Empyreal Powers and Chthonian Edens: Two Notes on T'ang Taoist Literature

Empyreal Powers and Chthonian Edens: Two Notes on T'ang Taoist LiteratureAuthor(s): Edward H. SchaferSource: Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 106, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1986), pp. 667-677Published by: American Oriental SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/603530 .

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EMPYREAL POWERS AND CHTHONIAN EDENS: TWO NOTES ON T'ANG TAOIST LITERATURE

EDWARD H. SCHAFER

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY

Two popular themes which germinated in very early Taoist belief and practice illustrate the extent to which Taoist motifs penetrated the literature of T'ang. One is represented by poetic versions of the tale of "Peach Blossom Font"-not the edifying myth associated with T'ao Ch'ien, but the mystical and romantic adventure set in the bowels of Mount T'ien T'ai, here exemplified by a sequence of five poems by Ts'ao T'ang, the chronicler of enigmatic paradises. The other takes us into the conjoint realms of Highest Clarity exorcism and cosmology, where celestial lights have a cardinal role. Many poetic examples are provided, especially from the verses of Wu YUn, the artificer of ecstatic transits of space.

I. THE OTHER PEACH BLOSSOM FONT

Two PERSONS, NOW ALMOST FORGOTTEN, appear frequently in T'ang poetry. They are Liu Ch'en 'Jjg and Juan Chao ROE . Sometimes they appear together as "Liu & Juan," or as "the Two Esquires" (erh lang -ZJ ), sometimes singly as "Esquire Liu" or "Esquire Juan." Their story was told in a collection of wonder tales called Yu ming lu WIOJ , "Register of the Occult and the Illuminated"-evidently to be under- stood in the sense of stories of two worlds, the hidden world of phantoms and the sunlit world of men. The book was apparently written in the sixth century. In the main it tells of events attributed to the Han, Chin, Sung, and Eastern Wei. The supposed author is Liu I-ch'ing W'lqe . Some time after the T'ang it disappeared, to survive in quotations, fragments, and abbreviated versions. A reconstruction by Lu Hsun 4% is readily accessible.'

In outline, the story of the two lads, set in A.D. 62, is as follows. The pair sought rare medicinal plants in the recesses of Mount T'ien T'ai X iii , where they lost their way. They were saved from starvation by the fruit

of a peach tree on the edge of a precipice, and by cakes that floated to them out of a grotto. They traced an underground stream back towards its source, to find two magical maidens who received them lovingly. Next spring they felt the pangs of homesickness, and returned to the world of men, to find that seven generations had passed. In A.D. 383 they disappeared forever, presum- ably into the divine world they had left. In T'ang poetry, allusions to long life in association with peach flower fonts and grottoes are at least as likely to refer to the adventures of Esquires Liu and Juan as to the simple, unspoiled world of Wu-ling A PA, popularized by T'ao Ch'ien rJ jf (Yiian-ming AMdi ) in his T'ao hua ytian chi It, "a . The youths became para- gons of divine love, almost interchangeable with Hsiao Shih i t, Wang Tzu-ch'iao i - * , An Ch'i V A, and other ageless demigods. Verses about them often exploit the Rip van Winkle theme of the slow passage of time in a perfect world beyond a grotto, contrasted with the swiftness of decay in the world outside its twilit environs.

Poets of the T'ang developed and modified this tale in many ways. A few examples of these variations follow, beginning with examples by Yuan Chen FE* (779-831). In the first of these, one of two on the subject of beautiful women of antiquity, the location and status of the female protagonist are obscure. It seems probable that we have a noble or royal seraglio representing the limestone grotto, and a pampered but lonely woman-a royal concubine or princess-in lieu of an immortal creature of jade:

There is no one in the depths of the cloister, where herbs and trees are shining;

The "Two Notes" published here originally appeared in the privately distributed series Schafer Sinological Papers, the first as No. 11 (22 May 1984), the second as No. 21 (12 February 1985).

1 In his Ku hsiao-shuo kou-ch'en i&'J'ZIPtt (Lu Hsun ch'uan chi *za4 , vol. 8 [Peking, 1973]). His patchwork Yu ming lu appears on pp. 353-436. The Yu ming lu is listed in the bibliographies of the Sui shu F* # and both T'ang shu

.4

667



668 Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.4 (1986)

The pretty oriole does not speak-she takes to the safety of the shadows.

Idly she plays with the water where flakes of flowers float;

They drift out, away from the gate's front-to entice Esquire Juan.2

The "cloister" may be an enclosed section of the palace-but it fits a Taoist convent just as well; then, the oriole is an enchanting young priestess. In either case, Esquire Juan is conceived to be a true and faithful gallant, a spiritual Galahad.

In the following pair of stanzas, with the title of "The Wives of Liu and Juan,"3 we see the original myth plainly:

The transcendents' grotto opens once in a thousand years;

Heedless they stole in-heedless they returned. The peach blossoms fly till all are gone, taken up by the

east wind; In what place will they sink and decay-gone, not to

come again?

Soft white lotus flesh, green [-tinted] clouds of hair-coils;

Loft-buildings and estrades, painted in polychrome interlace, against hills of blue kohl.

Peach flowers from a thousand trees, medicines for a myriad years;

Who knows what things they will remember-in the world of men?

Here Liu and Juan have taken the road back upon the millennial opening of the subterranean gate. In the human world they will perish like the frail flowers of a single season, long before that portal opens again. All remains as before in the Eden they have abandoned- there is love and beauty, and also the source of endless life. But that dream is fading fast.

Ch'in Hsi Ax, (ca. 720-8 10) treats the theme quite differently in a poem dedicated to a Taoist priestess, flatteringly portrayed as too refined even for Juan Chao.4

She stays by a clouded river-eats not a morsel; She neglects her herbal plantings-desists even from

cinnabar.

