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Tao Hongjing 陶弘景
Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536)
Tao Hongjing (456–536), courtesy name Tongming,
An eminent scholar and calligrapher, an expert in pharmacopoeia and alchemy, and a highly productive author, Tao Hong jing was the actual founder of Shangqing Taoism and one of the brightest intellectual figures of the Six Dynasties. He was born in Danyang 丹陽 (near Nanjing, Jiangsu) from a southern family of landowners and scholars. His father and paternal grandfather were experts in medicinal drugs and accomplished calligraphers, while his mother and maternal grandfather seem to have been Buddhist devotees.
When he was barely aged ten, Tao studied the Shenxian zhuan (Biographies of Divine Immortals) and the practices of Nourishing Life (yangsheng). When he was about twenty-five, Gaodi (r. 479–82), the ruler of the Southern Qi dynasty, appointed him tutor to the imperial princes. Gaodi’s successor, Wudi (r. 482–93), designated him General of the Left Guard of the Palace in 483, but the following year Tao had to leave office to mourn his mother’s death.
In 490, he travelled eastward to visit eminent Taoist masters, and possibly commissioned by the emperor to search for valuable relics. He renounced his official career in 492 and retired on Mount Mao (Maoshan, Jiangsu), where he founded the Huayang guan 華陽館 (Abbey of Flourishing Yang).
When the Liang dynasty came to power in 502, Tao wisely remained on Mount Mao and was not affected by the anti-Taoist decrees of 504 and 517.
In 514, Liang Wudi (r. 502–49) ordered the Zhuyang guan 朱陽館 (Abbey of Vermilion Yang) to be built on Mount Mao. Tao retired there the following year, but was often visited by the emperor as a private counselor and thus gained the appellation Grand Councilor amid Mountains (Shanzhong zaixiang 山 中宰相). Very little is known of the last two decades of his life. He received the posthumous titles of Zhenbai xiansheng 貞白先生 (Upright Elder) and Huayang zhenren 華陽真人 (Perfected of Flourishing Yang), and in Tang times was posthumously made the ninth patriarch of the Shangqing lineage.
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The author and bibliographer.
Tao Hongjing’s literary career began early with the Xunshan zhi 尋山志 (Monograph of Mount Xun). This short text, written at the age of fifteen, is found in his collected writings, the Huayang Tao yinju ji 華陽陶隱居集 (Anthology of Tao, the Hermit of Flourishing Yang; CT 1050, 1.1b–3b). In his youth, he also wrote essays, commentaries, and a large unfinished encyclopedia, the Xueyuan 學苑 (Garden of Learning), which he asked his nephew Tao Yi 陶翊 to complete when he retired on Mount Mao.
From 483, Tao became interested in the Shangqing revelations granted to Yang Xi more than a century earlier and decided to collect the original autograph manuscripts, using calligraphy as one of the criteria to establish their authenticity. He began to gather the manuscripts in 488 and his major acquisitions date from that year to 490. When he retired to Mount Mao in 492 he intended to edit the manuscripts, drawing inspiration from *Gu Huan’s now-lost Zhenji jing 真迹經 (Scripture of the Traces of the Perfected), an earlier but in Tao’s view unsatisfying account of Yang Xi’s revelations.
In 498–99, supported by the emperor, Tao compiled and fully annotated the manuscripts. His enterprise resulted in two major works, the Zhengao (Declarations of the Perfected; CT 1016) and the Dengzhen yinjue (Concealed Instructions for the Ascent to Perfection; CT 421). (Grégoire Espesset in Pregadio 2008, p968-70)