Page 514 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

474 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

Hao Datong

1140-1213; original ming: Sheng nand Lin ~; zi: Taigu A r=tl; hao:
Tianran zi 'ra- ~ 1'- (Tranquil Master), Guangning zi Jl $~r (Broad
and Peaceful Master)

Hao Datong (Hao Taigu) is one of the Seven Real Men (qizhent~; see
table 17), the group of *Wang Zhe's disciples that was later recognized as
orthodox. With *Wang Chuyi and *Sun Bu' er, he belonged to an outer circle
of disciples who knew Wang for a brief time and acquired a Taoist education
before and/ or after their conversion to the nascent *Quanzhen school. Hao
further distinguished himself in the group as a professional diviner. He was
widely recognized in Quanzhen circles as the one who had the deepest knowl-
edge of cosmology, and he taught the *Yijing to his fellow adepts and their
disciples.
This special competence, which provided Hao with an income all his life,
was not his exclusive focus of interest. Anecdotes about his predication to
the communities, quoted in *Yin Zhiping's recorded sayings, suggest a rather
forceful leader. Although originally somewhat scorned by his fellow disciples,
Hao went through a period of ascetic training no less spectacular than theirs:
he sat three years in meditation on a bridge, and when he was thrown off
the bridge he spent three more years sitting in the riverbed. After earning
his Quanzhen credentials in this way, he returned to his native Shandong
where he founded several communities. He had influential disciples, includ-
ing *Wang Zhijin and Fan Yuanxi l!1II U1I B~ (1178-1249), who did much to build
an extensive and powerful network of Quanzhen monasteries in western
Hao's exegesis of the Yijing appears in his collected works, the Taigu ji *
Shandong.

I"i~ (Anthology of Master Taigu; CT II6I). Its only received edition, very
lacunar, is found in the Taoist Canon; it includes a partial commentary to the
*Zhouyi cantong qi, a set of thirty-three charts explaining the cosmological
processes as laid down by the Yijing, and several *neidan poems. This sort
of speculative writing on alchemy is rare in early Quanzhen literature, and
can only be compared with two works by early twelfth-century masters, the
Qizhen ji klYJ'l; ~ (Anthology of Opening Authenticity; CT 248) by Liu Zhi-
yuan!t~ LiJj!j (n86-I244), and the Huizhenji fl ti~ (Anthology of Gathering
Authenticity; CT 247) by WangJichang £ a ~ (fl. 1220-40). Hao's lost works