Apricot flowers clot into fruit-for nothing; Stone marrow forms dough5-as it will.

A blue ox6 lies where she swept the ground; A white crane roosts on the pine she planted. Both acknowledge the loveliness of this sylphine

woman, Who would never be wife to Esquire Juan.

In short, the priestess has attained a state of perfection in which she requires neither divine nutrition nor union with the most perfect of men.

In the tz'u 1J of the early tenth century, especially those in the form Nii kuan tzu -A a. preserved in the Hua chien chi It m , the male and female roles are reversed: instead of nymphs of jade fulfilling the dreams of mortal men, we find male star-dwellers who are the focus of the dreams of languishing priestesses. Liu and Juan are established residents beyond the grotto; the maidens peer into it hoping for a token of the magical presence.7 In the stunted epitomes of them which follow, the divine youth is always Liu Ch'en, although in one of them he is paired with Juan Chao; but elsewhere in T'ang poetry, Esquire Juan plays the role just as adequately.

In the verses of Niu Ch'iao 4-4 the female hierophant, typically garbed in the star crown and auroral robe of a Taoist initiate, entrusts her romantic dream to a bird to carry to Master Liu, beyond the River of Stars. She awaits his reply by the high altar.8

Hsueh Chao-yiin ffI1 OA, treating the same topic, reveals the newly inaugurated priestess in an atmo- sphere drenched with mist and moonlight, as she receives a reply, sealed with an azure jewel, from the same distant divinity.9

Esquire Liu rather than the priestess holds center stage in the paired stanzas of Lu Ch'ien-i ,_? . The broken-hearted woman mourns his absence, while he watches her sadly from the depths of the sky,

2 "Ku yen shih," Ch'uan T'ang shih AJift (Taipei, 1967) [hereafter CTS], han 6, ts'e 10, ch. 27, p. 1 lb.

3 "Liu Juan ch'i, erh shou," CTS, han 6, ts'e 10, ch. 27, p. 6b. 4 "T'i nu tao shih chii," CTS, han 4, ts'e 8, p. lb.

"Stone marrow" (shih sui XK ) is a mammillary form of calcite formed in stalactitic grottoes; it was powdered, moist- ened, and molded into pellets as a prime tonic.

6 One of Lao Tzu's mounts; cf. the immortal Paul Bunyan's blue ox Babe. For "blue," see "Brightness and Iridescence in Chinese Color Words," Schafer Sinological Papers, No. 9 (13 April 1984), 6.

7 The following examples are based on the versions and interpretations in E. H. Schafer, "The Capeline Cantos: Verses on the Divine Loves of Taoist Priestesses," Asiatische Studien 32 (1978), 5-65.

8 "Capeline Cantos," 43-45. 9 Ibid., 45-47.



SCHAFER: Empyreal Powers and Chthonian Edens 669

remembering his first encounter with her at the forest temple during the performance of the ritual "Pacing the Void."'0

A very different vision appears in Li Hsiin's 4f treatment of the scenario. Here the mystical chants and dances on the sacred stage dominate everything. The stone chimes echo through the grotto. But the air is oppressive. The godly visitor has left the congregation. It is not certain whether it was Juan or Liu. There are no more messages.11

Finally, Chang Pi t shows the reader a lonely priestess by a deserted, shadowed altar, her face hardly more than a dim reflection in a mirror, and Liu Ch'en only a fading memory.12

Young masters Liu and Juan are prominent figures in the poems of Ts'ao T'ang )J* , an ex-priest who wrote during the second half of the ninth century. Ninety-eight of a presumed one hundred quatrains under the rubric "Little Poems on Saunters in Sylph- dom" (Hsiao yu hsien shih 'J4fAiiin ) constitute the bulk of his surviving work.13 These are fanciful vignettes of flirtations, liaisons, betrayals, and separations, colored by hope, frustration, renunciation, or anguish, and populated by partly humanized deities and spirits from Taoist mythology, suffering or rejoicing in gardens, reception halls, magical caves, and on islands- both on earth and in the sky. Many of these episodes are suffused with an aura of mystery. They pose an enigma for the reader, who must decode the linguistic clues provided by the writer to determine whose face lies behind the obvious mask, whose laugh whispers in the shrubbery. The motives of the actors are sometimes obscure, sometimes simple. Their actions are sometimes furtive, sometimes flamboyant. But hanging over all is the menace of corruption, and the anxieties generated by the prospect of death. Esquires Liu and Juan play out their assigned roles, just as do their grander counterparts, such as Han Wu Ti A * and Blue Lad (Ch'ing T'ung AJ ), sovereign of the sunrise sea,14 offering divine love as the route to salvation. But their handsome prospects for eternity are partly clouded by the suspicion that the eons themselves have their seasons, and their confidence in an endless springtime may yet prove to be an illusion.

One common stage setting in these enigmatic poems is the entrance to a grotto, the twilight zone which divides the region of transience from the realm of permanence. Here Liu and Juan most often make their appearance, as required by tradition. Synopses of these little encounters or one-act plays follow.15

In one of his quatrains,16 Ts'ao T'ang shows us a divine maiden, holding up her jade-threaded skirt, cautiously approaching the shadowy mouth of her grotto, and peering out for a glimpse of the expected Esquire Liu. She breaks a flowering twig from the peach tree standing there, and commits it to the stream that flows out into the world of men-a love token, and an invitation to receive divine instruction.

