Page 251 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

212 THE ENCYC LOPEDIA OF TAOISM A- L

Taoist tradition makes Bao the recipient of several early doctrinal and
textual legacies. He reportedly began his Taoist instruction in 318 with the im-
mortal *Yin Changsheng, who gave him the Taixuan Yin Shengfu ,*}r ~ 1:.:f1f
(Yin Sheng's Talisman of Great Mystery), a script enabling adepts to achieve
*shijie (release from the corpse). According to another tradition, *Zuo Ci gave
Bao the *Wuyue zhenxing tu (Charts of the Real Forms of the Five Peaks) and
alchemical writings. Bao also met *Ge Hong, became his father-in-law and
his master in alchemy, and transmitted to him a version of the *Sanhuang
wen (Script of the Three Sovereigns) that Bao had received while meditating
in a cave. Finally, *Shangqing sources claim that Bao was the master of XU
Mai Wf~ (300- 348), one of the recipients of the revelations of 364-70 (see
*Yang Xi).

Gregoire ESPESSET
ID Chen Feilong 1980, 64-69, 124-26; Chen Guofu 1963, 76; Ofuchi Ninji 1991,
536-52 (= 1964, 117-35); Robinet 1984, I: 9- 19
?:i Ge Hong; Sanhuang wen

baojuan

"precious scrolls"

Baojuan is the traditional name for a form of vernacular religious literature
associated with popular Buddhist preaching and the syncretist religious sects so
often deemed heterodox by the Ming and Qing dynasties. A baojuan is usually a
lengthy prosimetric (alternating prose and verse) narrative meant to be recited
or sung in a private or public group setting. While aspects of the baojuan style
became sufficiently fixed to identify a large corpus of such texts, there are still
many variations among these texts. Buddhist themes predominate, yet there
are a few distinctly Taoist baojuan as well as more subtle Taoist influences on
a medium that generally interwove the Three Teachings.
Precious scrolls and Taoism. Rooted in the lay-oriented Buddhist texts found in
*Dunhuang, especially the eighth- to tenth-century bianwen ~y (transforma-
tion texts) and jiangjingwen l$H~Y (lecturing on the siitra texts), the earliest
baojuan were probably written by Buddhist clergy in the interests of universal
salvation (*pudu). The earliest extant list of baojuan, the Weiwei budong Taishan
shengenjieguo baojuan ~~/fItJ*LlJ1**ta*.~ (Precious Scroll on the