Xian (Taoism)


Xian refers to a person or similar entity having a long or immortal lifespan. The concept of xian has different implications dependent upon the specific context: philosophical, religious, mythological, or other symbolic or cultural occurrence. The Chinese word xian is translatable into English as:
Xian semantically developed from meaning spiritual "immortality; enlightenment", to physical "immortality; longevity" involving methods such as alchemy, breath meditation, and tai chi chuan, and eventually to legendary and figurative "immortality".
Victor H. Mair describes the xian archetype as:
They are immune to heat and cold, untouched by the elements, and can fly, mounting upward with a fluttering motion. They dwell apart from the chaotic world of man, subsist on air and dew, are not anxious like ordinary people, and have the smooth skin and innocent faces of children. The transcendents live an effortless existence that is best described as spontaneous. They recall the ancient Indian ascetics and holy men known as ṛṣi who possessed similar traits.

The word ''xian''

The most famous Chinese compound of xiān is Bāxiān. Other common words include xiānrén, xiānrénzhăng, xiānnǚ, and shénxiān. Besides humans, xiān can also refer to supernatural animals. The mythological húlijīng 狐狸精 "fox fairy; vixen; witch; enchantress" has an alternate name of húxiān 狐仙.
The etymology of xiān remains uncertain. The circa 200 CE Shiming, a Chinese dictionary that provided word-pun "etymologies", defines xiān as "to get old and not die," and explains it as someone who qiān the mountains."
Edward H. Schafer defined xian as "transcendent, sylph " Schafer noted xian was cognate to xian 䙴 "soar up", qian 遷 "remove", and xianxian 僊僊 "a flapping dance movement"; and compared Chinese yuren 羽人 "feathered man; xian" with English peri "a fairy or supernatural being in Persian mythology".
Two linguistic hypotheses for the etymology of xian involve Arabic and Sino-Tibetan languages. Wu and Davis suggested the source was jinn, or jinni "genie". "The marvelous powers of the Hsien are so like those of the jinni of the Arabian Nights that one wonders whether the Arabic word, jinn, may not be derived from the Chinese Hsien." Axel Schuessler's etymological dictionary suggests a Sino-Tibetan connection between xiān "'An immortal'... men and women who attain supernatural abilities; after death they become immortals and deities who can fly through the air" and Tibetan gšen < g-syen "shaman, one who has supernatural abilities, incl travel through the air".

The character and its variants

The word xiān is written with three characters,, or, which combine the logographic "radical" rén with two "phonetic" elements. The oldest recorded xiān character 僊 has a xiān phonetic supposedly because immortals could "ascend into the heavens". The usual modern xiān character 仙, and its rare variant 仚, have a shān phonetic. For a character analysis, Schipper interprets "'the human being of the mountain,' or alternatively, 'human mountain.' The two explanations are appropriate to these beings: they haunt the holy mountains, while also embodying nature."
The Classic of Poetry contains the oldest occurrence of the character 僊, reduplicated as xiānxiān, and rhymed with qiān. "But when they have drunk too much, Their deportment becomes light and frivolous—They leave their seats, and go elsewhere, They keep dancing and capering." Needham and Wang suggest xian was cognate with wu 巫 "shamanic" dancing. Paper writes, "the function of the term xian in a line describing dancing may be to denote the height of the leaps. Since, "to live for a long time" has no etymological relation to xian, it may be a later accretion."
The 121 CE Shuowen Jiezi, the first important dictionary of Chinese characters, does not enter 仙 except in the definition for . It defines 僊 as "live long and move away" and 仚 as "appearance of a person on a mountaintop".

Textual references

This section chronologically reviews how Chinese texts describe xian "immortals; transcendents". While the early Zhuangzi, Chuci, and Liezi texts allegorically used xian immortals and magic islands to describe spiritual immortality, later ones like the Shenxian zhuan and Baopuzi took immortality literally and described esoteric Chinese alchemical techniques for physical longevity. On one the hand, neidan techniques included taixi breath control, meditation, visualization, sexual training, and Tao Yin exercises. On the other hand, waidan techniques for immortality included alchemical recipes, magic plants, rare minerals, herbal medicines, drugs, and dietetic techniques like inedia.
The word yuren 羽人 "feathered person" later meant "Daoist").
Besides the following major Chinese texts, many others use both graphic variants of xian. Xian occurs in the Chunqiu Fanlu, Fengsu Tongyi, Qian fu lun, Fayan, and Shenjian; xian occurs in the Caizhong langji, Fengsu Tongyi, Guanzi, and Shenjian.

