Biographies of Divine Immortals神仙传
- Also known as
- Ge Hong's Biographies of Divine Immortals
- Author / transmission
- Ge Hong
- Period
- Eastern Jin · Written by Ge Hong (c. 283–343), composed roughly in the early Eastern Jin; the original was in ten chapters, but the number of chapters and figures varies among transmitted editions (most give either eighty-four or ninety-two figures), and the text was further compiled and supplemented by Tang and Song editors.
- Canon division
- Dongzhen Section, Records and Biographies Category
- Collected in
- Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era, Dongzhen Section, Jizhuan Category (with a separate compilation from the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era)
- Category
- Immortal Biographies
- Fascicles
- 10 juan
Synopsis
The Biographies of Divine Immortals is a collection of immortal biographies written by Ge Hong following his Baopuzi: Inner Chapters; he relates that because his disciple Teng Sheng asked whether immortality could be learned by people in the world, he "gathered together the immortals of antiquity found in the immortality scriptures, ingestion formulas and the writings of the hundred schools," intending to provide factual evidence that immortality can be learned and long life attained. The figures it includes — such as Guangchengzi, Pengzu, Master Baishi, Wei Boyang, Yin Changsheng, Zhang Daoling, Zuo Ci, Ge Xuan, Feng Junda, Master Hugong, Ji Zixun, Wang Yuan, Magu, Li Shaojun, and Liu An, Prince of Huainan — are mostly masters of methods of the Han and Wei and figures of early Daoism; the accounts are far more detailed than those in the Biographies of Exemplary Immortals, with elaborate plots, and also record techniques of the golden elixir, talisman water, transformation, and the command of ghosts and spirits. Among these, the biographies of Wei Boyang, Master Hugong, and Magu were especially influential. The original book was lost early on, and the present text is mainly compiled from quotations in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, the Seven Slips from the Bookbag of the Clouds, and the Records of the Assembled Immortals of the Three Caverns, so that different editions vary considerably; Hu Shouwei's Collated and Annotated Biographies of Divine Immortals is the standard critical edition.
Key Ideas
- Provides biographical evidence that "immortality can be learned"
- Techniques of the golden elixir, talisman water, transformation, and commanding spirits
- A gallery of Han–Wei masters of methods and early Daoist figures
- The source of classic immortal tales such as Magu and Master Hugong
- The original book is lost; the present text is a compiled reconstruction
Structure
Ten chapters, each containing several biographies, written in detailed, novelistic prose.
Editions
- Daoist Canon of the Zhengtong Era edition
- Compilation from the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era
- Hu Shouwei, Collated and Annotated Biographies of Divine Immortals (Zhonghua Book Company, 2010)
Commentaries
- Hu Shouwei, Collated and Annotated Biographies of Divine Immortals
Translations
- English translation and study by Robert Ford Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth (2002)
Full Text & Online Resources
Related scriptures
Biographies of Exemplary Immortals, Baopuzi: Inner Chapters, Biographies of Grotto ImmortalsRelated figures
Ge Hong, Wei Boyang, Zuo Ci, Ge Xuan, Zhang Daoling, Liu An- Robert F. Campany, To Live as Long as Heaven and Earth, 2002
- 胡守为《神仙传校释》
- 任继愈主编《道藏提要》
- 维基百科「神仙传」条