Emperor Wu of Han汉武帝

Style & Daoist names

Liu Che, Emperor Shizong of Han

Period

Western Han

Dates

156 BCE — 87 BCE

School

Fangxian Dao (Way of the Fangshi and Immortality-seekers), Huang–Lao Daoism

Role

Daoism-Venerating EmperorsSeeker of Immortality

Birthplace

Chang'an

Places of activity

Mount Tai (Taishan)

Life

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, is the most famous immortality-seeking ruler in Chinese history; the "Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices" of the Shiji (Records of the Grand Historian) takes his reign almost as its whole subject. He trusted in turn such fangshi as Li Shaojun (who sacrificed to the stove, transmuted cinnabar into gold and summoned the immortals of Penglai), Shaoweng (who by his arts summoned the spirit of Lady Wang and was enfeoffed General Wencheng), Luan Da (enfeoffed General Wuli and married to Princess Weichang, later cut in two at the waist when his arts proved ineffective) and Gongsun Qing (who used the tale of the Yellow Emperor casting a tripod and ascending to heaven to urge the emperor to perform the feng and shan sacrifices and seek immortality). In the first year of the Yuanfeng era (110 BCE) he performed the feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai, and thereafter repeatedly toured the coast in search of Penglai, established shrines to Taiyi and to Houtu, built the Bailiang Terrace and the dew-receiving basin to obtain the dew of immortality, and sent fangshi out to sea without cease. In his late years he issued the Luntai edict, repenting of "the affairs by which he had troubled and wearied the empire," and put an end to the fangshi's pursuit of spirits and marvels. The significance of his reign lies in this: it was then that the Fangxian Dao (Way of the Fangshi and Immortality-seekers) completed its union with state sacrifice (Taiyi and the feng and shan sacrifices), and such elements as the refining of gold in the search for immortality, Five Phases omenology and the pantheon of immortals were integrated into official religion, preparing the conditions for the founding of Daoism under the Eastern Han. Later Daoism further produced immortal biographies centred on him, such as the Esoteric Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han and the Han Wu dongming ji (Records of Penetrating the Mysteries under Emperor Wu of the Han), elaborating the descent of the Queen Mother of the West and her conferral of the True Form Charts of the Five Marchmounts (Wuyue zhenxing tu) and the twelve items of the Liujia lingfei — accounts far removed from what the official histories record.

Contributions & Influence

• Trusted fangshi on a large scale, uniting the Fangxian Dao with state sacrifice (Taiyi, the feng and shan sacrifices)
• Performed the feng and shan sacrifices at Mount Tai, establishing the ritual link between Han rulers and the cult of the immortals
• Made his court an institutional seedbed for alchemy, the quest for immortality and Five Phases numerology, directly preparing the way for the formation of Eastern Han Daoism
• Gave rise in Daoist literature to important immortal-biography texts such as the Esoteric Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han

Works

• (attributed to) the Esoteric Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han
• (attributed to) the Han Wu Dongming ji (Record of Emperor Wu of Han's Communion with the Hidden)

Legends

The Esoteric Biography of Emperor Wu of the Han relates that on the seventh day of the seventh month the Queen Mother of the West descended, bestowed four peaches of immortality and conferred the True Form Charts of the Five Marchmounts and the Lingfei liujia, but that Emperor Wu, unable to keep the precepts, in the end did not attain the Dao; the marvels from beyond the world recorded in the Han Wu dongming ji are likewise Daoist immortal-biography material of the Wei–Jin period and after, not historical fact.