa-lin, PCL, ch. 6, 53 Ic; cf. A'//C, ch. 13, 182c’.
100. Hsiian-kuang, op. cit., 4Hh. 'The chia-tzu Ordinance has the Ofl'ering of the
[YellowX?)] Talisman, ^>0 fTSil (variant read S), ( = giiO, in which
men and women come together in an unseemly way, without distinction between noble and
lowly.”
m. Ibid.
102. Ibid. The beginning is in three-word phrases, the end in four-word phrases; one
phrase of five words and one of nine which break the rhythm perhaps owe their length to a
distortion by the Buddhist author quoting them. This passage, like the one following, does
not seem to be rhymed.
103. Ail • ( understand this phrase as signifying that the ceremony (called the
Celestial Procedure) is ended; but it is possible that there had already been an imprecation
like those which follow: “May the Celestial Principle be finished!”
104. H 511^ . “(There are) the designations 'The Three and the Five’ (for divinities
whose) rank is not similar. In the first place, there are the Three of Great Purity, T'ai-
ch'ing, and there are the Five Imperial Lords, Wu-ti-chun. In the second place, there are the
Three Ones, San-yi, spirits of the Cinnabar Fields; as for the Five, these are the spirits who
bear Talismans and Registers (to know) the Lords Great One, T'ai-yi, Prince (kung-tzu)
Po-yiian, the Director of Destiny (Ssu-ming), and T'ao-k’ang” (Tung-chen T'cn-yi ti-chiin,
Ta-tan yiu-shu tung-chen hsiian-ching [TT, 1030; Wieger, 1311], 9a-b. The first series of
Three and Five presents no difficulty: it concerns the Triad of Great Purity and the Five
Lords of the five quarters of heaven and of the five elements. The second series is made up
of genuine Taoist divinities: these are the gods inside the body, the three Ones who govern
each of the three sections of the body, and for the Five, the Great One, who presides over
the entire body, commands all the spirits in it, and lives in the Scarlet Palace, Chiang-kung,
beside the heart; the Prince called Wu-ying; and Po-yiian, who lives in the Arcanum
Chamber, Tung-fang, one of the nine cubicles in the brain (cf. above, introduction to this
Book, passage starting at note 32); the Director of Destiny, who regulates the number of
years of life and dwells in the Mysterious Hall, Hsuan-shih, inside the jade shaft, yii-ching:
and T'ao-k’ang, the god of the Gate of Destiny, who resides in the Palace of the Cinnabar
Field below the navel and is in charge of the Essence. (Ibid., 20a-24b). The gods inside the
body being at the same time those of the world, we need not ask which of the two series
this concerns.
105. 0 ftf (the Korean edition gives the variant RJfU)- The sun and moon are the left
and right eye in man’s body, and this passage probably refers to heavenly luminaries and
eyes at the same time.
 538 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

enter into the Perfect Men;‘^^ may the Breaths penetrate into the
Spirits; may the Breaths spread the Principle everywhere; may the
Breaths drive out the Wicked; may the Demoniac Pirates be annihi-
lated; may those who look at me become blind; may those who
listen to me become deaP May those who set about making plots
against me receive death in return! I am lucky, they are unlucky!
Another fragment of the same ritual*has preserved the prayer which
accompanied the central portion of the ceremony, the “Union of
breaths”, lio-cITi, and, as often occurs in Taoist prayers, it describes the
festival itself in several verses, by allusion. The mixture of technical and
mystical terms accumulated in it obscures the meaning, which is certainly
what the authors of this ritual intended, but the whole is perfectly clear
and perfectly corroborates Chen Tuan’s description:
Open the Door of Destiny;kiss the Perfect Man (called) Child
(may the Dragon coil around and the Tiger play.**°
The Three and the Five, the Seven and the Nine.*** The net of
106. I think that this and the following phrase still refer to spirits inside the body, some
of whom are Perfect Men and are nourished by breath. It is possible, however, that “may
the Breaths enter the Perfect Man” ought to be translated with the understanding that it
concerns the Lower One, who is often called simply the Perfect Man, Chen-jeu.
107. Fa-lin, PCU ch. 8 {TIK, vol. LII, no. 2110) 533c; and in A7/C, ch. 13 (T/A', no.
2103), 1846: ^ At-^HSTA , MT
M-;, ^ ® 5^ f-IfTlt: tilo Hsiian-kuang. PHL, in Hung-ming chi, ch. 8,
486 (T/K, vol. Lit, no. 2110), gives the first three phrases. I established my text by
comparing these three passages.
108. The right kidney.
109. The Lower One, he of the Three Ones who resides in the Lower Cinnabar Field and
watches over the Essence.
110. Buddhist writers agree on seeing an obscene allusion in this phrase. The Dragon
symbolizes the yang and the Tiger the yin.
111. I do not think that this refers to the Breaths (see above. First Part of this Book,
notes 179 and 181). For the Three and the Five, see note 104 above. The Nine are the nine
Souls of Heaven, t'ien-hun, and the Seven are the Seven Lords, with Yikin-kio cluing-jen to
the left and Hsiian-yi Lao-cliiin to the right {Tung-chen t’ai-yi ti-chiin T'ai-tan yin-shu inng-
chen hsiian-ching, 96). On the other hand, “the three, five, seven, and nine correspond to
the twenty-four spirits” of the inside of the body, which themselves correspond to the
twenty-four solar half-months (Tung-chen huang-s/ni, la, in TT, 1031). The “ceremonies of
Lord One, Ti-yi, of the Great One, T'ai-yi, as well as the Three, Five, Seven and Nine” are
mentioned without explanation in TSTTM, 286 (TT, 1026; Wieger, 1295). —These
nomenclatures of spirits vary from book to book. TKYTTY (TT, 1025; Wieger, 1294), 436,
after having enumerated various divinities, among them the Five inside the body of the
preceding list and various others, ends with this rather unclear explanation: “In all, there
are five feminine spirits and nine masculine spirits; they are called the Three, the Five, the
Seven, and the Nine,” without specifying what, for him, the Three and the Seven are.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle" 539

Heaven and the webs of Earth. ““ Open the Vermilion Door; bring
the Jade Column near;' may the yan^ think on the Mother yin as
white as jade; may the yin think on the Father yang and caress him
with its hand!

The clearest consequence of these practises was that “since the Wei
and the Chin there were children in the Taoist phalansteries, in the times
of the Shen and the Liang children were raised in the retreat houses,” '
to the great scandal of the Buddhist monks, who cried out against such
hypocrisy. But in reality, although both Taoists and Buddhists were
preaching abstinence, this w'as for very different reasons. The Buddhists
did it out of asceticism, as one of the forms of that detachment which
leads to deliverance. For the Taoists, it was simply a matter of concen-
tration, of not being diffuse and, by conserving the Essence, of living a
long time.
This technique, at least as a form of individual practise, was very
ancient in Taoism. By the time of the Former Han, a collection in
twenty-six chapters attributed to Jung-ch’eng was known.' He was the
instructor (shih) of the Yellow' Emperor Huang-ti, and already he was
expounding, insofar as it can be judged by the Lieh-hsicn chitatu the same
principles as the works that 1 have quoted above; to know “the art of
lying with women w'hich consists in holding (the penis) firmly with the
hand, in not ejaculating, and in making the Essence return to restore the
brain {yit fit-nit chih slut, wei wo ku pit hsiely huan-cliing pit-nao vc//).''^
These practises were sufficiently widespread under the Han to be men-
tioned several times in works of the period. The recollection of 1,200, the
number of women through w'hom Huang-ti obtained immortality, fol-

112. I have not tried to make consecutive sense for a quotation which is probably made
up of small unconnected fragments. It could be translated; “Heaven stretches out its net.
Earth e.xtcnds its web.”
113. Fa-lin, op. cit., 535a: “they call women 'Vermillion Gate,' TI'T they call men 'Jade
Column,’ Tff.”
114. Fa-lin, PCL, in KHC, ch. 13 (TIK, vol. LII, p. 185/d, which is by the way not the less
indignant over Taoist marriages in view of their exhortations to continence. 1 translate as
“phalanstery" and “house of retreat” the two words kuaiu and ching-.she, both
of which designate community houses of Taoists in these times.
1 15. CHS, ch. 30, 33a, Jang-ch’eng yin-tao erh-shih-Hu chiian: PPT, NP, ch. 19, 3h, Jung-
ch 'eng ching.
116. LHC, ch. 1, 2h, quoted in the Commentary to HHS, ch. 112, hsia, 5a. TT, 139, has
expurgated LHC (probably at the time of the T’ang official edition, in the eighth century,
since J'CCC, ch. 108, 2/^ gives the expurgated text), and this phrase is not found in present-
day editions.
 540 Taoism and Chinese Religion

lowed by an official choice of young girls throughout the whole empire

for Wang Mang’s harem on the day after his wife’s death,*is too close
to certain of the passages which I have translated for there not to be an
allusion to analogous beliefs and practises. In the second century A.D., a
certain Leng Shou-kuang, a native of Fu Feng, became famous through
his success in practising this procedure of immortality;***^ and some
years later it seems to have been the specialty of Kan Shih,**^ whom
Ts’ao Chih knew personally.*-** At the beginning of the fourth century,
Ke Hung, without describing them in detail, speaks of these practises
and affirms their extreme importance: “On the ‘practises of the bed-
room’, /i://?g-(:/7///?g-c77/77-/(:/, there are more than ten authors: according to
some, they serve to redress (vital) wear, according to others to cure
sickness, according to others to disperse the yin and make the yang grow,
according to yet others to prolong life. The most important consists
solely in ‘making the Essence return to restore the brain’ {huan-cliing pii-
nao). This recipe is orally transmitted by the Perfect Men; at the
beginning it was not written down. Even if the most famous drugs are
taken, Life Eternal cannot be obtained when this efficacious procedure is
unknown.” *-* It is clearly to the individual and private practise of these
procedures that Ke Hung alludes; but a half-century later. Sun En, as I
have already said, made the union of the sexes one of the normal
practises of public worship among his disciples. Buddhist and Taoist
polemicists show that these practises, public as well as private, continued
in the following centuries. T’ao Hung-ching, who lived in the first half of
the sixth century, says he attended them often, quite like Chen Luan,
who lived in the second half of the same century.
But these practises were too contrary to the ritual principles of the
separation of the sexes and to current Chinese morality for their success
to be other than ephemeral. Even among Taoists they encountered
resistances which we cannot measure precisely without knowing the
history of Taoism, but of which we can at least sense a few echoes.
Certain circles with mystical tendencies, such as always existed in
Taoism, not only rebufied them but even went in the contrary direction,
towards asceticism. At the beginning of the fifth century, in the north
among the Northern Wei, the Celestial Master, T’ien-shih, K’ou Ch’ien-
chih had a vision, on 22 September 415, in which the Very High Old
Lord, T’ai-shang Lao-chiin, appeared to him with the order to reform
Taoism: “Drive out the false doctrines of the Three Chang, San-Chang,

117. CHS, ch. 99, hsia, 6h.

118. HHS, ch. 1 \2hsia, 5a.
119. Ihic/., Hh.
120. Ts’ao Chih, PTL [Dissertation judging Taoism], in SKC (WC), ch. 29, 3h.
121. PPT, ch. 8, 3h.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple" 541

the rice rents, the taxes in cash, and the practise of boys and girls uniting
the breaths {nan-nii ho-ch'i chili shu)\ the Great Tao is pure and empty.
What has it to do with these things?”
In the middle of the following century, in the south under the Liang,
Sung Wen-ming imposed chastity upon his disciples. “He established
dress codes for the tao-shih, forbade marriage and spicy foods for
them Among cultivated Taoists the very strong influence of
Buddhism also contributed to discrediting these practises. Buddhist
influence was exerted upon Taoism from the day when, in Han times, the
first missionaries had been welcomed as bearers of new doctrines and
recipes for Immortality: in short, of a sort of Taoism for use by Western
barbarians. The Buddhists had quickly recognized the error and had
disengaged themselves from Taoism. But the Taoists remained attached
to this old idea and were convinced that the two religions, basically
similar, differed in aspect only because the barbarians had misunder-
stood what Lao-tzu had taught them during his journey to the West.
Thus many Taoists worshipped Buddha; the most famous was T’ao
Hung-ching, who raised a Buddhist stupa on Mount Mao-shan, in his
Taoist community of Chu-yang kuan.*-*^ Within certain groups, reli-
gious life modeled itself far more after the type of Buddhist monasteries,
with their monks vowed to celibacy, than on that of Taoist phalansteries
where tao-shih lived with their families.
In the end, public morality became too strong. The festivals dis-
appeared first, and are heard of no more after the seventh century.
Private practises continued much longer. In the twelfth century Tseng
Tsao still attached enough importance to them to devote a section of his
Tcio-shu to fighting them, striving to show that it was impossible to attain
immortality through them.*-^ Moreover, returning to that subject, he
explained them allegorically: Huang-ti’s 1,200 women were supposed to
represent the 1,200 daily breaths. But doctors adopted at least some
of the practises and, deprived of their religious character, they were to
know a new expansion under the rubric of hygiene.

122. Wei shu, ch. 114, 11/?; cf. translation by James R. Ware, The Wei shu and the Sui shii
on Taoism {JAOS, vol. 53, 229-330).
123. Hsiian-yi, Chen-cheng Ian, ch. 2 {TIK, vol. Lii), 568c. Sung Wen, whose tzu was
Wen-ming, lived under the emperor Chien-wen (549-51) of the Liang (Lao-shih sheng-chi,
in TPYL, ch. 666, 106). He is supposed to have been the first to decipher the “jade
characters,” vu-tzu, in which the magic formulas revealed by the gods are written, and to
transcribe them into ordinary writing {Chen-cheng lun, ch. 1, 5616). —I refer to him by his
tzu, since he is always called by that, and not by his personal name, no doubt because it is
such a religious name as modern Taoists have, in imitation of Buddhists.
124. Ibid., 5866.
125. Tseng Tsao, TS, ch. 3, 46-76, section Jung-ch 'engpien {TT, 641).
126 . 766/., ch. 18, ?>a{TT,642).
 542 Taoism and Chinese Religion

3. Third Part: Gymnastics, Tao-yin

The circulation of Breath and Essence was not done without difficulty.
Certain passages were naturally hard to get through. “In a man's belly
there are three places where there is obstruction. First, there is an
obstruction in the heart; you feel that below the heart the inside of the
stomach is filled up.... Second, there is an obstruction below the raw
viscera, shcng-tsang: you feel that the inside of the intestine is filled
up Third, there is obstruction in the Lower Cinnabar Field. It can be
passed with a firm will. Only after that can the breath be felt circulating
throughout the entire body.” '
There were also unexpected obstructions owing to illness or simply to
food consumed. For the breath to get through these, it had to be helped.
This was achieved through massages, mo, or gymnastic movements, tao-
yin shen-t'i—literally, “stretching and contracting the body”. Master
Ning said that “Guiding the Breath, hsing-ch’i, controls the inside, and
Gymnastics, tao-yin, controls the outside,” “ which shows the relative
importance of the two techniques. Moreover, the movements were also
performed preventively to make the body supple, to eliminate obstacles
to the passage of breath beforehand, or to refresh the body after
laborious effort. Gymnastics were to be done between two “unions of the
yin and rc/z/g”; likewise between two retentions of breath. These exercises
were also done separately, for themselves, because in suppressing the
obstacles to circulation they are an excellent means of curing the diseases
caused by those very obstacles. In a general way they drive diseases away
and prolong life, cause one not to age despite the years, and expel all evil
breaths from the limbs, the bones, and the joints; whoever practises them
correctly will last as long as Heaven and Earth. ^
There were many progressive series of exercises, almost as many as
there are gymnastic methods today. They are attributed to each of the
Immortal great masters of old. There was Ch’ih-sung-tzu's method,"^
P'eng-tSLi’s,^ Master Ning’s,^ Wang-tzu Ch'iao's,^ and so on. The

1. TVVKF, in YCCC, ch. 62, I/7. For the full translation of this text, see above. First Part
of this Book, at note 42.
2. Tseng Tsao, TS, ch. 28, \a. Master Ning marks the contrast less clearly: “Guide the
breath to repair the insides; do gymnastics to cure the four limbs.” (T’ui-ch'iug tao-yin
yang-slieng clung [TTYC], 6h.)
3. TTYC(TT, 568), 2a, 6a, 6h; ( YCCC, ch. 34), \a, 2a-h.
4. “Ch’ih-SLing-tZLi was the Master of Rain in the time of Shen-nung; he could go up and
down with the wind. Fie was still living at the time of Kao-hsin.” (TTYC, \a [TT, 568;
Wieger, 811].)
5. "P’eng-tsLi, great officer (tai-fii) of the Yin, lived successively under the Hsia and the
Shang and attained the age of 700 years; he obtained the Tao by feeding constantly on
cinnamon.” (Ibid., 66.)
 Methods of “Nourishin}' the Vital Principle” 543

movements to be exeeuted are almost always the same, but the sequence
of exercises differs from one method to another. 1 shall translate some of
the simplest, to show what this Taoist gymnastics was and what the
differences were between schools. Remember that the ordinary position,
when no other is indicated, is the normal position of the ancient Chinese
people, sitting on the ground on their heels with the legs parallel, as the
Japanese still do today.

