Page 695 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

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LIEXIAN ZHUAN

Liexian zhuan

Biographies of Exemplary Immortals

The Liexian zhuan is the first collection of immortals' biographies to have
survived. It is traditionally ascribed to Liu Xiang §;iIJ rill (77-8 or 6 BCE), the
important scholar, librarian, and statesman of the Former Han (IC 583-84).
Liu's name is attached to many works from this period in the bibliographical
chapter of the Hanshu (History of the Former Han) but the Liexian zhuan is
not mentioned there. However, the attribution of the Liexian zhuan to Liu
Xiang is accepted by *Ge Hong (283-343) in his *Baopu zi so if he is not re-
sponsible for the work, the attribution to him occurred relatively early. It has
been pointed out that sections of the text could not have been written until
the second century CE, so at the very least some later editing took place. In
short, the traditional attribution should be regarded as questionable.
Liu is also given credit for two other works which have titles of similar
form: Lienit zhuan 37!j3dW: (Biographies of Exemplary Women) and Lieshi
zhuan 37!j ±1$ (Biographies of Exemplary Officials). It should be noted that
he was an official reader of the Guliang '71 * tradition of the Chunqiu IT fA
(Spring and Autumn Annals) and later was responsible for the first serious
codification of Chinese books, In other words, he was firmly placed within the
orthodox scholarly milieu of his period. We might reasonably conclude that
when the Liexian zhuan was compiled the recording and reading of immortals'
lives belonged to the general educated world and was not the province of a
bounded religious community. Indeed, the collection later became widely
known in general scholarly circles and was a source for literary allusion for
most educated Chinese of later periods.
There are generally reckoned to be seventy biographical notices in the
Liexian zhuan divided into two chapters. Among the lives, the briefest have
fewer than two hundred characters, with appended encomia (zan ~). Sets of
these encomia were produced later than the biographies, appearing after the
330S, and are in the form of hymns of praise to the immortals recorded. The
authorship of the surviving encomia, found in the best edition of the Liexian
zhuan-in the Taoist Canon (CT 294)-is disputed. Like most other texts from
the early period of Chinese history, a close analysis of citations preserved in
old encyclopedias, commentaries, and other sources shows that portions of
text have been lost from the earliest "complete" versions of the Liexian zhuan