But this shy damsel is not Ts'ao T'ang's only version of the goddess of Peach Bloom Grotto. He reveals her elsewhere as an exalted and sophisticated lady, at ease in the celestial pageantry of the Court of Scarlet Pylons high above the pole star, who tosses a peach flower into the soft spring wind, confident that it will attract Juan Chao, evidently already known to her, if not indeed her established lover. 17

There are still other masks for this teacher of amorous arcana. In another of Ts'ao T'ang's poems'8 her lord, the supreme being of "Jade Splendor" (Yu Huang I-& ), after providing her with a purple wedding gown, sends her off to the Font of Peaches to welcome Esquire Juan, her designated husband. She carries as her mystical gift a flagon of liquefied gems, an elixir to keep him young forever.

In still another quatrain,19 the poet shows her in a flower garden, playing harmonies on her reed-organ by the light of the moon. She sends her maidservant, dragon-borne, to find Esquire Juan by the Golden Altar in the bowels of Mao Shan A dIj , and invites him to share a beaker of nectar in her company. Here, the young Adonis has shed all traces of mortality, and presides over secret rites in the eighth of the great grotto-heavens.

Among Ts'ao T'ang's longer poems are a number that appear to be remnants of an original set of fifty "Greater Poems on Saunters in Sylphdom" (Ta yu hsien shih *k&tdj ). Among these is a set of five, constructed around the basic plot of the two loving

10 Ibid., 47-49. " Ibid., 52-54. 12 Ibid., 57-58. 13 CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2. 14 On whom, see E. H. Schafer, Mirages on the Sea of Time:

The Taoist Poetry of Ts'ao Tang (Berkeley, 1985), 108-21; also Paul W. Kroll, "In the Halls of the Azure Lad," JAOS 105 (1985), 75-94.

15 For a more extensive treatment of Ts'ao T'ang's "Little Saunters," see my Mirages on the Sea of Time, the index of which will guide the interested reader to appearances of the two young heroes in other poems of Ts'ao T'ang.

16 No. 26; see Mirages, 42-43. 17 No. 98. 18No. 23; see Mirages, 74-75. 19 No. 45.




pairs at Peach Flower Font. The treatment, of course, is unique. Translations and comments follow.

No. 1: Liu Ch'en and Juan Chao Go Roving at T'ien T'ai

Where trees penetrate T'ien T'ai, the stone road is new; Where clouds merge with placid herbs, all is remote

and free of grime. In hazy auroras-unconcerned with previous events of

their lives; By water and wood-vain suspicions that they are

persons who lately dreamed. Now and again a cock cries to the moon below the cliff; From time to time a dog barks where it is spring within

the grotto. They do not know to what place they may return from

this land; They must go to the Font of Peaches to inquire of their

hosts.20

1-2: The first couplet embodies a chiasmus: trees + sky/ - clouds + herbs-the celestial inorganic vs. the terrestrial organic. (The 'ien of T'ien T'ai suggests both the grotto-heaven, the reflection of a sky within the mountain, and the constellation San T'ai --- 5 near the pole-star, in our Ursa Major.) The scene is the entrance to a grotto, whose path of stone leads to a different world, free of the winds of chance and change ("placid" = "immobile": ching ) and the dirt of our world.

4: They wonder if they might still be lingering in a fading dream.

5: If the full moon is setting, the sun is about to rise: it is dawn.

6: An elfin pet can be heard in the endless spring beyond the stone gate.

7: If they take this low road, where will they emerge at last?

No. 2: Liu and Juan Encounter the Sylphlings Within the Grotto

The sky blends with the trees' color, spattered with cloudy puffs;

Rosy dawn laminated-mountain fogs deep-the road vague, vanishing in haze.

Clouds thicken, cover the mountain-no birds of any kind;

Sounds of water along the race-there too are the reeds of organs.

Cyan sands within the grotto, where Potent and Latent are parted;

In front of the pink trees' branches, where days and months are prolonged.

Their wish is for some persons to come out from among the flowers;

If only they will not let that sylphine dog bark at Esquire Liu!2'

1: It is now broad daylight and fine weather. 2: But the mountain tracks are mysterious. 3: The visitors are detached from reality. 4: But they hear elfin music by a rushing stream;

they are inside the grotto. 5: Here is the boundary between the realms of yin

and yang the celestial and the subterranean. 6: The peach flowers mark a land where time stands

still. 7-8: The hidden owners of the spirit-puppy will

quiet him if they wish the two youths to approach nearer.

No. 3: The Sylphlings see Liu and Juan Off: They Leave the Grotto

Courteously they escort them away, out of T'ien T'ai; Surely they cannot come yet again to the transcendents'

province. The Cloud Liquor? Each time one returns one is

obliged to drink, The Jade Writ? Failing [right] occasion it may not be

opened more than once. The flowers are the grotto's mouth-they must always

be there; The water going out among men-surely it will not

turn back. They leave us here despairing at the head of the stream; The luminous moon on the cyan hills is shut out by

22 gray lichens.

3-4: Initiates into the mysteries have no second chance.

5-6: We, immortal maidens, like the eternal peaches, will remain here unchanged.

8: The light of hope for eternal reunion is darkened.

No. 4: Within the Grotto the Sylphlings Have Nostal- gia for Liu and Juan

They do not take up their clear-sounding zithers nor rehearse the "Rainbow Petticoat";

20 CTS, han 10. ts'e 2, ch. 1, p. 2a.

21 CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 1, p. 2b. 22 Ibid.




Dreaming in the dust, how can [the youths] comprehend the length of a crane's dream?

There is a sky within the grotto-but spring is bleak and lonely;

There is no road from among men-the moon fades in blue infinity.

Jade sand, azure-gem plants adjoin the cyan of the stream;

Peach flowers on flowing water: perfume filling the gorge.

With dew of daybreak the wind lantern has burnt itself quite out;

In this life there is nowhere to look for Esquire Liu.23

3: The endless spring of the grotto-heaven is affected by the two maidens' sorrow.

