A Study of the Origins and Historical Development of the Taoist Theory of Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands

Chiyang Daoren, Eastern Taoism

Faced with an ecological crisis that is sweeping the globe and growing ever worse, thoughtful people everywhere have been racking their brains for sound responses. In recent years, the academic world both in China and abroad has placed great emphasis on searching humanity's traditional cultural resources for values, ethics, and worldviews that might help humankind escape its ecological predicament and rebuild its lost home.

As far as China's indigenous traditional culture is concerned, attention has been drawn to the various environmentally minded ways of thinking embodied in how Taoist philosophy, the Taoist religion, and Confucianism view the natural world. In broad terms, these guiding ideas include: a holistic, organic view of nature; a worldview of the unity of heaven and humanity, in which all people are one's siblings and all things one's companions; a view of life that values and honors life and holds all things equal; a view of action that favors non-action (wuwei) and going along with things rather than exalting private cleverness; a view of living that manifests plainness, embraces simplicity, and reduces selfishness and desire; and a Tao-centered outlook that views things through the Tao and sees them from the standpoint of the Tao. Researchers believe that the value principles contained in Chinese traditional culture, if suitably reinterpreted, can be transformed into positive ecological thought for resolving the present ecological crisis.

The author strongly agrees with this position and believes that building a broadly inclusive ecological theory does indeed require us to turn our gaze to the legacy of our predecessors. Further, the ecological theory now taking shape is not like the so-called theory of the Western tradition, which is generally divorced from practice, but a new form of theory that unites knowing and acting and runs through both human thought and human action.

In a word, ecological thought can truly take effect only when it is transformed into people's basic way of living. In other words, if we want to change the world, we must first change ourselves. This style of uniting knowledge and action is precisely one of the basic characteristics of Chinese traditional culture. Accordingly, in the process of building modern ecological theory, Chinese traditional culture in fact enjoys a more distinctive advantage than Western traditional resources.

Taking the Taoist idea of grotto-heavens and blessed lands as a case study, this article explores the ecological thought contained in Taoism. The author hopes to shift the above line of inquiry from the macro to the micro level and to seek, at a somewhat practicable level, various ways out of our present predicament.

The theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands is an important component of Taoist cosmology. Its basic meaning can be explained in modern language as follows: within the living space centered on the earth that we humans inhabit (the so-called “world of the great heaven”), there coexist 36 relatively isolated living worlds of varying size (the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens and the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens) and 72 special regions (the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands). Most of these grotto-heavens and blessed lands lie within or between the famous mountains, great and small, of China; they are interconnected and together form a special underground world, inhabited by immortals and spirits of lower rank or by people who have withdrawn from the world.

According to the Taoist explanation, the world of the grotto-heavens and blessed lands resembles the world of the great heaven in which we live, each having its own natural components such as heaven and earth, sun and moon, mountains and rivers, grasses and trees. Because the grotto-heavens and blessed lands lie within the space of the world of the great heaven, they have all kinds of connections with our world (for example, people sometimes stray into a grotto-heaven, and the inhabitants of grotto-heavens sometimes visit the human world). At the same time, because of their relative isolation, the world of grotto-heavens and blessed lands also has its own distinctive structure of time and space.

Generally speaking, the world of the grotto-heavens is not open to ordinary people; its existence is highly hidden. In terms of function, apart from a few grotto-heavens of the reclusive type, the grotto-heavens and blessed lands can be regarded as places where Taoists practice before attaining the ultimate goal of liberation. In terms of origin, the emergence and formation of the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands must be closely related to the mountain-dwelling habits of the ancient Chinese in prehistoric times and at the dawn of civilization.[1] To see this, we need only consider that “stone chambers” and “caves” served as the basic dwelling places of those cultivating the Tao in the pre-Taoist period and in the early days of Taoism.

From the standpoint of cosmology and ontology, the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands reflects the distinctive perspective from which Taoists viewed heaven, earth, humanity, and things; the views of heaven, earth, humanity, and things implicit in it are profound and thought-provoking. It differs from our usual ways of viewing being, non-being, emptiness and nothingness, and substance, explaining the modes of existence of heaven, earth, humanity, and things against the background of a theory of a cosmos made up of nested concentric layers. In this it is inwardly consistent with the fundamental Taoist doctrine of the Tao.

Today, as we face a global environmental crisis and the ecological environment of the world of the great heaven has fallen into extreme distress, the study of Taoist ideas of grotto-heavens and blessed lands is no longer idle talk without foundation but has urgent practical significance. The time has now come for the earth, its mountains and rivers, to open up all their inner secrets and to receive humankind withdrawing from the world. In this article I will conduct a systematic study of the pre-Tang Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, organized around such themes as its concepts, the formation of the theory, and its ecological factors.

1. The Formation and Development of the Idea of Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands

Grotto-heavens and blessed lands refer mainly to the sacred spaces of Taoism within the great heaven. The regions they encompass include grotto-heavens, blessed lands, parishes and oratories, water palaces, sacred mountains, and sea islands; specifically, the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands, the Eighteen Water Palaces, the Twenty-Four Parishes, the Thirty-Six Oratories, and the Ten Continents and Three Islands. This article mainly discusses the first four; as for the last three, because the matters involved are too complex, the author will treat them in a separate article.

1. The Idea of Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands and the Ancient Chinese View of the Earth in the Pre-Taoist Period

The Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands holds that within the earth we inhabit, and especially within the great famous mountains, there exist other independent worlds of habitation. The formation of this idea is clearly closely related to the ancient Chinese view of the earth in the pre-Taoist period.

The view of the earth is one of the important elements of ancient Chinese cosmology. Historically, there were four main ancient Chinese cosmologies: the theory of a round heaven and a square earth, the theory of the enveloping heaven (huntian), the theory of the canopy heaven (gaitian), and the theory of the diffused night (xuanye). The theory of a round heaven and a square earth comes from the Zhoubi Suanjing (Arithmetical Classic of the Gnomon), and the “Treatise on Astronomy” in the Book of Jin describes it thus: “Heaven is round like an open canopy; earth is square like a chessboard.” This idea largely shaped the ancient Chinese understanding of the earth. Here I will describe two elements of the ancient Chinese view of the earth that relate to the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands.

The concepts of heavenly pillars and earthly pillars bear directly on how the relationship between heaven and earth and the structure of the earth were understood. First, the heavenly pillars. The heavenly pillar, or simply pillar, was proposed to give a reasonable explanation of how heaven and earth are connected. According to this view, the canopy of heaven above the earth needs pillars to support it, just as people need pillars to build houses. This is an intuitive idea based on the experience of daily life.

The concept of the heavenly pillar, or pillar, has a long history in ancient China. In the textual record, as early as the Warring States period Qu Yuan mentioned “eight pillars” in “Heavenly Questions,”[2] holding that heaven is propped up by eight great pillars on the earth.

The “Treatise on the Patterns of Heaven” in the Huainanzi also retells the famous myth of Gonggong, who in his rage butted against Mount Buzhou and broke the heavenly pillar.[3] This shows that the idea of the heavenly pillar was closely related to early creation myths, and that the so-called heavenly pillar was a high mountain.

None of these, however, gives a clear account of the details of the heavenly pillar. The Classic of Divine Marvels (Shenyi Jing), which appeared in the Han dynasty and is traditionally attributed to Dongfang Shuo, made up for this deficiency. It describes the heavenly pillar of Kunlun thus: “On Kunlun there is a bronze pillar, so high that it enters heaven; this is what is called the heavenly pillar. It is three thousand li around, perfectly round as if pared. Beneath the bronze pillar there is a dwelling, a hundred zhang square.”[4]

Here the bronze pillar of Kunlun is taken as the heavenly pillar, and its shape and size are described. The concept of the heavenly pillar later influenced Taoism. The Record of the Dadi Grotto-Heaven written by Deng Mu of the Yuan dynasty cites a tradition that heaven has eight pillars and regards Mount Dadi as one of them: “According to what is recorded in biographies and chronicles, heaven has eight pillars, three of which are in China: one in Shuzhou, one in Shouyang, and the one now in Yuhang—these are they.”[5] In describing the heavenly pillars, this passage also holds that three of the eight heavenly pillars are located in China.

Besides the heavenly pillars, the ancient Chinese also proposed the concept of “earthly pillars” to explain the structure of the earth. The Treatise on Curiosities (Bowu Zhi) by Zhang Hua of the Jin dynasty says: “North of Mount Kunlun, the earth turns downward for three thousand six hundred li, where there are eight dark, obscure capitals, two hundred thousand li square. Beneath the earth there are four pillars, each a hundred thousand li wide. The earth has three thousand six hundred axles, rising interlocked like dogs' teeth.”[6]

This holds that beneath the earth there is a world of its own, whose space, like the world above ground, is propped up by earthly pillars. This idea also found an echo in early Taoism. The Inner Biography of the Pass Keeper (Guanling Neizhuan) holds that the entire interior of the earth is hollow, and that what props up this underground space are four earthly pillars at its four corners: “The earth is ten thousand li thick; beneath it lies a great void, and beneath the four corners of the great void there are natural golden pillars, each a thousand li around.”[7] Note that the ideas of earthly pillars and underground space served as a direct inspiration for the formation of the Taoist idea of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, as discussed below.

If the concepts of heavenly and earthly pillars show the ancient Chinese viewing heaven and earth from the perspective of building man-made structures, and so treating them as a system of mechanical devices, then the theoretical background of such concepts as earth veins and water veins is clearly an anthropomorphic view of the earth, one that regards the earth as an organic structural system similar to the human body. The emergence of this kind of thought in China can only be understood against the theoretical background of a cosmology of the transformations of qi, such as the theory of yin and yang and the Five Phases.

The concept of earth veins also originated very early in ancient China. The term “earth vein” already appears in the Classic of Mountains and Seas as quoted in chapter 157 of the Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall (Beitang Shuchao): “The Dongting Cave is at Baling in Changsha. South of present-day Wu County, within Lake Tai, there is Mount Bao, and on the mountain is the Dongting Cave. An underground passage runs hidden, and it is called the earth vein.”

Again, the Commentary on the Water Classic (Shuijing Zhu) by Li Daoyuan of the Northern Wei, quoting the words of Meng Tian in the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), also mentions the earth veins: “(Meng Tian,) about to die, said: Starting from Lintao and reaching to Liaodong, I built walls and moats for more than ten thousand li; I could not avoid cutting the earth veins. For this I surely deserve to die.”[8] From Meng Tian's words we can infer that people of the time believed the earth veins were bound up as one with the rise and fall of human fortunes, closely and vitally connected, and that cutting the earth veins was an inauspicious act.

Besides earth veins, ancient China also had the concept of “water veins.” The Guanzi holds that water is the vein of the earth.[9] Liu Jingshu of the Liu Song dynasty in the Six Dynasties period also mentioned water veins and gave a vivid description of their shape: “In the eighth year of the Chiwu era of Sun Quan of Wu, the commandant Chen Xun was sent to dredge a canal at Jurong. Midway, digging broke into a kiln, and they unearthed a black thing without head or tail, shaped like a boat of several hundred hu, some tens of zhang long, wriggling and moving. After a while it all melted into liquid, and no one could identify it. After this was found, a spring source was obtained. Some said it was a water vein. Whenever there was a great drought and all the other channels dried up, only this great stream remained.”[10]

The water vein described here has shape and color and is quite like a living body. Again, Mu Xuanxu of the Tang, singing of Mount Siming, said that “within it grow strange fruits that can satisfy hunger, and there are also mountain springs that connect with the veins of the sea.”[11] Here, beyond the water veins, the idea of sea veins is derived. As for Taoist books on the earth veins, although they also accept that the Dongting Cave is the main vein of the earth,[12] the Inner Biography of the Pass Keeper puts forward the new view that “each land takes the four seas as its veins.” But whether the four seas are taken as the earth veins or Dongting as the main vein, both show that the ancient Chinese viewed the earth from an anthropomorphic perspective. From this point of view, just as people have blood vessels and hair, the earth as an organic living being also has bones, flesh, and hair.

This view was established before the emergence of Taoism and was the basic view of the earth held by the ancient Chinese. The apocryphal text “Kaolingyao” attached to the Book of Documents gives it its fullest expression: “The earth has the famous mountains as its assistants, stones as its bones, rivers as its veins, and soil as its flesh. Above three chi is dung; below three chi is earth.”[13]

Here the earth is clearly compared with the human body. Again, Liu Xiang's Separate Records (Bielu), as quoted in chapter 157 of the Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall, also regards the earth as an organism that, like higher living beings, has the sensations of pain and itching: “When mountains are cut and stones drilled, the earth feels pain; when fleas and lice are numerous, the earth itches.”

These views all find echoes in Taoism. The early Taoist scripture the Scripture of Great Peace (Taiping Jing) accepted the views above and, on that basis, criticized people of the time for wantonly boring through mountains and digging into the earth, damaging the natural environment: “Now, heaven does not dislike people having houses; what it dislikes is people digging too deep into the earth, which all causes wounds. Some reach the earth's bones, some reach the earth's blood. Springs are the blood of the earth; stones are the bones of the earth. The earth is the mother of humankind; if one digs recklessly into one's mother, the mother is grieved and pained, and that is why people are so often sick and short-lived. Whenever one digs the earth and moves soil, the rule is not to go more than three chi into the earth. The first chi is where yang shines, and its qi belongs to heaven; the second chi is where things are born, and its qi belongs to central harmony; the third chi reaches the body of the earth, and its qi belongs to yin. Going below this harms the form of the earth and is always inauspicious.”[14]

Here the Scripture of Great Peace likens the earth to humanity's mother, holding that she, like a person, has the capacity to feel pain. This is a typical anthropomorphic view of the earth.

Viewed in terms of Chinese cultural tradition, the anthropomorphic, organic view of the earth is the mainstream of Chinese culture, and its origins must be related to ancient Chinese creation myths. The notion of “Mother Earth” or “Father Earth” is of one lineage with the myth of Pangu separating heaven and earth.

Chapter 31 of the Classified Collection of Literature (Yiwen Leiju) quotes the Records of the Three and Five (Sanwu Liji) by Xu Zheng of the Three Kingdoms period, which relates this creation myth: “First was born Pangu; when he was dying, his body was transformed. His breath became the wind and clouds, his voice the thunder; his left eye became the sun, his right eye the moon; his four limbs and five members became the four extremities and the Five Peaks; his blood became the rivers, his sinews and veins the contours of the land, his flesh the fields and soil; his hair and beard became the stars, his skin and body hair the grasses and trees; his teeth and bones became metals and stones, his essence and marrow pearls and jade, his flowing sweat the rain and dew; and the various vermin on his body, stirred by the wind, turned into the common people.”

This not only regards the earth as an organism but also holds that heaven and earth, the stars and clouds, the mountains, rivers, and seas—indeed all the things of the world—share one body and one qi, being parts of the body of Pangu, the creator of heaven and earth.[15] This idea emphasizes the wholeness of the natural world and the common root and source of humanity and nature; it helps dispel humanity's sense of alienation from nature and lets human beings, as part of the natural world, return to the natural world once more.

