Page 259 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

220 T H E EN CYC LOPEOIA or T AO ISM A- L

eight directions of the world (the bamen or Eight Gates). The adept asks these
deities to let him ascend with them to heaven.
Isabelle ROBINET

ID Robinet 1984, 2: SI- 57; Robinet 1993, 187-95

* Shangqing

baxian

Eight Immortals

The names of individuals counted as the Eight Immortals changed over the
years. In Du Fu's ;fiffi (712- 7°) "Song of the Eight Immortals of the Winecup"
CYinzhong baxian ge" ~ 9:t)\. {ill ~), a humorous depiction of eight inebri-
ates, the Eight Immortals are listed as *He Zhizhang, LiJin *:£1, Li Shizhi
* ~ Z, Cui Zongzhi i€ * Z, SU Jin fi ~ , Li Bai * El (Li Bo), Zhang Xu
~ Ju:! , and Jiao Sui ~ ~. According to the early Song Taiping guangji "*:5f $i
tic. (Extensive Records of the Taiping Xingguo Reign Period;j. 214), a picture
called "The Eight Immortals," painted by Zhang Suqing ~:* 9~P , a Taoist
master from Mount Qingcheng (*Qingcheng shan, Sichuan), included Li Er
*~ (i.e., Laozi), *Rong Cheng, Dong Zhongshu '!lHHf, *Zhang Daoling,
YanJunping JI\U~t:5f (see *Yan Zun), Li Babai *)\ Er (see *Lijia dao), Fan
Changshou m -& ni-, and Ge Yonggui ~ 7k IJl. These were the so-called "Eight
Immortals of Sichuan." Clearly there was more than one group known as
the Eight Immortals. Perhaps the most famous was that which formed in the
Yuan period and became well known at a popular level in the Ming period
(see fig. 22): Han Zhongli ~~~~tt , *Zhang Guolao, Han Xiangzi flitJ',jt!-=t-, Li
Tieguai * m fJJ, Cao Guojiu \llr ~ gJ , *Ui Dongbin, Lan Caihe If *;fj] , and
He xiangu filJ {ill ~i5 (Immortal Maiden He).
With the exception of Li Tieguai, whose background is uncertain, Han
Zhongli and the others in this later group all have some form of personal
history. Han Zhongli was *Zhongli Quan, whose biography is in the *Jinlian
zhengzongji (Records of the Correct Lineage of the Golden Lotus), compiled
by Qin Zhi' an * it!Ji: (n88- 1244) and containing the biographies of the Five
Patriarchs (wuzu ]if£!.) and the Seven Real Men (or Perfected, qizhen --t~;
see table 17) of the *Quanzhen school. Here he is considered the second pa-
triarch, having received the teachings from the first, Donghua dijun *~*
;g (Imperial Lord of Eastern Florescence; see *Wang Xuanfu). He lived for