Ch'ih-sntig-tzii's Gytntnistic Method, Tao-yiti fa

Every morning upon rising spread a mat, do the exercises while

turned towards the East. (Continue until) out of breath and stop. If
you cannot (continue until) out of breath, stop at the fifth exercise.
You must exercise every day; little by little you will notice progress.
1. Eirst. Cross the two hands above the head and drop them^ to
the ground. Do five inhalations and five exhalations, then stop. That
fills the belly up with breath.
2. Then.‘^ Lying on your side with the left arm touching the
ground at the elbow', touch the top of the head with the right hand
as much as you can. Then with the right arm touching the ground at
the elbow, touch the top of the head with the left hand as much as
you can. Breathe in five times. That stretches nerves and bones.
3. Then. Touch the right knee with both hands and lift it to (the
level of) the waist and the groin,raising the head as much as you
can. Breathe in five times. That stretches the w'aist.
4. Then. Touch the left knee with the left hand and stretch the
right hand up as high as you can. Then touch the right knee with the

6. “Master Ning was contemporary with the Yellow Emperor, Huang-ti; he was Director
of Potters, t'ao-chen^. He could gather up hre and not burn himself, and he went up and
down with the smoke; his clothes never burned.” (Ibid., 2a.)
1. TTYC, ]a. [Book of the Gymnastics which nourishes the Vital (Principle), by (the
Lord of) Great Purity] (TT, 568; YCCC, cii. 34, E/; Wieger, 81 1, writes T'ai-shaag ... ).
The two texts, both very bad, show numerous variants, omissions and errors; I have made
my translation of both together, correcting and completing each by the other.
8. This is the reading in YCCC, TT says: “put the head back down to the ground”; I
discarded this reading because this exercise, which consists of bending the body with the
hands joined over the head forwards and backwards until the head touches the ground, is
quite violent compared to all the others.
9. TT. “Then. Lying down, cover the head with the right hand and touch the ground
with the elbow of the left arm. When you get to the end (when you can hold out no longer
for lack of breath), in turn, cover the head w ith the left hand and touch the ground v\ ith the
elbow of the right arm. At the end, do five respirations and stop.” I believe that both texts
are equally incorrect, so I give the translation of this paragraph only with reservation.
10. TT. “... of the waist and the rump.”
 544 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Third exercise Fourth exercise

 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Principle” 545

Seventh exercise Eighth exercise

 546 Taoism and Chinese Re/i^ion

right hand and stretch the left hand up as high as you can. Breathe
in five times and stop. That expands the breath inside the belly.
5. Then. Cross the hands over the front of the chest, move the
head to the right and to the left without stopping; when you reach
the extreme point, stop. That stretches the face and the ears so that
evil breaths cannot enter any more.
6. Then. Cross the hands below the waist and move (turning)
towards right and left; when you reach the extreme point, stop. That
makes the blood penetrate the vessels.
7. Then. Raise the hands folded above the head, and relax (while
turning) to right and left. That expands the breath within the lungs
and the liver.
8. Then. Cross the hands in front of the chest and make them go
right and left; go as far as you can. This expands and suppresses the
burning breath which is within the epidermis and the skin.
9. Then. Cross the hands, raise them to the shoulders to right and
to left. That stretches the skin.
10. Then. Stand upright and extend the legs to right and left. That
expands and drives away the evil breath from the legs.

P'eng-tSLi's method gives more scope to exercises for the legs.

P'eng-tsu's Gymnastic Method,^ ’ Tao-yin fa

Always go to bed with the clothing and covers undone.

1. (Lying down) stretch (the upper body to) the waist, compress
the lower belly.Breathe in five times and stop.^^
2. *'* Curl the toes of both feet in.
3. Straighten out the toes of both feet.
4. Place the feet together.
5. Put the heels inward, one against the other.
6. Stretch the right leg, bend the left knee and press it inward.
7. Stretch the legs and the toes of both feet(?).^^

11. TTYC, 6h: YCCC, cli. 34, 6h.

12. ■ YCCC. “close the eyes for a brief moment." I doubt that there was
a part of the phrase omitted from both te.xts; the reading in YCCC seems to me a
corruption of that in TT, which is probably correct.
13. Each of the exercises ends with the phrase: “Do five respirations and stop," which I
find it useless to repeat every time. There are then indications of the results of each exercise,
like those of Ch’ih-sung-tzu's Method.
14. 1 follow the YCCC text; TTYC repeats exercise 6 here.
15. The text is surely faulty; TTYC is incomprehensible: YCCC omits
the last word, /uio. A verb is certainly lacking between the second and third words, to
indicate the movement of the toes.
 Methods of "Nourishing the Vital Principle’' 547

8. With both hands, pull the knees up above the heart.

9. Turn the feet outwards ten times.
10. Turn the feet inwards ten times.
Altogether, ten exercises, fifty respirations. Do live series (of these
exercises), 250 respirations. If you wish to do these exercises, do
them always between midnight and cock-crow' (0100 to 0300 in the
morning) or at Dawn (0300 to 0500 in the morning). When you do
them it is forbidden to eat your fill or to bathe.

Chung-li's series of exercises are interesting since they have come down
to us accompanied by explanatory drawings.

Chung-li’s Gymnastic Method

First exercise. —Grit the teeth to reassemble the gods thirty-six

times. With the hands embrace k'un-lund^ Beat the heavenly
drum’” twenty-four times.
Second exercise. —Move the heavenly columnto right and to
left, twenty-four times in each direction.
Third exercise. —Collect (saliva) right and left w'ith the tongue,
and above. Beat the drum thirty-six times. Collect (saliva) thirty-six
times. Separate it into three mouthfuls like something hard and
swallow it."^ After that, you can walk through fire.

16. Chung-h pa-tuau chin-fa, in HCS, ch. 19, Aa-Sh {TT, 125; Wieger, 260). ”Chung-li's
eight e.xercises were written on a stone wall by the hand of Master Lu (Tung-pin); thus were
they passed on to the world.” (Tseng Tsao, Final Note, dated 1151, to the Lin-chiang hsien,
in HCS, ch. 23, 16.—The text and drawings are preceded by an introduction accompanied
w ith a commentary ( h/-36), which I have used in the footnotes.
17. The k 'an-tun is the skull.
18. “Put the palms of the hands over the ears; with the index finger strike the middle
finger and strike the back of the skull right and left, twenty-four times on each side.” (Ihid.,
Intro., \a.)
19. T'icn-chu designates the cervical vertebrae: see in Yen-lo-tzu's anatomical drawings,
that of the inside of the body seen from the left (HCS, ch. 18, 26), in which they are called
“bones of the Celestial Column,” T'icn-chu ku. They give their name to one of the
acupuncture points in Chinese medicine: cf. Sun Ssu-mo, SPCY, ch. 87, 126 (T7\ 918;
W'ieger, 1149): “The Celestial Column (point) is at the hair-line behind the nape of the
neck.” That is point 86 in Dabry de Thiersant, La Mcdccinc dcs Chinois, p. 440 and table.
20. . I translate according to the introduction (26): “Fill the
mouth with Divine Water (= saliva), spread it out evenly throughout the mouth, separate
it into three, and swallow it.” [Commentary:] “The saliva which is swallowed is separated
into three, it makes a gargling noise in the mouth, and it is swallowed.” The separation into
three is meant to correspond to the three openings and the three passages which the
Chinese place at the bottom of the mouth: “Under the tongue, there are three openings, the
left-hand one called Golden Ford, Chin-isin, the right-hand one Jade Humor, Yii-yi, the
middle one Mysterious Chest, H.suan-ying." TS, ch. 1, 36 (TT, 642; W'ieger, 1005). The one
 54H Taoism and Chinese Religion

Fourth exercise. —Massage the Hall of the Kidneys. Shen-

t'ang,^‘ with the hands thirty-six times. The more you do it, the
more marvelous (the effects) will be.
Fifth exercise. —Make each of the two shoulders-^ turn like a
winch successively thirty-six times.
Sixth exercise. —Make the two shoulders together turn like a
winch thirty-six times.
Seventh exercise. —Hands joined, do the ho^^ (breath) five times.
Then join the hands above the head (in the position of) supporting
the sky;-*^ rub the top of the skull. Each one, three or nine times.
Eighth exercise. —Hook the hands together, reach out forward
with them and grasp the soles of the feet twelve times. Then lay the
feet down and sit in the correct position.

These exercises should start on a chia-tzu day (the first of the

sexagenary cycle) at midnight. They must be done every day, either once
between midnight and noon or three times during the whole day; and
during the time when they are being done, you must breathe through the
nose. Well performed, they ward off diseases, wicked demons do not dare
come near, cold and heat cannot penetrate the body, and so on. For
them to be perfectly efficacious, a first retention of breath, pi-ch 7, must
be made after the third exercise and a second after the fourth exercise.
Then, when the eighth exercise has been done, swallow saliva as in the
third and do the movements of the fifth and sixth exercises over again.
Finally, do a rather short retention of breath while meditating on a fire
which, coming out of the Lower Cinnabar Field, rises up and spreads
through the entire body.*'^
Wang-tzu Ch’iao’s method,-^ more complicated, involves thirty-seven
successive exercises which are done, some seated in the regular position
which I have described above, the others lying down with “a pillow four
inches high, the feet five inches apart, each hand three inches from the

on the left should serve for solid food, that on the right for liquid food, that in the middle
for respiration. It was only in the twelfth century that the Chinese perceived that there are
not three openings and three passages but only two, and that all food, liquid and solid,
passes through the same one.
21. The back is massaged with the palms of the hands at the level of the kidneys, ibid.,
2a.
22. “Incline the head and turn both arms like a winch thirty-six times.” (Ibid., 2b.)
23. One of the six exhaling breaths.
24. The Commentary to the introduction says: “support the air,” {2b)\ the drawing
shows that these terms describe a position with hands joined above the head, fingers
intertwined, palms turned upward, as if to carry something above the head.
25. Ibid., l/>, 2a, 3a.
26. TTYC, 7b-\3a(TT, 568); YCCC, ch. 34.
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple” 549

body, the clothes undone, the hair untied.” Unlike Chung-li’s gymnas-
tics, breathing is done by inhaling air sometimes through the nose and
sometimes through the mouth, depending upon the exercise. Some of
them are purely respiratory, like the third and fourth, which consist of
inhaling the air through the nose and expelling it directly through the
mouth while looking to the right in the one and to the left in the other.
Most of the exercises are similar to the preceding methods. Those which
are executed lying down involve gyrating movements of the arms and
legs (the twenty-ninth), bending the knees (the eighteenth); the legs are
lifted and held vertically (the eighth); the left heel is put on the right big
toe (the thirtieth), and the right heel on the left big toe (the thirty-first),
and so on. Those which are executed sitting consist of grasping each knee
with the hands successively (the twentieth and twenty-first), both knees
at the same time (the twenty-third), the soles of the feet (the twenty-
eighth), or successively putting the left hand on the left hip (the
fourteenth) and the right hand on the right hip (the fifteenth), and so on.
One of the characteristic features of the method was that most of the
movements were not executed a fixed number of times: all those which
were troublesome were stopped when sweat started.

All these exercises are very absorbing and very complicated. Never-
theless, we need not believe that they occupy all of one’s time and are
incompatible with any other activity. “Every time breath is absorbed, we
must only be mindful not to let the time pass (when it must be done);
when the Cinnabar Fields are constantly filled, you may then go out all
day long and go about any human business without hindrance. When
you have gotten used to practising that for a long time, even if it is
neglected once or twice, that makes no difference.”-^
All these methods of gymnastics, even Wang-tzu Ch’iao’s, are rather
simple and, each having its own virtue, are especially designed to help in
the good performance of the respiratory exercises and in general for all
the physical and hygienic exercises, whether they are done before as a
preparation, whether they are inserted within the course of exercise so as
to rest or relax, to prevent obstructions from arising or to suppress them,
and so on. Master Ning’s more complex method-^ had more characteris-
tic virtues of its own. It was a series of magical procedures endowed with
a specific efficacy, allowing one to go into fire without being burned and
into water without drowning, in imitation of Master Ning himself. It
included a method of guiding the breath, hsing-ch'i, and contained four
series of exercises in which rhythmic breathing, retention of breath, and

27. TWKF, ^b{TT, 569).

28. TTYC (TT, 568), 2h-6h-, YCCC, ch. 34, 2a-5b.
 550 Taoism and Chinese Religion

movements of arms, legs, head, and torso were done successively. Each
of these series was designated by the name of a particular animal: the
breath-guiding procedure of the Toad, ha-nui hsing-cITi fa, of the
Tortoise, kuei-pi hsing-ch'i fa, of the Wild Goose, ying hsing-ch’i fa,
of the Dragon, lung hsing-ch’i fa, the exercises being considered as
representing the movements of these animals and their breathing.^^
Otherwise the movements to be executed scarcely differ, for the most
part, from those of the other methods, although the order of them is
perhaps a little more confusing. But the method does offer at least one
original feature which is not unimportant, the use of a suspended cord
(in the Tortoise proeedure), which is used to do somersaults. The Taoists
of the Six Dynasties thus practised at least a rudimentary kind of
gymnastics with apparatus, as well as a gymnastics of rhythmic move-
ment. Both were, however, merely the simplification and adaptation of
mountebank and acrobat tricks, brought within reach of everybody.
I eannot here translate Master Ning’s gymnastic method in its entirety,
since it is much too extensive. I shall merely translate, as examples, the
rules of two of his procedures, those of the Dragon and the Tortoise.
The Dragon Procedure of Guiding the BreatlP^
1. Bow the head and look down; remain without breathing (the
equivalent of) twelve (respirations).^-
2. With both hands massage from the belly down to the feet; take
the feet and pull them up to under the arms; remain without
breathing (the equivalent of) twelve (respirations).
3. Place the hands on the nape of the neck and clasp them there.
The Tortoise Proeedure of Guiding the BreatlP^
1. Cover the mouth and nose with your garment; remain without
breathing (the equivalent of) twelve (respirations). Lie down in the

