Yin Changsheng阴长生

Style & Daoist names

Perfected Yin

Period

Eastern Han

Dates

? — ?

School

Fangxian Dao (Way of the Fangshi and Immortality-seekers)

Role

Fangshi (Master of Methods)AlchemistFigure in the Shenxian Zhuan (Biographies of Divine Immortals)

Birthplace

Xinye (present-day Xinye, Henan)

Life

Yin Changsheng, a fangshi of the Eastern Han, appears in Ge Hong's Shenxian Zhuan. Tradition holds that he was a scion of the clan of Empress Yin, consort of Emperor He of Han; born to wealth and rank, he loved the Dao, and hearing that Ma Mingsheng (also given as Ma Mingsheng) had obtained the secret of the Taiqing divine elixir, he served him as a disciple for over twenty years, and though most of his fellow followers gave up, he alone did not slacken, whereupon Ma Mingsheng transmitted to him the Taiqing Shendan Jing on Mount Qingcheng. He afterward entered a stone chamber on Wudang Mountain and succeeded in compounding the elixir, distributed gold to aid the poor, wandered the human world for over three hundred years, and finally ascended to heaven in broad daylight. The tradition also holds that he wrote three essays of his own, arguing that the way of immortality can be studied and that alchemy can be accomplished, in refutation of the claim that immortality cannot be learned. Yin Changsheng's significance in the history of Daoism lies chiefly in two points: first, together with Ma Mingsheng and the Yin and Zhang lines, he forms part of the transmission genealogy of external alchemy within the Taiqing Jing textual system; second, from the Song dynasty on, a commentary on the Zhouyi Cantong Qi circulated under the title 'Commentary by Yin Changsheng,' which is considered a work attributed to him under a false name. His life is recorded entirely in hagiography, with no corroboration in the standard histories, and should be regarded as a legendary figure constructed by the Han–Wei external-alchemy tradition to establish its own authority, rather than as a verifiable historical individual.

Contributions & Influence

• A key link in the transmission genealogy of external alchemy within the Taiqing Shendan Jing system
• The three essays attributed to him in the Shenxian Zhuan are representative early texts of the theory that immortality can be attained through study
• An important source for the alchemical legends of Wudang Mountain and Mount Qingcheng

Works

• (Traditionally attributed) Self-Preface in Three Chapters on Alchemical Formulas
• (Pseudonymously attributed) Commentary on the Zhouyi Cantong Qi

Legends

Episodes such as his daylight ascension, his distribution of gold to aid the poor, and his three-hundred-year wandering through the human world after compounding the elixir all derive from the Shenxian Zhuan and are religious legend. The commentary on the Zhouyi Cantong Qi attributed to Yin Changsheng is generally regarded by scholars as a work falsely attributed to him from the Song dynasty onward, and cannot be taken as evidence of his actual relationship to the Cantong Qi.