4: The moon of hoped-for reunion is fading away. 6-7: The underground Eden is as before, but it has

been corrupted by the breath of mutability: The maidens' night-light is exhausted; they will never see the youths again.

No. 5: Liu and Juan Come Once More to T'ien T'ai, but Do Not See the Sylphlings Again

They came once more to T'ien T'ai to look for the Realized Ones of Jade;

But green moss and white stones had already turned to dust.

Reed-organs and songs faint and far, closed off in the depths of the grotto;

Cranes in the clouds austerely private, cut off from old neighbors.

Herbs and trees in no way colored now as on that former occasion;

Hazy auroras do not resemble those of yesteryear's spring.

Peach flowers drift on the water-they are there as they were before;

But they do not see, as at that time, the persons who pledged them in wine. 4

1-2: The outer mountain, subject to the ravages of time, is much changed.

3-4: The inner mountain, free of decay, is unattain- able.

7-8: Tokens of life and love float out endlessly, but hold no message for the two youths.

II. THE EIGHT DAUNTERS

Taoist adepts of the T'ang period exploited astral power to protect themselves against the onslaughts of demons. In effect, this was the decontamination of the highways of space. Often these masters used simple employees to clear the way for their ascent to the starry gardens of the sky. We encounter one of these humble sweepers in a poem of Wu Yun _%04 (?-778) which depicts the frosty acres where the great king of the dead holds sway. As the adept passes over the forbidding palace, "Yfi Ch'iang sweeps the shrouded marches."25 This menial job seems to have been a specialty of oceanic beings: another specimen turns up in a prose tale of the ninth century-a mystical adventure story with Taoist overtones. This is Tengu (T'ien wu By ), who is commissioned to "clear the way" (ching tao NAd ), that is, to secure the sea-route, for a pair of

aspirants for immortality.26 This operation had been a facet of the official religion of Han. The scholiast Yen Shih-ku .XOi -& (581-645) explains it as a purification of the route to be taken by the Son of Heaven as he goes forth to participate in a religious rite." Similarly, on the occasion of the accession of Han Ming Ti SXF J in A.D. 58, the way-clearing was observed

with great solemnity. The commentary on this report states that the procession was preceded by a yaktail banner, which represents the Chinese constellation "Mane" (mao).28 As Tu Fu tt later put it: "The Polehead of the Yaktail sweeps the Purple Tenuity" that is, the magic power of the netted star-cluster Peiades in Taurus sweeps like a comet through the Palace of the Pole Star, annihilating everything in its path.29 In this case, at least, the Cleansing of the Way was effected by a diversion of stellar power.

23 CTS, han 10, e 2, ch. 1, pp. 2b-3a. 24 CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 1, p. 3a.

25 See E. H. Schafer, "Wu YUn's Stanzas on 'Saunters in Sylphdom,"' Monumenta Serica 35 (1981-83), 336. YU Ch'iang is an ancient sea spirit.

26 Tu Kuang-t'ing a g , "The Lady of South Stygia" (Nan ming fu-jen !%(*A, ), in E. H. Schafer, "Three Divine Women of South China," Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews 1 (1979), 40. (The Tengu is described in the Shan hai ching.)

2 Han shu *t , 74, 0546a (K'ai-ming edition), with commentary on ch 'ing tao. The same passage occurs in Sanfu Huang t'u = 1*IN (Ts'ung shu chi ch'eng ed.), p. 51.

H8 Hou Han shu %Xft (K'ai-ming ed.), 109a, 0876a, with commentary on ch'ing tao.

29 E. H. Schafer, Pacing the Void. Tang Approaches to the Stars (Berkeley, 1977), 119; Tu Fu, "T'i Heng Shan..., CTS, han 4. ts'e 2, ch. 8, p. 16a.




There are occasional echoes in T'ang poetry of this rather primitive type of road-sweeping for the safety and comfort of divine beings. For instance, Ts'ao T'ang lf1* , in one of the quatrains of his "Saunters in Sylphdom" sequence, describes the preparations for the arrival of the Royal Mother of the West (Hsi Wang Mu N E11 ) at the seamount P'eng-lai MA:

They sweep the road below Mount P'eng-lai clean, Planning to invite the Royal Mother to chat about

long life.30

Ts'ao T'ang's predecessor Wu Yun represents the Lord of Fang-chu AM W, a more distant sunrise land, attending personally to arrangements for making his palace accessible to a welcome guest:

The Realized Lad has already welcomed me, And cleared away the overnight mists on my behalf.3'

The Realized Lad (chen t'ung 9 t ) is, of course, Blue Lad (Ch'ing T'ung *j ), master of the vitalizing sunlight that dispels the grim shadows of night and death.32

On the whole, however, such methods as these are superseded in T'ang literature by devices of a much more exalted kind. In place of converted Calibans, adepts and demigods employed nodes of raw star- power affixed to their space-cars. Primarily these appear in the form of the "Eight Phosphors" (pa ching jA t ), a set of luminiferous spirits who defend the strategic channels of the human body but also, external- ized and free of their somatic prison, are mobile and far-ranging, and may attend the mystic vehicle that takes the successful adept to his eternal home. To put it differently, voyages through the depths of space are simultaneously transits of the vital circuits of one's own body. This is a constant theme in sacred texts of the Mao Shan *L] persuasion of Taoism, extending at least from the old "Scripture of the Yellow Court"33 and culminating in the "Scripture of the Eight Phos-

phors."34 The considerable literature on eight-phosphor travel has been extensively studied, and it would be presumptuous of me to try to epitomize it here.35 However, one aspect of that subject is not yet so well known. I refer to its influence on medieval poetry, especially that of the T'ang period, in which the dynamics of star-powered vehicles are more vividly displayed than in the relatively static tableaus of holy scripture.