29. This is said explicitly only of the Tortoise procedure; but it must be the same for all
the others.
30. The description of each movement is followed by a more or less lengthy explanation
of its virtues and of the illnesses it cures; as before, I have omitted these passages in my
translation.
31. TTYC(TT), 4/7; YCCC, ch. 34, 5h.
32. On the method of counting suppressed respirations, see above. First Part of this
Book, note 17.
33. 1 translate according to YCCC, ch. 34, 4a-5h. In the separate version of TT (fasc.
568), only the first section is placed under this title (4u); the remainder is detached and put
in after the particular exercise for "going into the water without harm,” while YCCC
makes a clear distinction between the two exercises. The error in the TT text is not very
obvious in this case; it catches the eye, by contrast, in the section on the gymnastics “for
going into fire without harm,” with which a readily distinguished procedure for absorbing
the rays of the moon is mixed; YCCC, more correctly, sets this off by itself.
 Methods of “Nourishinif the Vital Principle" 551

correct position and let the breath (contained) within yoir^”* go out
very gently through the nose.'^*'
2. Place both hands turned up on the knees, raise your head like a
tortoise taking a breath, which makes the Original Breath'’^ pene-
trate into the Cinnabar Field.
3. Close the nostrils with the thumb and fingers and do not
breathe, so that the breath is guided up to the Ni-huan inside the
brain.
4. Grasp your hair with the left hand and stretch the right hand
back to the middle of the nape of the neck.
5. Sit in the correct position and fold the hands behind the back.
6. Sit on the ground and clasp the hands, then drop them (to the
ground) joined.
7. Grasp a rope with both hands and do a somersault^^ while
hanging (by this rope) so that the feet are uppermost.
8. Put both hands behind you and up as high as the back, pull the
rope and hang on it.
9. With one hand above, grasp the rope, and with the other below
grasp your feet.
10. Sit on the ground while stretching both legs straight out, with
both hands joined pull your feet.
11. Sit facing the East and remain without breathing (the equiv-
alent of) five (respirations). With your tongue gather the saliva
inside the mouth, till (the mouth) with it, and swallow it twice seven
times.
Which of these gymnastic exercises and several others which are
described at length in the Taoist works were most used, and in which
cases were some preferred to others? Nearly all manifestations of
individual religious life among Taoists (exercises of Embryonic
Respiration, the practise of Abstaining from Cereals, reading holy

34. The “breath which is inside." nci-ch'i. is the air inhaled; this of course does not refer
to Internal Breath, vshich must never be let out.
35. Expulsion of breath through the nose is an exceptional action: in theory, the breath
enters through the nose and goes out through the mouth. Here, by contrast, it enters
through the mouth and goes out through the nose; entry through the mouth, with a
particular movement of the head (see step 2 of the procedure) is the imitation of the
tortoise which gives the procedure its name; going out through the nose is suggested by
symmetry, the air having to enter and leave through two different orifices.
36. The Original Breath, yihin-ch'i, here is the external and not the internal breath (see
note 34 above). —These exercises which recommend holding the breath in and circulating
the external breath, were conceived in pre-T'ang times.
37. tTffj F jf-(= if) K YCCC', in addition to this error, has still another, the
duplication of the character
38. literally, “turning like a winch.”
 552 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Books, meditation, inward vision, and so on) were accompanied by

gymnastics; but these are set out in the texts in a quite imprecise way,
without mention of a particular method. We must also consider the
exercises described above only as examples of what the gymnastic
methods were in the periods of the Han and the Six Dynasties rather
than as the real series of movements to which the Taoist authors of that
age refer when they speak of “gymnastics”, lao-yin, to be performed
during various religious practises. We cannot affirm that the accident
which has preserved the description of a few methods, while so many
others were lost, is due to their having been really the most popular
methods at that time.

All these practises, which the requirements of exposition have obliged

me to describe successively and separately, were never thus dissociated in
Taoist religious life. Quite to the contrary. Embryonic Respiration, the
holding and expelling of breath, the absorption of Sun breaths, gymnas-
tics, and also Abstinence from Cereals and dietary regimens (which I
shall study soon), prayers, gritting of the teeth, meditation, exercises of
inward vision, magical formulas, the use of talismans, and still other
practises as well, were performed simultaneously in complex combi-
nations. Adepts mixed the elements of these practises according to the
results to be attained, mingling them with one another after the methods
handed down by famous Immortals, as a physician proportions the ingre-
dients of a remedy. If we were to imagine the life of a fervent Taoist in
the time of the Han and the Six Dynasties, we should have to think of
such ensembles as wholes, rather than as separate practises following one
after another. In particular, the lengthy description of methods and
procedures of respiration and gymnastics, which are not in any way
religious in themselves, should not lead us to believe that truly religious
practises had only a restricted place in the life of Taoist adepts. On the
contrary, they always retained primacy, and progress, whether it was in
breath technique or in alchemy, took place only as a consequence of
progress in religious life proper: good deeds, meditation, and so on. It
must never be forgotten that, if Immortality could not be attained
without the intervention of physical means (development of a certain
mode of breathing, drugs, alchemy), the knowledge of these means and
especially the correct execution of the procedures was given only to men
who rendered themselves worthy through their religious progress.
Reading the holy Books is of little use to the profane: a master is
required so that one may know how the rules they contain are to be put
into practise. Taoism, even in its ancient period, and before Buddhist
 Methods of “Nourishing the Vital Prineiple" 553

inlluences had transformed it, was never a hygiene accompanied by a

medicine and an alchemy, to which a few religious practises were added
here and there. It is a religion which includes a hygiene, a medicine, and
an alchemy, but in which the primary place always belongs to religious
values.

Additional Note: The Expression Pa-ehing

In discussing (footnote 43, in the Introduction to this book) the meaning
of the title of the Huung-t'ing nei-ehing yii-ehing {Tao-tsang, 190), I
indicated that, despite the distinction which the commentator wishes to
establish, there is perhaps an allusion to the pa-ehing of the three bodily
regions, san-pu, while adding that the meaning of the word in this
expression is far from clear.
This is not entirely true. It is not the meaning of the word ehing in the
expression pa-ehing which is uncertain, but the meaning of the expression
itself. For the word ehing, Taoist books agree in making it (in this
expression) the equivalent of kuang, “shining, luminous" (to differentiate
these various Chinese words in my translation, I rendered ehing as
“radiance, radiant", kitang as “brilliant", niing as “light", and so on);
but they hesitate over what meaning to give to the expression pa-ehing,
“the Eight Radiances". The following passages from authors of the sixth
to eighth centuries^*^ will make obvious how much they agree and
disagree.
Ch'eng Hsiian-ying: “The Eight Radiances, pa-ehing. ‘Radiant’,
ehing, is ‘brilliant’, kiiang. The Collective Breath of the Higher
Original, Shang-yiktn tsung-eh’i, is a Radiance; joined to the seven
luminaries, that makes up the Eight Radiances; the seven luminaries
are the sun, the moon, the five planets The Eight radiances are
again explained as being the breaths of the (eight) colors of the
shining Radiance of the eight heavens, pa-t’ien kuang-ehing ehili yi-
eh’i.''^

Hsiieh Yu-ch’i: “The Eight Radiances means that, the twenty-

four mansions being distributed to the four cardinal points, seven
constellations per point, the four (groups of seven) mansions of the
cardinal points, the Sun, the Moon, the Five Planets, and the Great
Bear together make up the Eight Radiances."
Yen Tung: “The Eight Radiances are the eight colors (of the eight
heavens)."

39. YWTSM .ssu-chu(TT, 39), ch. 3, 13i/.

 554 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Obviously there are at least three explanations of what the Eight

Radiances are; but on the whole these explanations are not very different
from one another. I add that these explanations of the Eight Radiances
within the body through celestial phenomena should in no way surprise
us: since everything in the world (macrocosm) is at the same time in the
human body (microcosm), any explanation which applies to the one
applies to the other.

If, as I believe, it is the same meaning as in the expression pa-ching

which must be given to the word ching in the title of the Huang-t'ing
cliing, these titles can be translated as “Jade Book of the Inner (or Outer)
Radiance of the Yellow Court”.
 Key to Sources Maspero Used

This Key is divided into two seetions: (A) A list of abbreviations, some of them standard
(TP, SPTK, etc.) but most derived from Taoist or other books and collections used
repeatedly in Tiioisni and Chinese Religion', and (B) a list of less frequently quoted books
which appear in the footnotes. A has the format: abbreviated title, Chinese characters, first
citation in footnotes (book number, chapter, note reference). B of course omits the
abbreviation. Section A is alphabetized by abbreviation, section B by the first term in the
romanized title. Since Western-language journals and publications present no difficulties
for the reader, no reference-locations are given for them.

A. Abbreviations

BEFEO Bulletin de I’Ecole framaise de !'Extreme-Orient

CA Henri Maspero, China in Antiquity, University of
Massachusetts Press, 1978
CCC Chen-chung chi IB IX, 1 10
CCTSCC Chin-eh 'iieh ti-chiin san-yiian chen-yi clung ^ ft E7 TL
Vll, 1 128
CHS Ch 'ien Han shu 31J ^ I, 3/4
ChT Ch'utz’u^^ I, 3 1
CK Chen-kao IX, 1 184
CS YEC Chung-shan yu-kuei fu-eh 7 ehing 1J 5 M '>(i W. VII, 1 50
CT Chuang-tzu f- I, 3 6
ECL Erh-ehiao lun “lilifa V, 3 12
ECE Eu-elTifa^^Um VII, 1 53
ECL Eu-ch 7 ehing yi lun ^ ,im IX, 1 156
HCEYC Huan-chen hsien-sheng Eu-na yiian-ch 7 ehueh- fa '[■.
VII, 1 54
HCS Hsiu-ehen shih-shu ^ p# IX, 1 93
HHS Hou Han shu VII, 1 11
HNC Huang-t 'ing nei-ching chen-ehing ^ ^ I®. Vll, 1/19
HN T Huang-t 'ing nei-ching yii-ching ^ lie M $ li; VII, 1 23
HSC Hsi-sheng ehing V, 214
HTC Huang-t 'ing ehing ^ VII, 2 10
HTL Hsiao-tao lun V, 2/3
HTL H ’ Hsiian-tu lii-wen ii f|t V,3/3
HTNC Huang-t 'ing nei-ehing H Vll, 1/37
HTNCSW Huang-ti nei-ehing su-wen ^ ^ ^ 111] IX, intro./9
 556 Taoism and Chinese Religion

HWTS Han Wei is 'ung-shu ^ ^ V, 3/10

HWWC Han Wu wai-chuan ^ VII, 1/67
HWY Huang-t 'ing wai-ching yii-ehing VII, 1/71
J.As. Journal asiatique
JAOS Journal of the American Oriental Society
KHC Kuang Hung-ming chi ^ ^ ^ V, 2/3
LCC Lao-tzu chung-ching ^ f- 4^ IS VII, 1/25
LCTT Li-shih chen-hsien t 'i-tao t 'ung-chien M tM; fill I VII, intro./I3
LH Lun-heng 1,3/5
LHC Lieh-hsien chuan ^’IJ fill ^ VII, 1/32
MN Mencius ^ f III, 1/8
MT Mo-tzu Wi T I, 2/6
NC Nan ching IX, intro./9
NP nei-p 'ien VII, intro./14
PCKTS P’ing-chin-kuan ts'ung-shu VII, intro./14
PCL Pien-cheng lun ^ lE Iw VII, 2/10
PHL Pien-huo lun V, 3/7
PPT Pao-p'u-tzu V, 1/1
PTL Pien-tao lun IX, 1/143
SC Shih ching 1,2/7
SHC Shen-hsien chuan jji^filjj^ V, 3/10
She Shih chi ^ |E VII, 4/33
ShCT Shuang-mei ching-an ts’ung-shu IX, 2/1
SHL Shang-han lun [% ^ IX, intro./9
ShuC Shu ching III, 1/6
SKC San-kuo chili HS/c/ VII, 1/13
SNC Su-nii ching ^ ip ^ IX, 2/5
SS Sui shu [fg ^ VI/14
SPCY Sun chen-jen Pei-chi ch'ien-chin yao-fang
^A VII, 1/48
SPTK Ssu-pu ts 'ung-k ‘an E3 §15 ^ f IJ 1,2/6
STCN San-tung chu-nang VII, intro./11
STHC Sung-shan T'ai-n u hsien-sheng Ch 7 ching ^ lU A ^ ^
^IS IX, 1/3
SuS Sung shih ^ ^ IX, intro./2I
swe Shang-ch 'ing wo-chung chiieh _h In IM 4^ IX, intro./32
TC Tso chuan ^ I, 1/1
Tc Tung chill H/f, IX, 1/3
TCC Tao-chi ching IX, 1/154
TCNC Tzu-yang chen-jen nei-chuan R A (A fH V, 2/2
TCTCC Tai-ch 'ing t 'iao-ch 7 ching A inl^ ^ IS IX, 1/7
TCYC Teng-chen yin-chiieh ^ V, 2/11
THC T’ai-hsi ching VII, 1/58
THCC T'ai-shang huang-t 'ing chung-ching ching A _h ^ ^ A'M IS V,2/ll
TIK Taisho issai kyo A IE — ^ |^ I, 4/1
TKYTTY Tung-chen Kao-shang Yii-ti Ta-tung tz'u-yi yii-chien wu-lao
pao-ching APlHt —i^S^^lS VII, 1,95
TP T'oung Pao
TPC T'ai-p 'ing ching A 4^ ^ VII, 1/52
TPYL T'ai-p 'ing yii-lan A 4^ ® M IX, intro./3
 Kcv lo Sources 557

TS Tao-shu IX, 1/10

TSC T’ai-shang sau-shih chung-ching ic.hH/ ' VII, 1/31
TSCC T’u-shu chi-ch ’eng |pf] ^ fjic IX, intro./22
TSLCC T'ai-shang Lao-chiin chung ching J-, V, 2/7
TSP T'u-shu pien IX, intro./22
TSTTM ( Tung-chen) T'ai-shang sii-Hng tung-yuan fa-yii niiao-ching
P ic ± ^ ^ '/I^ ^ A' W VII, 1/18
TT Tao-tsang
TTC Tao-te ching VII, 1/115
TTCC Ta-tung chen-ching A'^ R VII, 1/76
TTESHC T'ai-n ei ti-chiin erh-shih shen hui-yiian ching
V, 2/11
TTN T’ai-shang Tung-fang nei-ching chu VII, 1/83
TTYC T’ai-ch ’ing tao-yin yang-shcng ching A '/H ^ 'j I ® {\l W. IX, 3/2
rii KF T’ai-ch ’ing Wang-lao k ’ou-ch ’uan fa A iW 3: ^ n IX, 1/30
TYMC Ta-yu miao-ching A If V, 2/5
TYTC T’ai-shang yang-shcng t ’ai-hsi ch 7 ching A A # Bn H
IX, I/I42
IVC Wei chih VII, 113
WHTK Wen-hsien t’ung-k’ao \3I, intro./6
li'SPY Wu-shang pi-yao ^ ^ V, 2/9
YC Yi ching III, 1/5
YCCC Yun-chi ch’i-ch’ien V, 2/10
YCL Yuan-ch 7 /un x ^ Im IX, 1/24
YFC Yi'i-fang chih-yao A a ^ IX, 2/7
YFP Yu-fang pi-chueh A 0 ^ IX, 2/15
YHCHFC Yen-ling hsien-sheng chi hsin-chiu fu-ch’i ching'k^^^'^
VII, 1/57
YHYML Yang-hsing yen-niing lu IX, 1/78
YWTSM Yiian-shih wu-liang tu-Jen shang-p’in miao-ching x^n^m
mA±.^ukkm VII, 1 107
YWTSMC YWTSM chih-yin it^ IX, intro./3
YWTSMCC YWTSM chu-chieh VII, 1114
YWTSMS YWTSM ssu-chu HA IX, intro./3
YWTSM SS YWTSM ssu-chu shih-yin H A ^ "e IX, intro./3

