Tao Hongjing陶弘景

Style & Daoist names

Tongming, Huayang Yinju (Hermit of Huayang), Zhenbai Xiansheng (Master Zhenbai), Prime Minister in the Mountains

Period

Southern Qi–Liang (Southern Dynasties)

Dates

456 — 536

School

Shangqing (Highest Clarity) School

Role

Shangqing PatriarchDaoist ScholarsPhysician and PharmacologistAlchemist

Birthplace

Moling, Danyang (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu)

Places of activity

Mount Mao (Maoshan)

Life

Tao Hongjing, style name Tongming, self-styled the Hermit of Huayang, was a Daoist priest and scholar active between the Southern Qi and Liang dynasties, and the great synthesizer of the Maoshan Shangqing lineage. As a boy, reading Ge Hong's Biographies of Divine Immortals gave him an ambition toward the nourishing of life; under the Qi he served as a reader-in-attendance to several princes, but in the tenth year of Yongming (492) he resigned office and entered Mount Mao in Jurong, receiving scriptures and methods from Sun Youyue and seeking out authentic manuscripts of Yang Xi and Xu Mi wherever he could find them. He compiled the twenty-juan Zhengao (Declarations of the Perfected) and the Dengzhen Yinjue (Concealed Instructions for Ascending to Perfection), organizing the Shangqing scriptural corpus and its genealogy of transmission, and composed the Zhenling Weiye Tu (Chart of the Ranks and Functions of the Perfected Numinous Beings), arranging the ranks of the immortals; through his work Maoshan became the centre of the Shangqing tradition, later known as the 'Maoshan Lineage,' which honours him as its ninth-generation patriarch. Emperor Wu of Liang, Xiao Yan, was on close terms with him and often consulted him on affairs of state, so that people of the time called him the 'Prime Minister among the Mountains.' He was also versed in medicine, alchemy, astronomy and calendrical calculation, writing the Bencao Jing Jizhu (Collected Commentaries on the Materia Medica Classic), which established the classificatory scheme of materia medica studies, and, at imperial command, practised alchemy and wrote the Yao Zongjue (General Instructions on Medicines) and the Zhouhou Baiyi Fang (One Hundred and One Emergency Prescriptions, an expansion of Ge Hong's work); he was also renowned in calligraphy and literature. He died in the second year of Datong (536) and was posthumously titled Master Zhenbai.

Contributions & Influence

• Compiled the Zhengao and the Dengzhen Yinjue, organizing Shangqing scriptures, methods and genealogy, laying the foundation of the Maoshan Lineage
• Composed the Zhenling Weiye Tu, marking the beginning of the systematization of the Daoist pantheon
• Wrote the Bencao Jing Jizhu, the founding work of materia medica classification
• As the 'Prime Minister among the Mountains,' influenced the relationship between religion and politics under the Liang
• Combined alchemy, the nourishing of life, and calendrical calculation, an encyclopedic figure in Daoist scholarship

Works

• Declarations of the Perfected (Zhengao)
• Concealed Instructions for Ascending to Perfection
• Zhenling Weiye Tu (Chart of the Ranks and Functions of the Perfected Numina)
• Bencao Jing Jizhu (Collected Commentaries on the Classic of Materia Medica)
• Records of Nourishing Nature and Extending Life
• Huayang Tao Yinju Ji (Collected Works of the Hermit of Huayang)
• Yao Zongjue (General Instructions on Medicines)
• Zhouhou Baiyi Fang (Hundred-and-One Emergency Formulas, supplementing Ge Hong's Zhouhou Beiji Fang)

Legends

Tradition holds that Tao Hongjing received the chart in a dream revelation from the gods; that at his feathered transformation his complexion remained unchanged and his limbs remained supple, with a fragrance lingering for days; and his line 'What is there among the mountains? Over the ridges, many white clouds' is among his most famous verses.