Page 277 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAO ISM A- L

Fig. 24. Treading the twenty-eight lunar mansions (*xiu). *Jinsuo liuzhu yin
(Guide to the Golden Lock and the Flowing Pearls; eT 1015). 2.2a-b.

Taoist texts as the label of some variants of the complete practice. This style
of walking typically consists in simply dragging one foot after the other, and
it is usually explained with reference to the legend of Yu. who exerted himself
in his effort to establish order in the world after the great inundation to such
an extent that he became lame on one side of his body. The earliest, most
detailed account of the Paces of Yu is the one found inj. 17 of the *Baopu zi
(trans. Ware 1966, 285-86), where each pace comprises three steps, and the
movement thus appears like the waddle of a three-legged creature. This triple
structure of the walk in the developed Taoist forms of bugang was no novelty,
but in fact represents the most characteristic aspect of the Paces of Yu described
in the medical and divinatory texts of the late Warring States (Harper 1998;
Rao Zongyi and Zeng Xiantong 1982).
It stands to reason that, at least in the minds of some practitioners of
thi period, the three paces were associated with the notion of a movement
through the three levels of the cosmos, leading the performer to heaven.
The fact that already in the early Han dynasty, the steps seem to have been
connected with the three pairs of stars that are situated under the Northern
Dipper and referred to as the Three Terraces (santai .::: is' ; see fig. 23), or the
Celestial Staircase (tianjie 7( ~~), would seem to support this. It would appear,
in other words, that even in this early period the Paces of Yu constituted a
close parallel to the three Strides Vigm in early Vedic mythology, which are