''Zhuangzi''

Two circa 3rd century BCE "Outer Chapters" of the Zhuangzi use the archaic character xian 僊. Chapter 11 has a parable about "Cloud Chief"  and "Big Concealment" that uses the Shijing compound xianxian :
Big Concealment said, "If you confuse the constant strands of Heaven and violate the true form of things, then Dark Heaven will reach no fulfillment. Instead, the beasts will scatter from their herds, the birds will cry all night, disaster will come to the grass and trees, misfortune will reach even to the insects. Ah, this is the fault of men who 'govern'!"
"Then what should I do?" said Cloud Chief.
"Ah," said Big Concealment, "you are too far gone! Up, up, stir yourself and be off!"
Cloud Chief said, "Heavenly Master, it has been hard indeed for me to meet with you—I beg one word of instruction!"
"Well, then—mind‑nourishment!" said Big Concealment. "You have only to rest in inaction and things will transform themselves. Smash your form and body, spit out hearing and eyesight, forget you are a thing among other things, and you may join in great unity with the deep and boundless. Undo the mind, slough off spirit, be blank and soulless, and the ten thousand things one by one will return to the root—return to the root and not know why. Dark and undifferentiated chaos—to the end of life none will depart from it. But if you try to know it, you have already departed from it. Do not ask what its name is, do not try to observe its form. Things will live naturally end of themselves."
Cloud Chief said, "The Heavenly Master has favored me with this Virtue, instructed me in this Silence. All my life I have been looking for it, and now at last I have it!" He bowed his head twice, stood up, took his leave, and went away.

Chapter 12 uses xian when mythical Emperor Yao describes a shengren.
The true sage is a quail at rest, a little fledgling at its meal, a bird in flight who leaves no trail behind. When the world has the Way, he joins in the chorus with all other things. When the world is without the Way, he nurses his Virtue and retires in leisure. And after a thousand years, should he weary of the world, he will leave it and ascend to the immortals, riding on those white clouds all the way up to the village of God.

Without using the word xian, several Zhuangzi passages employ xian imagery, like flying in the clouds, to describe individuals with superhuman powers. For example, Chapter 1, within the circa 3rd century BCE "Inner Chapters", has two portrayals. First is this description of Liezi.
Lieh Tzu could ride the wind and go soaring around with cool and breezy skill, but after fifteen days he came back to earth. As far as the search for good fortune went, he didn't fret and worry. He escaped the trouble of walking, but he still had to depend on something to get around. If he had only mounted on the truth of Heaven and Earth, ridden the changes of the six breaths, and thus wandered through the boundless, then what would he have had to depend on? Therefore, I say, the Perfect Man has no self; the Holy Man has no merit; the Sage has no fame.

Second is this description of a shenren.
He said that there is a Holy Man living on faraway Ku-she Mountain, with skin like ice or snow, and gentle and shy like a young girl. He doesn't eat the five grains, but sucks the wind, drinks the dew, climbs up on the clouds and mist, rides a flying dragon, and wanders beyond the Four Seas. By concentrating his spirit, he can protect creatures from sickness and plague and make the harvest plentiful.

The authors of the Zhuangzi had a lyrical view of life and death, seeing them as complementary aspects of natural changes. This is antithetical to the physical immortality sought by later Daoist alchemists. Consider this famous passage about accepting death.
Chuang Tzu's wife died. When Hui Tzu went to convey his condolences, he found Chuang Tzu sitting with his legs sprawled out, pounding on a tub and singing. "You lived with her, she brought up your children and grew old," said Hui Tzu. "It should be enough simply not to weep at her death. But pounding on a tub and singing—this is going too far, isn't it?"
Chuang Tzu said, "You're wrong. When she first died, do you think I didn't grieve like anyone else? But I looked back to her beginning and the time before she was born. Not only the time before she was born, but the time before she had a body. Not only the time before she had a body, but the time before she had a spirit. In the midst of the jumble of wonder and mystery a change took place and she had a spirit. Another change and she had a body. Another change and she was born. Now there's been another change and she's dead. It's just like the progression of the four seasons, spring, summer, fall, winter."
"Now she's going to lie down peacefully in a vast room. If I were to follow after her bawling and sobbing, it would show that I don't understand anything about fate. So I stopped.

Alan Fox explains this anecdote about Zhuangzi's wife.
Many conclusions can be reached on the basis of this story, but it seems that death is regarded as a natural part of the ebb and flow of transformations which constitute the movement of Dao. To grieve over death, or to fear one's own death, for that matter, is to arbitrarily evaluate what is inevitable. Of course, this reading is somewhat ironic given the fact that much of the subsequent Daoist tradition comes to seek longevity and immortality, and bases some of their basic models on the Zhuangzi.

''Chuci''

The 3rd-2nd century BCE Chuci anthology of poems uses xian 仙 once and xian 僊 twice, reflecting the disparate origins of the text. These three contexts mention the legendary Daoist xian immortals Chi Song and Wang Qiao. In later Daoist hagiography, Chi Song was Lord of Rain under Shennong, the legendary inventor of agriculture; and Wang Qiao was a son of King Ling of Zhou, who flew away on a giant white bird, became an immortal and was never again seen.

''Yuan You''

The "Yuan You" poem describes a spiritual journey into the realms of gods and immortals, frequently referring to Daoist myths and techniques.
My spirit darted forth and did not return to me,
And my body, left tenantless, grew withered and lifeless.
Then I looked into myself to strengthen my resolution,
And sought to learn from where the primal spirit issues.
In emptiness and silence I found serenity;
In tranquil inaction I gained true satisfaction.
I heard how once Red Pine had washed the world's dust off:
I would model myself on the pattern he had left me.
I honoured the wondrous powers of the Pure Ones,
And those of past ages who had become Immortals.
They departed in the flux of change and vanished from men's sight,
Leaving a famous name that endures after them.

