Page 566 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

THE ENCYCLOPED IA OF TAO ISM A- L

looked like a living Laozi come to earth," and took great pride in his writing,
to the point of refusing to change even "a single word" (*Lishi zhenxian tidao
tongjian, Xubian fo.lil~ , 5.8a). He moreover seems to have had every intention
to continue his writing in the otherworld, dreaming before his death that a
divine personage ummoned him to heaven so he could "compile a historical
record of the perfected immortals" (5.8b).
Xie's work is the longest and most extensive of all Laozi hagiographies,
consisting of nine juan which begin with a general chronological survey, then
describe the events of the deity's life from the creation of the world, through
his transformations, birth, emigration and conversion of the barbarians, to
the revelations and miracles he worked in Taoist history, ending with the reign
of Song Zhezong (r. 1085- I100) at the end of the eleventh century.
Besides the Hunyuan shengji proper, Xie's work appears twice more in the
Taoist Canon: in the Laojun nianpu yaolii.e ~;g~~~1IIfr (Essential Chro-
nology of Lord Lao; CT 771) in one juan, which contains the first juan with
a commentary by Li Zhidao *~~ (thirteenth century); and in the Laozi
shilii.e ~ r 5/: ~ (Historical Summary of Laozi; CT 773) in three juan, which
represents an earlier, shorter draft of the Hunyuan shengji and includes parts
of juan 1-3 of the later finished work.

LiviaKOHN
m Boltz J. M. 1987a, 133- 36; Chen Guofu 1963, 171-73; Kohn 1998b, 31-32 and
passim; Kusuyama Haruki 1979, 393-98 and 452--61
* Laozi and Laojun; HAGIOGRAPHY

huohou

"fire times"; fire phasing

I. Waidan

In Chinese cosmology, which envisions the universe as functioning in cyclical
phases, time is one of the basic parameters. Different time phases are defined
by the twenty-four or seventy-two divisions of the year or by the seasons, lunar
months, days, and hours. Each phase is characterized by correspondence to a
cosmological value, ymbolized for instance by Yin and Yang, the Five Agents
(*wuxing), or the abstract emblems of the *Yijing (trigrams, hexagrams, and
their unbroken and broken lines). These cosmological values alternate along
the sequence of phases that form a cyclical time process.