2. The Formation and Development of the Taoist Idea of Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands

The Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands arose in the Eastern Jin and reached its final form in the late Tang and Five Dynasties. Judging from the surviving literature, Tao Hongjing of the Six Dynasties, Sima Chengzhen of the Tang, and Du Guangting of the late Tang and Five Dynasties can be regarded as the representative figures of the three major stages in the development of this theory. The theory consists mainly of two parts, grotto-heavens and blessed lands, which are discussed separately below.

The essence of the idea of grotto-heavens is a theory of world structure in which small heavenly worlds are contained within the world of the great heaven, and material things contain one another. From the perspective of comparative intellectual history, the theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands is a doctrine of great originality put forward by Taoism. It was created against the intellectual background of Laozi and the traditional Chinese cosmology of the transformations of qi.

According to Laozi and traditional Chinese cosmology, between heaven and earth, being and non-being, form and spirit, there is no absolute gap or rupture such as the Western tradition of material theory asserts; rather, there is continuity and unity. The material basis that connects them is primordial qi.[16]

In the Taoist view, visible and tangible things, such as all kinds of material objects, are formed by the condensation of qi, while what is usually called emptiness—the sky, the human spirit, and deities—is not absolute nothingness or non-existence, but exists in the form of subtle qi or primordial qi. Reasoning from this theory, outside and within the visible, tangible world formed by the condensation of coarse qi there also exists an invisible, subtle world that humans cannot perceive. Thus the overall picture of the world's existence cannot simply be divided into a tangible world superimposed on an intangible void, but is a layered structure of rings nested within rings. In this layered cosmic structure, from the human point of view, the world made of the subtlest primordial qi lies at the deepest level and forms the invisible part of the world, while the world made of the coarsest, turbid yin qi lies at the outermost ring and forms the part perceptible to humans. This means that the world human beings perceive is in fact confined to one particular layer of the layered world and is far from the whole of the cosmos.

The Liezi gives a brilliant summary of this schema of the world's structure: “Thus the large and the small contain one another without limit or end. That which contains the myriad things is like that which contains heaven and earth; hence it is without end. That which contains what lies beyond heaven and earth is therefore without limit. How do I know that beyond heaven and earth there is not a greater heaven and earth? This too I do not know.”[17]

This theory of a world structure in which the large and the small contain each other without end is the fullest expression of the layered cosmology. Similar ideas can also be found in Taoist scriptures of an earlier period.

The Illustrated Account of the Seven Realms of Cultivating Perfection and Their Attainments, which appeared around the fifth century, in discussing the realms inhabited by Perfected of seven grades of attainment, holds that these seven worlds are layered one upon another and nested ring within ring. For example, immortals of the first attainment, of the grotto palaces, dwell within the grotto residences of famous mountains; Perfected of the earthly empty palaces, of the second attainment, have “their palaces and towers above the Five Peaks and famous mountains, in the dark void, where congealed clouds and condensed qi are transformed into palaces and towers, and the bureaus and offices that govern are all complete.” And the Nine Palaces where the Perfected of the Nine Palaces, of the third attainment, dwell lie above the empty palaces of the Five Peaks inhabited by the Perfected of the earthly empty palaces: “in the great void, divided into nine positions, each position governing one quarter.” After the three attainments come the Supreme Immortals of Grand Clarity of the fourth attainment, the Perfected of the Supreme Ultimate of the fifth, the Perfected of Highest Clarity of the sixth, and the Sages of Jade Clarity of the seventh; the realms they inhabit are all layered one upon another and taken up one into another. This structure of the immortal realms of the seven domains was clearly constructed according to the layered cosmology.

In addition, descriptions of this layered schema of the immortal realms can also be found in pre-Tang fiction and miscellaneous notes on the theme of grotto-heavens. For example, the entry “Yin Yinke” in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era (Taiping Guangji), taken from the Records of Broad Marvels (Boyi Zhi), describes how in the Tang dynasty a well-digger strayed into the underground grotto-heaven called the “Land of the Ladder to Immortality”: “The workman asked the gatekeeper: ‘What kind of land is this?’ The gatekeeper said: ‘All here are immortals who have newly attained immortality. They are sent to this land to practice for seven hundred thousand days, and only then may they reach the various heavens—perhaps the Jade Capital or Penglai, Kunlun, Langfeng, or Gushe—where at last they obtain posts and ranks in the immortal palaces, in charge of registers and seals, flying freely at will.’ The workman said: ‘If this is a land of immortals, why is it in the realm below my land?’ The gatekeeper said: ‘This land of ours is the upper land of immortals of the lower realm. Above your land there is also a land of immortals like ours, likewise called the Land of the Ladder to Immortality, not different in the least.’” The various Lands of the Ladder to Immortality described here take one another up layer by layer, nested ring within ring. This was clearly the result of the influence of the idea of grotto-heavens on people of the Tang.

The best explanation of the concept of the grotto-heaven is found in an early Shangqing scripture, the Inner Biography of Perfected Ziyang, which says: “Heaven's void is called emptiness; the mountain's void is called a grotto; the human void is called a chamber. The hollow within a mountain is called a grotto court; the hollow within the human head is called a grotto chamber. Thus the Perfected dwell in heaven, dwell in mountains, and dwell in human beings, entering where there is no gap; within a grain of millet they contain Mount Penglai, embracing the six directions, which heaven and earth cannot hold.”

According to this explanation, “grotto-heaven” actually has a broad and a narrow sense. In the broad sense, grotto-heavens include the sky (the void of heaven), mountain caves (the void of mountains), and grotto chambers (the hollow of the head). According to Taoist understanding, these three voids of heaven, earth, and humanity are all inhabited by Perfected and immortal spirits of various grades—namely heavenly gods, earthly immortals, and body gods. In the narrow sense, grotto-heavens are limited to mountain caves; yet even these are not the real mountain caves of common understanding, but are mixed with interpretations from religious geography. The grotto-heavens with which the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands deals take the latter sense, referring to mountain caves of all sizes.

There is no doubt that the grotto-heavens referred to in the Taoist doctrine include the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens and the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens. As to which of these appeared earlier, however, researchers hold differing views. The older French scholar Édouard Chavannes held that the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens appeared first and the Thirty-Six Lesser Heavens later;[18] whereas Michel Soymié and Miura Kunio proposed exactly the opposite view.[19] Franciscus Verellen, in his article “The Beyond Within: Grotto-Heavens (Dongtian) in Taoist Ritual and Cosmology,” also endorses this view.

Judging from the surviving early literature on grotto-heavens, the concept of thirty-six heavens did indeed appear first. But the early thirty-six heavens were not divided into great and lesser, and the grotto-heavens that first had names numbered only ten; the names and locations of the other twenty-six heavens, as the Taoist scriptures customarily say, “were not current in the world.” The author has found two pieces of evidence for this in the surviving Six Dynasties literature. The first is from the Records of Strange Things (Shuyi Ji) by Ren Fang of the Liang: “In the human world there are thirty-six grotto-heavens, of which only ten are known by name. The remaining twenty-six heavens are found in the Record of the Nine Subtleties (Jiuwei Zhi), which is not current in the world.”[20] It is not known what text the Record of the Nine Subtleties mentioned here by Ren Fang was, but he affirms that the names of the remaining twenty-six heavens were not current in the world.

Again, Tao Hongjing of the Liang, in the Declarations of the Perfected (Zhen'gao), holds the same view: “Within the great heaven there are thirty-six grotto-heavens within the earth. The eighth of these is the grotto of Mount Gouqu, one hundred fifty li in circumference, called the Heaven of the Golden Altar and Florescent Yang. (Tao's note: What is recorded in the biography goes up to the tenth heaven, and also touches on the grottoes of Fengdu, the Five Peaks, the Eight Seas, and the distant barbarian lands of the immortals. Since these are not within this limit, they are not listed here.)”[21]

According to this passage, the Biography of Lord Mao that Tao Hongjing saw mentioned the thirty-six grotto-heavens and listed the order, names, and geographical circumstances of ten grotto-heavens; it also touched on the grottoes of Fengdu, the Five Peaks, the Eight Seas, and the distant barbarian lands; yet it did not fix the names, order, size, and location of the other twenty-six grotto-heavens beyond the ten. This becomes still clearer if we compare the Biography of Lord Mao quoted in chapter 678 of the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era (Taiping Yulan), which says:

“As for the grotto-heavens within the earth, there are thirty-six: those of Wangwu, Weiyu, Xicheng, Xixuan, Qingcheng, Chicheng, Luofu, Gouqu, Linwu, Kuocang, Kunlun, Penglai, Yingzhou, Fangzhang, Canglang, Baishan, Bating, and the like. The Five Peaks and the famous mountains all have grotto chambers, some thirty li, some twenty li, some ten li; the grottoes of the peaks are a hundred li square.”

Here all ten grotto-heavens are listed, together with the various sacred mountains and the famous mountains of the Five Peaks. Comparing this entry with the passage from the Declarations of the Perfected quoted above, we find that the entry recorded in the Imperial Readings is the same as the Biography of Lord Mao that Tao Hongjing examined in his time, for three reasons. First, the Biography of Lord Mao quoted in the Imperial Readings not only mentions the thirty-six grotto-heavens but also lists the ten grotto-heavens from Wangwu to Kuocang—the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens commonly spoken of in later times—which agrees with Tao's note in the Declarations of the Perfected, “what is recorded in the biography goes up to the tenth heaven.” Second, in the order of the ten grotto-heavens, Mount Gouqu is ranked exactly eighth. Third, the quotation in the Imperial Readings mentions the Five Peaks and the sacred mountains in the sea, which also agrees with what Tao Hongjing says in the note to the Declarations of the Perfected quoted above. The Biography of Lord Mao quoted in the Imperial Readings does, however, also contain material that goes beyond what the Declarations of the Perfected describes, which will be discussed specially below. Besides this, the Inner Biography of Lord Mao (Maojun Neizhuan) as quoted in the Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall and the Classified Collection of Literature also lists only the names of ten grotto-heavens.[22] Having examined comprehensively the literature inside and outside the Taoist Canon before the Six Dynasties, the author has not yet seen any that lists the full details of all thirty-six grotto-heavens. We therefore have reason to infer that the early Taoist books first had the concept of thirty-six grotto-heavens, yet listed in detail only the names, order, and geography of ten grotto-heavens; the remaining twenty-six heavens, it seems, had not yet been pinned down.

Seen in this light, Chavannes's opinion cannot be counted entirely wrong. However, in examining the Records for Beginning Learners (Chuxue Ji), the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, and the Record of the Dadi Grotto-Heaven included in the Taoist Canon, the author found that they too cite the Biography of Lord Mao in explaining the thirty-six grotto-heavens. For example, chapter 39 of the Imperial Readings quotes the Inner Biography of Lord Mao: “The immortals have in all thirty-six grotto-heavens. The grotto of Daizong (Mount Tai) is three thousand li in circumference and is called the Heaven of the Empty Grotto of the Three Palaces.”[23] The Record of the Dadi Grotto-Heaven quotes the Biography of Lord Mao on the Dadi grotto-heaven: “The Biography of Lord Mao says: The thirty-fourth grotto-heaven is called the Heaven of the Great Cleansing and Mysterious Canopy, four hundred li in circumference. Within it the sun and moon divide their essences; there are golden halls and jade chambers, the place where the immortal officials examine calamity and blessing. Perfected Jiang presides over it, and it is secretly connected by hidden passages with Huayang and Linwu.” All of the above cite the Biography of Lord Mao in discussing the thirty-six heavens, and Mount Tai and Mount Dadi, which they mention, lie outside the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens. From this it can fully be inferred that before the mid-Tang, when the Records for Beginning Learners was compiled, the Biography of Lord Mao already contained detailed material on the thirty-six grotto-heavens. This Biography of Lord Mao, however, was not the one Tao Hongjing saw in his time, but one supplemented by later hands; if we judge by the general practice of the Records for Beginning Learners, whose cited works are for the most part ancient books from before the Sui, the date of the supplementation can be placed between the Liang and the Sui. I can offer two pieces of evidence for this. First, the Biography of Lord Mao quoted in Deng Mu's Record of the Dadi Grotto-Heaven not only mentions the geographical location of the Heaven of the Great Cleansing and Mysterious Canopy (Sima Chengzhen's Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth calls it the Heaven of the Canopy, Cleansing, and Mystery, with a slightly different name, while Du Guangting's name for it is the same) but also indicates that the administrator of this grotto is Perfected Jiang. This clearly differs in compositional format from the Biography of Lord Mao as quoted in the Declarations of the Perfected, and even in the Records for Beginning Learners and the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, for none of them mentions that so-and-so presides over it. Judging from the surviving material, the earliest text to include such wording should be Sima Chengzhen's Shangqing Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth. Second, according to Deng Mu's ordering, if the Heaven of the Great Cleansing and Mysterious Canopy is the thirty-fourth heaven (this ordering is the same as Sima Chengzhen's order of the Thirty-Six Lesser Heavens in the Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth, which clearly belongs to the arrangement of the lineage of Ten Grotto-Heavens and Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens), then, with the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens added, the total number of grotto-heavens breaks the pattern of thirty-six. This also shows that the distinction between great and lesser grotto-heavens is incompatible with a total of thirty-six: either one distinguishes great and lesser grotto-heavens, as in the later theory of grotto-heavens, keeping the number thirty-six for the lesser grotto-heavens; or one makes no distinction between great and lesser, as in the early period, keeping thirty-six as the total. As for the grotto of Daizong mentioned in the Records for Beginning Learners and the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, although its format is the same as that of the Biography of Lord Mao quoted in the Declarations of the Perfected, it contradicts Tao's note in the Declarations of the Perfected, “what is recorded in the Biography goes up to the tenth heaven,” as well as what is recorded in the Records of Strange Things. Could it be explained that the grotto of Daizong is listed only as one of the grottoes of the Five Peaks? Yet its scale of “three thousand li in circumference” does not agree with the statement “the grottoes of the peaks are a hundred li square” in the Biography of Lord Mao quoted in chapter 678 of the Imperial Readings above. In short, this passage of the Inner Biography of Lord Mao quoted in the Records for Beginning Learners and the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era raises many problems. Clearing them up completely will require further research.

The establishment and development of the theory of grotto-heavens went through a fairly long historical process. In terms of origin, it is related to the ancient Chinese tradition of mountain dwelling. The worship of mountains, especially famous mountains, in ancient China has a long history indeed; the reason is that mountains occupied an important place in the economic and political life of the time.

The Shuowen says: “Shan (mountain) means xuan (to diffuse): it diffuses qi and disperses it to give life to the myriad things; it has stones and is high.” The Yuanmingbao apocryphon of the Spring and Autumn Annals says: “A mountain is the envelope of qi; thus it holds essences and stores clouds, and so the clouds touch the rocks and spread over the mountain.” The Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era quotes the Great Commentary on the Book of Documents, which, putting the words in the mouth of Confucius, praises the nature and virtue of mountains: “Confucius said: The mountain is lofty; grasses and trees grow on it, birds and beasts multiply on it, and wealth and resources are produced from it, and it shows no partiality to any of the four quarters. It sends forth clouds and rain that pass between heaven and earth; yin and yang unite in harmony, the rain and dew bestow their bounty, the myriad things are thereby completed, and the people are thereby nourished. This is why the humane delight in mountains.”[24]

Precisely because mountains held an important place in the nation's economy and the people's livelihood, the ancient Chinese very early brought mountains within the scope of their thought. The “Classic of Mountains,” the earlier part of the Classic of Mountains and Seas, records twenty-six mountain ranges that received sacrifices at the time, totaling four hundred fifty-one mountains.

