Ge Hong葛洪

Style & Daoist names

Zhichuan (courtesy name), Baopuzi, Little Immortal Elder (Xiao Xianweng), Immortal Elder Ge (Ge Xiangong)

Period

Eastern Jin

Dates

283 — 343

Role

AlchemistDaoist TheoristPhysician and Pharmacologist

Birthplace

Danyang Jurong (present-day Jurong, Jiangsu)

Places of activity

Mount Luofu, Mount Gezao

Life

Ge Hong, style name Zhichuan, self-styled Baopuzi (Master Who Embraces Simplicity), was a native of Jurong in Danyang under the Eastern Jin, and a grand-nephew of Ge Xuan. He loved learning from youth, and though his family was poor he cut firewood to buy paper; he received the way of the golden elixir from Zheng Yin, and also studied under his father-in-law Bao Jing. In the second year of Tai'an (303) he took part in suppressing the rebellion of Shi Bing and was made General Who Calms the Waves; later, hearing that cinnabar was produced in Jiaozhi, he sought appointment as magistrate of Goulou, and, taking his sons and nephews to Guangzhou, was detained by the regional inspector Deng Yue, settling instead at Mount Luofu, where he practised alchemy and wrote, and where he died, at the age of sixty-one (one account says eighty-one, dying in 363). His twenty-juan Baopuzi: Inner Chapters discusses immortality, the golden elixir, talismans and registers, and the arts of the fangshi, systematically arguing that 'immortality can be learned,' holding that the golden elixir is the essential way to longevity, while also practising the bedchamber arts, breath circulation, daoyin exercises and the ingestion of medicines, and emphasizing that a Daoist priest should 'cultivate form and spirit within, and repel evil without,' taking loyalty and filial piety as the foundation, thereby combining immortality-seeking Daoism with Confucian ethics; it is the summa of Wei-Jin theories of immortality-seeking Daoism. His fifty-juan Outer Chapters discusses contemporary politics and human affairs. He also wrote the Biographies of Divine Immortals, the Zhouhou Beiji Fang (Handbook of Prescriptions for Emergencies), and the (attributed) Xijing Zaji (Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital). The Zhouhou Fang records the use of qinghao (sweet wormwood) to treat malaria, which inspired Tu Youyou's discovery of artemisinin. Ge Hong is regarded as a pivotal theorist in Daoist history, bridging past and future.

Contributions & Influence

• Wrote the Baopuzi: Inner Chapters, systematically summarizing Wei-Jin theories of immortality-seeking Daoism and arguing that 'immortality can be learned'
• Recorded a great many alchemical techniques, an important document for the history of Chinese alchemy and chemistry
• Wrote the Biographies of Divine Immortals, establishing a genealogy of immortals
• Wrote the Zhouhou Beiji Fang, an important medical prescription text handed down to later generations
• Raised the social standing of Daoism through a path combining Confucianism and Daoism

Works

• Baopuzi: Inner Chapters
• Baopuzi: Outer Chapters
• Biographies of Divine Immortals
• Emergency Formulas to Keep Up One's Sleeve (Zhouhou Beiji Fang)
• Biographies of Recluses (lost)
• Miscellaneous Records of the Western Capital (attributed)

Legends

Tradition holds that Ge Hong practised alchemy and underwent liberation from the corpse at Mount Luofu, his complexion remaining as though alive, and that his corpse, when placed in the coffin, was as light as an empty garment; Ge Ridge in Hangzhou and the Chongxu Temple at Mount Luofu both preserve traces of his alchemical practice.