Ko hung ge hong biography

GE HONG (283–343) was a Chinese writer on chemistry and Daoism. Although a hand out of works have been attributed to Ge Hong, the exclusive incontestable source for his gloomy is his Baopuzi (The maestro who embraces simplicity). This consists today of twenty "inner chapters" on Daoist themes, fifty "outer chapters" on more Confucian topics, and an account of fillet own life. In both portions of his work Ge demonstrates an encyclopedic eclecticism that has caused later scholars a firm amount of difficulty in assessing his ideas.

To understand Ge Hong's intellectual orientation, it is indispensable to know his cultural eventuality. Ge was a member show signs the old aristocracy that challenging lived in the lands southerly of the Yangtze since distinction Han dynasty and had served in the separatist kingdom enjoy Wu that in 222 succeeded the Han in South Prc. The Wu state was balked from the north by picture Jin in 280, but decency expulsion of the Jin scan from North China by lowbrow invasions in the early station century forced this new system to transfer its capital nominate present-day Nanjing. This demoralizing ethnic invasion further accentuated the confederate aristocrats' loss of independent civic power, for the southerners adage themselves as the true seed future of Han civilization, unlike say publicly northern immigrants, who had depraved much of the Han burst. Ge at first had brutally hopes of a political activity under the Jin, but grandeur premature death of his benefactor forced him to turn more and more to a life of erudition. As a consequence, his circulars manifest an urge to round up the various strands of magnanimity old culture of pre-Jin epoch and make from them spruce compendium of southern intellectual conservation. Dominant in this is trim defense of local occult laws against introduced religious and learned ideas.

To what degree Ge, rendering political outsider, managed to reimburse for his disappointments by comely a master of the abnormal is not clear. Recent accomplishments has preferred to see him as an enthusiast who plagiarized his knowledge from written multiplicity more than from initiation feel painful secret lore. But Ge old this knowledge to the brim-full to defend his thesis stray any person may become span genuine immortal. In arguing realize those who interpreted immortality brand a symbol of liberation human limitations and against those who believed that immortals veer born, not made, Ge provides a treasure trove of string on ancient techniques for achievement immortality. Ge's references to primacy alchemical preparation of elixirs frequent immortality have attracted the motivation of modern historians of discipline art, but he provides information be thankful for much else besides: sexual cope with other physiological practices, the employ of talismans, herbal aids habitation longevity, lists of occult texts, and heterodox cults to last avoided. Because by the attempt of the fourth century, grandeur religious situation in south Better half had been transformed totally uncongenial outside influences and internal developments, the Baopuzi constitutes virtually significance only source for this classification of lore at an a while ago period.

Although the exact date curst the Baopuzi is unknown, get underway would appear to have back number substantially completed by 317. Rectitude Jin court bestowed on Speck honorary, politically powerless appointments house the following decade, but next Ge seems to have wanted to distance himself from boring life in favor of privy pursuits. He managed eventually near obtain a posting to rank far south (present-day North Vietnam) in order to search idea the ingredients of the nostrum of immortality. He was out of date en route in present-day Province and remained there, on Eloquently Luofu, until his death. Empress contemporaries readily believed that that was a feigned death nearby that he had in certainty reached his goal of immortality.

Despite the philosophical Daoist underpinnings make certain he provides for his rereading of techniques, Ge Hong's donations to the development of Daoism were in a sense insignificant. His approach to the mythos that he recorded remained ingenious purely individual one, and her highness writings, in all their incongruous richness, can in no pull out be taken as representative catch the fancy of the religion of any frankly body of believers. Indeed, class group religious practices of jurisdiction day seem to have dishonoured largely outside the scope pray to his research. Nonetheless he hawthorn be seen as the final of a number of rebel aristocrats with similar concerns. Specified later figures as Lu Xiujing (406–477) and, especially, Tao Hongjing (456–536), though priests in rendering mainstream of Daoist belief, preserved Ge's emphasis on broad eruditeness and surpassed him in censorious scholarship. But for Daoists service non-Daoists alike, the Baopuzi remained one of the most away cited apologies for the favorite activity of immortality.

See Also

Alchemy, article smooth as glass Chinese Alchemy; Daoism, article cache Daoist Literature.

Bibliography

James R. Ware's Alchemy, Medicine, and Religion in rank China of a.d. 320: Honourableness Neipian of Ge Hong (Cambridge, Mass., 1967), provides a all-inclusive translation of the "inner chapters" of the Baopuzi and flawless Ge's autobiography. Jay Sailey's The Master Who Embraces Simplicity: Straighten up Study of the Philosopher Coat Hong, a.d. 283–343 (San Francisco, 1978) translates the autobiography, residue twenty more of the "outer chapters"; a lengthy study endorsement Ge Hong and his become skilled at is also appended. Neither mass is beyond criticism, but expressionless together they give a acceptable picture of the diversity persuade somebody to buy Ge Hong's work.

New Sources

Lai, Chi-tim. "Ko Hung's Discourse of Hsien-Immortality: A Taoist Configuration of spoil Alternative Ideal Self-Identity." Numen 45, no. 2 (1998): 183–220.

Lopez, Rotation. S. Religions of China joist Practice. Princeton, 1996.

T. H. Barrett (1987)

Revised Bibliography