Page 498 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

TH E E N CYCLOPEDIA OP TAOI SM A- L

the throne, the paramount importance of preserving the body The essence
of his advice was to shut out external stimuli allowing the body to restore
itself, and to maintain tranquillity and purity, not exposing the body to strain.
This advice is quoted in chapter 14 of *Huainan zi and the entire anecdote is
reproduced as Guangcheng zi's biography in *Shenxian zhuan. Guangcheng
zi claims that by using these methods he has lived 1200 years.
Not surprisingly, in later tradition Guangcheng zi was understood to be one
of the transformations of Laozi, although in the *Laozi bianhua jing, an early
text to explicate these transformations, Guangcheng zi is said to have lived in
the time of Zhu Rong 15(, I*l~ while one of his disciples, Tian Lao 7( ~, was
Laozi in the time of Huangdi. However, later listings of Laozi's incarnations
typically have Guangcheng zi as Huangdi's teacher.
An alternate version of this encounter is told in chapter 17 of *Baopu zi (trans.
Ware 1966, 289) where Guangcheng zi's lesson for Huangdi related to avoiding
snakes while climbing mountains. Guangcheng zi instructed the emperor to
hang realgar from his belt which would cause all the snakes to slither away

Benjamin PENNY
m Campany 2002, 159- 61; Little 2000b, 177; Seidel 1969, 66 and I03

~ HAGIOGRAPHY

gui

spirit; demon; ghost

The wordgui broadly defines spirit beings in general, as in the termguishen !l
:fill or "spirits and gods" (in some contexts, "demons and gods"). Traditionally,
the Chinese have believed that human life is borne by two "souls," the *hun
and the *po. In simple terms, the hun is the spiritual dimension, and the po the
physical. Since both can be reduced to *qi (pneuma), however, there is no sense
of duality between them. When a person dies, the union of hun and po dissolves,
with the hun returning to heaven and the po returning to the earth. Both then
change: the hun, having ascended to heaven, is called *shen (spirit, or deity)
and the po, having descended to the earth, is calledgui. The shen is believed to
remain in heaven permanently, endowed with the spiritual power to protect its
descendants, and to return to where its descendants live on the occasions of
festivals. On the other hand, thegui, like the physical body, should have no more
existence, and so it is not expected to return to this world. Therefore, gui that