With historical change, however, the status of the various mountains rose and fell in different periods. In the pre-Qin period Mount Kunlun played the role of the heavenly pillar, and later the Four Peaks[25] and the Five Peaks[26] rose one after another. These were famous mountains well known throughout ancient China. Meanwhile, the section “Director of Regions” in the Rites of Zhou, describing the guardian mountains of the Nine Provinces, specially singles out Mount Kuaiji as the guardian mountain of Yangzhou, Mount Heng of Jingzhou, Mount Hua of Yuzhou, Mount Yi of Qingzhou, Mount Dai of Yanzhou, Mount Yue of Yongzhou, Mount Yiwulü of Youzhou, Mount Huo of Jizhou, and Mount Heng of Bingzhou.

The Annals of Lü Buwei (Lüshi Chunqiu) also mentions nine mountains: Kuaiji, Taishan, Wangwu, Shoushan, Taihua, Qishan, Taihang, Yangchang, and Mengmen—mostly different from the Rites of Zhou.[27] The Discourses of the States (Guoyu) also says that Yu enfeoffed nine mountains.

The “Basic Annals of Emperor Wu” in Sima Qian's Records of the Grand Historian lists five mountains: Mount Hua, Mount Shou, Taishi, Mount Tai, and Donglai. The Classified Collection of Literature quotes the River Chart: “Mount Wuguan is the Gate of the Earth; above it is the star Tiangao, which governs prisons. Mount Qi lies southeast of Kunlun and is the Breast of the Earth; above it is the star Tianmi. The land of Mount Wen is the Well Network, where emperors meet with prosperity and spirits establish blessings; above it is the Heavenly Well.”[28] Here Mount Wuguan, Mount Qi, and Mount Wen are specially mentioned. These are the groups of mountains especially valued in secular literature, and they differ from those that the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens focuses on.

From the perspective of comparative religion, the place of mountains in Taoism is far more prominent than in the other religions of the world. In fact, we can say that mountains are the central places where Taoists carry out their religious life. Yet the Taoist love of mountains differs from that of secular society: it is not concerned with the economic and political value of mountains in practical life, but has its own logic of explanation. The reasons are roughly three. First, in terms of cultural tradition, before Taoist temples and monasteries became widespread, those who cultivated the Tao commonly lived and practiced in stone chambers and caves in the mountains.[29] Second, it must be related to the Taoist understanding of paradise and the blessed isles. According to early Taoist scriptures, the revered Taoist deity the Primordial Heavenly King dwells on Mount Renniao in the heavenly realm.[30]

In addition, the sacred mountains of the Taoist heavens—such as Mount Yujing in the Heaven of Grand Net, Mount Fujuekong in the Heaven of Grand Clarity, Mount Xiuhua and Mount Hantong in the Heaven of the Supreme Ultimate, Mount Yushou in the Heaven of Grand Tenuity, Mount Zikong in the Heaven of Inner Radiance, Mount Hongying and Mount Jinhuabian in the Heaven of Highest Clarity, Mount Feixia in the Heaven of Jade Emptiness, Mount Sanbao in the Heaven of the Seven Morning Stars, Mount Sanxiu in the Heaven of the Primordial Morning, Mount Kongfeng in the Heaven of Grand Mystery, Mount Yugen in the Heaven of Jade Clarity, and Mount Emei in the Heaven of Grand Nothingness—are all dwelling places of immortal spirits of various grades.[31]

By the Taoist logic of explanation, it seems that because the immortals dwell on sacred mountains, those who cultivate the Tao also dwell in the mountains. Finally, it is related to the fundamental Taoist spirit of “the unity of technique and the Tao.” Taoism especially emphasizes realizing the Tao through techniques, aiming to realize the fundamental Tao by cultivating and verifying all kinds of esoteric arts. And outer alchemy (waidan), one of the more prevalent early esoteric arts, had to be practiced while living in the mountains.

Early Taoist scriptures such as the Biography of Lord Mao list ten mountains—Mount Wangwu, Mount Weiyu, Mount Xicheng, Mount Xixuan, Mount Qingcheng, Mount Chicheng, Mount Luofu, Mount Gouqu, Mount Linwu, and Mount Kuocang—and especially stress the preeminence of these ten among all mountains. This idea was generally accepted in slightly later Taoist scriptures. Besides Tao Hongjing's Declarations of the Perfected cited above, the chapter “Grotto-Heavens” in the Supreme Secret Essentials (Wushang Biyao), quoting the Scripture of the Traces of the Tao (Daoji Jing), says the same. This shows that the ten mountains of the ten grotto-heavens were generally revered in Taoism before the end of the Six Dynasties. Why these ten mountains in particular were chosen, however, is very hard to understand. For in terms of historical and cultural tradition, the ten mountains include neither traditional famous mountains such as the Five Peaks[32] nor the long-renowned immortal mountain of Kunlun. Nor does Mount Qi, the political symbol of the Zhou dynasty, appear among them. And in terms of geographical location, apart from Mount Wangwu, located in Jiyuan in Henan, and Mounts Xicheng and Xixuan, whose locations according to Sima Chengzhen are “not known in detail,” all the other mountains are in the south.

Judging from the geographical distribution of the ten grotto-heavens and their relatively early appearance in the Biography of Lord Mao, the period of their formation must be related to the southward migration of the Jin court, the southward shift of the political center, and the development of the south. I further conjecture that their author was very probably one of the Shangqing Taoists of the generation of Yang and Xu. Details are given below.

Moreover, if we compare the ten mountains of the ten grotto-heavens with the famous mountains for compounding Taoist medicines listed by Ge Hong, who lived slightly earlier than Yang and Xu, we can discover something further. The chapter “Gold and Cinnabar” in the Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi says: “This is why the Taoists of old, when compounding divine medicines, always went into famous mountains and did not stay among ordinary mountains—precisely for this reason. Again, according to the Immortal Scriptures, the places where immortal medicines may be compounded are: Mount Hua, Mount Tai, Mount Huo, Mount Heng, Mount Song, Mount Shaoshi, Mount Chang, Mount Taibai, Mount Zhongnan, Mount Nüji, Mount Difei,[33] Mount Wangwu, Mount Baodu, Mount Anqiu, Mount Qian, Mount Qingcheng, Mount Emei, Mount Wei, Mount Yuntai, Mount Luofu, Mount Yangjia, Mount Huangjin, Mount Biezu, the Greater and Lesser Tiantai Mountains, Mount Siwang, Mount Gaizhu, and Mount Kuocang. In all these mountains there are upright gods, and among them there may be earthly immortals. Magic mushrooms grow on all of them, and one can escape great wars and great disasters there, not merely compound medicines in them. If one who possesses the Tao climbs them, the gods of these mountains will surely help him to good fortune, and his medicine will surely succeed. If one cannot climb these mountains, the great islands in the sea may also serve for compounding medicines—such as Wengzhou, Tanzhou, and Ningyu east of Kuaiji, and Shenjuzhou, Taiguangzhou, and Yuzhou of Xuzhou; all these are next best.”

Here Ge Hong quotes the Immortal Scriptures, listing twenty-seven famous mountains for compounding medicines and six blessed islands in the sea. The mountains he lists that coincide with the ten grotto-heavens are five, including Qingcheng, Wangwu, Tiantai, and Kuocang. Leaving aside Xicheng and Xixuan, whose identification is uncertain, of the remaining eight mountains only Gouqu, Weiyu, and Linwu are not mentioned. The absence of Mount Mao (Maoshan) in particular is worth pondering. From this we can perhaps draw two conclusions. First, whoever created the ten grotto-heavens may have read the Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi and drawn on the relevant content of the chapter “Gold and Cinnabar” quoted above and of other related Taoist scriptures such as the Five Talismans of Lingbao. Second, this person added famous mountains from the region where he himself lived, such as Maoshan. I therefore believe that the early Taoist doctrine of ten grotto-heavens must have appeared after Ge Hong and before Tao Hongjing, and that its author lived in the south and had a close connection with Maoshan.

As for dividing the grotto-heavens into great and lesser, and listing, besides the early ten grotto-heavens, thirty-six lesser grotto-heavens, this must have happened after the appearance of the Supreme Secret Essentials of the Northern Zhou, and belongs to the second phase of development of the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens.

Judging from the surviving literature, I think it very likely that it was Sima Chengzhen who synthesized it on the basis of Ge Hong's Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi and the content on blessed-land records in early Taoist scriptures. For the famous mountains listed in the chapter “Gold and Cinnabar” of Ge Hong's Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi can basically all be found in Sima Chengzhen's register of grotto-heavens and blessed lands. This, however, is only the author's conjecture. One problem must be raised specifically here: the thirty-six grotto-heavens discussed in the early period, represented by the Biography of Lord Mao, and the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens and Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens mentioned by later writers such as Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting look similar, but in fact represent two different systems. For since Sima Chengzhen accepted the account of the Biography of Lord Mao and listed the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens separately, only twenty-six grotto-heavens would remain, making it very hard to maintain the pattern of ten and thirty-six. Therefore, in constructing the new Thirty-Six Lesser Heavens, only by newly bringing in other famous mountains could the requirements of this pattern be met. Perhaps we can explain the pattern of ten grotto-heavens and thirty-six lesser grotto-heavens this way: in earlier scriptures such as the Biography of Lord Mao, this system was only latent and also contained an irreconcilable contradiction, for clearly it is either ten grotto-heavens or thirty-six grotto-heavens, and the two can hardly be had together. Yet in the Biography of Lord Mao both ten and thirty-six are conspicuous and strongly suggestive. The developers of the second phase of the theory of grotto-heavens, wishing to preserve the overall structure of ten and thirty-six at the same time, therefore added famous mountains and distinguished great and lesser grotto-heavens, and so finally completed this lineage of ten and thirty-six grotto-heavens.

Blessed lands and grotto-heavens are the two core concepts of the Taoist doctrine of grotto-heavens and blessed lands. Although closely linked, they originally belonged to two different systems.

Early Taoist scriptures such as the Inner Biography of Lord Mao, the Scripture of the Traces of the Tao, and the Record of the Nine Subtleties, in discussing grotto-heavens, do not involve blessed lands. This does not mean, however, that the notion of blessed lands appeared later than that of grotto-heavens. In fact the idea of blessed lands may well have appeared earlier than that of grotto-heavens, because the theoretical background from which this notion arose can be traced to the various geographical arts, such as kanyu (geomancy) and the method of forms, that were current in China in the pre-Taoist period.

Ban Gu's Book of Han lists, among the Five Phases schools, the Golden Casket of Kanyu in fourteen chapters, and among the schools of the method of forms, the Terrain of Palaces and Houses in twenty chapters, and describes the aim of the method of forms thus: “The method of forms broadly takes the configuration of the Nine Provinces in order to site city walls and dwellings, and assesses the proportions of the bone structure of people and the six domestic animals and the shapes and appearance of vessels and objects, in order to determine their sound and qi, their nobility or baseness, their good or ill fortune…. Yet form and qi go together from head to tail; there are also cases where the form is present without the qi, or the qi is present without the form; this is the singular peculiarity of the subtle.” Again, Wang Chong of the Eastern Han, in the chapter “Questioning the Arts” of his Balanced Discourses (Lunheng), quotes the Art of Diagramming Dwellings: “The gate of a house of the Shang family should not face south; the gate of a house of the Zhi family should not face north. For Shang is metal, and the south is fire; Zhi is fire, and the north is water. Water overcomes fire, and fire destroys metal; the qi of the Five Phases do not agree. Hence the gates of the dwellings of the five surname classes have proper orientations: if the orientation is proper, there will be wealth, nobility, good fortune, and prosperity; if the orientation is improper, there will be poverty, lowliness, decline, and loss.” This shows that esoteric arts such as the method of forms and kanyu were very prevalent in Han society.[34]

Although the explanatory frameworks by which these arts judged the good or ill fortune of houses and tombs differed—some based on yin and yang, some on the Five Phases—they all held this common idea: the spaces of the earth are not wholly uniform and equal, but produce auspicious or inauspicious results according to the complex relationship between the personal circumstances of the inhabitants (both living and dead) and the orientation, form, and qi of the house or tomb. The notion of blessed lands was born of this special theory of earthly space.

The Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi by Ge Hong of the Eastern Jin provides the historical trajectory of the formation of the Taoist concept of blessed lands. This book was relatively early in using the rather distinctive concept of “life-giving land,” closely related to blessed lands: “The world has its life-giving land; a province has its life-giving land; a commandery has its life-giving land; a county has its life-giving land; a township has its life-giving land; a village has its life-giving land; a house has its life-giving land; a room has its life-giving land.”[35]

The life-giving land mentioned here is the so-called auspicious and good land, referring to a particular area within a limited space. Again, the chapter “Climbing Mountains and Crossing Rivers” of the same book says: “According to the Record of the Names of Cities by the Duke of Zhou, the field allocations of the world are such that the calamities that reach them can be avoided but not exorcised; so it is with dwellings, and so it is with mountains.” Here the view of the Record of the Names of Cities by the Duke of Zhou is cited in support. This shows that Ge Hong's notion of life-giving, auspicious land had its sources. There is no doubt that the idea of “blessed lands” must be an important component of the traditional Chinese view of the earth.

On this point, the Inner Primordial Classic of the River Chart and the Middle Chapter of the River Chart quoted in Tao Hongjing's Declarations of the Perfected can also provide corroboration. Both of these River Chart apocrypha discuss the special geographical advantages of Mount Gouqu from religious and natural-geographical perspectives.[36] Besides this, the Dunjia Classic quoted in chapter 49 of the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era also mentions “lands for escaping the times”: “Lands of sandy soil, ruins of Yunyang, can be used to escape the times and to live in seclusion.”

Although “life-giving land” and “land for escaping the times” are very similar to the concept of “blessed lands” in the Taoist doctrine of grotto-heavens, judging from the intellectual background on which the whole chapter “Subtle Import” is argued, Ge Hong's ideas about life-giving land still derive from the traditional system of numerological arts and are directly related to the spatial world constructed by the culture of those arts. The Taoist idea of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, although its understanding of earthly space resembles that of the ancient numerological systems, at the same time has its own distinctive perspective.

Examining the surviving literature, the concept of blessed lands appeared fairly early. In the Selections of Refined Literature (Wenxuan), the “Rhapsody on Roaming Mount Tiantai” by Sun Chuo of the Jin contains the words “I follow the feathered men to the Cinnabar Hill, seeking the blessed court of deathlessness,”[37] in which the phrase “blessed court” appears. Again, the “Preface to the Poems of the Winding Stream on the Third Day of the Third Month” by Yan Yannian of the Liu Song, contained in chapter 46 of the same book, uses the term “blessed land.”[38] These are the earliest instances in the literature of the term “blessed land.”