B. Other Sources, Unabbreviated

Chen-cheng lun ^KlEtm VII, 2/46

Chen-Jen nei-ch ’ao lit ft A lA IX, 2/92
Ch ’i-fa yao-miao chih-chueh ^ A ^ ^ A ^ IX, I 121
Ch ’i-tung yeh-yii ^ If IX, 2/14
Chin-chien yu-tzu ching AfS VII, 1/40
Chin-lu-chai ch’i-t’an yi VII, 2/23
Chin shu IX, 2/90
Ch ’ing-ling chen-jen Pei-chun nei-chuan •/RMR AHItAfi IX, 2/20
Ch’u-hsueh chi IX, intro./37
Ch’u san-tsang chi-chi A IE I, 4/1
Ch ’u yii ^ III, 4/3
Chung-li pa-tuan chin-fa A IX, 3/16
 558 Taoism and Chinese Religion

Chung yung III, 4/2

Chung-yiich Ch 7 Chien shih-ch 'i fa 4^ IX, 1/144
Chiin-chai tu-shu hou-chih IX, intro./25
Fa-yihin chu-lin VII, 2/11
Fu-ch 7 isa-fa pi-yao k ’ou-chueh ^ IJ IX, 1/112
Han chin-chung ch'i-cliii chu ^ 4'& 2: VII, 1/3
Han-fa-pen nei-chuan VII, 2/19
Han t'ien-shib shih-chia VII, 2/62
Han H 'u nei-chuan fu-lii Pft ^ IX, 1/83
Hsi K 'ang chi chiao-chu ^ ^ ^ fe' 4: VI/14
Hsi tz 'u ^ If VII, 11
Hsiang-tzu shih-ch 'i fa ^ f ^ ^ IX, 1/41
Hsiao Mo clung IX, 1/194
Hsiu-chcn pi-hi IX, 1/10
Hsii hsicn chuan f|lj f|| IX, 1/62
Hsii tzu-chih t’ung-chicn ch'ang-picn fsftfp IX, 1/78
Hsiian-chung chi £4^16 VII, 2/53
Hsuan-men ta-lun VII, 2/13
Hsuan-mcn ta-lun San-yi chiich in A' VII, 1/122
Hua-hu clung VII, 2/53
Hua-yang kuo-chih ^ ® i VII, 2/2
Huang-shii ^ ^ VII, 2/32
Huang-ti tsa-chin-chi fa ^^iA IX, 2/79
Hung-wu chcng-yiin IX, 1/126
Hung-ming chi ^ ^ ^ IX, 2/88
Ho-ho hsiang-chia ko ^ ^ IX, 2/86
Ishin ho M'Cfj IX, 2/1
Jcn-lun ta-t’ung fu Af^ AlAlls^ IX, 1/23
Jung-ch'eng clung IX, 2/115
Jung-ch 'eng yin-tao erh-shih-liu chiian — IX, 2/115
K'ang Hsi tzu-ticn IX, 1 124
Kao Seng chuan VII, 3/7
Kao-shang Lao-tzu pcn-chi t^AA; f'AsE VII, 2/53
Kokusho Kaidai IX, 2/1
Ku-chin Fo Tao lun-heng A IX, 2/93
Kuan-yin-tzu (iVen-shih ching) HA A ( VII, 4/2
Lao-chiin ssu-t u shih-pa p 'icn A fa © H 4' /V ^ VII, 1 127
Lao-shih sheng-chi IX, 2/123
Lao-tzu chung-ching AAAIS VII, 1/25
Lao-tzu ining A Ai^ VII, 2/51
Li-sao VII, 4/10
Lich-tzu f\\ f- VII, 4 19
Lin-chiang-hsicn ^ A fill IX, 3/16
Ling-pao ching-ming ta-fa wan-tao yii-chang pi-chiich ^ AiAi^ M
IX, I 199
Ling-pao wu-liang tu-jen shang-p'in miao-ching ssu-chu MW Am AA
VII, 1/107
Lou-k'efa iiglJiA IX, inlro./37
Mao-shan hsicn-che fu-na ch 7 chiich ^ [ 11 A A IX, 1 19
Mo-ho-chih kuan ffllSJAM IX, 1111
Nci-yin yii-tzu |A "A A A VII, 1 56
 Kev to Sources 559

Pa-clnkin huang-shu A ^ ^ ^ IX, 2/98

Pa-.su clung A M W. VII, intro./12
Pai-hai IX, 2/14
Pau-chou san-nu’i citing /fj-H |;f: VII, 3/7
Pao-chien shang-ching ^Ij IX, intro./3
Pao-w'cn t'nng-lu VII, intro./6
Pen-hsiang citing IX, intro./3
Po-w'u chill IX, 1 143
P'o-lo-ntcn pi-ssu citing ^ || f'j ^ |f. VII, 3/16
Satt-huang citai-yi VII, 1/52
San-shih p 'ien H P VII, 1 44
San-tung ch’iung-kang VII, intro./6
San-tung feng-tao-k 'o HP M VII, 2/41
Sang-yu-izu hsin-chitt fu-ch 7 citing ^ f f? S ^ IX, 1/138
Shang-ch 'ing hsien-fu eh ’itntg-lin citing _h tra f# ff? V, 2/6
Shang-ch 'ing niing-f 'ang yuan-chen ching-chueh _b '/H 7C M IX, I 196
Shang-ch 'ing san-chen chih-yao yu-chiich H H ® g IX, 1 194
Shang-ch'ing Ssu-ining Mao chen-chiin hsiu-hsing chih-nti chiteh Ai'tn ”] ^
IX, 1/145
Shang-ch 'ing tung-chen p 'in ± P M m IX, 1/25
Shett-hsien shih-ch'i chin-ktici niiao-lit #flll IX, I/I44
Shen T'iett-shih fu-ch 7 yao-chiich ^ M^ IX, I 92
Sheng-hsiian citing VII, 1 121
Shcng-lci IX, 1 124
Shih-shuo hsin-yii tit MWit» VI/6
Shih-wan-chuan km ts’ung-shu IX, 1/23
Shou-shatt-ko is 'ung-shu tij ^ ^ IX, 1 82
Shu-yi-chi ^II ^ fg VII, 1/60
Ta-tung citing ;^p|l IX, 2/31
Ta-tung yu-ching X P H VII, 1/21
Ta-w'ci-yi hsien-sheng Hsuan-su-chen-jen yung-ch'i chueh
MA IX, 1/40
Ta-yen- fu A 'S' it 111,4/1
T'ai-chen k 'o A t'f VII, 2/19
T'ai-chi chen-jen fei-hsicn pao-chien shang-ching A ® R A W SJ A IX, intro./7
T’airch'ing chin-yi shen-tan citing A iW Ali^ P"^ IX, 1/21
T'ai-ch 'ing chung-huang chen-ching A iH A ^ ® IX, 1 154
T'ai-ch 'ing H ang-lao (fu-ch 7) ch 'nan k 'ou-chueh A tH A A ( ^1^ M IX, 1/32
T'ai-hsi ching-n ei hot IX, 1 33
T'ai-hsi k 'ou-chueh P IX, 1/2
T'ai-hsiian citing A VII, 2/27
T'ai-shang Lao-chutt k 'ai-t 'ien citing A A A: It A IS; VII, 2/55
T'ai-shang Lao-chiin tsao-li t 'ien-ti ch 'u-chi A A A S' ^ it A tfe IB VII, 1/59
T'ai-shang Lao-chutt yang-hsing chiielt AA IX, 1 120
T'ai-shang san-t 'ien cheng-fa citing A AH A A }AIM VII, 1 94
T'ai-shang san-yiian p 'in A A H A nn VII, 1112
T'ai-shang su-ling ta-yu ntiao-ching A A^M A IX, intro./38
T'ai-shang T’ai-chen k 'o citing AAA® 141^® VII, 1 51
T'ai-shang t'ai-hsuan Nu-ch'ing San-yikin yi-p'in-chieh pa-tsui ntiao-ching
AAAAAWHA VII, 1112
T'ai-shang tao-chun shou-yikin-tan shang-ching AAMS'AAP'AlSi VII, 1/85
 560 Taoism ami Chinese Religion

T'ai-tzu jui-ying pen-ch'i ching M f0. VII, 3/10

Tai-wu hsicn-shcng Fu-cli'ifa '1'. ^14 'M.'if IX, 1/36
T'ai-yi ti-chiin t 'ai-tan yin-shu A: —ft fl" 1^^. ft VII, intro./4
Tao-hsik’h chuan VII, 1/41
Tien-liich VII, 2/3
T'ien-ti yin-yang chiao-huan ta-lo fa ^ ttii 1^ Pti 3^ 13: A'^ IX, 2/17
Tang-chen huang-sha /fs] R ft IX, 2/98
Tung-chen T'ai-yi ti-chiin. Ta-tan yin-sha tang-chen hsiian-ching '^PJ ft AZJ
't g, A34[iftP«i:ls IX, 2/104
Tang-chen tsao-hsing tza-yaan erh-shih-ssa shen-ehing Pft^fl^^TC —A
VII, 1/78
Tang-hsiian eh 'ing-wen shang-ehing P [ii] h W. VII, 2/19
Tang-hsiian tza /[pji; f IX, 2/14
Tang-hsiian yiian-shih ch 'ih-sha ching /fs] TC ^!p ft IX, 1/158
Tang-kaan Han-chi VII, 2/19
Tsang-fa men H IX, intro./22
IVang ehen-jen ch ’i-chiieh £ ft A IX, 1/138
ll’en-hsiian Vl/7
li en-shih chaan fi f|| VII, 2/53
VVa-ya Ian IX, 1/156
Yao-hsia k 'o-yi chieh-lii ch 'ao ^ ft V,2/l
Yi-ch 'ieh tao-ching yin-yi ^ "a ^ VII, 2/53
Yi san-tza ching IX, intro./15
Yi-pa hai-k 'ao ^ f[j # # IX, intro./22
Yi-wen lei-chii ^ IX, 1/143
Yin-fa ching mfim. IX, 1/27
Yin-yang sheng-chiang Ian IX, 1/140
Ying-wei yiin-hsing k 'ao ^ ftj # IX, intro./27
Yii-ch'ien ching VII, 1/9
Yii-ch 'ing chieh j£ fiJc VII, 2/21
Yii-ching-shan |JL||S VII, 1/106
Yii-kaei sa-sha i ^ ft IX, I/IO
Ya-li ching S ^ IX, intro./47
Yiian-shih ching TC^PIS VII, 1 105
Yiian-yang ching IX, 1/78
Yiian-ya VII, 4/12
 Glossary-Index
NOTE; subjects are generally indexed under the appropriate Chinese terms. References to
Chinese terms are sometimes given where only the English equivalent appears in the text.
Alphabetization: ii follows all u’s: hence ch’ti follows chung.

A-mi-t’o See Amitabha Candi 157

alchemy 329-31 eliai 0 35, 82, 291-98, 379, 380-86,
Amitabha 43, 49, 124, 166, 190, 191- 391-92
94, 260 chai-chu 383, 384
Amoghavajra 39 chai-shih 384
An Hsiian ^ 405 Ch 'an-hsing fa-hsiang ehing fip fj ^
An-pan ehing 408 261
An Shih-kao 258, 404, 408, 409-10 Ch’an-tsung If ^ 40, 43, 70, 192
ancestors 15-16, 122-23 Chang, Three 35, 287, 291, 374-76,
Ao Ch’in, Jun, Kuang, Shun MIX, S, 378-80, 383, 387, 430, 534. See also
101 Yellow Turbans
arhats, see lo-han Chang Chi-hsien 398
astronomy 129-31, 159-61,227-30, Chang Chiu-ling 106-7
356-57. See also Pei-tou Chang Chiieh 33, 287, 373-77, 378
Asura 181, 188 Chang Fei ^ 148, 151
Asvamukha 183 Chang Feng 359
avalambana 80, 187 Chang-hsien ^fil| 171-73
Avalokitesvara. See Kuan-yin Chang Hsien-t'ing 315
Chang Hsiu 287, 375, 377
Bhadra 128, 162 Chang Huang 453
Bhaishajyaguru ( Fao-5/?/77-u’a/7g) 124, 174, ehang-lmo 206
192, 260 Chang Kao 398
bodhicitta 191 ehang [A: ’a{\ k ’ou ch ’u eh 7 ^-[ r?f]] P fB ^
Bodhidharma 192 497
Bodhisattvas 51, 84-85, 150, 174, 175, 192, Chang kungichang-kung ^ 172
275, 336. See also Kuan-yin Chang Kuo-lao ^ 162, 163, 173
breathing practises. See ch’i Chang Liang 375. See also Chang,
Buddhism 37-53, 77-88, 251-62, 313, 318, Three
400-412; and Taoism 388, 539, 541; Chang Liang (Han official) 427
deities of, 124-28, 161-62, 164-71, Chang Lien 405
174-75, 176, 275, 393, 396; Shao Yung Chang Lu 33, 83, 287, 373-77,
and, 70-71 380-81, 391,397, 398,408
 562 Index

Chang Pao -^75. See also Chang, Chi-shang eh 'ing-wei t 'ien .h in T: 353
Three Ch'i ^ (state) 133; school, 62, 67
Chang Tao-ling 83, 359, 391,397, eh'i Breath, breathing, 36, 71-72, 73, 93,
400, 537 255, 268-72, 326, 339-44, 408-9, 417,
Chang Tsai 135 420, 448, 450-517 passim, 529
Chang Wei-tzu ^ {■ 517 Ch’i Chien of Chung-yiieh 503
Chang Yen 33 Ch'i-ehiian eh’i-pien tung-ehing
Chang Yiieh 106-7 tjf# 317
Ch'ang-an 130,218 ch'i-fu-shen bifiS# 159
Ch’ang-eh'eng (anat.) 329 eh'i-hai UW 342, 454-77 passim, 488
Ch'ang-ho gate miM 227, 415 Ch’i-nien miao 94
eh’ang-ku 341,486 eh'i-t ’ung 477
Ch'ang-o 9, 96 ehia-sha ^ (kashaya) 79
eh'ang-sheng 194, 319, 445-46. See Chia-yii % 67
also immortality Chiang hsien-sheng M zfeF. 522
eh 'ang-sheng t 'u-ti T. i i1li 118 Chiang-kung m'U 268, 269, 281, 326, 332,
eh'ang-wei ehung-mai ^ ff 472 351,457, 524 n 31, 527 n 51, 537 n 104.
ch’ang-yeh 389 See also tan-t 'ien
Chao, Heavenly King 127 Chiang-t 'ai Us 280, 328, 349, 435-36
Chao-ching BSf^- 350 ehiao SI (Services) 34
ehao-hun hsii-p’o 211 chiao (Suburb Sacrifice) 94, 140, 210,
chao-ling ehih fu 363 224
ehao-pao shih-ehe iQ 121 ehiao (Suburbs; Viscera) 486. See mainly
chao-pao t'ien-tsun 120 w'u-tsang
Chao Tao-yi — 397 Chiao-nii (fjf 347
Chao Yen 160 chiao-yao 228
Ch’ao-yin tang 167 ehieh |p (sections of body) 347
che 203 ehieh ^ (kalpa), 182, 275
Che Hsiang 323 chieh-ch’u 290
chen-jen ^ K ■' Arhat (Buddhist), 259, 411; Chieh Hsiang F ^ 334
Perfect Man (Taoist), 351, 361, 372, 411, ehieh-she 220
414,538 n 106 eh'ieh-lan-shen ftoM# 85, 110, 124, 128,
Chen Tuan See Hsiao-fao liai 151, 170, 171
Chen-shen 174 chien fg 513 n 186
ehen-w'u sheng-clmn S 156 ehien-ling 375, 381
Chen-yao fu-mu 340 chien-yii chiin 367
Chen-yen-tsung 40, 157, 168 Ch'ien Liu 'MB 109
Cheng Chiin 429 eh'ien-niu 228
Cheng Hsuan 65, 67, 68, 69, 212 chill in 376
cheng-tao te lEiiiM’i 409 Chih, Brigand 149
cheng-yen iEPt^ 467 Chih Ch’an 405
eheng-yi F. H 68 ehih-chiao chai JH Ktlf 381 n 19
ch’eng-huang shen 52, 86-7, 99, Chih Ch'ien 406
103-15 passim, 122, 173-75, 183-85, 190 chih-nii 228
Ch’eng-tu )73C^|; 107, 130, 172 Chih-sheng hsien-shih 136
Ch’eng Yi fJM 135 ehih-t'ou 376
chi (traces) 70 Chih Tzu-yiian 522
ehi hlk (degree, of trachea) 458 ch’ih m (breath) 496-97
dii (rapid breathing) 477 eh'ill {shill, chih) P|t (breath, var. of above)
Chi-chen kung. See T'ai-chi ehen-kung 496 n 115
chi-chiu 83, 288, 376 ch 'ih-cli 7 486
 Index 56d

