Shi Jianwu施肩吾

Style & Daoist names

Xisheng, Eastern Studio (Dongzhai), Qizhenzi, Perfected of Huayang (Huayang Zhenren)

Period

Tang

Dates

780 — 861

School

Zhong–Lü Internal Alchemy Tradition

Role

PoetDaoshi (Daoist Priest)Internal Alchemy Masters

Birthplace

Fenshui, Muzhou (present-day Tonglu, Zhejiang)

Places of activity

Wanshou Palace of Xishan (Yulong Wanshou Palace)

Life

Shi Jianwu, courtesy name Xisheng, styled himself Dongzhai, and after taking up Daoist practice styled himself Qizhenzi, was a Tang-dynasty poet and Daoist priest. He passed the jinshi examination in the fifteenth year of Yuanhe (820) but returned east without waiting to take office, later retiring to Xishan (Western Hills) in Hongzhou (present-day Nanchang) to cultivate the Dao, "studying the arts of immortality and deathlessness." He left a ten-scroll collection, the Xishan ji, and nearly two hundred of his poems survive in the Complete Tang Poems, mostly on themes of reclusion and the pursuit of immortality. Works attributed to Shi Jianwu in the Daoist Canon include the Records of the Assembled Immortals of the Western Hills, the Anthology of Zhongli Quan's Transmission of the Dao to Lü Dongbin (attributed as "transmitted by the Perfected Being of Huayang, Shi Jianwu"), the Yangsheng bianyi jue (养生辨疑诀, Instructions for Resolving Doubts on Nourishing Life), and the Sanzhu ming (三住铭, Inscription on the Three Abidings). Of these, the Records of the Assembled Immortals of the Western Hills is grounded in the internal-alchemy thought of Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, and in five scrolls discusses recognizing the Dao, nourishing life, cultivation, and refining the physical form; it is an important text of the Zhong–Lü school of the golden elixir. Whether these works genuinely came from Shi Jianwu's own hand, however, or were attributed to him by Northern Song authors, remains disputed among scholars. Shi Jianwu is also a key figure linking Xishan in Nanchang with the Zhong–Lü lineage of internal alchemy.

Contributions & Influence

• Attributed compiler of the Records of the Assembled Immortals of the Western Hills and the Anthology of Zhongli Quan's Transmission of the Dao to Lü Dongbin, early texts of the Zhong–Lü internal alchemy tradition
• A representative Tang-dynasty literatus-Daoist whose poetry mostly concerns reclusion and cultivation

Works

• Records of the Assembled Immortals of the Western Hills (attributed title)
• Anthology of Zhongli Quan's Transmission of the Dao to Lü Dongbin (attributed transmission)
• Instructions for Resolving Doubts on Nourishing Life
• Inscription on the Three Abidings
• Anthology of the Western Hills (Xishan Ji)

Legends

According to legend, Shi Jianwu attained the Dao while living in reclusion at Xishan; one account holds that he led members of his clan across the sea to "Penghu," but this story is a later attribution.