Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism
Perfected Lingxu Jiansu: Ye Fashan (616–720) was a Taoist priest of the Tang dynasty. His courtesy name was Daoyuan, and he was also called Taisu. People knew him as “Celestial Master Ye” and “the Perfected of Kuocang and Luofu.” His ancestral home was Ye County in Nanyang (in present-day Henan); at the end of the Han the family moved to Kuocang in Chuzhou (present-day Lishui, Zhejiang). His family had been Taoist priests for five generations, all known for divine arts, nurturing life, and ascending to perfection, and they used hidden merit and the arts of summoning and exorcism to rescue beings and help people.
Fashan was born in the twelfth year of the Daye era of Emperor Yang of Sui (616). Before this, his mother, Lady Liu, dreamed in the daytime that a shooting star entered her mouth, and she then conceived. When he was only seven, already looking old and mature beyond his years, he crossed a river to roam and did not return for three years. His family thought he had drowned. When he came home and was asked why, he replied: “Three azure youths led me away. I rested in splendid halls and lofty mansions, swallowed numinous medicines and drank cloud nectar, and the Most High kept me there; that is why I stayed.”
When he was ten, a face reader said, “He will become the teacher of emperors.” From childhood he did not eat meat or pungent foods. He lived alone in a secluded room, loved ancient learning and letters, studied the Zhouyi, delighted in Laozi's Tao Te Ching and the Zhuangzi, and read the Yellow River Chart and the Luo River Writing in full detail.
Resolved on cultivating the Tao, he lived in seclusion with his father on Mount Maoshan in Songyang (not the Maoshan of Jiangsu), supporting themselves by cutting firewood and working. In his youth he inherited the family calling and was especially skilled at subduing and exorcising ghosts and spirits.
At thirteen, after mourning his parents, he traveled to famous mountains and blessed lands throughout the land. He sought out Master Wan of Yuzhang to learn the methods of refining elixirs, grain avoidance (bigu), daoyin (guiding and pulling exercises), and embryonic breathing.
At fifteen he was poisoned and near death, and again an azure youth appeared and told him that the immortal of Gouqu would save him with a flying seal. He therefore traveled far to visit Lord Mao; from Zhao Yuanyang of Qingcheng he received the arts of Dunjia and pacing the mysteries, and at Mount Song he served Shan Jun, who transmitted to him the way of the “Eight Histories” and cloud-stepping.
Later he entered Mount Meng in search of hidden arts and met a feathered practitioner who gave him immortal books and a divine sword. Over time he received from divine beings a great many teachings, including the Zhengyi methods of the Covenant with the Powers of the Three and Five, the Talismanic Charts of the Five Peaks, the Great Script of the Heavenly Sovereign, and the Shangqing methods of the Three Caverns. With these he quietly accumulated hidden merit, delivering the living and the dead, and his fame spread widely—“he was praised throughout the land.”
During the Xianqing era of the Tang (656–661), Emperor Gaozong heard of him and summoned him to the capital, intending to grant him rank, but he firmly declined. He asked instead to be a Taoist priest and was ordained at the Jinglong Temple. He often stayed at the inner palace ritual site and was treated with great generosity.
At that time Gaozong ordered that practitioners of the occult arts be recruited far and wide to perform the alchemy of gold and silver. Fashan submitted a memorial: “The golden elixir is hard to achieve; it merely wastes wealth and goods and harms good government.” The project was then abandoned. He once set up an altar and performed offering rituals at the Lingkong Temple in the eastern capital of Luoyang, suppressing demonic illnesses, and officials and commoners alike were deeply impressed.
In the two capitals, east and west, more than a thousand civil officials, military officers, men, and women received Taoist registers from him. Whatever gold and silk he received he spent without stint on repairing Taoist temples and monasteries and on relieving orphans and the poor.
Through the reigns of Gaozong, Wu Zetian, and Zhongzong, for fifty years, he often traveled among the famous mountains and was repeatedly summoned into the palace, where he was asked about the Tao with the utmost courtesy. When Wu Sansi still held power in the state, Fashan remonstrated with him repeatedly and was banished to the South Sea region. He was later moved to Hongzhou, where he led his disciples into the Western Hills, to the place where Master Hongya had studied the Tao, and practiced the hidden methods of Shangqing. When Emperor Ruizong took the throne, he said that Fashan had given unseen help, for he had foreseen the treacherous revolt of Empress Wei and reported it to the throne in advance.
After Emperor Xuanzong of Tang ascended the throne, he trusted Fashan even more, saying that he had “repeatedly heard the essentials of the Tao” from him and that “whenever treacherous ministers plotted in secret or wicked rebels usurped and revolted, he always warned me beforehand” (Imperial Stele for the Perfected). In the eighth month of the second year of the Xiantian era (713), he was granted the titles Grand Master of the Palace with Golden Seal and Purple Ribbon, Chief Minister of State Ceremonial, and Duke of Yue, and was made abbot of the Jinglong Temple as well. His father was also granted a noble title, and his ancestral home was given to him as the Chunhe Temple.
He departed as an immortal on the third day of the sixth month of the eighth year of the Kaiyuan era of the Tang (720), at the age of 104 (some say 107). Xuanzong issued an edict expressing deep grief, posthumously promoted him to Commander-in-Chief of Yuezhou, and composed an encomium for his portrait. Emperor Suzong added a further encomium.
In the sixth year of the Zhenghe era of Emperor Huizong of Song (1116), he was specially enfeoffed as “Dharma Master Zhixu Jiansu,” and in the second year of the Xuanhe era (1120) he was given the added title “Perfected Lingxu Jiansu.” He had many disciples, but only Yin Qing and Ji Qiwu (also recorded as Lu Qiwu) were his inner-chamber disciples.
The extant Numinous Text of the Marrow of the Shangqing Hidden Book is said to have been transmitted by Fashan.