Ch'ih-shui /:^^7K 234 Ch’ing-niu tao-shih 529

Ch’ih-sung-lzu f 281,428, 542, ch'ing-ti (Ij-'i’fi- 156; Palace of, 340 n 59
543-46 ch’ing-l'ung 349
ch’ili-ti 156 ch 'ing-yang yiian-ch 7 jl]' 281,
ch’ih-tzu ^ /• 524 n 31, 528 n 56 530 n 65
cli'ih-tzu ti-chiin /j]s 351 chiu-chen chih ti JLlftJi'Fff 353
Ch’ih-yu £ 233 chiu-ch 7 ch 'ing-t 'ien yiian-shih shang-ching
chin W] 476 Huang-lao tsun-shen )i ^ Tc .t
chin-ch’en yii-t 'ung S 353 n 96 n 509 n 173
chin-ch'ueh 358 ehiu-chou /L'i'li 228
Chin-ch'iteh ti-chiin San-viian chcn-yi ching ehiu-ch 'ung )i t\\ 227
317,368’ Chiu-heng ching 407
chin-ch’ueh yii-ch’en t 'ien-tsun Chiu-hua-shan 7L^II| 125
89 Chiu-hui iH ^ 306
Chin-kang li-shih 126 chiu-te Ji'i§, 54, 356
Chin-kang-tsang 169 chiu-t’ien 221, 342, 356
chin-kuan yii-yao 494 n 109 chiu-t’ien chen-wxmg AAR A 352
chin-kuci 527 n 51 chiu-tsu yu-hun 389
chin-lu chai 283, 387 chiu-yin Ai^ 228
chin-she 329 ch 'iung-ch 'ang ^ 348
chin-t’ang yii-ch'eng 328 ch’iung-kung 354
Chin-tsin 547 n 20 chou l{x (sacred wood) 222
ch’in-hsien 521 n 17 Chou Hsin If] fif 109
Ch’in-kuang-wang 177-78, 190 Chou li Iflni 5, 23, 58, 204, 205
Ch'in Shih Huang-ti 63, 100, 359, Chou Ssu-te 91
427 Chou yi )fj^ 68
Ch'in Shu-pao 115, 116 Chou Yi-shan 274, 316, 321-22,
ching ^ (classics) viii, 58-69, 134 336, 339, 364-65, 371, 438, 462-63
ching (calm) 479 chu-che i ^ 34, 288
ching (Essence) 36, 255, 268, 271, 345, Chu Fa-lan 402
448,489, 494, 517-41 Chu Hsi 69, 71-74, 93, 135, 210
ching ^ (land measure) 204-7 chu-kuan If 34
Ching-fa hsii-chih 149 Chu-lin ch'i-hsien AT'IA AK 301,305
Ching-hei hsien-sheng 503 Chu-lou J^li 329
ching-hua chih ch’i 481 Chu-lung ^ ft 228
ching-kuei 499 Chu-men ATI 539 n 113
ching-p’o 394 Chu Shuo-fo^^ijf^ 405
ching-she (Dwelling of the Essence) Chu Ta-li 405
518 chu-tan AE3 508
ching-she, ehing-shih (house of Chu-yang kuan Al^ ii 541
retreat) 377, 539 n 114 Chu-yi A A 129-31
eh’ing-chi in M 477 Chu-yung (alt.,-jung) 7, 234, 235
Ch’ing-ching t’u ?RP± 191. See mainly Ch'u, King of ^ i; 257, 401-2, 403, 405
Amitabha ch’u m 34, 289-90
ch'ing-fang 328 ch'u-ch'i huan, ch’u-ch'i chi (A 498
ch ’ing-fu W 328 ch 'u-chia HI ^ 390
Ch’ing-hsii Hsiao-yu-t 'ien t 'ien-nxing Ch’u-chiang-wang ^ A E. 178
352 ch 'u-huo A A 203
Ch'ing-ku 269, 332 ch 'u-shih 290
c/?777g-AU/>7g festival 122, 225 chuan 331 n 29
ch ’ing-ming-chim ^ H 349 Chuan-hsu mm 7, 220, 226, 232, 234
 564 Index

Chuan-lun-wang f- 180, 186 Dhrtarashtra 126, 127

ch 'uan-hsi Ufft 460 Dhyana Buddhism. See Ch'an-tsung
Chuang-tzu {■ 31-32, 275, 285, 368, diet, 82, 269, 333-37, 463, 478, 484,
413-26, 437 498-99, 519. See also chai
Ch'uong-kung, Ch'uang-mu ^ 118 Douglas, R. K. 397, 399
ch 'ui 0^ 496-99 dragons 99-101, 171, 228, 550-51
Ch’un ch'iu 59, 60, 61,62, 68, 71, 134,
155 earth gods 5-28 passim, 95, 105-11, 141,
c/mng-chi huang-lao 357 211,219-25, 274-75,292, 380
chung-chipei-ch’en chung-yang cf erh-lang 91, 144
4^ ^ 356
chung-ch'i chen-shu 533, 536 fa-chia 58, 63
Chung-ch'ih 4'?ll2 493 n 106 fa chih yao-che tsai to yii shao-nii erh
chung-ch’u 4* Hi 290 mo-shu hsieh-ching
Chung-fu 411? 362-63 522
Chung Hui 304, 307 Fa-hsien 40
Chung-kung 4'^ 497 fa-shen 396
Chung-li MM- 547-48 fa-shih '&6r[i 384, 390
chung-Hu 4® 5, 6, 112, 219 fan-cheng chih ch’i 481
Chung-shan yii-kuei fu-ch 'i-ching 4 Lil 3i ffi Fan K’uai 148
Hl^mifS 471,499 Fan Yu-ch’ung 513, 513 n 186
chung-yang shen 4^# 491 n 100, 523 Fan-1’ien 48
chung-yu tzu mu 4 ^ 4 S 492 n 103 fang fj (Taoist regional authority) 287,
Chung yung 4W 69 375, 376
chung-yiian 4 526 n 47 fang-chung chih fa 540
chung-yiian 4 7C 347, 369; festival, 158, 187 fang-hsiang 7711,211
ch’ung If] (vein) 454 fang-shih fj ± 429
Ch’ung-huan 458 fasting. See chai
Ch’ung-li 228,233 fei (iti 146
Ch’ung-lou 268, 458 fei-kden 330
Ch’ung-t’ang 458 Fei-lien^^ 415
chii-pao chao-ts ’ai ^ ^ I? 121 fen 222
ch’ii-shuai ^g[|] 375, 376 Feng Heng 529 n 60
Ch’u Yuan 275,413,414-15,421,426 Feng-lung 415
Chiian-tzu i'i 4 484 feng-po 18, 98, 233, 274
chueh-ku mm. 119, 255, 269, 333-35, feng p ’o-p 0 IK ^ ^ 98
416-17, 427, 428, 430, 434, 463, 499 Feng-shen yen-yi 120, 126, 127,
chiieh-ming 533 n 83 144, 147, 196
Chiieh-yiian 348 feng-tao M.7J 363
Chiin, Prince 234 feng wu-tou mi-tao, Huang-lao chih t ’u
chiin H (lords) 361 377
chiin-chieh 356 festivals, 12-16, 34-35, 80, 138-42,
chun-ssu 356 290-91; Buddhist, 44; Tai, 223-26;
cinnabar, 271, 330-31, 474 n 58. See also spring, 207-17
tan-t 'ien fo m 84, 148
Cinnabar Fields. See tan-t’ien fu 7^ (land measure) 204
‘Confucianism’ 48, 53-74, 77-88, 253-54 fu-ch’i 338-39, 463, 484, 505
Confucius, in popular religion, 131-37, Fu-ch ’i-ching yi lun Hlx ^ ^ ^ Im 507
359; in early Buddhist texts, 406 Fu-ch’i tsa-fa pi-yao k’ou chiieh
479
cievanija 354 fu-ch ’u pu-hsiang ^^ 211
Dharmakaya 396 fu-h.si 338
 Index S65

fu-ltsing Is 159-61 Heng-shan (Shansi) fw ll| 102

fu-Jen ^ A 146 Heng-shan (Hunan) Hill] 102
fu jih-hsiang Hlx P 514 ho BnJ (breath) 496-99
fu jih-mang chih fa U 515 bo-cb’i 386-87, 533, 538
fu-mo ta-ti fX' ^ A 151 Ho-He erb hsien 121
Fu-sang tree 229, 415 bo-bo ^11 ft 387, 534
fu-shcn Islffi 121 Ho bsien-ku 162, 163
Fu Sheng 63 bo-po MfP 8-9, 18, 226, 274
fu-te is 'ai-sben |S # 121 hou In 84
fu-^vu Hou Chi turn 4,8, 19, 141,206, 226, 236.
fu-yung Pf-tiflf 218, 219 See also earth gods
fu-yiian k 'ai-hua Wen-ch ’ang ssu-lu hung-jen Hou-bu ^ 329
ti-chiin H TC It ^ B n] ^ ^ t ^ I" 130 hou-kuan 454, See hou-lung
funerals, 9-12, 239-47, 289, 388-90 bou-lung P^Pfl 454, 458. See bou-kuan
hou-t’ien f:^A 70
Garbhakosadhatu 168 Hou-t 'u fp A 7, 8, 234. See also earth gods
gate gods, 111-12, 115-17, 124-25 bsi PA (inhalation) 449, 451
gad 181 hsi (breath) 496-98
Gosirsa 183 bsi P^, BE (breath; vars. of above) 496
Granet, M. vi, 210 bsi-cbang ^ khakkara
Gray, J. H. 399 Hsi- fang cbi-lo shih-chieh ^ A ® ^
Great Bear. See Pei-tou 191
gymnastics 345-46, 41 7, 419, 428, 481,483, Hsi-ho ^^ 9, 228, 229, 414
542-52 Hsi Hsi fjfci; 301
hsi-bua yu-nii A 353 n 96
ba-ma (breathing technique) 550 Hsi K’ang (also Chi K’ang) 301-08
bai-yiian 528 n 55 Hsi-liu IH1I5P 229
Han dynasty, 108, 202; Confucianism, Hsi-wang-mu pit 39, 49, 87, 96,
58-68, 71-72, 135; Taoism, 427-30; 194-96, 228, 281, 355, 356, 361,
Wu-ti, 218, 366, 486 492 n 103, 515, 530
Nan cbin-cbung cb 'i-cbii chu ^ 4^ Qi hsi-wei 356
320 bsi-w'u-tsang 478
Han Ch’in 52, 176 Hsi-yu-cbi 101, 177, 196
Han Chung-li 162, 163 hsia-cb 'u A 290
Han Hsiang-tzu ^#11 f- 162, 163 hsia-hsieb A iftt; 463
Han-lin yuan 111 hsia-tan-t 'ien F A ffl 269, 326, 332, 345,
Han-men 228 351, 370, 457, 459, 468, 470, 492, 494,
ban-shib m ft 203, 225 515, 518, 529, 542, 548. See also tan-t 'ien
Han t 'ien-shih A Sili 398 bsia-yiian A 7C 347, 369, 526 n 44; festival,
Han Wu wai cbuan (H ft ^ ^ 486 158
Han Yu 70, 111, 162 hsiang {^j 111
Hang-chou 107, 109, 111, 117 Hsiang Hsiu fo]^ 305, 307
Hao-cb’ing fu 328 hsiang-nueb 212
Hao-li ^ 102 Hsiang Yii 108
Hao-t 'ien ^ A 73 bsiao ^ 66
Hao-t’ien sbang-ti i^AA^ 224 Hsiao clung 66, 69
Hariti 166, 169 bsiao-fang 375
Hayagriva 167 Hsiao-tao lun 340 n 59, 374,
Hei lao-yeh 110 485 n 78,535
hells 176-87 bsiao-t 'ung 342, 464
Heng Ha erb chiang 125 Hsieb-cbing t’ai ^15^ ft 177
Heng-o 96 bsien fill (Immortal) 84, 194, 330, 361. See
 566 Index

also Immortality hsiieh-ehi 532

Hsien-ch'ih 229, 415 hsiieh-shih ifii/ ’ 255, 269, 332
Hsien ching filing? 501 hsiieh-tao shih, hsiu-tao shih ^dr
hsien-tao f|l| ^ 427 390. See also tao-shih
hsien-1 'ien hsiin-chih ^ ^ 346
hsin -6 70-71,283, 419 hit P (single door) 111
hsin-chai 31, 426 hu (exhalation) 449, 451
Hsin-lu H 315 hit (breath) 496
hsing (Body) 284, 419, 448, 465. See also Hu Ching-te 115, 116
yang-hsing Hu-shen 141
hsing (4 (Human Nature) 70, 71 hua-ehen ft ^ 523
hsing-eh'i ff 283, 342, 430, 469, 473-74, hua-ehing 517
487, 542, 549 Ima-hu-tiao 127
hsing-eh'u 291 Hiia-kai 281, 328, 329, 454
hsing fu-fu shill 212 hua-kuang 336 n 47; title of Maitreya,
hsiu clung 61 148
h^iu-liang 333 hua-lo se-shuai 216
hsiu-shen 69 Hua-shan ^iJL| 102, 169
hsii (breath) 496 Hua-yang ehu-tung ehi 513
hsii, Ini (breath; vars. of ho) 496 huai 222
Hsii Ch ang 258, 403 Huan-chen, master it]® ft 461 n 3, 469,
Hsii-chien-sheng 348 475 n 59,496
Hsii Hsiian 315 huan-ching 345, 517 If.; huan-ching
Hsii Shen 65 pu-nao, 522, 539
Hsii Tao-ling 485 n 78 hiian-yiian gx 523
hsuan-ch’ih 306, 493 n 106 Huang Ch’ao 130
Hsuan-ehing she 328 Huang-ehin ^ rtl See Yellow Turbans
hsiian-ming chen-jen 369 Hiiang-eh’ueh 280, 328, 329, 349, 371,
Hsiian-ming shih 236 435-36,527 n 50
Hsiian-shih 537 n 104 Huang-ho 3, 8, 86, 202, 235
Hsiian-tan-kung 268, 327, 351,436, Huang-lao-chun 51,258-59, 350,
457 353 n 97, 355, 370-72, 392, 396, 428,
hsiian-t ’an Chao yiian-shuai $i Tc l^ltl 492 n 103, 523
121 huang-lu ehai 292-98, 383, 387
hsiian-t 'an p ’u-sa 121 huang-shang yii-ti chiin 357
hsiian-ti 156 Huang Shih 141
hsiian-t ’ien shang-ti ^ _b 156 Huang-shu 386, 535, 536
Hsiian-tsang 39, 40, 162, 169 huang-su yikin-ehiin 553 n 95
Hsiian-tu viian-vang ch’i-pao tzu-wei kung Huang T’ai MM 274, 438
362 Huang Tao-chou 135
hsiian-tzu 509 Huang-ti (Yellow Emperor) 90, 116,
Hsiian-wen-hua ^yCM 348 148, 233, 235, 321,344, 354,418, 539, 541
hsiian-wu sheng-ehiin 156 Huang-ti (Lord Yellow) 156
hsiian-yang 350 huang-ti (emperor) 54, 232
hsiian-yi Lao-ehiin 538 n 111 Huang-ti yii eh’ien-erh-pai nii erh hsien, su-
hsium-ying (trachea) 490 n 99, jen yiyi-nii erh fa-niing ^If ® ftHlf ft
508 n 167, 524 n 26 ffnfili,’f§ALi-ft[fli-fic^ 519
hsiian-ying (Mysterious Chest) Huang-t ’ien Mft 23
524 n 26,547 n 20 huang-t 'ien shang-ti M ft ft ^ 356
hsiian-yiian wu-shang t’ien-tsun Huang-t’ing 327, 328, 491, 527 n 50
H tt- 500 Huang-t’ing ehing 341, 376 n 10,
 Index 567