Like other elements of the lexicon of Highest Clarity, "eight phosphors" appears already in pre-T'ang poetry. Indeed, some of this literature, firmly embedded in scriptural tradition, already represents the transition from ritual chant to pure lyricism. An example may be found in a song addressed by the Royal Mother of the West to the Lady Wei Hua-ts'un A I upon the ascent of the latter to the elect company of star- voyagers:

Rig for me an eight-phosphor palanquin; Swift as lightning I shall go into Grand Clarity!36

The language of one of Yu Hsin's &P. (513-81) ten "Cantos on Pacing the Void" 4114 is very similar:

The Three Primes en suite erect their standards; The Eight Phosphors come after, whirling the palan-

quin.37

30 "Hsiao yu hsien shih," No. 1, CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2, p. la; translated in Schafer, Mirages on the Sea of Time, 99.

31 Schafter, "Wu Yun's Stanzas on 'Saunters in Sylphdom,"' 332.

32 See note 14 above.

33 Consult, as the most useful, the version of Huang t 'ing nei ching yii ching *kPPc*l? , in Hsiu chen shih shu WX+J (HY 263, ch. 55-57, with commentary of Po Lu- chung b R $

34 See Shang ch'ing chin chen yiu kuang pa ching fei ching ?m?5ti AtiflltZ (HY1367).IsabelleRobinetregards

this as a composite text, although basic to the Highest Clarity tradition. See her La Revelation du Shangqing dans l'histoire du Taoisme, 2 vols. (Paris, 1984), II, 45. See also E. H. Schafer, "Li Po's Star Power," Society for the Study of Chinese Religions Bulletin 6 (1978), 7.

3 I draw particular attention to Henri Maspero, "Les Procedes de 'nourrir le principe vital' dans la religion taoiste ancienne," Journal Asiatique 229 (1937), 175-252, 353-430; Max Kaltenmark, "'Ching' yu 'pa ching"' J*At , in Fukui hakase sh3]u kinen; toy5 bunka ronshiu UThi? $1XW.2dt;3 t*lrt* (Tokyo, 1969), 1147-54; Michel Strickmann, "On the Alchemy of T'ao Hung-ching," in Facets of Taoism: Essays in Chinese Religion, ed. Welch and Seidel (New Haven, 1979), 123-92; and Robinet, La revelation du Shangqing, I, 129-30.

36 "Wang Mu tseng Wei fu-jen ko," in Yin chi ch'i ch'ien S t-M (HY 1026; hereafter YCCC), 96, 8a. 3 "Pu hsu tz'u, shih shou," no. 2, Yiuehfu shih chi 0 R * I

(SPTK ed.), 78, 4b.




This in turn anticipates one of Wu Ytin's "Cantos" on the same theme, written two centuries later:

The Eight Phosphor Palanquin that bears me upward By long, circuitous way, enters the Gate of Heaven.38

Still a century later, another poet of visionary flight, Ts'ao T'ang, continued the tradition with lines like these:

Wind-whirled by the Eight Phosphors-a Five Phoenix Car:

Above Mount K'un-lun he regards the peach flowers.39

In another quatrain of the same sequence, Ts'ao T'ang reports the source of the knowledge needed to drive one of these marvelous space-cars:

Relaxed, a lordling intones the Text of the Eight Phosphors.40

This young initiate to the spiritual hierarchy is about to sever his earthly attachments and take the high road to Jade Clarity at the summit of the cosmos. His training manual is the "Scripture of the Eight Phosphors.",4' It is worth noting that in the first of the Ts'ao T'ang poems just quoted, the carriage has a conventional hitch for avian draft-animals, but that these have been reduced virtually to a heraldic status, while the real power is provided by the octet of divine lights.

This leads to the heart of the matter: I propose to concentrate on the Eight Phosphors in their role as powerful motors, beacons, and apotropaions, dispelling dark miasmas and evil beings from the highways of the sky, rather than as mystical identities of the microcosmic lamps in the human body, although even in that ancient role their function is the same to provide clear and speedy passage through the somatic channels.42 In short, my emphasis is on the practicalities of space travel.

The case for the function of the phosphors as motors in these dream flights may have been sufficiently established. Their role as searchlights, fog-dispellers, and disinfectants, especially in T'ang poetry, may need further documentation.

The basic fact about this octet of lamps is that they have a directional meaning; that is, they correspond to the four cardinal and four intercardinal directions (pa fang Ad ) ). But they also have a temporal significance, corresponding to the eight [seasonal] nodes (pa chieh A g ), that is, to the solstices, the equinoxes, and the inceptions of the four seasons.43 In short, they represent, inter alia, the supposed spatial relationships of the sun and moon in the course of the annual circuits around the earth." Accordingly, the Eight Phosphors operate in both space and time, and the whole set is attuned to the four-dimensional space-time continuum. In addi- tion, they have specialized projections, reflexes, ana- logues, simulacra, and other-identities. The Eight Ways (pa tao o\ka ), which are spatial versions of the Eight Nodes, are the mystic roads taken by the sun and moon: two blue roads in spring, two red roads in summer, two white roads in autumn, two black roads in winter.45 An important scripture provides the aspi- rant for trans-terrestrial life with instructions for locat- ing and identifying the deities that travel by these roads at the eight crucial times by the color patterns in the mists that curl around their vehicles.46 For instance, at midnight on the day of the vernal equinox, the adept may see the dusky, blue, and yellow clouds in the northeastern sky that mark the transit of the Lord, the Heavenly Thearch of Grand Tenuity (T'ai wei 'ien ti chun *1iVk*jR ). The three colors make up his personal blazon, just as red, white, and blue constitute the oriflamme of the Great Thearch of Fu-sang (Fu- sang ta ti MA** ) as he crosses the southern sky

38 Schafer, "Wu YUn's 'Cantos on Pacing the Void,"' 41 1. 39 "Hsiao yu hsien shih," no. 43; CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2,

p. 4b. 40 No. 67; CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2, p. 7a. 4" HY 1367 (see note 34 above). 42 The communion between the networks of roads is striking

as it is exemplified in the Eight Phosphor Pills (pa ching wan J L ): "Take a dose of it and you will be able to fly your way to the Grand Void." Pao chien shang ching WVM F ? in T'ai p'ing yu Ian *n-*I#f (Taipei, 1968), 671, 5b.