In addition, Tao Hongjing, roughly contemporary with Yan Yannian, cites two blessed-land texts in the Declarations of the Perfected: the Record of Blessed Lands in the Inner Classic of Famous Mountains and the Record of Blessed Lands by Confucius. This shows that the origins of the term “blessed land” can be traced still further back. The so-called blessed lands of Taoism refer to regions especially suited for those who cultivate the Tao to practice and live in, and they differ from the auspicious lands, life-giving lands, and prosperous lands of the numerological literature, because those who cultivate the Tao do not pursue so-called worldly benefits. But why should the work of cultivating the Tao, whose aim is to seek liberation and escape the net of the world, be carried out in certain special regions? This question is rather puzzling. Perhaps a reasonable explanation is this: before finally leaping out of the Three Realms and escaping the bonds of the Five Phases, the one who cultivates the Tao is still an ordinary person and still finds it hard to escape the constraints of all kinds of tangible material forces.

Perhaps it is precisely on the basis of such considerations that the Taoist scriptures especially emphasize the important influence of location on the success of those who cultivate the Tao. The Taoist scripture Biographies of the Nine Perfected of the Southern Peak says: “If one who cultivates the Tao is not in the right place, it is like planting the five grains among sand and stones: nothing will come of it. Even if one has bones fit for ascending and flying, one must obtain a blessed land and numinous site; only then can one be transformed. Even if one accumulates virtue as one's soil and amasses merit as one's wings, if one is not in the right place, demons will ruin one's work, and there will be no way to accomplish this Tao.” Here choosing a place for cultivating the Tao is equated with a farmer sowing and planting, which shows how much importance was attached to blessed lands.

In addition, the Classified Matters and Aspects of the Shangqing Tao by Wang Xuanhe of the Tang, quoting the Rules of the Three Caverns, holds that the building of Taoist halls and oratories must also be sited on “land of heavenly virtue”: “The Rules of the Three Caverns says: In erecting oratories, halls, palaces, and chambers, one cites the statute: Site the oratory at heavenly virtue; heavenly virtue is the land of Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding.”[39] The author is not yet clear about the exact meaning of “land of heavenly virtue” and “land of Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding” here. Perhaps Jia and Yi indicate the east and Bing and Ding the south; if so, then Jia, Yi, Bing, and Ding refer to the orientation of the oratory. But this is only my personal conjecture.

In any case, it is quite clear that the Rules of the Three Caverns advocates choosing certain special locations for building palaces, halls, and oratories.

Taoist blessed lands, like grotto-heavens, are located among famous mountains, and there are seventy-two of them in all. Sima Chengzhen of the Tang said: “The Most High said: Next are the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands, among the famous mountains of the great earth. The Lord on High commands Perfected to govern them, and among them are many places of attaining the Tao.”[40] Judging from the two lists of the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands given by Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting, which partly agree and partly differ, most of them are scenic places with natural features such as clear waters and green hills, fertile soil and fine water. This differs from the numerologists' determination of blessed and prosperous places purely according to numerological principles. Moreover, the great majority of the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands were at some point in Taoist history the practice places of some famous Taoist, so a blessed land is often linked with the name of a particular adept. As for the concrete process by which the system of the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands was formed, however, the author finds it very hard to answer, owing to the scarcity of research material. Judging from the two not entirely identical lists of blessed lands provided by Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting, the formation of the Taoist system of Seventy-Two Blessed Lands passed through different historical stages and had different sources.

The Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands shows a tendency to grow ever richer with the passage of time. The Biography of Lord Mao, an early Shangqing scripture that appeared in the Eastern Jin, lists only the names, locations, and extent of ten grotto-heavens. The Supreme Secret Essentials, compiled in the Northern Zhou, devotes separate chapters, “Mountain Grottoes” and “Grotto-Heavens,” but these too discuss only the ten grotto-heavens. The Pearl Bag of the Three Caverns (Sandong Zhunang) compiled by Wang Xuanhe of the Tang also includes a chapter “The Twenty-Four Parishes,” which quotes the Chart of the Twenty-Four Parishes of Celestial Master Zhang and deals specifically with the twenty-four parishes. Then Sima Chengzhen of the Tang wrote the Shangqing Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth, a comprehensive treatment of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, whose register includes the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, and the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands. This combined the two different systems of grotto-heavens and blessed lands and was one of the earliest in history to draw up a fairly complete register of grotto-heavens and blessed lands. As for Du Guangting of the late Tang and Five Dynasties, in his Record of Grotto-Heavens, Blessed Lands, Sacred Peaks, Rivers, and Famous Mountains, besides encompassing the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, the Twenty-Four Parishes, and the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands, he also discussed and listed the Thirty-Six Oratories, the Ten Continents and Three Islands, the Five Peaks of both the immortal and earthly realms, and the various sacred mountains. His list covers the heavenly realm and the earthly realm, mountains and sea islands, and constructs a very complex register of grotto-heavens and blessed lands.

However, both Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting omitted a very important spatial domain: rivers and waters. Among the surviving literature, only Li Sicong of the Northern Song, in his Collection of the Grotto Abyss (Dongyuan Ji), lists the water palaces of the Four Seas and Three Mountains, the fifteen temples of the Water Emperors, the temples of the Lord of the River, the temples of the water gods of the Five Lakes, and the temples of the gods of the twelve streams.[41] This gathered together in one place the sacred spaces of all kinds of waters in Taoism and made up for the deficiency of Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting.

According to the naming conventions of the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, the sacred areas of rivers, streams, seas, and other waters should be called water palaces. In Taoist tradition, the sacred spaces of all kinds of waters have always been highly valued. The early Way of the Celestial Masters had the Three Officials of Heaven, Earth, and Water, and among the Three Officials to whom the Taoist faithful made confession was the Water Official; water gods held an important place in the Taoist pantheon, as did the gods of heaven and the spirits of earth. Outside Taoism, too, water immortals were widely revered among the Chinese populace before the Six Dynasties.

According to the Record of the Water Palaces quoted in the Gazetteer of Mount Hua, the Western Peak by Wang Chuyi of the Jin (Jurchen) dynasty, Taoism once had a scripture devoted to the water palaces, which held that there were eighteen water palaces in all among the waters within China: “The Record of the Water Palaces says: Of the eighteen water palaces in the world, the Chexiang Pool of Mount Hua is the seventh water palace.”

Since the Chexiang Pool of Mount Hua is listed as the seventh, the eighteen Taoist water palaces, like the grotto-heavens and blessed lands, evidently had an order. Unfortunately this book is lost today, so we cannot know the details of the eighteen water palaces. Judging from the account in the Collection of the Grotto Abyss by Li Sicong of the Northern Song, he lists the water palaces of the Four Seas—the Eastern, Southern, Western, and Northern Seas—and the water palaces of three mountains, Mount Madang, Mount Caishi, and Mount Jin. Following the precedent of Sima Chengzhen's register of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, he not only lists the locations of the temples of the water gods and Water Emperors of the various waters, but also accounts one by one for the governors of the sea water palaces and of the four rivers: the Yangtze, the Yellow River, the Huai, and the Ji.

However, since the water palaces and water-god (emperor) temples listed by Li Sicong do not mention the Chexiang Pool of Mount Hua, his register of water palaces and the Record of the Water Palaces cited by Wang Chuyi must come from different sources. This also shows that Taoist thought about sacred waters, like that about grotto-heavens and blessed lands, had different sources.

The notion of an underwater world (water palaces) has deep roots in ancient China, reaching back to the pre-Qin period. The “Biographies of the Jesters” in the Records of the Grand Historian records, under the name of Ximen Bao of Wei, the famous legend of “the Lord of the River taking a bride.” This shows that as early as the Warring States period people believed that the Lord of the River not only had a world of his own to live in, but also, like people in the world, had a family and a dwelling.

This worship of the Lord of the River and the water gods must be the source of the Taoist notions of water immortals and water palaces. Here I record two legends related to water palaces written by people of the Six Dynasties, to show how people of the time imagined the water palaces: “Ten li outside Zhongsu County in the Qin period there was a shrine and altar to the river god of Guanting, very numinous and strange; anyone passing by who was irreverent would surely run madly into the mountains and turn into a tiger. During the Western Jin, a hostage prince about to return to Luoyang met a traveler, who entrusted him with a letter, saying: ‘My home is in front of the temple of Guanting pavilion, where a vine hangs among the rocks. When you arrive, just knock on the vine, and someone will answer.’ When he returned he did as he was told, and indeed two people came out of the water, took the letter, and disappeared. Soon they came back and said: ‘The Lord of the River wishes to see you.’ Without realizing it, the man followed them, and saw buildings exquisite and beautiful, food and drink fresh and fragrant, and conversation and hospitality no different from the world of men. To this day, people commonly say that there is a river god at Guanting.”[42]

Again, the Records of Strange Things by Ren Fang of the Liang also records a water palace of the Luo River: “During the Xiaochang era of the Later Wei, there was a Luo Ziyuan, who said he was from Luoyang and was garrisoned at Pengcheng. When Fan Yuanbao of the same camp was returning home, Ziyuan entrusted him with a letter to take to Luoyang, addressed: ‘The house is above the Numinous Terrace, extending south to the Luo River.’ When he reached Luoyang, he suddenly met an old man who said: ‘This is my son's letter.’ He led him in; the gate and halls were very grand. He called for him to be seated and ordered wine. When the wine came, it was red in color, very fragrant and delicious. When Yuanbao took his leave, the old man came out to see him off. Then he saw only high banks facing the water, with no house anywhere. When he returned to Pengcheng, Ziyuan had vanished. Yuanbao had served in the garrison with Ziyuan for three years without knowing that he was a water god.”

Both of these describe water palaces of the Luo River. According to their accounts, the world under the water is no different from the human world: it too has gates, halls, and houses; the water gods also need food and drink, and their conversation and hospitality are like those of the human world. However, three points deserve our special attention. First, although the water palace is a relatively independent world, it is still connected with the human world; the inhabitants of the water palaces sometimes come to act in the human world, serving in the army or trading like ordinary people. Second, the location of a water palace has a special marker, such as the vine hanging among the rocks in the first case. This is in fact the link through which the human world and the water palace communicate, much like the connection between grotto-heavens and the human world. Third, people who enter a water palace do not feel that they are under water, but feel as if they were in the ordinary world. From this we may conjecture that the so-called water palace is simply a space in which the water god borrows the space of the waters to establish an independent spatial world of his own. This too resembles the spatial conception on which grotto-heavens are constructed.

2. The Types and Ecological Structure of Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands

Anyone who wishes truly to understand the Taoist world of grotto-heavens and blessed lands cannot confine himself (or herself) to reading the writings of Taoist authors such as Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting, because those dry accounts are limited to the geographical location, size, and administrators of the various grotto-heavens and blessed lands, while such important matters as the structure of the grotto-heavens, their internal environment, their inhabitants and forms of administration, the relations among grotto-heavens, and the connections between grotto-heavens and the outside world are left out entirely.

We cannot blame these two eminent Taoists for this, for they wrote only for their own times. Their works therefore take on their full meaning only when placed in the specific context of their era. We should remember that in the times they lived in, fiction, miscellaneous notes, and oral folk tradition were full of all kinds of legends about grotto-heavens and about people straying into them. Therefore, in studying the theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands today, only by combining the works of Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting with pre-Tang works can we open up the Taoist world of grotto-heavens more fully.

1. The Types of Grotto-Heavens

According to the narrow concept of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, Taoist scriptures customarily divide grotto-heavens into three kinds: great grotto-heavens, lesser grotto-heavens, and blessed lands. Sima Chengzhen's Shangqing Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth constructs its lineage of grotto-heavens and blessed lands in just this way. But by what standard are these three kinds—great grotto-heavens, lesser grotto-heavens, and blessed lands—distinguished? For the ranks of the great and lesser grotto-heavens are different. Is the rank of a grotto-heaven determined by differences in geographical location, or by the immortal rank of its governor? Taoist scholars of grotto-heavens such as Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting give no clear explanation of this. Judging from Sima Chengzhen's statement that “as for the domains of the heavens and grottoes, their heights and depths differ; as for the ranks of the Perfected and spirits, their upper and lower grades are not the same,” it seems that both of these factors affect a grotto-heaven's place in the order. But analyzing the history of the formation of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, I believe that the order in which the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, and the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands appeared directly affected their positions in the hierarchy. The hierarchical order of great and lesser grotto-heavens and blessed lands was in fact determined by the sequence in which they appeared in history. The names of the ten grotto-heavens appeared first, so they were given the title “great grotto-heavens”; the thirty-six grotto-heavens came slightly later, so they were called lesser grotto-heavens; and the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands took shape later than both.

Dividing grotto-heavens into the three types of great grotto-heavens, lesser grotto-heavens, and blessed lands is only one of several ways of classifying grotto-heavens. Besides this, according to the accounts in pre-Tang fiction and miscellaneous notes about grotto-heavens, other classifications in fact existed. That is, by their different roles and functions, grotto-heavens can be divided into grotto-heavens for escaping the world, grotto-heavens for cultivation, and grotto-heavens for immortal dwelling.

Again, by their different geographical settings, grotto-heavens can be divided into mountain-cave, sea-island, water-palace, and garden types. The most typical grotto-heavens for escaping the world are the “Peach Blossom Spring” described in the Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural (Soushen Houji) by Tao Yuanming of the Jin, and the one described in “The Woman of the Qin Period” in chapter 62 of the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era. The inhabitants of this type of grotto-heaven mainly went into hiding in a paradise beyond the world to escape the chaos of their times. Although it is a hidden and isolated spatial world, it has relatively little to do with Taoism. The way of life of the inhabitants of this kind of grotto-heaven world is therefore no different from that of the human world, only happier and more fulfilled than the dusty world.

The emergence of grotto-heavens for escaping the world had a real basis in history. The Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties were an eventful period in Chinese history, with frequent wars during which it was common for people to protect their clans by taking refuge; they used fortified manors, mountains, or caves—any hidden place could serve as a temporary refuge. Evidence of this can also be found in the literature.

The account of Xi Gong's Yi in the Treatise on Geography quoted in the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era can be regarded as a real-life model of a grotto-heaven for escaping the world: “Mount Yi is north of Zou County, and the town of Yi takes its name from it. The mountain is twenty li from east to west and thirteen li from north to south; lofty and elegant, it rises alone, with piled rocks adjoining one another and almost no soil. Among them are many holes and caves, open and connected to one another, often like dwellings of several rooms; the local people call them the Yi holes. Whenever there is turmoil, the inhabitants are led into Yi. However numerous the bandits, they can do no harm. During the Yongjia era, the Grand Commandant Xi Jian led the people of his native place to flee to this mountain, and the barbarian raiders who attacked could not take it. Today on the south of the mountain there is the Great Yi, called Xi Gong's Yi.”

Again, the account of Mount Li in the Record of the Customs and Lands of Guilin quoted in chapter 49 of the same book also belongs to this type.[43] As for grotto-heavens for cultivation, these refer specifically to the grotto-heavens recorded in the literature where Taoists refined elixirs and cultivated the Tao. The Purple Mansion Grotto on the Wutai Mountains recorded in the entry “Li Qiu” in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era,[44] the Wangwu grotto-heaven recorded in the entry “Wang Taixu,”[45] and the grotto-heaven recorded in the entry “Feng Jun” all belong to this type.[46] Grotto-heavens of this kind are generally small in scale and simple in structure, set up mainly for Taoists to refine the great medicines of inner and outer alchemy in pursuit of further ascent. Such a grotto-heaven world would be more fittingly called a small community for cultivating the Tao than a realm of immortals.

