Eating Your Way to Immortality

Eating Your Way to Immortality Early Daoist Self-Cultivation Diets SHAWN ARTHUR Abstract This paper examines health‑ and body‑related claims made in the Lingbao Wufuxu (The Preface to the Five Lingbao Talismans of Numinous Treasure), an early medieval Daoist text that contains seventy recipes for attaining health, lon‑ gevity, and spiritual benefit. Synthesizing the text’s myriad claims and analyzing their implicit assumptions, I work to develop an integrated picture of what was considered crucial for a healthy body, what techniques were used to attain this ideal, and what goals were sought using these practices. I examine the text’s claims about becoming physically and spiritually healthy, its proposed stages of purification and refinement, and the range of indicators by which adherents can measure progress toward their ideal state. Not only does this study provide a new interpretation of the Wufuxu’s dietary regimens, it also illustrates how Chi‑ nese medical theories influenced the text’s authors to present immortality as a logical evolution of health‑perfecting practices. This analysis leads to questions of how the idea of perfecting one’s health functions within the worldview and ritual practices of early Daoists. Daoists are well known for their emphasis on self‑cultivation practices aimed to attune them to the Dao and to achieve longevity. One signifi‑ cant practice which has received relatively little attention is religious die‑ tary asceticism. As with other Daoist practices, dietary regimes integrate a wide range of ideas – such as cosmological correlation, medical theo‑ ries, and religious symbolism – to develop a beneficial and comprehen‑ sive exercise that is expected to compliment other self‑cultivation and religious ritual practices. 32 Arthur, “Eating Your Way to Immortality” / 33 This project focuses on the Taishang lingbao wufuxu 太上靈寶五符序 (Preface to the Five Most High Numinous Treasure Talismans),1 which was written and edited from the second to the fifth centuries CE in the Jiangnan 江南 region in southeastern China. The Wufuxu’s first juan 卷 (scroll/chapter) includes instructions for specialized breathing practices as well as a description of the idealized lineage associated with the text and its talismans from its emergence during the generation of the cosmos through its various attributed owners – including ancient mythological figures, Masters of Esoterica (fangshi 方師), and famous immortals. The text’s third juan includes a detailed transmission ritual for the five Ling‑ bao talismans, which are presented (3.9b1‑11b) and which are well‑ known for their claimed ability to protect their wearer from harm when exploring wilderness areas in search of immortality elixir ingredients.2 The formal transmission ritual, first presented in this juan (3.3a‑7b3), be‑ came the ritual model adopted by Daoists from the fifth century forward (Raz 2004, 8, 15, 363‑81). 3 Situated between these sections, the middle juan of this text pro‑ vides an extensive and detailed example of Daoist dietary practices – many of which are attributed to the figures discussed in earlier parts of the text. This section, whose contents is the subject of this essay, is a technical manual of seventy recipes (listed in the appendix) that focuses on the attainment of perfected health and physical immortality through the ingestion of herbal‑ and vegetal‑based prescriptions.4 1 DZ 388; hereafter cited as Wufuxu. The numbering system in this work is based on that found in Komjathy’s Title Index to the Daoist Canon (2002). For a detailed discussion of the history of the various editions of this text and its close relation to other early manuscripts such as the Lingbao jing 靈寶經 and Lingbao wufu 靈寶五符, see Raz (2004, 9‑12, 142‑150). 2 For example, see Wufuxu 3.8b7‑9a10; Ge Hong’s Baopuzi 抱朴子 (Book of the Master Who Embraces Simplicity, DZ1185) 11.3a1‑8a2; trl. Ware 1966, p.179‑6. 3 For a complete list of the contents of the text’s first and third scrolls, see Raz (2004, 31‑37). 4 Although lacking an explicit explanatory statement, the context and placement of these recipes also seem to indicate that they function as preparatory practices for participation in the later formal ritual – which relies on the adept having attained many of the goals presented in the recipes, such as having one’s energy purified and strengthened, having the ability to fast, being in communica‑ tion with the gods, and having the protection of the Jade Maidens. 