Page 243 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

204 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

grandfather had been posted there as the prefectural superintendent of schools
for classical learning. These sources report that, after his father died young,
his mother remarried into a Bai 8 family from Leizhou ~ 1'1'1 (Guangdong),
which her son thereafter took as his surname, with Yuchan ("jade Toad") as
his given name. Bai's lack of concern for poetic decorum allegedly led him
to abandon his early classical education in favor of spiritual matters, and he
had become a disciple of the adept *Chen Nan by 1205. Before Chen passed
away in 1213, Bai is said to have received from him both the neidan teachings
passed down from *Zhang Boduan and the teachings of Celestial Lord Xin
(Xin tianjun **t!") on the Thunder Rites (*leifa). This knowledge became
the foundation of what Bai taught his disciples and followers.
From 1213 to 1215, Bai apparently lived as an itinerant religious practi-
tioner, traveling up the east coast of China from Leizhou to Zhangzhou
~HI, Quanzhou jjU+I, and Fuzhou (all now in Fujian province), distribut-
ing texts and performing rituals for various interested elite, before turning
inland. He settled in the Wuyi mountains (*Wuyi shan, Fujian) in late 1215,
aided by the patronage of the local literatus Zhan Yanfu tr£~ X and the
retired Zhejiang scholar Su Sen a~. He gained his reputation among the
localliterati partly, by impressing them with his remarkable calligraphy and
painting.
Over the next seven years Bai was very active, teaching alchemy, perform-
ing and teaching rituals, and writing literary texts. During this period he
frequented religious centers in Fujian, jiangxi, and Zhejiang, but very little
is known of him or his activities after 1222. He evidently took on the role of
a self-declared *Shenxiao (Divine Empyrean) ritual practitioner who stressed
the Thunder Rites, or a recipient and interpreter of the texts and traditions
of neidan. He is also credited with a coherent set of hagiographies and essays
on the *jingming dao (Pure and Bright Way) traditions tied to *Xu Xun, the
main *Zhengyi (Orthodox Unity) temple on Mount Longhu (*Longhu shan,
jiangxi), and the main Taoist temple in the Wuyi mountains. A few texts
bearing Bai's name date to 1227 and 1229, suggesting that he may have been
active until about that time, but like many of the texts ascribed to him, the
circumstances of his passing are more a matter of commemorative cultic
practices than hard historical facts. By the time his two main disciples, *Peng
Si (fl. 1217-51) and Liu Yuanchang f'i4:5i ~ (fl. 1217-37), assembled their master's
teachings for publication in 1237, Bai's mortal existence had certainly ended,
though he remained a source of revealed wisdom for his devotees for centuries
to come.
Besides initiating a score or so disciples between 1215 and 1222, Bai also
separately taught other groups of adepts eager to learn about the contempla-
tive alchemy of Zhang Boduan, and the Thunder Rites tied to the Shenxiao