Finally, grotto-heavens for immortal dwelling are fairly complete living worlds. They are generally vast in scale, complex and perfect in structure, and are realms of immortals at the elementary level. The literature records many grotto-heavens of this kind; they are the typical form of Taoist grotto-heaven. The Land within the Ear described in the entry “Zhang Zuo” in chapter 83 of the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era and the Land of the Ladder to Immortality described in the entry “Yin Yinke” in chapter 20 both belong to this type. As for classifying grotto-heavens by their geographical location, this refers specifically to the location where a grotto-heaven overlaps with worldly space.

For although grotto-heavens are not wholly lodged in real mountains, lands, rivers, and islands, in terms of their connection with the space of this world they certainly have locations. It is on this basis that I divide the grotto-heavens mentioned in the relevant literature mainly into mountain-cave, sea-island, water-palace, and garden types. It must be specially stated here that this fourfold classification is only a broad approximation; besides these there are other geographical types, such as the grotto-heaven within a gourd, the grotto-heaven within an ear, and the grotto-heaven within a tangerine.

2. The Natural and Cultural Environment of the World of Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands

The unfolding of any world must rely on a particular environmental background, just as a play must rely on a stage set; the world of grotto-heavens is no exception. According to the accounts in pre-Tang fiction and miscellaneous notes, the stage of life in the world of grotto-heavens, like that of our world, consists of two parts: natural factors and constructed (man-made) factors. Natural factors include heaven and earth, sun and moon, mountains and rivers, grasses and trees, and animals. Constructed factors include city walls, towers and terraces, and all kinds of articles for use. As for the inhabitants dwelling in grotto-heavens, apart from grotto-heavens of the reclusive type, most are lower-ranking immortal spirits seeking further elevation—earthly immortals of various grades. Unlike the world we live in, however, the world of grotto-heavens has its own distinctive structure of time and space. Because the rate at which its time passes differs from that of our world, and because its spatial structure is also quite distinct from that of the world of the great heaven, the world of grotto-heavens under ordinary circumstances does not reveal itself to ordinary people. Unless they enter a grotto-heaven through some special opportunity, it is usually very hard for people to visit this mysterious world.

Judged from the standpoint of the ecological environment, Taoist grotto-heavens have an almost perfect ecological structure. In almost every grotto-heaven mentioned in the literature on grotto-heavens and blessed lands, without exception, the natural environment is filled with rare fragrances, with rows of green trees, sweet wells and springs, and a pleasant climate; numinous phoenixes soar and divine dragons fly and dance; the five calamities do not intrude, and the hundred diseases do not arise.

Here I select a few examples to show the beauty of the grotto-heaven environment. The Preface to the Five Talismans of Lingbao of the Most High records the natural environment of the Linwu grotto-heaven: “(The recluse) himself said: When first entering it was a little dark, and one had to advance with fire, yet even so one could still make out things in the gloom. On all four sides of the passage, above and below, all was blue-green stone, some five or six zhang square, roughly level, with wider and narrower places here and there. Where the feet trod there was still water and dampness, for one or two li. When the recluse had gone about a thousand li, it was no longer dark; there was a natural light like broad daylight. The great road was high and dry, raising dust; on the left and right were yin and yang channels, and every thirty li there was a stone well, whose water was sweet and delicious—drinking it, one was satisfied and not hungry. Sometimes tracks of people and horses were seen turning off into other paths. The road the recluse traveled and the walls on either side seemed to be of white stone, and the stones all shone translucently with light; it was seventy or eighty zhang wide and up to about two hundred zhang high. As he approached the Grotto Court, he could no longer see the upper limit; looking up, it was like the sky, and the sunlight grew ever brighter, bright as the sun at high noon, yet neither warm nor cool, the harmonious qi flowing freely. He smelled a rich fragrance, thick and unending. And along the road there were houses, pavilions, and post stations, marvelously carved, beyond naming. On reaching the junction of the many roads, the circuit around, wide and narrow, winding and returning, measured some forty or fifty li. On the four sides were jade pillars bearing inscriptions that read: The Ruins of the Grotto Court of the Nine Springs. Within, the trees were planted in rows, with green leaves and purple blossoms, dark grasses and white flowers, none of whose names are known. The five colors arise of themselves, the seven treasures glitter and shine, flying phoenixes soar over the peaks, and dragons and qilin frolic below. This is truly the numinous treasury of heaven and earth, the splendid lodging of the Perfected.”

The “Ruins of the Grotto Court of the Nine Springs” mentioned here is the ninth of what later became the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens of Taoism: the Grotto-Heaven of the Secluded Void of the Left Spirit. The main natural components it describes include yin and yang channels, sweet springs, luminous walls (and roads), fragrant air, dark grasses and white flowers, flying phoenixes and soaring qilin, and so on. Combined together, these elements make up a harmonious and beautiful grotto-heaven environment.

Again, the entry “The Herb-Gathering Commoner” in chapter 25 of the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, quoting the Records of Original Transformations (Yuanhua Ji), describes the natural environment of the Qingcheng grotto-heaven: “(The commoner) looked ahead and there seemed to be a light; he followed it, and after more than a li the cave gradually grew higher. Following the cave for about another li, he came out at the mouth of a grotto. Above the grotto was water, several dozen paces wide. On the bank he saw a village of several dozen households, with mulberry and silkworm thorn trees, flowers, grasses, and trees as in the second or third month. The clothing of the men and women was not like that of people today. Plowmen and boys fishing were met here and there…. The people rode on clouds and vapor or drove dragons and cranes, and this man too walked on foot among the clouds. Presently he came to a city, all adorned with gold and jade, and the palaces within were all of gold and treasures.”

The Qingcheng grotto-heaven described here, also called the Grotto-Heaven of the Nine Chambers of Precious Immortals, is the fifth of the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens. It tells how a man of Qingcheng, while gathering herbs, strayed into the Qingcheng grotto-heaven, where all four seasons were like spring, the palaces were all adorned with gold and jade, and the people rode clouds and drove cranes—a scene of the immortal realm through and through.

Finally, I would like to cite the entry “Yin Yinke” in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, which quotes the Records of Broad Marvels on how a Tang-dynasty well-digger broke into the immortal palace of Tiangui, and describes the layout of the immortal palace of the grotto-heaven: “The workman then entered the hole to explore it. For the first few dozen paces he saw nothing, but groped his way along the wall. Suddenly, around a turn, there was light like that of the sun and moon, and he went down; the bottom of the hole connected with a mountain peak. The workman descended the mountain, stood upright, and looked: it was another world, with its own heaven, earth, sun, and moon. The mountainside dropped ten thousand ren, and its thousand cliffs and ten thousand ravines were all numinous scenery. The rocks were all the color of blue-green glass, and in every cliff and ravine there were palaces of gold and silver. There were great trees with trunks like bamboo, jointed, and leaves like the banana, and purple flowers as big as platters; five-colored butterflies with wings as large as fans fluttered and danced among the flowers. Five-colored birds as big as cranes soared over the treetops. In each cliff there was one clear spring, its color like a mirror, and one white spring, white as milk. The workman gradually came down to the palaces and wished to go in and inquire. When he reached the gate towers, he saw a plaque inscribed in silver characters: Tiangui Mountain Palace. From within the two towers flanking the gate, a person rushed out from each in alarm, each more than five chi tall, with youthful faces like jade. Their clothing was light and fine, like white mist and green smoke; they had crimson lips and white teeth, beards and hair like black silk, and wore golden crowns on their heads, but went barefoot.”[47]

The Tiangui Mountain Palace described here is clearly also a grotto-heaven world, yet it is not among the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, or Seventy-Two Blessed Lands listed by Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting. According to this account, the immortal palace of Tiangui is another world with its own heaven, earth, sun, and moon, located beneath our world. The text specially describes the rocks, trees, flowers, springs, insects, and birds—the natural elements making up the environment of this immortal-palace grotto-heaven; by this account, both the natural environment and the inhabitants of the immortal palace of Tiangui are superior to those of the world above ground.

The main elements making up the natural environment of the world of grotto-heavens are, as discussed above, heaven and earth, sun and moon, mountains, rivers, grasses, and trees, waters, springs, and divine birds. Here I wish to focus on air, vegetation, and springs among the environmental elements of grotto-heavens. Many of the cases of straying into grotto-heavens recorded in pre-Tang fiction and miscellaneous notes, in describing the world of grotto-heavens, specially mention the beauty of the air, vegetation, mountains, rivers, and springs of its natural environment. Common descriptions are: (woods) “The flowers and trees are fresh and lovely, the misty green lush and dense, the scenery bright and beautiful beyond description.” (air) “A fragrant breeze blows gently, refreshing the spirit and clearing the mind, so that one feels as light as if soaring above the clouds.”[48] (wells and springs) “Clear springs wind around, sweet, delicious, and fragrant.”[49] (mountains and rivers) “The crags and peaks are deep and dim, the mountains and waters clear and beautiful.”[50] As for the kinds of flowers and trees and the quality and color of the spring water, these too differ utterly from the human world: the trees are jade trees of lin and bi jade, with ten thousand boughs of azurite; the springs are stone marrow and golden essence, prolonging life and increasing longevity. As for the climate and temperature, auspicious clouds spread over all, and it is always an evergreen realm, neither warm nor hot, forever the spring of the four seasons. The Taoist book Record of the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens quotes the “Ode on the Grotto-Heaven of Ascending to the Ultimate Perfection” by the Perfected Li Ling, which sings of the beautiful scenery of the grotto-heavens: “Strange fruits and rare flowers beyond all naming—why go to Penglai and Yingzhou to seek the Perfected? Heaven and earth of blue clouds are ranged within the grotto; towers and terraces of white jade rise beyond the world of images. Ten thousand ravines of magic mushrooms and orchids coil among sheer heights; a thousand peaks of mountain mist tower steep and lofty.”[51]

In addition, it must be specially noted that when the literature discusses the arrangement of trees and birds in the world of grotto-heavens, it especially highlights the principle of natural musical beauty. In other words, the natural environment of the world of grotto-heavens is constructed according to the aesthetic principle of the “pipes of heaven.” In the world of grotto-heavens, flowers and trees move without wind, the divine pipes sound of themselves, ringing clearly, all in the tones of the eight assemblies and nine performances; the birds sing and warble, and the luan birds and phoenixes clap and dance in perfect time, so that those who see and hear them feel as if placed within a round dance of nature itself.[52] This may be called a harmonious, comfortable, and beautiful natural environmental system of supreme joy and supreme bliss. The three cases of straying into grotto-heavens that I have listed above all mention that the world of grotto-heavens has its own sun, moon, heaven, and earth.

Here I wish to focus on the question of the sun and moon in the world of grotto-heavens. In fact, this question was also of special concern to Tao Hongjing. In the Declarations of the Perfected he specifically discusses the structure of the sun and moon in the world of grotto-heavens, holding that in the world of the grotto-heaven: “Within it there are a yin radiance and a night light, the root of the essence of the sun, illuminating this empty interior, bright as the sun and moon. The yin radiance governs the night and the solar essence governs the day; round in shape like the sun and moon, they fly in the dark void. (Tao's note: The sun and moon of each grotto-heaven all have this, each slightly different. It is presumably the sun and moon of the great heaven dividing their essence to shine there. Since there are day and night, there must be rising and setting, and their brightness and darkness should be the same as those of today's sun and moon. Now the edges of the great heaven can never be reached; but the boundaries of this small heaven can almost be touched and seen, so the rising and setting of its sun and moon ought to be limited. It must be that they suddenly arise and vanish without passing through openings, but we do not know their form, whether they are large or small.)”[53]

Here Tao Hongjing holds that each grotto-heaven has its own sun and moon. The sun and moon of the grotto-heavens are also called the solar essence and the yin radiance. The solar essence, as its name implies, gives light during the day, while the yin radiance appears at night; their shape, like that of the sun and moon of this world, is round.

In addition, he holds that the energy of the sun and moon of the grotto-heavens comes from the world of the great heaven, the sun and moon of the great heaven “dividing their essence to shine there.” The sun and moon of the grotto-heavens also have their peculiarities, however: namely, they rise and vanish suddenly. This explanation of the structure of the sun and moon of the grotto-heavens represents one of the more important views in the theory of grotto-heavens. There were, however, other, different views.

The Classified Matters and Aspects of the Shangqing Tao by Wang Xuanhe of the Tang quotes the Record of the Ten Continents (Shizhou Ji) on the structure of the sun and moon of the Jinluan Observatory in Yingzhou, an immortal realm in the sea: “In Yingzhou there is the Jinluan Observatory, adorned with all kinds of precious jade, rising straight up to the clouds of the peak. Within it is a table of blue-black jade, covered with plain silk as fine as cloud; water-green jade is carved in the shape of an inverted dragon; a fire crystal is hung up as the sun, with black jade carved into the crow; water crystal serves as the moon, with blue jade as the toad and the hare; beneath the ground there are mechanical levers, so that dusk and dawn, the quarter moons and the full moon, never fail.”[54] It mentions that the Jinluan Observatory of Yingzhou hangs a fire crystal as the sun with a crow carved of black jade, and uses water crystal as the moon with a toad and hare of blue jade. These are clearly artificial suns and moons made of jade. Moreover, it imagines machinery installed beneath the ground to make the sun and moon run day and night, so that the quarter moons and the full moon never fail.

This idea is more concrete, and bolder, than Tao Hongjing's view above. Yet both of these conceptions of how the sun and moon of the grotto-heavens are constructed take the sun and moon of the human world as their model.

Besides this line of thought, Taoist scriptures have other kinds of conceptions of the sun and moon of the grotto-heavens. For example, the Immortal Scriptures quoted in the Classified Collection of Literature hold that the immortal chamber of Mount Song gives off light of itself; though it has no sun or moon in form, its light is no different from theirs: “The Immortal Scriptures say: Under the great cliff on the southeast of Mount Songgao there is a stone hole, one zhang around; going in five or six li to the west and north, there is a great chamber, more than thirty zhang high and three hundred paces around, naturally bright, so that one sees just as by sun and moon. Within are sixteen immortals. It is said that the Moonlight Youth, who usually lives on Mount Tiantai, also comes and goes here at times. Those who do not possess the Tao cannot catch sight of him.”[55]

We should note, however, that the grotto-heaven spoken of here is too small in scale; strictly speaking it counts only as a stone chamber. Compared with a formal grotto-heaven, its structure is simpler. The text does not mention where the light of the stone chamber comes from, simply saying that it gives off light of itself. Again, chapter 14 of the Declarations of the Perfected also mentions a similar stone chamber, calling it a “sealed grotto,” whose light, according to its account, seems to come from the blue-green stone of the grotto's four walls.[56] This idea can also be seen in the account of the Grotto Court cave of Mount Bao in the Preface to the Five Talismans of Lingbao of the Most High quoted earlier. Compared with grotto-heavens, however, stone chambers and sealed grottoes are only simple grotto-heavens.

