Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
Chinese alchemy (煉丹術 liàndānshù "method for refining cinnabar") is a historical Chinese approach to alchemy, a pseudoscience. According to original texts such as the Cantong qi , the body is understood as the focus of cosmological processes summarized in the five agents of change, or Wuxing , the observation and cultivation of which ...
Chinese woodblock illustration of a waidan alchemical refining furnace, 1856 Waike tushuo 外科圖説 (Illustrated Manual of External Medicine). Waidan, translated as 'external alchemy' or 'external elixir', is the early branch of Chinese alchemy that focuses upon compounding elixirs of immortality by heating minerals, metals, and other natural substances in a luted crucible.
Chinese alchemy was closely connected to Taoism and Indian alchemy with the Dharmic faiths. In contrast, Western alchemy developed its philosophical system mostly independent of but influenced by various Western religions. It is still an open question whether these three strands share a common origin, or to what extent they influenced each other.
Development of the immortal embryo in the lower dantian of the Daoist cultivator. Neidan, or internal alchemy (traditional Chinese: 內丹術; simplified Chinese: 內丹术; pinyin: nèidān shù), is an array of esoteric doctrines and physical, mental, and spiritual practices that Taoist initiates use to prolong life and create an immortal spiritual body that would survive after death. [1]
According to the well-established view in China, the text was composed by Wei Boyang in the mid-second century CE, and deals entirely with alchemy, in particular with Neidan (or Internal Alchemy). In agreement with its title, the Cantong qi is concerned with three major subjects, Cosmology (the system of the Book of Changes ) , Taoism ( the way ...
Wei Boyang (traditional Chinese: 魏伯陽; simplified Chinese: 魏伯阳; pinyin: Wèi bóyáng) was a Chinese writer and Taoist alchemist of the Eastern Han dynasty.He is the author of The Kinship of the Three (also known as Cantong Qi), and is noted as the first person to have documented the chemical composition of gunpowder in 142 AD.
During the Qin and Han dynasties, fangshi developed many new techniques, which were gradually absorbed by Daoist religions (e.g., Shangqing School), Daoist movements (e.g., Way of the Five Pecks of Rice), Chinese alchemy (both internal Neidan and external Waidan), Buddhist meditation, and traditional Chinese medicine.
The Zhong Lü Chuan Dao Ji (Chinese: 鐘呂傳道集; pinyin: Zhōng lǚ chuándào jí), "Anthology of the Transmission of the Dao from Zhong[li Quan] to Lü [Dongbin]") is a Song dynasty Taoist compendium, following the "Zhong-Lü" (Chinese: 鍾呂; pinyin: Zhōng lǚ) textual tradition of internal alchemy , which lists five classes of immortals: