stone-relief of
Xiwangmu, surrounded by winged or feathered Immortals,
Yuren () . Descriptions of
xian ("immortals; transcendents") in Chinese texts vary according to historical changes in Daoist views on immortality. Early texts such as the Zhuangzi, Chuci, and Liezi used xiān and magical islands allegorically to describe spiritual immortality. They sometimes employed the term
yuren (; later also meaning "Daoist") and associated immortals with motifs of feathers and flight, such as
yuhua (), with "feather; wing". Later texts such as the
Shenxian Zhuan and
Baopuzi treated immortality literally, describing esoteric alchemical practices aimed at physical longevity.
Neidan ("internal alchemy") included
taixi ("embryonic respiration"), breath control, meditation, visualization, sexual training and
daoyin exercises (later evolving into
qigong and
tai chi).
Waidan ("external alchemy") emphasized recipes involving magical plants, rare minerals, herbal medicines, drugs and dietary regimens such as
inedia. Besides the following major Chinese texts, many others use both graphic variants of . occurs in the
Chunqiu Fanlu,
Fengsu Tongyi,
Qian fu lun,
Fayan, and
Shenjian; () occurs in the
Caizhong langji,
Fengsu Tongyi,
Guanzi, and
Shenjian. They are most commonly found in Daoist texts, although some Buddhist sources also mention them. Chinese folk religion likewise includes such figures, for example in Northeast China with the
fox gods, or
huxian, that are common in the region. The
Three Sovereigns had similarities to because of some of their supernatural abilities and could have been considered such. Upon his death, the
Yellow Emperor was "said to have become" a . They often had "magical"
Tao powers including the abilities to "walk ... through walls or stand ... in light without casting a shadow." In ancient Chinese dynasties such as the Han, various gods were thought to be
xian instead in some retellings of their
mythology.
Hou Yi was one example of this.''''
Liezi The
Liezi ("[Book of] Master Lie"), which Louis Komjathy suggests was compiled in the 3rd century CE (though it contains earlier material), uses
xian four times, always in the compound
xiansheng (). Nearly half of Chapter 2 ("The
Yellow Emperor") comes from the
Zhuangzi, including this recounting of the above fable about Mount Gushe (, or Guye, or Miao Gushe ). The Ku-ye mountains stand on a chain of islands where the Yellow River enters the sea. Upon the mountains there lives a Divine Man, who inhales the wind and drinks the dew, and does not eat the five grains. His mind is like a bottomless spring, his body is like a virgin's. He knows neither intimacy nor love, yet [] immortals and sages serve him as ministers. He inspires no awe, he is never angry, yet the eager and diligent act as his messengers. He is without kindness and bounty, but others have enough by themselves; he does not store and save, but he himself never lacks. The Yin and Yang are always in tune, the sun and moon always shine, the four seasons are always regular, wind and rain are always temperate, breeding is always timely, the harvest is always rich, and there are no plagues to ravage the land, no early deaths to afflict men, animals have no diseases, and ghosts have no uncanny echoes. Chapter 5 uses
xiansheng three times in a conversation set between legendary rulers
Tang () of the
Shang dynasty and Ji () of the