See outline of Tung chen t'ai shangpa tao ming chi ching I&X kLA it*#j (HY 1317) in YCCC, 51, la-3b.

44 The eight propellant and exorcistic phosphors are themselves aspects of more stable sky-lights, to wit, the sun, the moon, the set of five planets, the Northern Dipper, and four stars corresponding to the cardinal directions. See K. M. Schipper, L'empereur Wou des Han dans la legende taoiste (Paris, 1965), 85, n. 6, citing Maspero, "Les procedes de 'nourrir le principe vital."'

YCCC, 51, la. 46 Shang ch'ing pa tao pi yen tu F*Ai1 ' 3W E (HY

430). Similar information is provided by other Shang Ch'ing scriptures. See Robinet, Reveation, II, 72.




at daybreak on the summer solstice.47 These mystic triads, called the "Three Immaculate Clouds" (san su yiin -X ), seem to represent the different combina- tions of yin and yang that correspond to the relative positions of the moon and sun at critical times of the year.48 One of the scriptures which transmits these arcana is also known as "The Golden Slips of the Eight Ways" (Pa tao chin ts'e JR aai ),49 and sometimes as "The Jade Slips of the Eight Ways" (Pa tao yU ts'e ARA X WE ).50 This was a magical text, whose function was as much apotropaic as instructive.

The set of eight was obviously, and probably originally, an expression of the ontological octad of trigrams (pa kua A MF ) which, in the guise of the "Messengers of the Eight Directions" (pa fang shih che JA ) a.* ), protected the great deities on their formal journeys through the seasonal nodes.5" It has other limited manifestations in the Eight Winds, which correspond to the Eight Directions; the Eight Accesses (pa ta AR;4 ); the Eight Seas that encompass the earth the tenebrous Eight Stygias (pa ming A i ), penetrable by the power of the charm called "Jade Light";52 the Eight Clarities (pa chi'ing A ig );53 the Eight Stars;54 the Eight Rays (pa mang Ak 7 );55 the fundamental set of Eight Immaculates (pa su A, X ) the yin equiva-

56

lents of the Eight Phosphors; the Eight Simulacra (pa hsiang A ld );57 and the important set of Eight Con- courses (pa hui Ji\ * ), which are simultaneously eight points in the sky where the twelve units of the Jupiter cycle (roughly, the zodiac) meet the ten celestial trunks ("stems"), the eight divisions of the primordial pneuma, and the eight foci in the human body where blood and breath intermingle.58

In his set of "Saunters in Sylphdom" Ts'ao T'ang alludes to various of these octets. As the Royal Mother passes by on her way to the moon, people ask, "Who rambles over the Eight Seas, to pass before our gate?"59 A divine maiden, lamenting the departure of her spirit lover, says, "I have heard that my lord is newly to direct the Superintendency of the Eight Auroras."60 As a jade woman prepares to depart for Fu-sang to become the sacred bride and preceptress of the ruler of that kingdom of the dawn, the High Lord of the universe gives her "the stanzas of the Eight Immaculates in Golden Script" to deliver to her royal disciples.61 In another quatrain, although Ts'ao T'ang does not refer to the Eight Stygias collectively, he uses "East Stygia" (tung ming A X ) to represent the more usually "Watchet Sea" (ts'ang hai $X ) that is, the dark eastern sea that leads to P'eng-lai.62 All of these instances convey the idea of universality and cosmic control, each in its own particular way.

The Eight Phosphors are foci are the energy that illuminates and penetrates all of the passageways and segments of the universe. In particular, they dissipate baneful vapors and evil mists that make the way ahead unclear and dangerous to the cosmonaut. We saw

47 Shang ch'ing pa tao pi yen tCu, pp. 2a, 4a. 48 The astronomer-poet Chang Heng Be (78-139) equipped

his seismograph with "Eight Ways" leading out of the core of the instrument to eight dragon heads. It is to be presumed that these had a similar cosmic significance. Hou Han shu, 89, 0828a.

49 Pa tao pi yen (HY 430), cited in YCCC, 51, 7a. 50 Ch'ing hsii chen jen Wang chun nei chuan gj kI

M X, in YCCC, 106, 6b. 5 Lao tzu chung ching :t :7 m V , in YCCC, 18, 12b

(following a passage from HY 1160). 52 See HY 1367 and Robinet, Revelation II, 45. These are

dark regions on the perimeter of the world, corresponding to the eight segments of the circumambient ocean.

53 Evidently an expression of the concept of the basic heavens of the Three Clarities. See YCCC, 21, 1 lb.

54 T'ao Hung-ching Fl V. JR (456-536), Yang hsing yen ming lu *ftg it (HY 837), 2, l0b-lla in a passage on sexual techniques aimed at child-bearing. Intercourse with this end in view should be undertaken when the moon is in the eight lunar stations House, Triaster, Well, Ghost, Willow, Spread, Heart, and Dipper (stars in Pegasus, Orion, Gemini, Cancer, Hydra, Scorpius, and Sagittarius) [ ].