Since a grotto-heaven is a living world, what kind of inhabitants live in it? What are their lives and system of administration like? These questions are very interesting, and exploring them helps us understand the world of grotto-heavens further. Judging from the various pre-Tang accounts of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, the composition of the inhabitants of the world of grotto-heavens varies with the type of grotto-heaven. Apart from a few grotto-heavens for escaping the world, such as Tao Qian's “Peach Blossom Spring,” the vast majority of grotto-heavens are related to Taoist practice, and their inhabitants are Taoists who have newly attained the Tao. Their mode of administration, without exception, imitates the administrative system of Taoist temples and monasteries in the dusty world.

Let us first look at the inhabitants of the world of grotto-heavens.

In the Declarations of the Perfected, Tao Hongjing mentions a kind of earthly immortal called the “Governors Below the Earth,” and divides them into three grades. Apart from the third grade, these Governors Below the Earth are immortals of relatively low rank. They obtained this station as a result of their conduct while alive: during their lives they either accumulated good deeds and merit, or cultivated the Tao and gathered their spirit, or else their descendants recited scriptures and accumulated virtue, spreading good deeds that did honor to their ancestors. In short, whatever the cause, the Governors Below the Earth are not, like ordinary people, entered after death in the registers of Fengdu, the realm of ghosts, but dwell in the various grotto-heavens. Yet although the world of grotto-heavens is superior to Fengdu, it is not a land of ultimate bliss either; it has all kinds of constraints, and like the human world has a strict system for managing promotion and demotion.

The Declarations of the Perfected describes the life of the three grades of Governors Below the Earth: “The first grade of Governors Below the Earth are scattered in outer lodgings, idle and without occupation; they do not receive the instruction of the nine offices and do not hear of the work of refinement and transformation. Although all are within the grotto-heavens, they are the lowest of the governors. According to the rules of Siming, they obtain one promotion after one hundred forty years. With one promotion they first set foot on the ladder of immortal ranks, serving as messengers for the immortals. The second grade of Governors Below the Earth may proceed directly on the ranks of immortal promotion; after one hundred forty years as immortals they are promoted to fill posts of supervision and control, which are like the unassigned officials of the world. This rule is the middle category of the Governors Below the Earth. The third, the highest of the Governors Below the Earth, may go in and out of the halls and chambers of the immortals and roam the lands of the divine continent; leaving, they lodge in the two bureaus of Yiqian and Tongchu; entering, they feast at the upper terrace of Donghua. They receive instruction and transform their forms, bathe in radiance and change their qi. In twelve years, the qi gathers the spirit and souls; in fifteen years, the spirit comes to store the corporeal soul; in twenty years, the bones in the coffin return to join the spirit and qi; in forty years, they are restored as if living people and return to roam the human world; in fifty years, they are appointed to fill the ranks of immortal officials; in sixty years, they may roam the Moon Palace of Vast Cold; in a hundred years, they may enter the palaces of Kunying. These are the highest of the governors, who move at ease among the immortals.”[57]

The three grades of Governors Below the Earth described here are all earthly immortals, and the text shows that their system of promotion was very strict. This shows that the world of grotto-heavens is not an absolutely free world, but, like the human world, has a rigid hierarchy and a stiff administrative system. Among the three grades of Governors Below the Earth, it seems that only the third can hope, by accumulating seniority, finally to rise from grotto immortals to heavenly immortals. The two bureaus of Yiqian and Tongchu mentioned in the text are, according to the relevant sections of the Declarations of the Perfected and the Gazetteer of Maoshan, the administrative organs of the eighth grotto-heaven, the Huayang grotto-heaven.

Regarding the administrative organs of the Huayang grotto-heaven, the Gazetteer of Maoshan, synthesizing the account in the Declarations of the Perfected, calls its administrative system the “Three Palaces and Five Bureaus”: “The Three Palaces and Five Bureaus of the Huayang grotto-heaven are: the Yiqian Palace, the Hanzhen Palace, and the Xiaojian Palace; and the Taiyuan Bureau, the Dinglu Bureau, the Baoming Bureau, the Tongchu Bureau, and the Lingxu Bureau. The Taiyuan, Dinglu, and Baoming are governed by the three Lords Mao; Yiqian and Hanzhen are inhabited by women who have attained the Tao; the other palaces and bureaus are all of male Perfected, though Baoming sometimes employs female officials. The Lord of the Blue Lad of the Eastern Sea makes a tour twice a year, inspecting these palaces and halls and seeing the whole company.”[58]

The Three Palaces and Five Bureaus mentioned here are roughly the same as those recorded in the Declarations of the Perfected, and must derive from it.[59] The Declarations of the Perfected, however, specially discusses the Yiqian Lodge, the Hanzhen Terrace (under the Eastern Palace of Taiyuan), and the Tongchu Palace.[60] What should be noted here is that in the Huayang grotto-heaven male and female immortals live separately; the area where female immortals live is limited to the Hanzhen Terrace and the Yiqian Lodge. This system of separate residence in the Huayang grotto-heaven is quite different from the accounts in other grotto-heaven literature.

Tao Hongjing's use of the three grades of Governors Below the Earth as a general term for the inhabitants of the grotto-heavens was not generally accepted in Taoism. The Illustrated Account of the Seven Realms of Cultivating Perfection and Their Attainments prefers the term “immortals of the grotto palaces” for the inhabitants of grotto-heavens,[61] and holds that, besides studying the Grand Clarity scriptures, the immortals of the grotto palaces must possess nine immortal practices, observe one hundred eighty precepts, and establish twelve hundred merits: “In studying the Tao, one first cultivates the nine-turn immortal practices of the lower grade of the grotto palaces: first, compliance; second, closing off; third, saving living beings; fourth, encouraging and assisting; fifth, giving alms; sixth, great vows; seventh, compassion of the body; eighth, compassion of the mouth; ninth, compassion of the heart. If one cultivates the nine practices above without lack, also observes the one hundred eighty precepts, has twelve hundred good merits, and also cultivates the Grand Clarity scriptures, one's rank is that of an immortal of the grotto palaces of the famous mountains, and one is given one hundred twenty jade lads and jade maidens.”

Here no terms like “Governors Below the Earth” are used, and the immortals of the grotto palaces are not divided into grades. Yet since each immortal of the grotto palaces is attended by one hundred twenty jade lads and jade maidens, the inhabitants of the world of grotto-heavens, as in Tao Hongjing's account above, are clearly not equal either; the status of the jade lads and jade maidens must have been lower than that of the immortals. There is one point in common, however: both hold that the inhabitants of grotto-heavens must possess an especially excellent moral cultivation.

Moreover, the accounts of Tao Hongjing and of the author of the Illustrated Account of the Seven Realms seem to lean too heavily toward the lives of immortal officials of various ranks in the world of grotto-heavens. They, to be sure, can amuse themselves with the game of go, discuss the Tao, and recite scriptures; but the golden lads and jade maidens who attend them would hardly enjoy such refinements, and their lives were probably not much different from those of the maids and servants in the great mansions of the human world. There is also a serious problem: since, according to Tao Hongjing and the various accounts of grotto-heavens, the world of grotto-heavens cannot do without food and drink (though the names and kinds of food and drink differ from those of the human world), the source of the means of subsistence becomes an unavoidable question.

It is precisely on this point that Shen Fen of the Five Dynasties, discussing immortal ranks in his Continued Biographies of Immortals (Xu Xianzhuan), specially mentions the life of the “immortal commoners” outside the immortal palaces. He says: “Those who ascend by flight mostly go to the various mountains in the sea. Those whose accumulated merit is already high become immortal officials; the lower ones remain immortal commoners. Why? Among the Ten Continents there are often hundreds of thousands of immortal households, cultivating fields of magic mushrooms, reckoned by the qing and mu, just as rice is planted. Thus there are immortal officials who separately govern the immortal commoners, as well as the immortals and mortals of the human world.”[62] The life of the immortal commoners of the immortal isles of the Ten Continents described here is of a piece with the world of grotto-heavens. How are these immortal commoners who cultivate fields of magic mushrooms different from the registered common people toiling in the fields of the human world?

The above is what the Taoist scriptures discuss. Besides these, pre-Tang fiction and miscellaneous notes also contain many descriptions touching on the life and administration of the inhabitants of the world of grotto-heavens, in greater detail than the scriptures. Here are a few examples. First, the entry “The Son of the Pei Family” in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, quoting the Records of Original Transformations, describes the life of the inhabitants of the Taibai grotto-heaven: “(The son of the Pei family, following the old man,) went several li to beneath the western cliff of Mount Taibai, where there was a great flat rock, with a stone wall on its left. The old man knocked on it with his staff. In a moment it opened, and there was a grotto-heaven; yellow-capped Taoists and young boys came out to greet them. The old man led young Pei into the grotto. At first it seemed dark, but gradually it grew bright, and he saw city walls and people, with palaces and halls within, like the temples and monasteries of the world. Countless Taoist priests, jade lads, and immortal maidens welcomed them in, with singing and music in abundance. Some of the Taoist priests played the zither or go, some chanted and discoursed. The old man led Pei to pay his respects, and said to them all: ‘This is the master of this city.’ Pei was kept for a night and given sesame rice, dried qilin meat, and immortal wine. When Pei asked to return, they bid each other farewell.”[63]

This describes life in the Zuoyan Grotto of Mount Taibai. According to Sima Chengzhen's Shangqing Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth, the Taibai grotto-heaven is the eleventh of the Thirty-Six Lesser Grottoes, called the Grotto-Heaven of Mysterious Virtue. The account describes the world of the grotto-heaven as having city walls and people, palaces and halls; its inhabitants are mainly Taoist priests, immortal lads, and jade maidens; their food and drink include sesame, dried qilin meat, and immortal wine; and their daily activities are zither, go, song and dance, and the recitation of scriptures. This form of life was clearly conceived on the model of life in the Taoist temples and monasteries of the human world.

The second example is found in the entry “The Herb-Gathering Commoner” in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, which describes what a Tang-dynasty herb gatherer saw on straying into a grotto-heaven: “The host then led him to pay his respects to the Jade Emperor. The Jade Emperor sat in his hall with the bearing of a king, seven attendants in caps and swords ranged on his left and right, and several hundred jade maidens guarding the hall and courtyard. There were rare flowers and fruits whose fragrance was not of this world. The Jade Emperor then questioned the commoner, who answered truthfully in every detail, but the commoner kept greedily glancing at the jade maidens on either side. The Jade Emperor said: ‘So you are pleased by the beauty of these attendants?’ The commoner prostrated himself and begged forgiveness. The Jade Emperor said: ‘If only you diligently apply your mind to the wondrous Tao, you will naturally have such as these. But your cultivation has not yet arrived; it requires effort and cannot be obtained lightly.’ He commanded his attendants to bring immortal fruits on a jade platter. The fruits were deep crimson, as large as a fist, shaped like the crab apples of this world but incomparably fragrant. He showed them to the commoner, saying: ‘Scoop them up with your hands as you please; the number you get will be the number of your maidservants.’ The man reckoned that if he cupped his hands fully he could get more than ten, so he scooped them up with his hands, but, try as he might, got only three. The Jade Emperor said: ‘This is your lot.’ As he was newly arrived and had no rank yet, the Jade Emperor ordered his former host to take him back there, commanded three maidens to attend him, gave him a separate house to live in, and ordered the Taoist companions to guide him in his practice. The man then returned to the earlier place, where the Taoists transmitted the true scriptures to him; he took medicines and practiced qi, washing away worldly thoughts, and the three maidservants were also taught the arts of the Tao.”[64]

The ruler of the world of the grotto-heaven described here is the Jade Emperor, and its mode of political administration is just like that of the human world; even the Jade Emperor's capped and sworded guards are clearly modeled on those of earthly emperors. The system by which the inhabitants of the grotto-heaven regularly pay audience to the Jade Emperor is no different from the audiences at a royal court in the human world. Only the content of politics in the grotto-heaven is no longer worldly affairs, but revolves around spreading the Tao and transmitting scriptures, taking medicines and circulating qi.

It is also worth noting that the immortals of this grotto-heaven world all have families organized around the male, and practice polygamy. From this it seems that the male and female immortals of this grotto-heaven world are not equal.

Above we have selected two examples from pre-Tang miscellaneous notes and fiction to show the life and administration of the inhabitants of the world of grotto-heavens. From them we learn that the form of life in the Taoist world of grotto-heavens is constructed entirely on the prototype of the secular world; only its rulers have changed from secular emperors to the Jade Emperor, True Lords, and Celestial Masters, and the activities of the inhabitants of grotto-heavens have changed from secular labor to religious activities such as cultivating the Tao and reciting scriptures. This is the fundamental difference between the world of grotto-heavens and the human world.

3. The Spatial and Temporal Systems of the Grotto-Heavens

As in the world we live in, space and time are the basic forms of existence of the world of grotto-heavens. It is precisely through space and time that the world of grotto-heavens reveals itself. Yet the space and time of the world of grotto-heavens are constructed only in correspondence with the mode of existence of the grotto-heaven inhabitants who dwell there. In other words, only with respect to the grotto-heaven inhabitants does it fully reveal itself.

1. The Spatial System of the World of Grotto-Heavens

Regarding the space of the world of grotto-heavens, I would like to discuss two questions: first, the location of the grotto-heavens within the secular world; second, the composition of the spatial system of the grotto-heavens. Let us first discuss the first question. This question in fact also bears on the relationship between the world of grotto-heavens and the world of the great heaven.

In discussing the geographical location of the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens and the Thirty-Six Lesser Grottoes, Sima Chengzhen said: “The Ten Great Grotto-Heavens lie among the famous mountains of the great earth; they are the places that heaven above sends the host of immortals to govern…. Next are the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, within the various famous mountains; they too are places governed by the higher immortals.”[65]

Judging from pre-Tang accounts of grotto-heavens and blessed lands both inside and outside the Taoist Canon, grotto-heavens usually exist in the underground space of the world of the great heaven, especially within the great famous mountains. It is precisely on the basis of this conception of the geographical location of the world of grotto-heavens that fiction and miscellaneous notes often set the points of connection between grotto-heavens and the secular world in certain special places, such as caves, deep wells, and mountain ranges, or even stone walls and dead trees. The former are often the entrances for those who stray into grotto-heavens, the latter the entrances and exits for the inhabitants of the grottoes.

Tao Hongjing's Declarations of the Perfected states that the Huayang grotto-heaven of Gouqu has five gates, of which the eastern and western side gates are both blocked with stones.[66] However, he also holds that the gates of a grotto-heaven are opened only to display the structure of the mountain grotto, or out of consideration for people from beyond the world entering and leaving; as for the grotto's inhabitants, they need not pass through the great gates at all to come and go, but enter in an instant.[67]

In addition, Tao Hongjing also reveals that each grotto-heaven has a special great rock that guards the grotto, carried there by sea gods at the summons of the Dark Emperor: “The altar stone of the Heavenly Emperor lies exactly above the dark window at the center of the grotto-heaven. This stone is a stone from the Mountain of the Heavenly Emperor in the land of Anxi (Parthia), and hence it is called the Great Rock of the Heavenly Emperor. At the time, the Dark Emperor summoned the gods of the Four Seas to carry this great rock above the grotto-heaven—and not only at Gouqu.”[68] Such a divine stone guarding a grotto may perhaps be regarded as a kind of marker of the world of grotto-heavens.