34 / Journal of Daoist Studies 2 (2009) Techniques To introduce Daoist diets, it must be recognized that all of the Wufuxu’s dietary practices and their expected benefits are predicated on early Chi‑ nese medical understandings of the physical body and the food it con‑ sumes in energetic terms. Qi 氣 (organic, material essential energy) is the fundamental energy that is found in everything throughout the cosmos, including the human body, which requires qi to maintain health and life. This idea is reflected throughout the Wufuxu, especially in its many recipes that present “benefiting and increasing 益長“ qi as a basic self‑ cultivation achievement.5 For example, properly ingesting a compound of China Root fungus (fuling 茯苓; Poria cocos), Rehmannia (dihuang 地黃; Rehmannia glutinosa Libosch), sesame seed (huma 胡麻; Sesamum indicum), and asparagus root (tianmendong 天門冬; Asparagus cochinensis) powders is thought to strengthen one’s qi in just thirty days and to double it within one hundred days – necessary attainments before further refine‑ ment can take place (2.15a3‑8; recipe 20). One result of this worldview is an attempt to ingest the most effica‑ cious forms of qi in order to have the best starting place for proficiently refining and transforming one’s body to its ultimate potential. For exam‑ ple, the text states: “Eating that which is clean and pure brings long life, and eating that which is unclean and corrupt causes one’s life (ming 命) to be interrupted” (2.23b2; recipe 28). Therefore, proper selection and preparation of foods is crucial to Daoist self‑cultivation. In fact, the Wufuxu is filled with admonitions to ingest only ingredients that are har‑ vested and prepared on particular days associated with optimal qi condi‑ tions and correspondences. The Wufuxu contains seventy‑three different ingredients, the most popular of which are Sesame seeds, Asparagus root, Rehmannia, China root fungus, Pine tree sap (songzhi 松脂; Pinus), Poke root (shanglu 商陸; Phytolacca acinosa), Locust tree seeds (huaizi 槐子; Sophora japonica), Wolf‑ berries (Gouqi 枸杞; Lycium chinense), and Ginger (jiang 薑; Zingiber offici‑ nale). 6 Each ingredient has its own medicinal properties, many of which 5 See recipes 1, 2, 7, 12, 14, 20, 25, 27a, 28, 36, 43, 44, 46. 6 The text contains forty‑one plant‑based active ingredients, as well as twelve varieties of rice (mi 米), wheat (mai 麥), and millet (chishumi 赤黍米, shu‑ Arthur, “Eating Your Way to Immortality” / 35 are stated explicitly in the text and which correspond to other early ma‑ teria medica information (see Arthur 2006a, 190‑213). In addition to the ingredient’s innate qualities, the text stipulates that adepts must take into consideration various important cosmological correlations – especially dates, seasons, yin‑yang states, and Five Phases energies when collecting, preparing, and ingesting the various ingredi‑ ents. For example, “A Recipe for Lengthening Years and Improving Life Expectancy 延年益壽方“ discusses harvesting the chrysanthemum plant (ju 菊; Chrysanthemum morifolium), each part of which has a special name indicating its key property, and says: During the course of the three spring months, on the jiayin 甲寅 day in the middle of the day, gather ‘transform life’ 更生 leaves. During the course of the three summer months, on the bingyin 丙寅 day… in the middle of the day, gather the ‘replen‑ ish and refill’ 周盈 stalk… During the three autumn months on the yuyi 庾寅 day in the afternoon, gather the ‘sun’s essence’ 日精. ‘Sun’s Essence’ is the chrysanthemum’s flower. Always in the winter in the tenth month on the wuyin 戊寅 day at dawn, gather the ‘spirit essence’ 神精… These are the chrysanthe‑ mum’s seeds… In winter in the eleventh or twelfth month on the renyin 壬寅 day at sunset, gather ‘longevity’ 長生. ‘Longev‑ ity’ is the chrysanthemum’s roots. (2.7a9‑9a1; recipe 12)7 In other words, to maximize efficiency in attaining their goals, ad‑ epts must remain aware of the medicinal and qi‑based properties of the ingredients they are ingesting. This is done in part because these charac‑ teristics can change depending upon the times the plants are harvested, prepared, and ingested, but also because this requires adepts to be cog‑ nizant of their own energetic needs when choosing an appropriate diet. daomi 秫稻米) that are fermented to produce alcohols with the addition of vegetal active ingredients. Additionally, there are a few non‑vegetal active ingredients [mica (yunmu 雲母), deer antler (mijiao 麋角), mercury (shuiyin 水銀), and tin (xi 錫)], and many non‑vegetal, non‑active ingredients such as water, honey, and the animal fats used for frying in some recipes. 7 See Arthur 2006, 60‑5 and Raz 2004, 361‑2 for discussion of the Chinese calendrical system and its usage in the Wufuxu. 36 / Journal of Daoist Studies 2 (2009) Ideally, normal eating habits also should be abandoned in favor of ingesting special elixir‑like compounds and cosmic qi, since these contain more specialized and rarified qi than normal foods. Accordingly, the Wufuxu contains three basic types of self‑cultivation dietary regimen, each requiring a different level of commitment. The first of these I label ‘mildly ascetic’ because it involves eating special vegetal and herbal formulas as supplements to normal meals or slightly reduced food intake.

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