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Chinese alchemy (煉丹術 liàndānshù "method for refining cinnabar") is a historical Chinese approach to alchemy. 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 leads the ...
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.
An alchemist is a person versed in the art of alchemy. Western alchemy flourished in Greco-Roman Egypt, the Islamic world during the Middle Ages, and then in Europe from the 13th to the 18th centuries. Indian alchemists and Chinese alchemists made contributions to Eastern varieties of the art. Alchemy is still practiced today by a few, and ...
The Pill of Immortality, also known as xiandan (仙丹), jindan (金丹) or dan (丹) in general, was an elixir or pill sought by Chinese alchemists to confer physical or spiritual immortality. It is typically represented as a spherical pill of dark color and uniform texture, made of refined medical material.
Pages in category "Chinese alchemists" The following 12 pages are in this category, out of 12 total. This list may not reflect recent changes. B. Bao Gu; F.
The Chinese historian Yu Ying-shi concludes that "as a general term, fang-shih may be translated 'religious Taoists' or 'popular Taoists,' since all such arts were later incorporated in the Taoist religion. [10] Only in specific cases depending on contexts, should the term be translated 'magicians,' 'alchemists,' or 'immortalists.'"
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.
In Chinese history, the alchemical practice of concocting elixirs of immortality from metallic and mineral substances began circa the 4th century BCE in the late Warring states period, reached a peak in the 9th century CE Tang dynasty when five emperors died, and, despite common knowledge of the dangers, elixir poisoning continued until the 18th century Qing dynasty.