Page 118 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM VOL. I

Fig. 13. The human body represented as a mountain. Depicted here are the Cinnabar
Fields (*dantian), the Three Passes (*sanguan), and the palaces of the inner deities. Duren
shangpin miaojing neiyi It A _t ~t 9'Yf.l~ i*J ~ (Inner Meaning of the Wondrous Scripture
of the Upper Chapters on Salvation; CT 90), 8a-b. See Despeux 1994, 38-40.

of Great Peace; Robinet I993, 64-66), these details are provided as support for
meditation: visualizing the inner gods causes them to remain in their corpo-
real abodes and perform their functions, while their departure would result
in illness and death. More extended descriptions of the inner deities are found
in the * Huangting jing (Scripture of the Yellow Court) and especially in the
*Laozi zhongjing (Central Scripture of Laozi), and were later developed by the
*Shangqing school. The Huangtingjing describes the gods of the five viscera
and of the *niwan, the upper Cinnabar Field (*dantian) located in the region
of the brain. The Laozi zhongjing features a group of deities who dwell in dif-
ferent regions of the human body, all of whom are differerent forms taken