461,476, 489, 495, 554; Huang-t 'ing wai- Kasyapa-Matanga 402

ching yu-ching Mi ill 488, 523; ke IlM 448,451,454
Hiumg-t 'ing yu-ching 316, 317; Iluang- K’e Sheng-weng 123
t'ing nei-ching yu-ching 553 Keng-sheng lun (til:,™ 50
huang-tzu ^ 347 k ’eng-san-ku hi i Wi 119-20
hui ^ (Assemblies) 379 khakkara 80, 188, 190
hui (Wisdom) 284 KoHung 114, 183,316,321,322,329,
hui-Jih ^ 0 82 371, 394, 487, 540
hu/i and p'o souls 12, 47, 183, 211, Kou-lung Alii 2, 220, 234
255, 266-67, 280, 297, 356, 440 K'ou Ch’ien-chih 158, 383, 484,
hun-ch’i 533-54 540
huo-chin 203 k 'ou-han ni-t 'u t i "a X. 459-60
huo-kuan 362 Kshitigarbha. See Ti-tsang
ku-ch’i 516
Imbault-Huart, C. 397-400 Ku Huan UW. 47
Immortality; Taoist, 265-76, 319 ff.; and Ku-liang chuan 204, 205
Buddhism, 411 Ku-mang ^ 228
ku-nu chih fa 479
jen 1: (Goodness) 73 ku-shih 521 n 17
jen fT (vein) 454 Ku-shih mountain (ri^#t^|lj 416
jen-chi X^. 532 K’u-ch'u-chiao 181
Jen Fang fT-g); 340 kua 59
Jen-huang {z 90 kuan 'g’officers, 419; ‘officials’ (lower
Jen-kuan AP 339 n 57, 494 n 109 immortals) 353 n 96
jen-kung chiang-chiin 375 kuan IS (phalansteries) 81, 382, 388, 390,
jen-tao Ail 68 400, 520
Jen Wei 429 kuan (drill) 203
jih-hun 0^514 kuan-hsing 160
jo erh nei chih, chien-ch’iang erh t 'ui, kuan-hsiung 228
tan-chieh erh pu-shih kuan-kuan 288; nan- and nii-kuan, 34,
521 378
jo-shui 7K 329 Kuan Lu 160-61
Jo tree ^ 229, 415 Kuan Shih-jen Ptittl 115
ju-chia 58. See mainly Confucianism Kuan-ti 85, 86, 121, 138, 142, 150-55,
ju-chiao 58, 71 169, 174
Ju-lai liUX 184 Kuan-yin |S^ 44, 87, 104, 123, 124, 125,
Jn-yi 60,1 130, 147 145, 149, 157, 166-71, 173, 175, 184, 190,
Juan Chi 305 191, 192
Jui-ch ’ing fu-jen H^^XX 118 Kuan-yin-tzu f 413
Jung-ch’eng 539 Kuan Yu MM 128, 148, 150-51
Kuan-yuan Mjt 270, 341,491 n 100,
kai g 227 527 n 49
kai-li-fu 348 Kuang-ch’eng, master 416, 418-19
kalpam, 275 Kuang-jun, -li, -te, -tse fij, |g, ^ 101
Kan Shih 540 kuei ^ (soul) 136, 180
Kan-yiian 229 kuei ^ (ceremonial tablet) 91
Kanishka 38 kuei-chiao 413
Kao Ch'i ,^^172 kuei chiao chih ping 520
kao-mei [^(^211,214 kuei-ju ^ A 29
kao-shang hsu-huang chiin M 357 kuei-li 375
Kao-shang yiian-chun 513 kuei-mei ^|| 520 n 11
 568 Index

kuei-min 375 Li Hsiian-chih 104

kuei-pi (breathing technique) Li Kung 135
550-51 Li Kung-lin 168
kuei-tsu 375 Li Lung-mien 168
Kuei-tzu-mu 166 Li Mu 70
K'uei-hsing 129, 130-31, 160 Li Po ^1# (7th century tao-shih) 390
Kumaraiiva 39 Li Sao MM 414. See also Ch’u Yuan
KunM,'.l£235 Li Shao-chiin ^ 320, 427
K’un-lun 83, 195, 196, 279; in Li-shih 126
Taoism, 329, 340, 356, 371,435, 528 n 58 li-shih hsien-kuan AO fb fill 'B’ 121
kung-jen A 520 n 9 Ii-shun Jllllg 478
Kung-kung 7, 220, 111, 234 Li Te-yii 107
kung-she A'fit 219, 221 Li T’o-t’a 127
kung-tzu AT" 528 n 52 Li Tung-hsiian ^ /fp] ^ 521 n 14
Kimg-ycing chuan A ^ ^ 204, 205 Li Yang-ping 107
K'ung An-kuo 67 Li Yi-hsing ^ H 453
k’ung-fan 478 Liang Ch’iu-tzu X A 488, 490 n 97
K’ung-sang tree 229 Liang fei 447 n 6
K’ung-tzu miao ■JL T'lti 132 Liang Shih 452 n 21
K’ung Ying-ta 68, 69 Liang Tzu-mei '^AH ^^52
Kuo feng S 60, 210 lieh-ch’iieh 228
kuo-she ^/jit 219 Lieh-hsien chuan ?IJf[J|^ 317, 539
kuo-shih ggiD 395 n 53 Lieh-tzu ?IJ A 285, 392-93, 413-26
Kuo-tzu chien ® A Is 132 lien-ch’iW.% 283, 469, 474, 484
KuoTzu-yi 121, 160 lien-hsing 474, 486
lien-hun 446, 474 n 58; shou-lien, 389
Ian ^211 Lin Ling-su 156
LanTs’ai-ho 162, 163 ling-chu 143, 144
lao-t’ien-yeh 88, 93, 113, 115. See ling-hui fu-jen 146
also yii-huang ling-ken 'Mtfi 492 n 101
Lao-tzu ^ A 30, 275, 285, 368, 413, 416, Ling-mo-kai 348
417, 421,424; in Taoist mythology, 162, Ling-pao 318, 372, 397
163, 340, 356, 394-96; and Buddhism, Ling-pao chai 580, 382, 387, 391
46, 50, 406, 541; and Confucius, 134 Ling-pao clung 51, 391 n 48, 397
Lao-tzu Chung-ching ^ A AIM 555 Ling-pao t'ien-tsun MW A# 393
Lao-tzu hua-hu clung ^ A'fLS^^ 46 Ling-pao wu-fu clung M W S ^ IS 509
Legalism 58, 63 Ling-t 'ai M tS 526 n 47
lei-kung # A 97-98, 277. Cf. lei-shih ling-t’an Ml® 382, 384, 385
lei-shih ^gj|i 18, 415 n 11 Ling Wei-yang 509 n 173
lei-tsu 97-98 ling-yen 85
Leng Shou-kuang 540 ling-yi g ^ 508
// m. (Norm) 72-73, 93 Ling-yin miao 129
li 1 (hamlet) 203, 219 Hu 227
// M (land measure) 204 Liu Ch’ang-sheng 490 n 98
li ^ (chestnut) 222 liu-chi A M 54
Li, Heavenly King ^ A X 127 liu-ch 7 A ^ 496-99
LichimM 61,69,219 Liu Ching %\\p, 521
Li Ch’ien-ch’eng ^ 463 Liu-chu kung 268, 327, 456, 458
Li clung 59, 60 Liu Chung %\\%_ 403
li-chuan 508 liu-ch’ii A® 181
Li Ch’iian 466 n 27 liu-fu A Si 269, 325, 341, 346, 347, 348,
 Index 569

449, 481,514, 524 n 29 Marici 157

Liu Hsiang ^IJ (nj 330 Maudgalyayana 187, 188
Liu Hsin f Ij 395 n 53 mei-jen ^ A (Beauties) 520 n 9
Liu Ken fij® 270, 333 mei-Jen ^ A (go-between) 214, 216
Liu-ku |5[] 229 men f"] 111
Liu Ling ^Ijf^ 305 Mencius ii {■ 69, 132, 135, 204, 205
Liu Meng-chiang-chiin ^Ij S' ^ 123, 143 Meng Fu 405
liu-ming 356 Meng-p'o niang-niang 180
liu-mou A/Jc 461 Meng T’ien 148
Liu Pang %\\^ 108 Mi-lo See Maitreya
Liu Pei mtm 148, 150-51 Miao-ch’ing 169, 171
Liut’ai-wei Miao-chuang 169-71
Liu Tzu-ch’an ^ 429 Miao-shan 169-71
Liu Ying %\\ ^ 429 Miao-tzu (people) m f 13, 199
lo-han mu 84, 161-62 Miao-yin 169
lo-ke ^ ^ 454. See also ke mieh-lu 10; 410
Lo Kung-yiian 466 n 27 mien ^ 90
Lolo tribe 13, 199 mien-chueh (tsuan) 382 n 22
Lou-chih 1$^ 127 Ming, Emperor 402
lou-ke lif^l 327 ming ^ (mandate) 54
Loyang : Buddhism in, 257-58, 403-4 ming-chen chih fu ^ 363
lu liM (huts) 203, 492 n 101 ming-chi ^^289
lu-hsing 160-61, 173 ming-chien shen-chiin 350
Lu Hsiu-ching 314, 315 Ming-kuang-tzu 347
Lu Lung-ch’i 135 Ming-men [Imang-i ’ing kung]
Lu Pan ^ HI 148 457,459,460, 466, 491
lu-sheng 34 ming-nii chen-kuan 0^ A R 350
lu-shih 288 ming-shih 508
Lun yii l^ap 211,222. See also Confucius Ming-t ’ang ^ 15, 225
/wng i| (breathing technique) 550-51. See Ming-t’ang[kung] 268, 269, 281,
also dragons 327, 350, 456, 457, 459, 491 n 100,
lung-po 228 526 n 47, 527 n 51, 528 n 55
lung-wang f| L 99-101 ming-t 'ung chen-ehun 0^ M R ^ 350
lung-wang nii t| I ^ 171 Miu Chi pa 365
Lii Tsu-ch’ien 135 mo ^ See Mara
Lii Tung-pin BPW 148, 149, 162, 163, mo ^ (massage) 542
547 n 16 Mo-li-chih (Marici) 157
Mo-li Ch’ing Hjjl# 127
Ma, Heavenly King 127 Mo-li Hai 127
Ma Jung 65, 67, 68 Mo-li Hung liiiiila: 127
Ma-ku 291 Mo-li Shou mil# 127
Ma-mien 110, 183 Mo-tzu 11 f 5, 19, 24
Ma-t’ou Kuan-yin 167 Mou-tzu ^ f- 262, 402, 406
Ma-t’ou-niang 91, 143 mu 204
Ma-tsu-p’o 145 mu-chung hsiao-t'ung P ff'J'S ^^2 n 103
Mahasthamaprapta 124, 166, 192 Mu-jung Yen 106
Maitreya 43, 124, 128, 147, 162 Mu-lien AM 187, 188
man 498 Mu-t'ien-tzu chuan f'f# 195,229
Manjusri 124, 125, 171
Mao Ying 164 na-chen t’ien-tsun 121
Mara 127, 275 Nai-nai-miao 165
 570 Index

nai-nai niang-niang 164 Pai-yun kuan Fl®’®. ^1

nan-chi [^'|i5i357 Pan Ku m. [SJ 428
nan-chiao 14,94, 139 Pan Piao mM 428
nan-ching ^ M 521 n 17 pan-shen ;pi|i 174
Nan-hai Kuan-yin ch'ikin-cliuan P'an Chin-lien l‘^9
169 P’a.i KufI* 340
Nan-jung Ch’u 417 Pandaravasini 167, 168
nan-kuan 34, 378; kuan-kiuin, 288 Pao-p’u-tzu See Ko Hung
Nan-kung [^',^'474 n 58 Pao-wen t’ung-lu 315
nan-tzu yi tsang-ching, nii-tzu vi vueh-shui Paramartha 39
'Pj fl:XiS.m,k Tl^Xn7K 518 pei-chi yu-sheng chen-chiin ® ^M©
Nanking 107, 108 156
nei-cli 7 ^ 465 ff. pei-ti Xt%' 332
nei-ch ’i-che yi t 'u-ch 'i-che I in ^ Pei-tou 41: 4 130, 161, 170, 179, 227, 281,
Di ^ ^ /'< ■496 351, 356, 369,370
nei-hno 'A 203 P’ei Hsuan-jen 522
nei-kuan m 342, 439, 473 Peking 41:;^ 107, 108
nei-shih 473. See also nei-kuan pen ^ 212, 216
nei-tan 345 P’eng-ch’eng 257, 401,403
Ni-huan Palace (Upper Cinnabar P’eng-lai 281
Field) 268, 269, 271, 326, 327, 328, 332, P’eng-tsu 464 n 18, 546-47; sexual
346-47, 351, 367, 369, 457, 487, 515, 516, counsellor, 345, 518lf.
523, 551 pi-ch'i 342, 343, 463, 484, 486, 495,
Ning, Master 542, 549, 550-51 506,548
Nirvana 41,42, 47, 49, 409, 410; Ni-huan, Pi-hsia yiian-chiin 104, 164-66,
327, 457 168, 171, 174
Niu-t ’on 4^5^ 110, 183 pi hsuan-p 'in ch 7 [1^ ifb M *^21
Niu-wang 4^ £ 143-44 Pi-kan i:t4 121
nom 211 pi-ku (p’i-ku) 333; See mainly
Nii-kua (Nii-wa) 144,235 chueh-ku
nii-kuan 34, 378; kuan-kuan, 288 Pien i#, ^ 394
Nil Yii 416 Pien-ch'eng-wang 179
Pien Ho 4411 148
O-mei-shan |l|cilillJ 125 Pindola 162
Ou Hsi-fan 452-53 P’ing-teng-wang 4^ H 180
po (thuya tree) 222
Pa ^ (goddess) 233-34 po-shih ti-tzu M ±'^ /- 64
pa-cfia A !l!g 13-14, 141-43 Po-yi 206, 236
pa-ching /\ ^ 458 n 43, 553-54 Po Yii-ch'an 502 n 140
pa hsien A fill 161-64 Po Yuan 47
Pa-su chen-ching 316, 317 p 'o 6^ See him
pa-t 'ien kuang-ching chih yi-ch’i Potalaka (P’u-t'o, Pu-ta-lo-chia) 125, 167,
553 ■ 169, 170, 175
pai-ku F3 269, 332 preta 178, 181
Pai lao-yeh ^ 110 pu ff) (district) 376
pai-su yu-nii ^ ^ ^ ^ 349 Pu-chou 4 If! 227, 234
pai-su yikin-chiin 353 n 95 Pu Liang-yi b 416
pai-ti ^^156 pu-nao 345, 522, 539
pai-yiian chin-ching TL; ^ 523 pu-ni jen-hsing erh k 'e yi-shou, pu yi lo tsai
pai-yuan-chiin Cl 7C If 350, 353 nn 95 and 41 ^ A ■14 m «T te m, 41 /A m^’520
97, 371-72, 528 n 52, 537 n 104 pu-shih 44.^ 211
 Index 571