As for the accounts in fiction and miscellaneous notes of people straying into grotto-heavens, they usually take one of two routes: either climbing cliffs and braving dangers, crossing mountains and ridges; or wading into caves and exploring hidden wonders to their depths. For example, In Search of the Supernatural (Soushen Ji) by Gan Bao of the Jin describes how the Yuxiang hunter Zhang Kesi strayed into a grotto-heaven: “Zhang Kesi, a hunter of Yuxiang, was strong and a good archer; whenever he chased game into the mountains, he would not return for ten days. Once, seeking deer in the snow, he went through perilous, remote, and far-off places. Suddenly he saw human footprints, the treads quite fresh. Kesi was astonished for a long while, then followed the tracks into precipitous, remote dead ends. Where the tracks ended, they reached a tall pine, and the marks of climbing in mud and snow were perfectly clear. Kesi, all the more amazed, climbed up as well. Near the top of the tree there was a great branch extending sideways, lying across the cliff, and he saw that the person had already crossed over. Kesi followed and crossed; it was broad, level, open, and spacious, not like the mountains.”[69]

Again, Tao Qian's Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural tells how hunters of Kuaiji strayed into the Chicheng grotto-heaven of Mount Tiantai, likewise after first passing through deep mountains and lofty ridges: “Two men of Shan County in Kuaiji, Yuan Xiang and Gen Shuo, went hunting and passed through a great many deep mountains and ridges. They saw a flock of six or seven wild goats and chased them over a stone bridge, very narrow and steep. The goats went across, and Gen and his companion followed, heading toward a sheer cliff. The cliff was pure red and stood like a wall; it was called Chicheng, the Red Wall. From above, water flowed down, as wide as a bolt of cloth; the people of Shan called it a waterfall. On the goats' path there was a mountain cave like a gate, and they passed through into an open space. Once inside, it was very level and spacious, and the grasses and trees were all fragrant.”[70]

Accounts of this kind are also numerous in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era.[71] This shows that the points of connection between grotto-heavens and the secular world are mostly in secluded, remote, and perilous places in the mountains, and that the two worlds are separated by the lofty mountains and steep ridges of the world of the great heaven. Another point of connection between the world of grotto-heavens and the secular world is caves of all kinds (including deep wells); fiction and miscellaneous notes often describe someone who blundered into a grotto-heaven by falling into a cave (or deep well). This way of blundering into a grotto-heaven forms the typical narrative pattern of pre-Tang fiction and miscellaneous notes about grotto-heavens.

Here too are two examples. The Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, quoting the Collected Records of the Strange (Jiyi Ji), records how in the Sui dynasty Li Qing, a man of Beihai, entered the cave of Mount Yunmen in search of a grotto-heaven: “(Li) Qing then waved his hand in farewell and went in. After a long while he reached the bottom. It was extremely dark inside; looking up, the sky was only as big as the palm of a hand. Feeling the four walls, he found room for only about two mats. To the southeast there was a hole that could be entered by bending over, so he abandoned his basket. At first it was very narrow, but farther on he could straighten his back. After going on like this for about thirty li, it grew faintly light. Presently he reached the mouth of a grotto; the mountains and rivers, the clouds and mist, the grasses and trees, seemed not of the human world. He gazed into the distance for a long time; only some ten-odd li to the southeast was there a dim glimpse of what seemed to be inhabitants, so he walked slowly toward it. On arriving he found a sheer terrace, its steps extremely steep, but from the south it could be climbed. So he went up with reverence, feeling rather afraid. When he got there, he peered in and saw halls very stately, with four or five Taoist priests inside.”[72]

The Yunmen grotto-heaven described here is connected with the human world by a deep hole. Again, Tao Qian's Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural also records how in the Jin dynasty a man fell into a hole, entered a grotto, and encountered immortals: “North of Mount Songgao there is a great hole whose depth cannot be fathomed; the common people go to view it at seasonal festivals. At the beginning of the Jin, a man once accidentally fell into the hole. His companions, hoping he might not be dead, threw food into the hole. The fallen man got it and set off to find a way along the hole. After some ten days or more, he suddenly saw light. There was a thatched hut, and inside two people sat facing each other playing go; below the board there was a cup of white drink. The fallen man told them he was hungry and thirsty. The players said: ‘You may drink this.’ So he drank it, and his strength increased tenfold. The players said: ‘Do you wish to stay here?’ The fallen man did not wish to stay. The players said: ‘Go west from here and there is a heavenly well, in which there are many flood dragons. Just throw yourself into the well and you will come out of your own accord. If you are hungry, take the things in the well and eat them.’ The fallen man did as he was told. After about half a year he came out in Shu. Returning to Luoyang, he asked Zhang Hua, who said: ‘That was a grandee of the immortal lodges. What you drank was jade nectar; what you ate was the stone marrow of the dragon's cave.’”[73]

In addition, the entries “Yin Yinke” and “The Herb-Gathering Commoner” in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era cited earlier both belong to this narrative pattern. This shows that people of the time firmly believed that caves and deep wells could lead to the world of grotto-heavens, and that grotto-heavens clearly lay in underground space. Considering China's topography, this Taoist conception of the space of grotto-heavens was not wholly imaginary but had a real geographical basis. Judging from the surviving literature, the various geographical treatises and records of mountains and rivers of the Six Dynasties record a good many marvelous caves. For in this period, under the influence of the fashion for taking drugs among the scholar-official class, the practice of gathering natural medicines such as stalactites and stone marrow was widespread among the people. This custom spurred people to explore hidden depths and brave dangers, going in and out of all kinds of caves to gather so-called immortal medicines. Such cave-exploring experiences undoubtedly provided a real basis for the Taoist conception of the space of grotto-heavens. This also explains why fiction about grotto-heavens was especially popular at the time, and why the theory of grotto-heavens developed so vigorously in the Six Dynasties.

Although the caves described in the two examples below have nothing to do with Taoist grotto-heavens, they closely resemble a grotto-heaven world: “(The Commentary on the Water Classic) also says: The Yi River flows east past the north of Mount Kong. Below there is a stalactite cave, from which fine stalactites come. The gatherers make torches and follow the sand into the cave. About a li in, the many passages divide strangely, so that those going in and out are confused and do not know which way to go. At every confusing branch there must be marks left, and those returning follow the holes to find their way out. Above there is also a great hole, wide open, hence the name Mount Kong, the Mountain of the Hole.”[74]

Again, the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, quoting the Record of the Customs and Lands of Guilin, describes the stone cave of Mount Yin: “Mount Yin is in the western suburbs of the prefecture. Formerly it was overgrown with dense thickets, and from ancient times no one knew of it. At the beginning of the Baoli era, when Li Bo came out to govern the prefecture, he traced its source. He saw a stone gate opening like teeth, with water deep and clear. He cleared away the weeds and filth and opened up the rock caves. The stone forest and stepped paths were like a numinous treasury made by heaven, whose origin could not be traced, and so it was named Mount Yin, the Hidden Mountain.”[75]

This too is a natural mountain cave, yet its internal layout is not essentially different from a Taoist grotto residence. Still, I must emphasize that Taoist grotto-heavens are not replicas of real mountain caves but differ from them in unique ways. The reason is simple: Taoist thought about the space of grotto-heavens blends in its distinctive understanding of time and space. Its world of grotto-heavens appears on the surface to lie in underground regions, but in fact its space overlaps with secular space in one place. Its being at a certain place is not a real, physical existence there; rather, it means that the space of that place implicitly contains the space of the grotto-heaven world. This is in fact a vivid expression of the spatial idea of “a mustard seed containing Mount Sumeru.” Moreover, strictly speaking, the Taoist world of grotto-heavens is a real world only for the grotto immortals of various grades who dwell in it. That is to say, only in the eyes of its inhabitants does the world of grotto-heavens fully reveal itself; for the living beings of the secular world, apart from some very special opportunity (such as straying into a grotto-heaven), the world of grotto-heavens is usually closed. For this too we can find evidence in the relevant literature.

Although pre-Tang fiction and miscellaneous notes about grotto-heavens record many cases of straying into grotto-heavens, all without exception come with the same kind of ending: the one who strayed in returns to the dusty world, and when he later tries to visit the grotto-heaven again, he usually loses his way. And this is not because the visitor's memory has failed, since most of them took care to leave marks along the way as they stepped out of the grotto's gate. Descriptions of this kind are also commonplace in pre-Tang fiction about grotto-heavens.

For example, the ending of the famous legend of the “Peach Blossom Spring” in Tao Qian's Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural is: “(The fisherman of Wuling,) having come out, found his boat and followed the route back, marking it at every point. On reaching the commandery, he went to see the governor and told him about it. The governor, Liu Xin, at once sent men to go with him, looking for the marks he had made, but they could not find the way again.”[76]

What is more, those who strayed in were sometimes expelled from the immortal realm in an instant, and often this was accompanied by dislocations of space and time. Du Guangting's Records of Encounters with Divine Immortals tells how Peng Qiu of Beihai went to cut wood on Jade Maiden Mountain at Beiqiu during the Taishi era of the Jin: “Suddenly he noticed a strange fragrance. Qiu followed it against the wind, and this mountain opened wide of itself, with palaces and halls winding and dense, towers and terraces broad and open. Qiu entered the gate and peered in; he saw five jade trees, and going a little farther, four immortal maidens playing a game of tanqi in the hall…. Presently a maiden arrived riding a crane and said: ‘Yuhua, why do you have this vulgar person here? The Queen Mother has just ordered Wang Fangping to inspect the immortal chambers; have him leave at once.’ Qiu was frightened and went out of the gate; when he turned his head, it had suddenly vanished. When he got home, it was already the Jianping era. His old dwelling and village had all become ruins and graves.”[77]

The text says that Wang Qiu strayed into the Jade Maiden grotto-heaven, yet in the instant it took to turn his head he was expelled: the world of the grotto-heaven suddenly vanished, and one hundred thirty-five years were lost.

Again, the entry “Liu Jing” in the same book tells how Liu Jing of Pengcheng traveled to Mount Jinhua to seek the Tao and, halfway up the mountain, strayed into a grotto-heaven: “He felt that the scenery was extraordinary, the mountains and rivers lovely and lush. He saw lofty gates and tall pavilions, rising above the clouds. Inside the gate, to left and right, were ponds clear as crystal and fine trees with drooping branches, set out in rows like pieces on a chessboard, their trailing vines soft and delicate, their fruits like pears, with a fragrance that struck the nose. Jing looked around and saw no one, so he picked some of the fruits and put them in his robe and sleeves. Before he had time to eat, suddenly several young dogs came racing out, barking at him as if they would pounce and bite. Jing, in a panic, fended them off; looking around, there were no tiles or stones to throw, so he reached into his robe for the fruits he had picked and threw them. When the fruits were gone, the dogs also left. When he looked back at the palaces he had seen before, there were only woods, valleys, and thickets.”

These accounts show that the world of grotto-heavens has its own particular form of spatial existence. It exists within our world, yet not at all in the way a pencil sits in a pencil box; it is more like an overlapping “being within.” Therefore, statements such as that the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens exist among the famous mountains and the great earth must be understood flexibly; they can only be interpreted as being within the famous mountains. Of course, for the grotto immortals the grotto-heavens are always present, while for ordinary people they appear only on extremely rare occasions.

Tracing the sources of the Taoist notion of grotto-heavens in terms of spatial thought, I believe that the early notion of the “gourd heaven” directly inspired the formation of the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens. We can therefore say that the gourd heaven was the early form of the notion of grotto-heavens. Judging from the surviving literature, accounts of gourd heavens have very early roots, appearing almost at the same time as Taoism itself; yet their theoretical background lies not in Taoism but in the pre-Han legends of immortals, of which they are a direct continuation.

The “Biography of Fei Changfang” among the “Biographies of Masters of Esoteric Arts” in the Book of the Later Han relates the legend of the “gourd heaven” relatively early: “Fei Changfang was a man of Runan. He once served as a market official. In the market there was an old man selling medicines who hung a gourd at the front of his stall, and when the market closed he would jump into the gourd. None of the people in the market saw this; only Changfang, from an upper story, saw it and marveled at it. So he went and bowed twice, offering wine and dried meat. The old man, knowing that Changfang believed him to be divine, said to him: ‘Come again tomorrow.’ The next morning Changfang went to the old man again, and the old man took him with him into the gourd. There he saw only a jade hall, stately and beautiful, with fine wine and delicious food filling it in abundance. They drank together and came out. The old man made him promise not to tell anyone. Later he came to the upper story to wait for Changfang and said: ‘I am a divine immortal, and was reprimanded for a fault; now that the matter is concluded, I must go….’”

The old medicine seller mentioned here is a banished immortal, and the gourd he carried must also be an immortal's implement. This story also appears in Ge Hong's Biographies of Divine Immortals (Shenxian Zhuan), where the entry “The Gourd Master” is more detailed than the account in the Book of the Later Han.[78]

It thus appears that this legend must have been very popular at the time. The legend of the gourd heaven had a great influence on later Taoism; similar themes appear again and again in the biographies of immortals, so much so that the gourd even became one of the implements commonly carried by wandering Taoists.[79]

In terms of spatial thought, the notion of the gourd heaven contains an extremely important spatial conception: the idea of an elastic space in which the large and the small contain each other. Because the spatial thought on which the gourd-heaven world rests was too subtle and complex for the ancients, the biography of the old medicine seller in the Book of the Later Han quoted above does not use abstract terms to explain its spatial thought, but uses vivid description, revealing the gourd-heaven world through the protagonist's experiences of jumping in and touring it. Having studied this legend carefully, I believe several points deserve special attention. First, from the standpoint of a secular observer, the gourd-heaven paradise is located inside a finite gourd, which means that the space of the gourd heaven overcomes the spatial contradiction between large and small. In other words, a relatively large world can be established within a relatively small space (the gourd); this is exactly like the Buddhist idea of a mustard seed (small) containing Mount Sumeru (large). But the Buddhist idea seems to have remained at the level of doctrine, whereas Taoism materialized it as a divine gourd. Today we can explain this unique spatial idea of the gourd heaven only by invoking the theory of multidimensional space; yet today's so-called multidimensional space is only a mathematical idea and is still far from being materialized in any particular implement. In a sense, building a gourd-heaven world is in fact separating heaven and earth—it is creation itself. Perhaps at some time in the future, when humankind fully understands the mysteries of time and space, this great feat can be accomplished.

Second, the legend of the Gourd Master also implies that the gourd-heaven world reveals itself only to special beings like the Gourd Master; ordinary people, without the help of an immortal, cannot enter this world. This shows that the appearance of the gourd-heaven world is directly related to the constitution of the immortal's body and mind.

In Taoism, related to the worlds of grotto-heavens and gourd heavens there is also the world within a painting. This too was in fact conceived on the basis of the same spatial thought, and so, in terms of spatial concepts, it shares a common source with grotto-heavens and gourd heavens.