Xia dynasty. T'ang asked again: 'Are there large things and small, long and short, similar and different?'—'To the East of the Gulf of Chih-li, who knows how many thousands and millions of miles, there is a deep ravine, a valley truly without bottom; and its bottomless underneath is named "The Entry to the Void". The waters of the eight corners and the nine regions, the stream of the Milky Way, all pour into it, but it neither shrinks nor grows. Within it there are five mountains, called Tai-yü, Yüan-chiao, Fang-hu, Ying-chou and P'eng-Iai. These mountains are thirty thousand miles high, and as many miles round; the tablelands on their summits extend for nine thousand miles. It is seventy thousand miles from one mountain to the next, but they are considered close neighbours. The towers and terraces upon them are all gold and jade, the beasts and birds are all unsullied white; trees of pearl and garnet always grow densely, flowering and bearing fruit which is always luscious, and those who eat of it never grow old and die. The men who dwell there are all of the race of [] immortal sages, who fly, too many to be counted, to and from one mountain to another in a day and a night. Yet the bases of the five mountains used to rest on nothing; they were always rising and falling, going and returning, with the ebb and flow of the tide, and never for a moment stood firm. The [] immortals found this troublesome, and complained about it to God. God was afraid that they would drift to the far West and he would lose the home of his sages. So he commanded Yü-ch'iang to make fifteen [] giant turtles carry the five mountains on their lifted heads, taking turns in three watches, each sixty thousand years long; and for the first time the mountains stood firm and did not move.'But there was a giant from the kingdom of the Dragon Earl, who came to the place of the five mountains in no more than a few strides. In one throw he hooked six of the turtles in a bunch, hurried back to his country carrying them together on his back, and scorched their bones to tell fortunes by the cracks. Thereupon two of the mountains, Tai-yü and Yüan-chiao, drifted to the far North and sank in the great sea; the [] immortals who were carried away numbered many millions. God was very angry, and reduced by degrees the size of the Dragon Earl's kingdom and the height of his subjects. At the time of Fu-hsi and Shen-nung, the people of this country were still several hundred feet high.'
Penglai Mountain became the most famous of these five mythical peaks where the
elixir of life supposedly grew, and is known as
Horai in Japanese legends. The first emperor
Qin Shi Huang sent his court alchemist
Xu Fu on expeditions to find these plants of immortality. He never returned, although some accounts claim he discovered Japan. Holmes Welch analyzed the beginnings of Daoism, sometime around the 4th–3rd centuries BCE, from four separate streams: philosophical Daoism (Laozi, Zhuangzi, Liezi), a "hygiene school" that cultivated longevity through breathing exercises and yoga, Chinese alchemy and
Five Elements philosophy, and those who sought Penglai and elixirs of "immortality". This is what he concludes about
xian. It is my own opinion, therefore, that though the word
hsien, or Immortal, is used by Chuang Tzu and Lieh Tzu, and though they attributed to their idealized individual the magic powers that were attributed to the
hsien in later times, nonetheless the
hsien ideal was something they did not believe in—either that it was possible or that it was good. The magic powers are allegories and hyperboles for the
natural powers that come from identification with Tao. Spiritualized Man, P'eng-lai, and the rest are features of a
genre which is meant to entertain, disturb, and exalt us, not to be taken as literal hagiography. Then and later, the philosophical Taoists were distinguished from all other schools of Taoism by their rejection of the pursuit of immortality. As we shall see, their books came to be adopted as scriptural authority by those who did practice magic and seek to become immortal. But it was their misunderstanding of philosophical Taoism that was the reason they adopted it.