pu-sun 478 Sang-yii-tzu f- 476 n 62 IT

Pu-ta-lo-chia Polalaka sha-nii 80
P'u-fo-yi dung 261 sha-shen iifiji 174
P'u-hsien 124, 125 Shan (people) 220-21
p'u-sa See Bodhisattvas Shan Ch'in |l|^ 303
p'u-t’i-hsin 191 Shan-hai ehing 116
P’u-t’o See Potalaka Shan Hsien (l|r^ 305
Pure Land. See Amitabha shan shu-ehe H t|]( ^ 418
Shan T’ao 303-5
Rueika 127 shan-ts'ai t'ung-tzu {■ \1\
shang-ehen tzu-jan yii-hsii kao-huang
Sakravartiraja 186. Chuan-lun-vvang shang-ti Ji (M I'l E 5 /#. i: 362
Sakyamuni 124. 147—18, 184 shang-eh'ing l:|o 360
Samantabhadra 124, 125, 171 Shang-eh'ing ching 509
Samyuktagama 407 Shang-eh 'ing kao-shang pa-su chen-ehing
san-chen 350 316
san-ehiao 325, 449, 451,466, 496, 497, shang-eh’ing ving-wei chih kuan
524 n 29 353 ■
son ehieh kung H ^ ^ 158 shang-ch’u Ji®f 290
san-ch’ing 360, 372, 399, 456 n 36 Shang-fang 452
san-eh’ung 332. See also san-shih shang-hsien Jiflil 414
son hsing H M 159 shang-huang hsien-sheng tzu-eh 'en ehiin
san-huang e/iai 383, 387 ±M5E^.^;g^357
san-hui 34 Shang shu 1^' ^ See Shu ching
san-ku HIri' 119-20 Shang tan-t’ien JiTlEB 455. See mainly Ni-
san-ku 509 n 172. See also san-shih huan Palace
san-kuan [ta-ti] 34, 36, 82, Shang-ti 9-24 passim, 67, 73, 120,
158-59, 380 156, 225, 227, 232, 235, 275, 414, 436
san-kuan HI#] (Three Barriers) 339 n 57, shang-yiian JiTC 347, 362, 369; festival, 158
494 n 109 shang-yiian su-yu-chiin _b X ^ ^ 349
San-kuo-chih yen-yi H it 150, 151, shang-yiian t 'ai-su san-yiian ehiin Ji x
155 i:^Hx© 358
san-pu H f(j 448, 553 Shang-yiian tsung-ch’i ±x^.f(, 553
san-se kuang-eh V H fe ^ M 513 shao-ch’ing 350
san-shih H7’ 36, 269, 271, 331-38, 366 Shao-weng 365
san-t 'ai H ic 82 Shao Yung MM 70-71
san-( 'ien chai H^]^ 381 n 19 shao-yiian 'p x 350
San-t 'ien cheng-fa ching H ^ IE 317 she #. (earth god) 5, 95, 105, 106, 211,218,
san-ts'ai H^‘ 55 219
san-t'u HI^389 she-ehi ifitfi 140
San-tung eh 'iung-kang H '/1^ I® 314 she-tsu (|ij:/iS 105
San-tung chu-nang 315 shen ;[ii]i (spirit) 47-48, 85, 255, 284, 448,
san-w'u-eh’i-ehiu HH-tTl 512, 536 n 97 ff'. 462,465,517, 520
san-yi H-' 366, 394, 396, 537 n 104 shen % (Self) 71,448
san-yiian HTC 513 shen-chiin 378
san-yiian ehai Hx^ 35, 399 Shen-hsien ehuan ijiiji filj 394
san-yiian fu-jen ^jt^K 353 shen-jen A 284
San-yiian p’in-chieh ehing 347, shen-kung-tzu /jif]! f 528 n 52
361 Shen-lu #1/1 479
san-yiian tzu-ching ehiin 358 shen-inieh #^48
sao-ch’ing-niang 97 Shen Seng-chao 104
 572 Index

Shcn t ’ien-shih Ef3 488, 501 shou yang-ming £ 0^ 451

Shen Yueh \\\ shou-yi 'p- 36, 282, 365, 368, 409, 419
sheng ^ 136, 414 shu 418
sheng-chang ^ See khakkara Shu clung 24, 59-69 passim, 134, 216,
sheng-ch 7 ^ 341,459, 500 229,232,235
sheng-fei 146 Shu-men g-f') 228
Slieng-hsuon clung # 366 Shui-hu-chuan 149
sheng-jen ^ A 136, 414 shui huo lien A A ^ 446 n 3
Sheng-kung 362 shui-ku 450
sheng-mu 164 shui-kuan (Agent of Water) 158-59
sheng-ssu-lun 181 shui-kuan (Water Official) 362
sheng-ssu tsui-lu 363 shui-po AfS 228
sheng-ti ^^102 shui-yin TKM 331
sheng-tsang 470, 542 Shun ^ 206, 226, 232, 359
Sheng-wu-miao ^ ^ ^ 138 Shun-chi miao HIM ^ ^ 146
shill P (Corpse) 10. See also san-shih Shun-yii Rung 430
shill ^rti (Master) 34, 58, 288, 535, 539 Shuo ke-chieh 470
shih-che 132, 135 Sirius 91, 172, 227
shih-ch'i P ^ (Corpse Breath) 516 souls. See hun-p ’o
shih-ch'i (Feeding upon Breath) Ssu-chi Yiin-ya chih fa 510
338, 343,484 ssu-ch’iW%, 341,459, 500, 516
Shih-ch’i fa & 503 Ssu Chin-kang EH ^ P^IJ 126-27
Shih-chia See Sakyamuni ssu-fang 525
shih-chieh P M 32, 194-95, 267, 308, 320, ssu-hai EH M 228
321,410, 427-30, 446 ssu-hsien EH M 132
Shih clung 8, 9, 19, 59-63, 69, 134, Ssu-kung 362
205-17 passim ssu-k’ung 357
shih-erh yuan-chia “F —173 ssu-k ’ung-kung ^ ^ ^ 528 n 52
Shih Fen HS 160 Ssu-ma Chao 307
shill feng-ch’i '^B^M.462 Ssu-ma Ch’eng-cheng 507, 510
shih-jen jfr )\ 446, 482, 495 Ssu-ma Ch’ien 133, 135,413,427
shih-jih shih-yiieh chih clung ^ H Ssu-ma Kuang 135
357 ssu-ming EH ^ (Four Lights) 350
shih-kung (lay Taoist masters) 81 ssu-ming n] ^ (Director of Destiny) 289,
shih-kung ® A (Master Instructor) 34 350, 358, 359, 365, 441,504,537 n 104
shih-mai 472 ssu-she 221
shill-pa lo-han A A ^ 161 -62 ssu-t 'u n] 357
Shih pao-fa clung 409 ssu-t 'u-kung ^ 5: 528 n 52
shih-pu-ch'ing 429 su ^ 460
shih-shen 1^# 48 Su Chien 109
shih-tien Yen-wang 176 Su Hsun 70, 172
shih-tsui 533, 537 Su Lin 438
shih-tsun tih'^ 51,275, 393 su-nii ^ A 519, 520 n 10
shih-wang F £ 176 Su-nil-ching 521, 532
Shih-wang ching p 177 Sukhavati 190, 191-94
shou Pi 206 Sun En 387, 534, 540
shou-hsi ^ 472 Sun Pin 148-49
shou-hsing 159-61 Sun Ssu-mo (or -miao) 337,
shou-lien 389; lien-hun, 446 462 n 10, 464 n 18, 485 n 78, 495 n 111,
shou-t ’ai-yin 451 518 n2
shou-ts’un shuang-t’ien 328,456 Sun Teng 303
 Index 573

sung 222 t ’ai-ch 'ang A 'if! 64

Sung Chiang 149 / 'ai-chi At^. 70, 73
Sung Ching 453 T'ai-chi chen-kung A1"!^. (ft'A' 268, 327, 351,
Sung-shan f^lll 102; master of. See T'cii-w u 456
hsien-sheng T'ai-chi ch'ing A't^AlU 350
Sung-ti-wang 5^^-i: 178 T'ai-chi sluing-chen kung K'ung Ch'iii Al"5t
sung-tzu Kuan-yin 165, 166 ±«2;^Lfi:359
sung-tzu niang-niang 165, 166, t’ai-ch’ing A/R 360, 537 n 104
173 T'ai-ch 'ing fu-ch 7 k 'ou-chiieh A io ^P
Sung Wen-ming 50, 316, 384, 390, 467 n 30
391 n 48, 541 T'ai-ch 'ing kao-shang Lao-chiin A (R i:
Sung-yang kuan 390 ^ m 360
Sung Yun 192 t 'ai-ch 'ing ta-tao chiin A iH A JI 358
Szechuan 11 1, 116, 123, 129, 172 T'ai-ch'ing Wang-lao A '(R 470-71
T'ai-ch'ing Wang-lao [fu-ch'i] k'ou-chiieh
ta-cha 13-14 At^A-^HSI^P 1^467
Ta-eh ’eng tien ^ 132 t 'ai-hsi 338, 343-44, 459-505
ta-ch’ih 353 T'ai-hsu-chen-jen nan-yiieh ch'ih chiin nei fa
Ta-chin 365 A)t£ft 515
ta-fang 315 T’ai-hsiian shang- fu A A A If? 362
ta-hai ^ 329 T 'ai-hsiian-tu tung-pai t 'ai-chi yu-kung
ta-han 533 A AI^IA'A 363
ta-ho (Great Harmony) 356-57 T'ai-hsiian-tu yiian-huang t'ai-chi tso-kung
ta-ho (Great Abyss) 228 A 363
Ta-jih ching 0 ^ 167 T’ai-hsiieh A^ 62, 64
Ta-lo t’ien 3^]^^ 88, 91,361 T’ai-huang kung AM'A’ 268, 327, 351, 457
ta-miao 426 / 'ai-huang yii-hsii chiin A M A ^ ^ 357
Ta-mo 192 /'ai-kuangyi-hsing chih tao ft
Ta-pao mi-lo 124; See also 513
Maitreya T’ai-rniao A^ 10, 12, 122, 222
Ta-pei ching ^ 186 t’ai-p’ing A A 33, 35, 534
ta-pei ta-tz’u 166 T'ai-p’ing ching A viii, 338, 461
ta-she 5, 219, 234; See also earth gods T’ai-shan SUl 102-4
Ta-shih-chih (Mahasthamaprapta) T’ai-shan chiin-wang 179
124, 166, 192 T'ai-shanfu-chiin 102
ta-shu 533 T’ai-shan niang-niang 164
ta-su nei-ching A' ^ 513 t’ai-shang A A 361
Ta-ts’ang 491 n 100 t’ai-shang lao-chiin AAA;^ 275, 340, 484
Ta-tung chen-ching ic '(I^ M316-17,318, T’ai-shang Lao-chiin chu-kung yii-li
325, 349, 357 AA^l-f^'^Alf 355
ta-t ’ung 342, 464 T’ai-shang san-t 'ien Cheng-fa ching
Ta-wei-yi hsien-sheng 469 AAHAAAIl 352
Ta-nei-yi hsien-sheng hsuan-su-chen-jen T'ai-shang su-ling ta-vu miao-ching
Yung-ch7chiieh AA^'^AAfel^lf 456
fflMI^476 t’ai-shang ta-tao-chiin AAAM^ 354
ta-yin lien A1^ 446 n 3 t’ai-shang tao-chiin AAM^ 275
Ta-yu miao-ching 317 t’ai-shih (Embryonic Nourishment)
ta-yii A PJ 227 338,486
Ta-yiian tzu-fang 556 t’ai-shih Mka (Great Beginning) 393
Tai tribes 7, 13, 199-247 t 'ai-shih t'ien-1sun A A tf"- 393
tai-fu A A 219 t'ai-su san-yiian-chiin A^HTCIP 353, 355
 574 Index

t’ai-su t'ien-tsun 393 Taoism, 25-37, 77-88; church, 286-98,

T ai-t ai ^;|f: 236 373-97; individual, 319-72, 433-41,
T 'ai-tsong-chieh Bn ^|i 168 445-553; in Six Dynasties, 265-98
t’ai-n ei 357; t ’ai-w ei-kung, 528 n 52 t 'ao-eheng pfej iF 543 n 6
t 'ai-wei t 'ien-ti chiin |q 357 T’ao Hung-ching 50, 276, 328, 360,
T’ai-wu hsien-sheng 460, 361, 384, 514, 518 n 2, 540, 541
474 n 59, 506-7 T’ao-k’ang 537 n 104
t’ai-yi i:— (Great Unity) 72-73, 93, 320; T'ao Yen pfej ^ 269, 334
deity in body, 282, 347, 351, 356, 366, Tara 167, 168, 169
436,537 n 104,538 n 111 Tathagata 184
t 'ai-yi (Chief Physician) 452 te-tao 284,414
t'ai-yi chen-chiin A' — 500 te-yi 368
t ’ai-yin yikin-ch 7 TC ^ 530 n 65 TengYiin-tzu sPST' 522 n 20
t'ai-yiieh ta-ti 102-4, 136, 142, /;■ (Earth) 95
150, 164, 174, 177, 179, 190 ti ^ (Emperor) 84; Taoist, 354
tan Bg (gall bladder) 493 n 106 ti-chi (Field of the Lord) 14
tan [-5/w] (cinnabar) 271, 331, 335 ti-ehi (prohibitions of Earth) 532
tan-ch'ih 508 ti-lnm 227
tan-chu 347 Ti K u 120
tan-t 'ien fJ-fB (Cinnabar Fields) 268, 280, ti-kuan itli'g' (Agent Earth) 52, 158-59,
325, 332, 339-51 passim, 366, 369-70, 294. See also t 'u-kuan
454-73 passim, 488-551 passim Ti-kuan (Earthly Barrier) 339 n 57,
Tan-t 'ien kung Fh ffl "S 327, 456 494 n 109
T'ang Pin ti-kung chiang-chiin 375
Tantric Buddhism. See Chen-yen-tsung Ti-tsang hbiji 44, 125, 170, 187-90, 191,
tao ^ 56, 67 193
Tao-an 386 ti-yi ^— (Lord One) 538 n 111
tao-chou iglfi 348 ti-yi itli— (Terrestrial One) 366
tao-chu il’Ft 348 ti-yii mm 176, 275
tao-chiin 275, 356, 361 t’i (breath, var. of hsi) 496
tao-fu, tao-tnu i|f 75 378 / 'iao-ch 7 ^ 475, 477
tao-hsing jg fj 348 t'ieh-kuai Li 162, 163
Tao-hsiian 3j|g 50, 169 Tien-liieh 374
Tao-hsiieh ehuan 334 tien-nni g 98
tao-ku 81 t 'ien ^93
tao-lien 348 /'ien-chi 532
tao-min 32, 34, 287 t ’ien-ching-chiin ^ ^ © 367
tao-nan, tao-nii ^ ^ 378 t’ien-ehing yi-clnin 349
tao-shen i|f# 396 T’ien-elni 55 Ft-; 547 n 19
tao-shih 32, 50, 81, 265 ff., 384, 388, t ’ien-eh 'u ^ 291
390-91 T'ien-han 227
Tao-shu i&Hni 462 n 10, 541 T'ien-ho 227, 228
tao-te 259 t'ien-hou 145-47
Tao-te ehing 81,365, 376. See also t 'ien-hun 356, 538 n 111
Lao-tzu T'ien-kou^Tf^] 91, 172
Tao-te yi-yiian 316 t’ien-kuan 55']^ (Agent of Heaven) 158-59
Tao-tsang vii-viii, 314-18, 536 T'ien-kuan (Heavenly Barrier) 339 n
tao-tu 3|i 348 57, 479, 494 n 109
tao-t 'ung jj[ g 348 / 'ien-kuan hsing ^ HI M 370
tao-yin shen-t’i 346, 542. See t 'ien-kuang 55 it 284
mainly gymnastics t’ien-kung ehiang-chiin 375
 Index 575

