Page 272 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

BIGU 233

of the Three Treatises; T. 1852), but Falin's work remains the most complete
surviving statement of the issues between Buddhism and Taoism until the
renewed debates of the Mongol period.

T. H. BARRETT
lID Kohn 1995a, 180-86; 6fuchi Ninji and Ishii Masako 1988, 315-21 (list of
texts cited); Tonami Mamoru 1999, 40-55
* TAOISM AND CHINESE BUDDHISM

bigu

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abstention from cereals

The term bigu denotes a diet that allows one to avoid eating common food,
which in China mainly consisted of cereals. These were said to generate harm-
ful entities, particularly the "worms" or "corpses" residing in the intestine (see
*sanshi and jiuchong), in the epigastrial region, and in the brain; they were also
thought to induce pain, produce debris and excrement that cause the intestine
to decay, and destroy the vital principle of their host. Cereals therefore were pro-
gressively reduced and replaced by other outer or inner nourishment, including
herbs, minerals, breath (see *fuqi), and talismanic water lfushui :trf 7](, i.e., water
containing ashes of burned talismans, *FU). Besides bigu, abstention from cereals
is known as duangu ~~ (stopping cereals), juegu ~,@~ (discontinuing cereals),
quegu BP~ (refraining from cereals), or xiuliang {~;ffil (stopping grains).
The earliest document about this practice is a *Mawangdui manuscript
entitled Quegu shiqi BP ~ 1ft ~ (Refraining from Cereals and Ingesting Breath;
trans. Harper 1998, 305-9). In Han times, abstention from cereals was often as-
sociated with worship of the Stove God (*Zaoshen). *Li Shaojun, for instance,
taught Han Wudi (r. 141-87 BCE) a "method of worshipping the furnace and
abstaining from cereals to prevent old age" (cizao gudao quelao fang ;fO] I1I't~ll!
BP ~ 15; Hanshu 25.1216). By the early fourth century, according to *Ge Hong,
there were more than one hundred different methods, some of which he men-
tions in *Baopu zi 15 (trans. Ware 1966, 243- 49). A section of the Zhenzhong
ji ttr:j:Ii1ic (Notes Kept Inside the Pillow; CT 837, 14a-15b) is concerned with
bigu, and j. 57 of the *Yunji qiqian contains methods for ingesting breath and
avoiding cereals.
When the technique was successful, "movable cuisines" (xingchu fr m) or
"celestial cuisines" (tianchu ::J(m; see under *chu) were brought in gold and