聞分館君 Ask BunKanKun

神仙濟世良方

5 min read

Text ID
KR3ed110
Date
1796–1797
Dynasty
清

Shénxiān Jǐshì Liángfāng 神仙濟世良方

Excellent Formulas of the Immortals for Saving the World compiled by 柏鶴亭 (Bǎi Hètíng) and associates, from spirit-writing oracles at Yángqū 陽曲 (Tàiyuán 太原, Shānxī), winter 1796 – spring 1797

About the work

A late-Qīng spirit-writing (fújī 扶乩) formulary — a compilation of medical prescriptions claimed to have been transmitted to the compiler and his colleagues at planchette sessions by the assembled immortals of the Daoist pantheon. The work is one of the most extensive late-Qīng examples of jīfāng 乩方 (“planchette formulas”) and is structurally an interesting hybrid: the immortals deliver formulas through the planchette, but the formulas themselves draw on the standard SòngYuánMíngQīng pharmacological repertoire (decoctions of huángqí, dāngguī, báizhú, fúlíng, etc., recognisable from the standard formularies). The format is verse-and-prose: each section opens with a quatrain or octet in the voice of the named immortal (Lǚ Dòngbīn 呂洞賓, Zhōnglí Quán 鍾離權, Zhāng Guǒlǎo 張果老, Hé Xiāngū 何仙姑, Cáo Guójiù 曹國舅, Lán Cǎihé 藍采和, Lǐ Tiěguǎi 李鐵拐, Hán Xiāngzǐ 韓湘子 — the Bā xiān 八仙 / Eight Immortals), followed by formulary instructions and clinical indications.

Prefaces

The KR source carries multiple prefatory pieces:

  1. Preface by Shòuxīng (Pole-Star Old Man) 壽星序: “In Jiāqìng 2 [= 1797] I came down by planchette into the official residence of the Yángqū wèi 陽曲尉 (the police-commissioner of Yángqū), at the moment when Hè[-tíng] and the others had just completed the Shénxiān jǐshì liángfāng and were requesting a preface from me. On reading through their Jǐshì níngrén fānglùn (formulas-and-discussions for saving and pacifying people), all are sensible and free of extravagance. — Now Hè and the others, ordinary people, every day invoke the various immortals — outside of seeking formulas for others’ medical needs, they ask for nothing else; and the proven formulas they have set down to commit to woodblock-print. My heart rejoices in this. As for the longevity-bestower, his wish is only that men reach to a hundred years and the world be without untimely death.”
  2. Preface by Zuìxuéshì Qīnglián Dàorén (the Drunken-Scholar of the Green-Lotus Way) — explicitly identified as the spirit of Lǐ Bái 李白. The preface notes that “in the winter month of Jiāqìng 1 [= late 1796], Hètíng and his two associates [= three altogether] regularly invited the planchette-immortals. I [Lǐ Bái] loved their refinement, and so I came down repeatedly through the planchette-frame to compose paired verses with them and drink to my heart’s content, and they asked me to compose biographies and prefaces for the various great immortals. Therefore, in this birth our hearts and qì are pure-and-empty, and because of prior karmic affinity I rejoice in them — so I make this preface.” Signed Zuìxuéshì Qīnglián Dàorén tí yú Jìnyáng xiānwèi xīxuān (composed by the Drunken-Scholar of the Green-Lotus Way at the western veranda of the Immortal-Commissioner of Jìnyáng).

The body proper then opens with eight verse-portraits of the Eight Immortals, each signed by another canonical poet-immortal (Lǚ Yán 呂岩, Lǐ Bái 李白, etc.).

Abstract

The work is precisely datable to the winter of 1796 and spring of 1797, by the Lǐ Bái and Shòuxīng (Pole-Star) prefaces, both signed in the Jiāqìng 1 and 2 cycle. The locus of the spirit-writing sessions is the xīxuān (western veranda) of the Yángqū 陽曲 wèi 尉 (Police-Commissioner’s office, on the western side of Tàiyuán 太原, Shānxī). The principal compiler is Bǎi Hètíng 柏鶴亭 (with two associates, named in the prefaces as part of a three-person planchette-circle); biographical detail beyond what the prefaces give is sparse.

The work is sociologically significant as one of the most extensive specimens of late-Qīng planchette-religion in its medical sub-discipline. The fújī tradition of “asking the immortals for prescriptions” is widely attested in the MíngQīng period — Daoist temples often kept planchette-formularies in active use — but few of these jīfāng corpora were ever printed; the Shénxiān jǐshì liángfāng is one of the few that was.

The medical content is substantively conventional: the formulas, once shorn of their immortal-poetic framing, are standard late-Imperial decoctions and powders well within the Lǐ Shízhēn / Zhāng Jièbīn / Yè Tiānshì mainstream. The work’s interest is therefore principally in the frame-narrative — the spirit-writing protocol, the planchette-circle’s social organisation, and the formulary’s authorisation through divine descent rather than through doctrinal scholarship.

Translations and research

  • Paul Katz, Religion in China and Its Modern Fate (Brandeis, 2014) — for late-Imperial fújī religion.
  • David Palmer and Liu Xun, Daoism in the Twentieth Century (UCP, 2012) — for the modern continuation of jīfāng practice.
  • Shénxiān jǐshì liángfāng, modern photo-reprint of a Qīng woodblock printing: in Hǎiwài huíguī zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū 海外回歸中醫善本古籍叢書.

Other points of interest

The geographical anchoring at Yángqū 陽曲 (eastern outskirts of Tàiyuán, Shānxī) is interesting in light of the much earlier 傅山 (Fù Shān, 1607–1684) medical-Daoist tradition rooted in the same area — Fù Shān had identified himself as “Red-Robed Daoist” (Zhūyī dàoshì) and had been a major figure in seventeenth-century Tàiyuán medical-Daoist culture (cf. KR3ed047). The Shénxiān jǐshì liángfāng of 1796–1797 may be a continuation of the local Tàiyuán Daoist-medical milieu that Fù Shān had earlier crystallised.

Graph View

Backlinks