''Xi shi''

The "Xi shi" resembles the "Yuan You", and both reflect Daoist ideas from the Han period. "Though unoriginal in theme," says Hawkes, "its description of air travel, written in a pre-aeroplane age, is exhilarating and rather impressive."
We gazed down of the Middle Land with its myriad people
As we rested on the whirlwind, drifting about at random.
In this way we came at last to the moor of Shao-yuan:
There, with the other blessed ones, were Red Pine and Wang Qiao.
The two Masters held zithers tuned in perfect concord:
I sang the Qing Shang air to their playing.
In tranquil calm and quiet enjoyment,
Gently I floated, inhaling all the essences.
But then I thought that this immortal life of the blessed,
Was not worth the sacrifice of my home-returning.

''Ai shi ming''

The "Ai shi ming" describes a celestial journey similar to the previous two.
Far and forlorn, with no hope of return:
Sadly I gaze in the distance, over the empty plain.
Below, I fish in the valley streamlet;
Above, I seek out holy hermits.
I enter into friendship with Red Pine;
I join Wang Qiao as his companion.
We send the Xiao Yang in front to guide us;
The White Tiger runs back and forth in attendance.
Floating on the cloud and mist, we enter the dim height of heaven;
Riding on the white deer we sport and take our pleasure. tr. Hawkes 1985:266)

''Li Sao''

The "Li Sao", the most famous Chuci poem, is usually interpreted as describing ecstatic flights and trance techniques of Chinese shamans. The above three poems are variations describing Daoist xian.
Some other Chuci poems refer to immortals with synonyms of xian. For instance, "Shou zhi", uses zhenren, which Wang Yi's commentary glosses as zhen xianren.
I visited Fu Yue, bestriding a dragon,
Joined in marriage with the Weaving Maiden,
Lifted up Heaven's Net to capture evil,
Drew the Bow of Heaven to shoot at wickedness,
Followed the Immortals fluttering through the sky,
Ate of the Primal Essence to prolong my life.

''Liezi''

The Liezi, which Louis Komjathy says "was probably compiled in the 3rd century CE ", uses xian four times, always in the compound xiansheng.
Nearly half of Chapter 2 comes from the Zhuangzi, including this recounting of the above fable about Mount 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, but he never returned.
Holmes Welch analyzed the beginnings of Daoism, sometime around the 4th-3rd centuries BCE, from four separate streams: philosophical Daoism, 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''

The Shenxian zhuan is a hagiography of xian. Although it was traditionally attributed to Ge Hong, 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:
Qì : Breath control and meditation. Those who belong to this school can
"...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, 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 is fetal breathing. Those who obtain 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 ."

Fàn : Ingestion of herbal compounds and abstention from the Sān Shī Fàn —Meats and grains. The Shenxian zhuan uses this story to illustrate the importance of bigu "grain avoidance":
"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. to feel neither hunger nor thirst; in winter was not cold, in summer 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 , her body hair fell out; she turned old and died. Had she not been caught by men, she would have become a transcendent."

Fángzhōng Zhī Shù : Sexual yoga. According to a discourse between the Yellow Emperor and the immortaless Sùnǚ, 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 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.”

Dān : Elixir of Immortality.

''Baopuzi''

The 4th century CE Baopuzi, which was written by Ge Hong, gives some highly detailed descriptions of xian.
The text lists three classes of immortals:
These titles were usually given to humans who had either not proven themselves worthy of or were not fated to become immortals. One such famous agent was Fei Changfang, who was eventually murdered by evil spirits because he lost his book of magic talismans. However, some immortals are written to have used this method in order to escape execution.
Ge Hong wrote in his book The Master Who Embraces Simplicity,
The Dark Girl and Plain Girl compared sexual activity as the intermingling of fire and water , 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.

''Zhong Lü Chuan Dao Ji''

The Zhong Lü Chuan Dao Ji is associated with Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin, two of the legendary Eight Immortals. It is part of the so-called “Zhong-Lü” textual tradition of internal alchemy. Komjathy describes it as, "Probably dating from the late Tang, the text is in question-and-answer format, containing a dialogue between Lü and his teacher Zhongli on aspects of alchemical terminology and methods."
The Zhong Lü Chuan Dao Ji lists five classes of immortals:
The Śūraṅgama Sūtra, in an approach to Taoist teachings, discusses the characteristics of ten types of xian who exist between the world of devas and that of human beings. This position, in Buddhist literature, is usually occupied by asuras, but these beings are of another type. These xian are not considered true cultivators of samadhi, as their methods differ from the practice of dhyāna.
The earliest representations of Chinese immortals, dating from the Han Dynasty, portray them flying with feathery wings or riding dragons. In Chinese art, xian are often pictured with symbols of immortality including the dragon, crane, fox, white deer, various trees, and mushrooms.

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