55 Robinet, Revelation, I, 153.

56 See HY 1312 (note 41 above). 5 Tung chen t'ai shang shuo chih hui hsiao mo chen ching

il~it* =,!i~x (HY 1333), 1, 8a. This text provides other equivalent sets, such as the "Eight Rose-gems" (pa ch 'iung jA t ), the "Eight Currents" (pa liu AN - ), and the "Eight Stones."

58 Schipper, L'empereur Wou, p. 102, n. 4, and p. 121; E. H. Schafer, Mao Shan in T'ang Times (Society for the Study of Chinese Religions, Monograph No. 1, 1980), 66, n. 234; Robinet, Revelation, I, 130; Chen kao Aft (HY 1010), 1, 8b-9a.

59 "Hsiao. yu hsien shih," no. 37; CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2, p. 4a.

60 No. 62; CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2, p. 6b. 61 No. 95; CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2, p. 9b; translated in

Mirages on the Sea of Time, 105-6. 62 No. 89; CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2, p. 9a; translated in

Mirages, 100.




above how Blue Lad, King of the Fang-chu Palace, dispelled the night fogs that infested the road to his bright land. Greatest of these cosmic fogs, though not necessarily malignant, was the Grand Nimbus (t'ai meng ), a gloomy, sunless realm, similar to the Niflheimr in Norse mythology the cold, dark, foggy home of the dead.63 Wu Yun alludes to it in one of his stanzas about celestial voyages.64 Comparable to this cheerless realm are two others that belong to the cosmology of the Ling Pao 3? traditions. My versions of their names are "nebula incognita" (miao- mang #'Jo$ ) and "shrouded stygia" (yu ming FX, both of which appear to be exudates or precipitations of the Primal Pneuma (yuan ch 'i ic

Cosmic lights will penetrate cosmic fogs. Consider one verse of an old song, said to have been chanted by a princess of the Fang-chu Palace:

The Eight Phosphors turn back, cutting through the hazes.66

Or, as Wu Yun wrote:

Slowly and steadily I am transported, mounted on the phosphors;

I am unaware of the distance on the clouded road.67

To sum up, the Eight Phosphors are astral powers with many functions apotropaic, energizing, illuminating enabling the space voyage to pass safely through celestial taints and tangles, just as their micro-

cosmic counterparts dissolve knots, cankers, and block- ages in the somatic ducts.

In contrast to this generalized role, one set of aspects of the luminous octad has a very specific function; it may be thought of as a task-force detached on special duty. This projected squad for such in effect it is- called the "Eight Daunters" (pa wei A f ). Like the Eight Phosphors that generate it, it is intimately con- nected with the set of eight Trigrams.68 Its members are themselves lesser divinities, in a class with such terrestrial surrogates as the Lords of the Five Marchmounts (wu yiieh chun inJj) and the Divine Woman of Lo Water (Lo shuishen nu ijk * )," and with a variety of celestial agents and messengers indeed, in one text at least, they have their own derivatives, the Messengers of the Eight Daunters (pa wei shih che 1-kg. f t~ ), a title suggesting that the true Daunters are hidden, unnameable beings. The duties of the Eight Daunters are apotropaic: like leukocytes in the human body, they attack all threats to benign travellers along the roads of Heaven. Moreover, like their parents the Eight Phos- phors, they have their own somatic aspects. "The Scripture of the Yellow Court" mentions them more than once as guardians of the somatic organs and conduits. Of particular interest is the special assistance they provide in sluicing the gullet, which the standard commentary describes as a "road" through the body.70

This cosmic highway patrol could be commanded by the owner of a powerful talisman called "The Slips of the Eight Daunters" (pa wei ts'e jk C& ), and their force directed against life-menacing trolls, wild beasts, and ill-intentioned ghosts.7" This is put plainly in a non-canonical text by the Prince Hsiao T'ung By (501-531): "Venture to clench the Slips of the Eight

63 See Mirages, 17. Nifl is cognate to "nebula." The Chinese name is probably derived from "Great Shroud" (ta meng *I ), the dark home of the setting sun in the west.

64 "Wu Yun's Stanzas on 'Saunters in Sylphdom,"' 325. 6 Yiian shih wu ch'ih shu yii plien chen wen Oen shu

ching r M; (HY 22), and sum- mary in YCCC, 2, 2a. See E. H. Schafer, "Cosmic Metaphors: the Poetry of Space," Schafer Sinological Papers, No. 5 (11 March 1984), 9.

66 T'ai wei tien ti chin tsan Ta yu miao ching sung i chang ;k M X* Rj *,If b #1 tfi - JE , in YCCC, 96, 4b. (The Ta yu miao ching is a very early Highest Clarity scripture, probably belonging to the fourth century.)

67 "Wu Ydn's 'Cantos on Pacing the Void,"' 403. It may be that here "clouded road" (yan lu 'W ) is the nebulous Milky Way, styled, inter alia, "Cloudy Han" (yun Han I X) and "Cloudy Ho" (yin Ho 1i-I ). If so, the well-illuminated car finds him clear passage through the stellar mists.

68 Kaltenmark, op. cit.; Huang t'ing nei ching yiu ching (HY 263), no. 23, verse 3 [ch. 56, p. 18a], with gloss of Po Lu-chung.

69 T'ao Hung-ching, Chen ling wei yeh t'u #3ft E (HY

167), p. 16b. 70 Huang ting nei ching yii ching, no. 4, verse 9 [ch. 55,

p. lOb], and no. 43, verse 3 [ch. 57, p. 15a]. 7' Robinet, Revelation, I, 188, n. 1. This charm is referred to

in a number of Highest Clarity texts. See YCCC, 9, 9b, for the "Red Thearch's Slips of the Eight Daunters," and YCCC, 106, lSa, for their presence in the life story of Lord Chou M (Tzu yang chen jen VF5A$ ), along with such other charms as "The Bell of Flowing Gold." For further relevant information, see Isabelle Robinet, review of M. Porkert, Biographie d'un taoiste lgendaire, Tcheou Tseu-yang (Paris, 1979), in T'oung Pao 67 (1981), 133.




