Page 76 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

T H E ENCYC LOPEorA OF TAo rSM VOL . I

Fig. 4. Taoist Master Chen Rongsheng I~~~ writes a talisman in his
Tainan, Taiwan, home office (January I979). Photograph by Julian Pas.

both from this tradition and from the medical use of fu to bind demons and
cure disease.
The most influential Taoist account of the origins of fu, found in the
*Zhengao, relates them to a primordial form of writing that emerged with the
differentiation of the Dao at the birth of the cosmos, still used by the high-
est gods and available to humans who have received them through proper
transmission. The earliest script, the Writing of the Three Primes and Eight
Conjunctions (sanyuan bahui zhi shu =]C) Wr ~ ~), later became fragmented
and simplified into various mortal scripts. The second primordial script, the
Cloud-seal Emblems of the Eight Dragons (ba~ong yunzhuan zhi zhang )\ 1f[ ~
~Z~), remained unchanged and is the form used infu. The name given this
script seems to imply that the odd "graphs" inscribed on Taoist talismans were
fashioned to resemble ancient, supposedly purer, forms of Chinese graphs,
known as "seal script."
Generally written in vermilion or black ink on rectangular pieces of wood,
bamboo, silk, stone, or paper, talismans often do include recognizable symbols
and words, but they are not meant to be read by humans. Legible only to
the gods, they give power over troops of divine protectors, both within and
without the body. The ritual uses of fu are many. The early Celestial Masters
healed the sick through submission of confessional petitions and the ingestion
of water into which the ashes of burned talismans had been mixed. In other
cases, they were ingested whole with honey. Talismans were used to mark
sacred space and represent the cycles of sacred time. As protective amulets,