The Dramatis Personae 43 Chapter 2 The Dramatis Personae Although a mere fragment of the once-rich Daoist hagiographic literature of early medieval China has been preserved, it nevertheless provides us with some idea about the large numbers of people deemed to have attained immor- tality. The vitae of seventy immortals are contained in the received version of the Liexian zhuan, more than one hundred additional practitioners of immor- tality arts are recorded in the Shenxian zhuan, and stories of various other adepts are scattered throughout historiographic sources, such as the Shiji, the Hou Han shu, and records of strange phenomena (zhiguai). Not all successful immortality seekers, however, became protagonists of the poetry written by scholar-officials and courtiers. Only a few of the xian immor- tals who were often referred to in prose sources appeared regularly in poetry as well, while some of the important Daoist personalities were never adopted in secular verse and thus remained in the narrower domain of religious cults. Our discussion will start with an overview of the major figures connected with immortality who achieved popularity in early poetic narratives. Xi Wangmu Written and pictorial records testify that by far the most venerated deity con- nected with immortality in early medieval China was Xi Wangmu 西王母, the Queen Mother of the West.1 Her image as the queen of the immortals evolved from several different traditions that had probably existed independently 1 The image of Xi Wangmu in early religious thought and pictorial arts has been thoroughly studied. For a comprehensive overview, see Loewe, Ways to Paradise, 86–126. Homer Dubs in “An Ancient Chinese Mystery Cult” and Riccardo Fracasso in “Holy Mothers of Ancient China” focus on textual descriptions of the goddess in pre-Han and Han sources, while iconographic material from Han funerary art is discussed by Wu Hung in “Xiwangmu, the Queen Mother of the West” and Jean M. James in “An Iconographic Study of Xiwangmu during the Han Dynasty.” Susan Cahill in Transcendence and Divine Passion explores the Queen Mother’s image in Tang Daoism and poetry, while the first chapter of the book provides a good introduction to the beliefs and cults associated with the Queen Mother in classical and early medieval China. For a discussion of the images of Xi Wangmu and her partner Dong Wanggong 東王公 with a focus on the Shangqing tradition, see Li Fengmao, “Duomian Wangmu, Wanggong yu Kunlun, Donghua shengjing.” © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2016 | doi 10.1163/9789004313699_004 44 Chapter 2 during the Warring States and early Han. Two passages in the Shanhai jing describe the Queen Mother as a therianthropic ancient goddess who dwells in a cave and presides over heavenly epidemics.2 According to Mu tianzi zhuan 3.15, she is a divine sovereign who lives in the west on Mount Kunlun and meets with human kings. In contrast, the Zhuangzi speaks of her as an eternal being that has attained the Dao, while in the Huainanzi she emerges as a regulator of cosmic order and conferrer of immortality.3 In the course of the Han dynasty, these heterogeneous aspects gradually fused into the well-known image of the Queen Mother as a beautiful and youthful divine lady dwelling in the paradise of Kunlun who presided over and bestowed immortality. Her numerous images, current from the late Western Han onward, predominantly appeared in funerary contexts—in tombs and in ancestral shrines—thus expressing hopes for an immortal afterlife in paradise. The Queen Mother was often depicted along with her male counterpart, Dong Wanggong, the King and Sire of the East, whose image was established during the Eastern Han period.4 During the Han dynasty the Queen Mother was not only worshipped by the elite, as her numerous representations in tombs attest, but also became the savior of a messianic peasant cult, which arose in China’s northeastern prov- inces in the early years AD.5 Preparing for the coming of the Queen Mother, the cult followers engaged in fervent and passionate religious activities. Regarding themselves as her envoys and servants, they claimed that the goddess would bestow immortality upon the faithful and bring death to unbelievers. The Queen Mother remained neglected in the texts of the early Celestial Masters, probably because of her association with the popular cults so con- demned by this Daoist school, but in the Shangqing Daoist tradition she rose 2 Shanhai jing jiaozhu 2.15 and 16.407. 3 Zhuangzi jishi 6.247; Huainan honglie jijie zhu 6.211 and 6.217. Riccardo Fracasso provides a chronological arrangement and a critical discussion of the earliest sources on Xi Wangmu. He distinguishes three early traditions current between the fifth and third centuries BC, each associated with a specific area: the northern tradition, reflected in the Mu tianzi zhuan, the southern tradition, associated with the Zhuangzi, and the western or southwestern tradition, possibly of Tibetan origin, which had entered China via the states of Shu, Ba, and Chu and is reflected in the Shanhai jing. (See Fracasso’s “Holy Mothers of Ancient China.”) 4 Also called Dong Wangfu 東王父, King Father of the East. Käte Finsterbusch has gathered rich pictorial material from Han tombs on Xi Wangmu and her partner in Verzeichnis und Motivindex der Han-Darstellungen (see the entries “Hsi-wang-mu” and “Hsi-wang-mu und Tung-wang-kung” in the indexes to the volumes). 5 Han shu 11.26–27. See also Dubs, “An Ancient Chinese Mystery Cult”; Loewe, Ways to Paradise, 98–101..