He Longxiang贺龙骧

Style & Daoist names

Sobriquet Longxiang, He Longxiang of Jingyan

Period

Late Qing

Dates

? — ?

School

Longmen (Dragon Gate) Lineage of Quanzhen, Quanzhen (Complete Perfection) Daoism

Role

Daoshi (Daoist Priest)EditorSponsor of scripture-carving and protector of the Dharma

Birthplace

Jingyan, Sichuan

Places of activity

Erxian Nunnery, Chengdu, Qingyang Palace (Green Ram Temple), Chengdu

Life

He Longxiang, a native of Jingyan, Sichuan, was one of the central figures in the Daoist textual-publishing enterprise of late-Qing Chengdu. Around the thirty-second year of the Guangxu era (1906), Yan Yonghe, abbot of the Erxian Nunnery in Chengdu, initiated a reprinting of the Essentials of the Daoist Canon (Daozang jiyao); He Longxiang of Jingyan, Peng Hanran and others took part in its collation and expansion, and more than fourteen thousand printing blocks were carved (still preserved today at the Qingyang Palace) — known as the "Erxian Nunnery Reprint of the Essentials of the Daoist Canon," the largest Daoist text-carving project of the Qing dynasty and the base text for the edition of the Essentials of the Daoist Canon in general circulation today. In the course of this project, He Longxiang compiled the Collected Texts on Female Alchemy (Nüdan heibian), gathering several dozen historical texts on female alchemy such as the Kunning miaojing (Wondrous Scripture of Earthly Tranquility), Nüdan yaoyan (Essential Words on Female Alchemy), Nannü dangong yitong bian (A Discussion of the Similarities and Differences Between Male and Female Alchemical Practice), Nügong zhengfa (Correct Methods for Female Practice) and Xiwangmu nüxiu zhengtu shize (Ten Rules of the Queen Mother of the West's Correct Path for Female Cultivation), and wrote a preface discussing the similarities and differences between female and male alchemical practice at such stages as laying the foundation, "slaying the Red Dragon" (ceasing menstruation), and the "milk channels." The Collected Texts on Female Alchemy is the most systematic surviving compendium of texts on female internal alchemy, a fundamental source for the study of Qing-dynasty female alchemy and Daoist conceptions of gender, and has been widely used since the twentieth century by the Immortality Studies lineage of Chen Yingning and by scholars abroad. Reliable records of He Longxiang's dates and detailed biography are lacking, and he is known mainly from the colophons and prefaces of the texts he carved.

Contributions & Influence

• Took part in the Erxian Nunnery's Guangxu-era reprint of the Essentials of the Daoist Canon, preserving the Qing-dynasty system of Daoist printing blocks
• Compiled the Collected Texts on Female Alchemy, gathering historical texts on female alchemy, the most systematic surviving compendium of female internal alchemy
• Helped make late-Qing Chengdu a center for the publishing of Daoist texts in the southwest

Works

• Collected Texts on Female Alchemy (compiler)
• (Participated in collating and publishing) the Daozang Jiyao (Erxian An reprint edition)