Bo He帛和

Style & Daoist names

Zhongli (courtesy name), Bo Zhongli

Period

Late Han–Wei–Jin

Dates

? — ?

Role

Fangshi (Master of Methods)Patriarch venerated by the Bo Family Way

Birthplace

Liaodong (according to one account, Badong)

Life

Bo He, courtesy name Zhongli, was a fangshi active between the end of the Han and the Wei–Jin period. The Biographies of Divine Immortals records that he studied under Dong Feng, and then went to Mount Xicheng to serve Wang Yuan (Wang Fangping), from whom he obtained the Central Scripture of Great Clarity, the Divine Elixir Recipes, the Celestial Writ of the Three Sovereigns, and the True Forms of the Five Marchmounts, later cultivating at the Western Mountains (one account says Mount Linlü). The "Bo Family Way," which honored Bo He as its founder, was popular among the gentry clans of the south in the Wei-Jin period; it is mentioned repeatedly in the Zhengao, and was one of the early Daoist traditions that coexisted alongside the Way of the Celestial Masters and the Li Family Way, its methods centered on the veneration and invocation of deities and on talismans, which later gradually merged into the Way of the Celestial Masters and the Shangqing tradition. Most accounts of Bo He's deeds derive from hagiography, and his dates of birth and death are unknown. Later Daoist texts of the Shangqing and Lingbao traditions also often place Bo He among the ranks of the immortals, as recorded in works such as the Biographies of Grotto Immortals and the Seven Slips from the Bookbag of the Clouds, his image gradually shifting from that of a fangshi to that of an immortal.

Contributions & Influence

• Honored as founding patriarch of the Bo Family Way, one of the early Daoist traditions of the Wei–Jin Jiangnan region

Legends

According to legend, after facing a stone wall for three years, the text of the Central Scripture of Great Clarity appeared on it; after ingesting the divine elixir he became an earthly immortal.