Gong Chong宫崇

Style & Daoist names

Gong Song

Period

Eastern Han

Dates

? — ?

Role

Fangshi (Master of Methods)

Birthplace

Langya (present-day Shandong)

Life

Gong Chong, a native of Langye in the time of Emperor Shun of the Eastern Han, was a disciple of the master of esoteric arts Yu Ji. The "Biography of Xiang Kai" in the Book of the Later Han records: "Formerly, in the time of Emperor Shun, Gong Chong of Langye came to the palace and presented the divine text in one hundred and seventy scrolls that his master Gan (Yu) Ji had obtained above the Quyang Spring, bound in pale silk with vermilion borders, blue headings and vermilion characters, called the Taiping qingling shu (Book of Great Peace and Pure Guidance). Its teaching was rooted in yin-yang and the Five Phases, but was mixed with a great deal of shamanistic language. The officials in charge memorialized that what Gong Chong had presented was deviant and irrational, and it was accordingly stored away." In the ninth year of the Yanxi era of Emperor Huan (166), Xiang Kai submitted a memorial again presenting this text. The Taiping qingling shu is the ancestral text of today's Scripture of Great Peace, and was the fundamental scripture venerated by the Way of Great Peace. Almost nothing else is known of Gong Chong's life, but as the one who presented the Scripture of Great Peace, he occupies a place in the history of Daoist scriptures.

Contributions & Influence

• Presented the Taiping qingling shu to the court, a crucial link in the transmission of the Scripture of Great Peace