T’ien-lang 227 Tsung-miao ^ I'Jiii 10, 12

T’ien-men 486 tu if (vein) 454
/ 'ien-ming ^ ^ 54, 56 tu-ch'i 477
Tien-mu Shan ^ M ill 83, 400 Tu K’ang jm 149
t 'ien-p'o ^0^ 356 Tu Mu 3h!feS( 107
t 'ien-shang sheng-mu ^ _h ^ ^5 145 tu-shih 0i‘ 409-10
/ 'ien-shih 83, 289, 384, 397 ff. Tu-shih-wang ^|Erti I: 180
t 'ien-shih-chun ^ ^itl H 376 TuTzu-huai 168
T’ien Shu ffl ^ 428 t 'u-ku na-hsin oi: Wf 341
T'ien-t'ai 128; sect, 40 t 'u-kuan ih'B’ 8, 36, 47. See also ti-kuan
T’ien-t’ang ^'^190 t'u-po 7, 26
t’ien-ti 500 T’u-shan '^lll 165
t'ien-tip'in-mu jih 533 / 'u-ssu i 221
T’ien-t'ing-kung 268, 327, 351,456 / 'u-t 'an chai 292, 381-82, 384, 387
/ 'ien-tsu EH li. 234 t’u-ti shen 105, 108, 111, 117-18,
t'ien-tsu chih-mi 289 124, 128
t'ien-tsun 51, 84, 275, 354, 372, 392, t 'an # 343, 486
393, 396. See also yiian-shih t'ien-tsun Tung-chen citing 346
t’ien-wang ^3: 126, 275, 354 Tung-chen Kao-shang Yii-ti Ta-tung tz'u-yi
t’ien-yi - 366 yu-chien wu-lao pao-ching P ^ r%_hiE^
/ ’ing-chang chen-jen 279, 349 355
Tou-mu 157-58, 170 Tung Chung-shu g §7 02, 67, 71
tou-shen 173 tung-fang an-pao hua-lin ling-shih lao-chiin
Tou Tzu-ming 366 509 n 173
Ts’ai Lun 148 Tung-fang kung 268, 327, 353 n 96,
ts’ai-nu 520 456, 458, 491 n 100, 527 nn 50 and 51,
ts’ai-shen 03# 112, 117, 120-21, 123, 144, 537 n 104
147 Tung-fang Shuo MTjM 148
tsang 419 Tung-hsuan ling-pao ehen-ling wei yeh-t'u
ts’ang ^516 P ^M 'Mfi H Iffl 358. See mainly
Ts’angChieh 149 T’ao Hung-ching
tsao-kung 6, 112, 112-15, 122, 123, Tung-hua chen-jen ^ ^ ^ A 514
170, 171,380 tung-hua fang-chu-kung kao-ch ’en-shih
ts’ao ^ 363 yu-pao hsien-wang MMk MM
Ts’ao Chih 503 n 143, 540 358
Ts'ao Kuo-chiu 1^2, 163 Tung-hua yii-fei H 3E fc 517
Ts'ao Ts’an ^ ^ 428 Tung-wang-fu ^ ][ 'yC. 346, 355, 356,
Ts’ao Ts’ao Wf# 83, 373-74, 503 n 143, 492 n 103
529 n 60 Tung-wang-kung 195,281
tseng-fu ts 'ai-shen if ijig 03 # 121 Tung-yiieh-miao 103
Tseng Tsao 462 n 10, 541 Tung-yueh ta-ti T'ai-yiieh
Tseng-tzu ^ f 132, 135 ta-ti
Tso-fu 362 t 'ung-chung ^ 348
tso-wang 283, 368, 481 t’ung-lu iiti 347
Tsou-hsin 121, 144 Tushita heaven 128
tsu-ta-yin, tsu-ta-yang 510n 175 tzu # 222
tsu yang-ming 451 Tzu-fang ^ ^ 527 nn 50 and 51
ts’u-ch'un 498 Tzu-hu ^ P 328, 527 n 50
Ts 'un chen t’u ^ ^ [1] 453 tzu-jan [H 356
ts'un Jih tsai hsin fa # E3 515 tzu-jan sheng E'j A 393
ts’un-ssu 283, 314 n 4, 368 tzu-jan yilan-ch 7 fj A ^ 481
 576 Index

Tzu-kan 447 n 6 Wang Yiian £^291

tzu-ku^M 119-20 wei ^ (subtilization) 491 n 100, 493 n 105
Tzu-ssu 132, 135 ill (vein) 471
izu-su yuan-chiin 353 n 95 Wei Cheng 116, 117
Tzu-tan 528 nn 52, 55, and 56 wei-ch eng ^ 347
Tzu-wei-kung 111, 340 n 59, 362, wei-hai ® M 483
434 H'ei-laeh 374
tzu-wen chin-chien 391 wei-na fP 45
Tzu-yang chen-Jen nei-chuan A1^ ^ Wei-t o #,|t 124, 127-28, 169
316, 317, 321, 364, 438. also Chou wei-yin 350
Yi-shan Wen, Heavenly King ^^£ 127
Tz’u-t ’ang 122 Wen-ch’ang [ti-chiin] 129-31, 160
tzu-yi ii- 351 Wen-miao 132
Wen-shu 124, 125, 171
Vairocana 124 Wen-ti 129
Vaikamana 126, 127 Wen-ti hua-shu 129
Vajrapanibalin 126 Wen-tipen-chuan 129
Vinaya 181 wu £ (sorceress) 211
Virudhaka 126 wu g (dwelling) 203
Virupaksa 126 Wu-an-wang 151
wu-cheng £ fit 54
w ai-ch 7 ^ ^ 465 ff. Wu-ch’eng-tzu 490 n 97 f.
wan-shih-chiin ^15^ 160 wu-chi 219. See also wu-ssu
n an-shih shih-piao H ^ 132 wu-chi t 'ai-shang yuan-chun & ® A £ % ^
wang ]E (king) 54, 84, 218 356
wang (oblivion) 30, 283, 284 Wu Chien 453
IVang chen-jen 5: (ft A 489, 501 wu-ching po-shih 62
Wang Ch’i-han 168 wu-fa 354 n 99
WangCh’in-jo 315 wu-fu sis 54
Wang Ch’ung 29, 65, 259, 321,430 wu-hsing SfflJ (Five Punishments) 54
Wang Chiin J-il^ 130 wu-hsing Sfj (Five Elements) 55, 56, 57,
Wang Fu/Fou 1: (^ ) 46, 47 72,13, 226, 253-54, 339, 450, 51 1,512
wang-fu 1:3^281 Wu Jung-kuang A 106
wang-hsiang-t ’ai 179 wu-ku SiJ 8, 141, 333. See also chueh-ku
w ang-hsing 284 Wu-kuan-wang S'g'£ 178
wang-hsing wang-wu 523 wu-lao S ^ 507 n 154
Wang Hsiian-ho £:MfoJ 315 wu-li Sij^ 54
Wang Jung 305 Wu-liang-shou Fo 49
Wang Lieh f- ^ 303 Wu-lien clung 389
IVang Ling-kuan £ S 91, 169 wu-lu ts 'ai-shen S K SI # 121
Wang Mang £# 395 n 53, 452, 540 wu-lun Sf# 54
wcmg-ming ig 284 wu-se-chieh tefe# 48
Wang-mu 281 Wu-shang pi-yao ^ £ ^ 315
Wang Pi ]:^j 68 wu-ssu SIE 6, 111; wu-chi, 219
wang she £ ft 5 Wu-t’ai-shan SA UJ 125
Wang-shu 415 Wu Tao-tzu ^M’£ 131
IVang-ssu-ch'eng 178, 180 Wu-ti 151
Wang Su £^ 67, 216 wu-ti-chiin 537 n 104
Wang Sun-ch’ing £-^® 452 wu-tsang 269, 325, 339, 341, 346, 347,
Wang-tzu Ch'iao ££^ 281, 548-49 348, 367, 449, 466-523 passim
Wang Yang-ming £1^0J 72, 135 wu-tsang chung-mai 472
 Index 577

Wu Tzu-hsii W 86 Yen-wang (Hj M See Yama

wu-wei 283, 285, 356; ‘Nirvana,’ 259, Yen Yiian HTc 135
409 yi Is(Domain: Six Receptacles) 486. See
w'u-ya 51 ^ 461,506-11 mainly liu-fu
nu-ying-chun 350, 353 nn 95 and yi (thought) 469, 520
97, 371-72, 528 n 52, 537 n 104 Yi the Excellent Archer 96-97
Yi the Forester ^ 206, 236
yaksha 126 yi-chiao —^519
Yama 47, 52, 170, 176-87 Yi ching 50, 57-70 passim, 134, 206,
Yang Ch’eng 159 293
Yang Chi-sheng 108 Yi-ching |||^' 39, 40
yang-ch’i 448, 462 yi-chuan-tan — $|iF)-331
Yang Chieh 453 Yi-hsia lun Ira 47
Yang Chien litis 91 Yi hsien-shih g ® 509
yang ching-shen ijif 429 yi-jen — A 54
yang-hsing (Nourishing the Vital Yili ^,ii60
Principle) 36, 255, 430, 445 ff. yi-nii ^ 52\, 529
yang-hsing (Nourishing the Body) yi-po-shih 521 n 14
255, 267,421, 448 Yi-ti 149
Yang-ku 229 yi-tsei 534 n 88
yang-kuang-chiin 349 Yi-yu Gate 357
yang ming 369 Yin-ch’eng 329
yang-shen 36, 255, 268, 448 yin-ching chen-jen MIR M A 369
yang-sheng 421 Yin Hsi 46, 81
yang-tan 330 yin-tan 330
yang-tao 497 yin-yang 55, 56, 57, 71-72, 73, 93,
Yang Tsung 452 95-96, 195, 253-54; in breathing tech-
Yao ^ 232, 359 niques, 326, 449, 500, 501-2, 504, 519 ff.
Yao-shih-nang ^ gip ^ see Bhaishajyaguru yin-yang yen-ming chih shu 1^ ^ ^ fifij
Yao-shih-wang liu-li-kuang ^ 6i|i IE^ 519
192 ying ^ (throat) 458
yeh ^ 454 Ying, King of Ch’u ^E^ 257, 401, 403,
Yellow Turbans, 33, 35, 158, 287, 323-24, 405
371-92 passim, 406, 408, 428, 430, 534 ying m (breathing) 550
See also Chang, Three ying-ch 7^^517
yen-ch 7 PH 468 ying-erh 351, 538
Yen Fo-t’iao 405 ying-huo 484
yen-hsia l^, E 472 ying-jen A 474 n 56
Yen K’ai-ming 509 n 173 ying-ming 346
Yen-ling hsien-sheng chi hsin-chiu fu-ch'i yu ^ 426
ching 339 n 57, Yu-ch’iieh 328, 329, 491
476 f. Yu fen 301
Yen-ling hsien-sheng lien-ch'ifa Yu-fu A ^ 362
& 474 yu-hsiang 341,485-86
Yen-lo ^ see Yama yu-ming chiao-shih 189
Yen-lo Tzu 492 n 103 yung-ch 7 M. 476
yen-ming chih fu 362 Yu the Great Ai^ 4, 149, 206, 226, 235,
Yen Tung ^ 361, 553; San-yiian 359
p ’in-chieh ching, 347 yii-chiang E ^ 344, 469
Yen-tzu HE 132, 135 YuCh’ien EiS 108
Yen-tzu (mountain) 229, 415 yii-ch’ih 492 n 101,493 n 106
 57S Index

yii-ching 522, 526 n 44, 537 n 104 yiian-kuang jtit 347

yii-ch'ing 360; Palace, 359 yiian-lao chang-Jen A 538 n 111
yii-ch'ing-t 'ien i 357, 361 yiian-ling TcM 500 n 135
Yii-fang 3E0 527 nn 50 and 51 yiian-shih t'ien-tsun 51, 81, 88,
yii fu-nii chih shu, wei n o ku pu hsieh, 297,318,340,358,359,361,437
huan-ching pu-nao yeh '{Sliki k ^ ffe. yiian-shih t 'ien-wang 51, 352,
539 354, 359,434
Yii-hua 3E^ 527 n 51 yiian-shih wan-ch 7 chih tsu
Yii Huan U m 374, 377 517
Yu-huang[Shang-ti\ 88-91,92, Yiian-shih wu-liang tu-jen shang-p 'in miao-
101-105 passim, 129, 141, 142, 143, 147, ching TC^p^mKA-hun^® 318, 354,
170-89 passim, 361 393,397
yu-hiuuig chih chiin 354 yiian-yang chih men 491 n 100
yu-huang sheng-nm 5 f5 113 Yiian-yang ching TcPif^ 485 n 78
yii-kuei 539 n 113 yiian-yi chih ch'i 465
yii-Um-p’en ^[1^^ 80, 187 Yiian yu 415. See also Ch’ii Yiian
Yii-U ch'ao-chiuin (Dore, VI, 169) yiieh-chi ^ 532 n 77
177 Yueh-chih ^ ^ 257, 401, 402
yu-nii ^k 353 n 96, 516 n 197 Yiieh ching ^@59
yii shih 18, 98, 228, 233, 274 yiieh-ching ^ 532 n 79
yii-shu 526 n 44 yiieh-shih ^ ^ 532 n 79
Yu-ti-kimg 268, 327, 351,456 Yueh Fei HI, 138, 149
Yii-lien iE® 354 yiin-ch'i 3^^477
yii-tzu 541 n 123 Yiin-han 227, 228
yii-yi ^ (Jade Syrup) 509 Yiin-ke 236
yii-yi (Jade Liquor) 338, 505, 547 n 20 Yiin-t 'ing 527 n 50
Yii-yii heaven 353
yiian-ch’i 354, 356, 362, 465 If., 551 Zen Buddhism. See Ch’an-tsung
 “It is largely thanks to [Maspero’s] pioneer
work in the fields of Chinese religion, anthro-
pology, linguistics and history that China’s
contribution to the achievement of man could
first be reviewed on terms of parity with those
of other civilizations.
“To the question whether his discoveries,
opinions and interpretations have been out-
dated by the subsequent thirty years’ re-
search, it may be answered that leading schol-
ars still rely with the utmost confidence on his
writings as a framework whose validity has
outdated their most recent findings, and
whose detail has in many cases not been bet-
tered.”—Michael Loewe, University of
Cambridge.
Frank A. Kierman, Jr., teaches history at
Rider College and is co-editor of Chinese
Ways in Warfare. (Publication of this book
has been aided by a grant from the National
Endowment for the Humanities.)
On the jacket is an engraved diagram of a
mirror-back, of T’ang date though after the
pattern of Han mirror-mandalas, from the
Taoist Canon, ch. 196. For explanation of its
elements and translation of the poem it
includes, see Edward H. Schafer, “A T’ang
Mirror” in Early China 4 (1978-79),
pp. 56-59.

ISBN 308-4