Daunters-then spirit-creatures will in no way withstand you."72 The word translated "slips" also refers to yarrow [milfoil] stalks (shih *; Achillea sp.), used since antiquity in the divination of longevity. In this body of Taoist literature, then the Daunters have been elevated from the lowly role of celestial detectives to the ranks of judges and executioners.

Probably the talismans glowed red with inner force, like the similar one in the possession of a sky-traversing goddess described by Ts'ao T'ang: "She lifts a jade slip in her hand-redder than fire."73 The fiery emanation is the power of yang, which vanquishes the emissaries of the Dark King. It is not to be distinguished from the radiant jade that constitutes the fuel in the athanor of a celestial alchemist:

The serving girl who runs the kitchen-what is it she cooks?

Throughout the stove, no smoke-but the jade coals turn red.74

The "serving girl" here is actually another goddess of Highest Clarity, and she is cooking the elixir of life.

All this reaffirms the fact that the Eight Daunters operate at all levels of the cosmos among the aster- isms, within the somatic sanctuary, and in the ideal microcosmic model, the hermetic egg of the alchemist-

adept with its self-sustaining inner fires. A canonical formulary describes one part of a mercurial reaction in arcane phrases, whose imagery applies as much to the human organism as to the tubes and chambers of the athanor: "There are Eight Daunters, which repel the host of the Elementals, along with trolls and sprites: the saliva enters the Vermilion Child."75

It goes without saying that the Eight Daunters appear in the literature of the T'ang period. A prose fantasy by the eminent Tu Kuang-t'ing ;ft~l (850- 933), which tells of a visit of the great hydraulic engineer Yu A to the Divine Woman of Shamanka Mountain, shows him attended on his perilous journey by the phalanx of the Eight Daunters.6 They also have a notable place in the ecstatic verses of Wu Yiin. In one of the latter's "Pacing the Void" cantos, a flight through the dark depths of space is facilitated by them, as they "clear away the roving pneumas."77 In one of his stanzas on "Saunters in Sylphdom," these flushers of the celestial flyways attend the noble adept as he rises above the Grand Aurora (t'ai hsia k 2i ), "opening up the way."78

For the properly trained initiate, the Eight Daunters, like genies out of bottles sealed by Solomon, are his to command.

72 "Hsieh ch'ih ts'an chieh chiang ch'i," Ch'u/an Liang wen -T (1930 ed.), 79, 6b.

7 "Hsiao yu hsien shih," no. 50; CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2, p. 5b.

74 "Hsiao yu hsien shih," no. 58; CTS, han 10, ts'e 2, ch. 2, p. 6a.

5 T'ai ch'ing chin i shen tan ching ; * , quoted in YCCC, 65, 7a.

76 Yung chleng chi hsien lu tW fUUiJ* (HY 782), 3, 2a; translated in E. H. Schafer, "Cantos on 'One Bit of Cloud at Shamanka Mountain,"' Asiatische Studien 36 (1982), 107.

77 "'Cantos on Pacing the Void,"' 395. 78 "'Saunters in Sylphdom,"' 342.

APPENDIX

(Examples of the term "Eight Daunters" in Taoist literature)

1. A1kt "daunt and subdue devils and elementals" (JtIK IflI [HY 429]; archaeological specimen described in E. H. Schafer, "A T'ang Taoist Mirror," Early China 4 [1978-79], 58)

2. II * J* WA "the Double Hall (i.e., gullet)'s iridescent fire displays the Eight Daunters" ( Ito :R.ig t [in HY 263], ch. 55, stanza 4, verse 9)

3. P)JR)I*ASjEMf$ "those luminous spirits, the Eight Daunters, justly eliminate recreant [spirits]" (ibid., ch. 57, stanza 35, verse 3)

4. Mt N = VT X . . . - * AARt "The Red Writ of the True Text from the Cinnabar Heaven of Three Pneumas in the Southern Quarter. . . otherwise named the Slips of the Eight Daunters of the Red Thearch" ( 3-t rHY 1026], 9, 9b)

5. t "the Realized Person of Purple Solarity was girded with the Insignia of the Yellow Yak-tail and the Slips of the Eight Daunters"(ibid., 106, 15a)




6. M A S 'JR*h A "venture to clench the Slips of the Eight Daunters-then spirit-creatures will in no way withstand you" ( QHPJ tk, " f*)

) e ," in -M- (1930 ed.], 79, 6b) 7. I f Al )", * A% A B I "there are Eight Daun-

ters that repel the host of elementals along with trolls and spirits" ( t ;3, 65, 7a)

8. UR-ff "the Eight Daunters were ready at his coach" (# JSj1WIJA [HY 782], 3, 2a)

9. A k jf A, , +-fr Ax "The Eight Daunters clarify the roving pneumas,/ The Ten Distinctions

dance in the auspicious winds." (Wu Yun, "Pu hsii tz'u," No. 1, as translated in E. H. Schafer, "Wu Yiin's 'Cantos on Pacing the Void,"' Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 41 [1981], 395)

10. A Ji t 9 e , i J 1B1 a it "The Eight Daunters go ahead of me, opening up the way;/ The Five Elders journey in my company." (Wu Yun, "Yu hsien," No. 23, ChJuan T'ang shih, han 12, ts'e 6, p. 4a)



Documents

Empyreal Powers and Chthonian Edens: Two Notes on T'ang Taoist Literature