Shenxian zhuan stone-relief The is a
hagiography of
xian. Although it was traditionally attributed to
Ge Hong (283–343 CE), Komjathy says, "The received versions of the text contain some 100-odd hagiographies, most of which date from 6th–8th centuries at the earliest." According to the
Shenxian zhuan, there are four schools of immortality: : Breath control and meditation. Practitioners of this school were believed to be able to: "...blow on water and it will flow against its own current for several paces; blow on fire, and it will be extinguished; blow at tigers or wolves, and they will crouch down and not be able to move; blow at serpents, and they will coil up and be unable to flee. If someone is wounded by a weapon, blow on the wound, and the bleeding will stop. If you hear of someone who has suffered a poisonous insect bite, even if you are not in his presence, you can, from a distance, blow and say in incantation over your own hand (males on the left hand, females on the right), and the person will at once be healed even if more than a hundred li away. And if you yourself are struck by a sudden illness, you have merely to swallow pneumas in three series of nine, and you will immediately recover.But the most essential thing [among such arts] is fetal breathing. Those who obtain [the technique of] fetal breathing become able to breathe without using their nose or mouth, as if in the womb, and this is the culmination of the way [of pneumatic cultivation]." : The ingestion of herbal compounds and abstention from the Sān Shī Fàn (), which included meats (raw fish, pork, dog), leeks, scallions and grains. "During the reign of
Emperor Cheng of the Han, hunters in the Zhongnan Mountains saw a person who wore no clothes, his body covered with black hair. Upon seeing this person, the hunters wanted to pursue and capture him, but the person leapt over gullies and valleys as if in flight, and so could not be overtaken. [But after being surrounded and captured, it was discovered this person was a 200 plus year old woman, who had once been a concubine of
Qin Emperor Ziying. When he had surrendered to the 'invaders of the east', she fled into the mountains where she learned to subside on 'the resin and nuts of pines' from an old man. Afterwards, this diet 'enabled [her] to feel neither hunger nor thirst; in winter [she] was not cold, in summer [she] was not hot.']The hunters took the woman back in. They offered her grain to eat. When she first smelled the stink of grain, she vomited, and only after several days could she tolerate it. After little more than two years of this [diet], her body hair fell out; she turned old and died. Had she not been caught by men, she would have become a transcendent." ( ), the two "Immortals of Harmony and Unity", associated with happy marriage, depicted in Changchun Temple, a Taoist temple in
Wuhan :
Sexual yoga. According to a discourse between the
Yellow Emperor and the immortaless , one of the three daughters of
Hsi Wang Mu, "The sexual behaviors between a man and woman are identical to how the universe itself came into creation. Like Heaven and Earth, the male and female share a parallel relationship in attaining an immortal existence. They both must learn how to engage and develop their natural sexual instincts and behaviors; otherwise the only result is decay and traumatic discord of their physical lives. However, if they engage in the utmost joys of sensuality and apply the principles of yin and yang to their sexual activity, their health, vigor, and joy of love will bear them the fruits of longevity and immortality. The
White Tigress Manual, a treatise on female sexual yoga, states: "A female can completely restore her youthfulness and attain immortality if she refrains from allowing just one or two men in her life from stealing and destroying her [sexual] essence, which will only serve in aging her at a rapid rate and bring about an early death. However, if she can acquire the sexual essence of a thousand males through absorption, she will acquire the great benefits of youthfulness and immortality."
Ge Hong wrote in his book
The Master Who Embraces Simplicity, The immortals Dark Girl and Plain Girl compared sexual activity as the intermingling of fire [yang/male] and water [yin/female], claiming that water and fire can kill people but can also regenerate their life, depending on whether or not they know the correct methods of sexual activity according to their nature. These arts are based on the theory that the more females a man copulates with, the greater benefit he will derive from the act. Men who are ignorant of this art, copulating with only one or two females during their life, will only suffice to bring about their untimely and early death. :
Elixir of Immortality.
Śūraṅgama Sūtra The
Śūraṅgama Sūtra, a
Mahayana Buddhist manuscript, in a borrowing from Taoist teachings, discusses the characteristics of ten types of
xian who exist between the world of
devas ("gods") and that of human beings. This position in
Buddhist literature is usually occupied by
asuras.
Xian as portrayed here are of a different and contrasting type of existence in
Buddhist cosmology to asuras. These
xian are not considered true cultivators of
samadhi ("unification of mind"), as their methods differ from the practice of
dhyāna ("meditation"). • –
Xian who constantly ingest special food called . • –
Xian who constantly ingest certain herbs and plants. • –
Xian who "transform" by constantly ingesting metals and minerals. • –
Xian who perfect their
qi and essence through unceasing movement and stillness . • –
Xian who constantly practice control of their fluids and saliva. • –
Xian who constantly practice the inhalation of unadulterated essences. • –
Xian who achieve transcendence through unceasing recitation of spells and prohibitions. • –
Xian who achieve transcendence through constant periods of thought and recollection. • –
Xian who have mastered the stimuli and responses of intercourse. • –
Xian who "have attained the end" and perfected their awakening through constant transformation. ==In religions==