The entry “Liu Cheng” in chapter 83 of the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, quoting the Miscellaneous Morsels from Youyang (Youyang Zazu) by Duan Chengshi of the Tang, tells how, in the Zhenyuan era of the Tang, the scholar Liu Cheng entered a painting, The Gathering in the Bamboo Grove: “At the end of the Zhenyuan era, Ran Congchang, a military officer of Kaizhou, cared little for wealth and was fond of men of talent, and many Confucian scholars and Taoists attached themselves to him. There was a painter, Ning Cai, who painted The Gathering in the Bamboo Grove, very skillfully. Among the guests were two scholars, Guo Xuan and Liu Cheng, who were always trying to outdo each other. Liu suddenly glanced at the painting and said to their host: ‘This painting is skillful in form and composition but lacking in spirit and flavor. Now I wish to display my humble skill for you: without applying the five colors, I will make its brilliance far surpass what it is—how about it?’ Ran said in surprise: ‘I never knew you had this art. But if you do not use the five colors, how will it be done?’ Liu sighed: ‘I shall go into the painting and come out again to fix it.’ Guo Xuan clapped his hands and said: ‘Do you mean to fool a three-foot child?’ Liu then challenged him to a wager. Guo offered five thousand as his stake, and Ran served as guarantor. Liu then leapt into the painting and vanished. The guests were astonished. The painting was mounted on the wall, and they groped all over it but found nothing. After a long while, Liu suddenly spoke: ‘Do you believe it now, Master Guo?’ The voice seemed to come from inside the painting. After about the time it takes to eat a meal, he suddenly dropped down from the painting and, pointing to the figure of Ruan Ji, said: ‘My work extends only to this.’ The others looked and felt that the figure of Ruan Ji alone was different: its lips were whistling toward the right. When Ning Cai saw it, he no longer recognized it.”

According to this account, Liu Cheng could evidently go into and out of a two-dimensional flat world, which seems somewhat different from the space of the gourd heaven. Yet the protagonist had clearly mastered the technique of spatial transformation. This story can be compared with the entry “Chen Jiqing” in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, which, quoting the Compiled Records of the Strange (Zuanyi Ji), relates the marvel of the Jiangnan scholar Chen Jiqing's journey through a map with the help of an old man of the Zhongnan Mountains:

“On the east wall there was a map of the world. Jiqing traced the route to Jiangnan and sighed deeply: ‘If I could go from the Wei River and float down the Yellow River, travel on the Luo, swim in the Huai, cross the Yangtze, and reach my home, I would not regret returning without success.’ The old man smiled and said: ‘This is not hard to bring about.’ He then told a monk's boy to pluck a bamboo leaf from before the steps and make it into a leaf boat, which he placed on the Wei River in the map, saying: ‘Just fix your gaze on this boat, and it will be as you have wished. But when you reach home, take care not to stay long.’ Jiqing stared at it for a long time, and gradually he felt waves on the Wei River; the single leaf grew larger, the mat sail spread, and in a daze it was as if he boarded the boat. He began from the Wei and reached the Yellow River, moored the boat at the Chan Cave temple, and wrote a poem on its southern pillar…. He again visited the Qinglong Temple and there, as before, saw the old man of the mountains sitting wrapped in his coarse robe. Jiqing thanked him and said: ‘I did go home—but was it not a dream?’ The old man smiled and said: ‘After sixty days you will know for yourself.’… The next spring, Jiqing failed the examination and returned east. When he reached the Chan Cave temple and the temple at the pass gate, he saw the two poems he had written, the ink still fresh.”[80]

This too describes entering a two-dimensional flat world from a three-dimensional world. There are quite a few similar accounts in the relevant literature.[81] These two accounts of journeys into paintings are even more marvelous than the legend of the gourd heaven, for although a gourd is small, it is after all a three-dimensional space, whereas a painting is only a flat space. That the two scholars Liu and Chen could go in and out of the space of paintings shows that, in the authors' thinking, not only can large and small spaces contain each other, but a two-dimensional flat world can also contain a three-dimensional world. There is another point worth noting: according to the entry on Chen Jiqing, Jiqing traveled a thousand li by boat within the map, spending twenty days going back and forth between Jiangnan and Chang'an, while in the real world only a moment passed. This is exactly the opposite of the legends in which people who stray into grotto-heavens lose time. In fact, Chen Jiqing's journey through the map, in which a moment counted as twenty days, gained time. This means that when a transformation of the spatial system is achieved, the temporal system is transformed accordingly. I will discuss this in detail in the section on the temporal system of the world of grotto-heavens.

Finally, before concluding the discussion in this section, I would like to say a few words about the art of shrinking the earth, which is related to the Taoist conception of space. The so-called art of shrinking the earth is in fact a kind of spatial art, and like the notion of the gourd heaven it is founded on distinctive Taoist spatial thought. This esoteric art also has long roots in Taoism. The biography of “The Gourd Master” in Ge Hong's Biographies of Divine Immortals mentions: “(Fei Changfang) had divine arts: he could shrink the earth's veins, so that a place a thousand li away was right before his eyes; when he released it, it stretched out again as before.” This clearly assumes that space can be rolled up and unrolled, contracted and let out.

Again, the entry “Zhu Yue” in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, quoting the Records of Divine Marvels of the Guangde Era, also describes the Taoist Old Man Zhu's art of shrinking the earth: “At that time there was in the village a Taoist, Old Man Zhu Yue, who had obtained the art of shrinking the earth. He lived in E, where he built a house, dug a pond, and planted fruit trees and medicinal herbs all around. The pines and cassia trees he planted with his own hands had all grown ten spans around, yet he never went into the town. He was a close neighbor of Shiming and so associated with him, but Shiming was overfamiliar with the old man and often disrespectful. The old man said: ‘You are an insolent youngster, treating me like the Qiu of the house to the east. May I play a little test on you?’ Shiming's home was only two or three hundred paces away. The old man gave him wine to drink and sent him home to fetch a chicken for a cockfight. He set out at the Chen hour (7–9 a.m.) and by the You hour (5–7 p.m.) had still not reached home. By his reckoning he had walked more than fifty li, but when he looked back, he had not gone beyond a hundred paces. Shiming hurried back, bowed to the old man, and begged forgiveness.”[82]

This esoteric art is one of the basic arts played up in Taoist biographies of immortals and was very popular in Taoism. The background of its spatial thought is a theory of elastic space, which holds that space can be stretched out and rolled up: stretched out, a square inch becomes a thousand li; rolled up, a thousand li fits in one hand.

In sum, from all that has been discussed above, the worlds of grotto-heavens, gourd heavens, and paintings are all constructed on the basis of a special spatial thought. According to this spatial theory, not only can real three-dimensional spaces, large and small, contain each other, but three-dimensional space can also enter a two-dimensional flat world. As to whether a two-dimensional flat world can be transformed into a three-dimensional world, according to the relevant accounts in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, the answer is also yes.[83] This distinctive spatial thought undoubtedly greatly broadens our conception of the forms of space; the cosmic schema it implies is a uniquely Taoist picture of a cosmos in which the large and the small contain each other, layer upon layer taking each other up, without end and without cease.

2. The Temporal System of the World of Grotto-Heavens

Time, like space, holds an important place in the construction of the world of grotto-heavens. Judging from the literature, the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens contains extremely rich thought about time. Behind the various records of grotto-heavens and blessed lands lies a distinctive Taoist view of time. In terms of the space-time theory of the three-dimensional world, if the basic property of space is extension, then the basic property of time is its passing; both can be measured with instruments. The various grotto-heaven worlds constructed by Taoism of course also have their temporal systems, but these are very different from the temporal system of our world. Judging from the experiences of the various visitors recorded in the literature, time in the world of grotto-heavens passes more slowly than in the world of the great heaven. Many texts about grotto-heavens describe how visitors, on returning to the dusty world, suddenly discover that a large stretch of their time has been lost. The visitor stayed in the grotto-heaven for only a short time, but on returning to the human world is astonished to find that the world he lived in has completely changed: the familiar faces of his friends are gone, green grass grows on the graves of his family, and he must live among his great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren. These are the most common descriptions in texts about grotto-heavens. Below I will select two examples to give a glimpse of this.

The Records of Strange Things by Ren Fang of the Liang records an event: “At Mount Shishi in Xin'an Commandery, in the Jin dynasty, Wang Zhi came to cut wood and saw several boys playing go and singing. Zhi listened to them. One of the boys gave Zhi something like a date pit. Zhi held it in his mouth and felt no hunger. Presently the boy said to him: ‘Why don't you go?’ Zhi got up and looked at his axe handle: it had completely rotted. When he returned home, none of his contemporaries remained.”[84] This is the legend of the “rotted axe handle,” very widely told in ancient China, which also appears in the Biographies of Grotto Immortals (Dongxian Zhuan).

Again, the story of the “rotted whip” recorded in the Garden of Marvels (Yiyuan) by Liu Jingshu of the Liu Song has the same structure: “Once a man was riding a horse through the mountains when he saw in the distance, in a cave on a peak, two old men facing each other playing chupu. So he dismounted and went to them, planting his whip in the ground to watch. He thought it had been only a moment, but when he looked at his whip, it had crumbled and rotted; when he turned to look at his horse, the saddle and the bones were dry and decayed. When he returned home, none of his relatives remained, and he wept until he died.”[85]

In both examples the protagonists encounter a switch between the temporal systems of the two great worlds, and both keenly feel that “a moment in the grotto is a thousand years in the world.” This shows that the rate at which time passes in the world of grotto-heavens differs from that in the world of the great heaven. However, in the two examples cited above, the amount of time lost by those who strayed in is stated only vaguely. By comparison, some legends retold in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era are much more specific. For example, the entry “The Two Women of Tiantai” in chapter 61, taken from In Search of the Supernatural, tells how Liu Chen and Ruan Zhao strayed into the Tiantai grotto-heaven, stayed there half a year, grew bitterly homesick, and on returning home found that “the village had fallen away; ten generations had passed.” Again, the entry “Wang Qing” in chapter 45, taken from the Records of Original Transformations, tells how, in the Zhenyuan era of the Tang, Wang Qing stayed in a grotto residence for six or seven days, and when he returned to the dusty world a whole year had passed. And the entry “Li Qing” in chapter 36, quoting the Collected Records of the Strange, tells how Li Qing, a dyer of Qingzhou in the Sui dynasty, entered the Yunmen grotto-heaven and stayed one day; when he returned, the reckoning of years in the human world had advanced from the Kaihuang era of the Sui to the Yonghui era of the Tang: “The city walls and the paths between the fields seemed just as before, but the houses and trees, the people's clothing and implements, had all changed, and there was no one he knew.”

In addition, the entry “Song Wencai” in Du Guangting's Records of Encounters with Divine Immortals tells how Song Wencai strayed into the Emei grotto-heaven; in the time it took to bow and be seated, half a month had passed in the dusty world. Judging from the different ratios of time lost by those who strayed into grotto-heavens, the rate at which time passes also differs among the grotto-heavens; as for the exact differences, because the literature is too vague, they are hard to calculate specifically. In any case, one thing is beyond doubt: the flow of time in the world of grotto-heavens is generally slower than in the human world. This must be a basic element of the temporal system of the world of grotto-heavens. In fact, not only in the world of grotto-heavens but in almost all worlds of the immortals, the relative permanence and durability of time is one of the basic features of their existence.

On this basis we can readily understand what Magu said: “Magu said of herself: Since I last received you, I have seen the Eastern Sea turn into mulberry fields three times. Just now, on reaching Penglai, the water was about half as shallow as when we last met. Could it be about to become dry land again? Fangping laughed and said: The sages all say that dust will once more rise in the sea.”[86] This enormous time scale of the immortal realm is not even to be mentioned in the same breath as the time scale of the world of grotto-heavens.

In addition, pre-Tang fiction and miscellaneous notes about grotto-heavens and blessed lands also describe the psychological experience of those involved as they pass through the switch between the two great temporal systems of the grotto-heaven and the human world, which also helps us understand how they felt time. There are usually two kinds of such feelings. First, the protagonist suddenly returns from the world of the grotto-heaven to the human world: a moment before there were lofty immortal towers, phoenixes and luan birds singing in harmony, rows of jade maidens, and fragrant breezes wafting; in the blink of an eye it all turns into dense forest and the mournful cries of a lone gibbon, and looking around the wilderness, there is only the protagonist gazing at his own shadow in self-pity.[87] These are the changes of spatial scene that accompany the switch of temporal systems experienced by those who strayed in. At such moments the protagonist often has the psychological sensation of being in a dream. Second, in some cases, in the process of passing from the temporal system of the grotto-heaven to that of the human world, the protagonist often “hears only the sound of wind and thunder,” and in an instant, having crossed a thousand li of water and land, he comes down in some mountain wilderness or countryside where he has never been.[88]

Compared with the realm of the immortals and the world of grotto-heavens, human existence does seem hurried and brief, but we need not be too saddened by this. For compared with certain other worlds of existence—such as the yin realm, the dream realm, and the world of two-dimensional space—the temporal system of the human world is relatively more enduring. Compared with these three kinds of worlds, the human world may also count as a kind of immortal realm.

As for the rate at which time passes in the yin realm (the realm of ghosts), Duan Chengshi of the Tang says in “Zhinuogao”: “What ghosts call three years is about three days in the human world.” And in the story of Chen Jiqing's journey through a map in the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era cited earlier, the protagonist also completes a twenty-day journey in the two-dimensional world within a moment. As for the difference in time between the world of dreams and the real world, I believe everyone has a deep sense of it from daily experience. Still, I would like to mention the Yellow Millet Dream, or Handan Dream, very widely told in ancient China. It is precisely in a dream that the protagonist, within an extremely brief span, lives through a lifetime of honor and disgrace, rise and fall, which finally leads him to a complete awakening to the true meaning of life.

The entry “Old Man Lü” in chapter 82 of the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era records the story of the Yellow Millet Dream. It tells how, in the Kaiyuan era of the Tang, Old Man Lü used a divine pillow to lead Scholar Lu into a dream world, where he experienced all the joys and sorrows, partings and reunions of human life: “Twice he was banished beyond the Five Ranges, twice he rose to the highest offices of state, served at court and in the provinces, and soared among the ministries.” Suddenly he awoke and saw that the millet his host was steaming was not yet cooked. At that moment the protagonist gained a wholly new understanding of the honor and disgrace, rise and fall of the world; the illusion quietly dissolved, and the true meaning of life stood plainly revealed. This brings the dream into the explanation of Taoist doctrine. It is worth noting that this divine pillow could purposefully construct a particular type of dream for the protagonist; this in fact set up a dream world for his eventual awakening.

This kind of divine pillow may be regarded as a tool used by Taoists in spreading their teaching. Yet it was not simply invented out of thin air by the author of the tale; Tang miscellaneous notes also mention such divine pillows. The Miscellaneous Records of Clouds and Immortals (Yunxian Zaji), quoting the Anecdotes of the Tianbao Era, records that Emperor Xuanzong of Tang himself owned such a divine pillow: “The kingdom of Kucha presented a pillow the color of agate. When one slept on it, the Ten Continents and Three Islands, the Four Seas and Five Lakes, all entered one's dreams. The emperor named it the Pillow of Roaming Immortals.”

Moreover, in contrast to the slower passage of time in the temporal system of the grotto-heavens, the Taoist ways of inner alchemy and outer alchemy put forward a method of “concentrating” time, intended to reenact, in highly condensed form within the world of the elixir cauldron (inner or outer), the process of the creation and evolution of the cosmos of the great heaven, and by this method to give the elixir (inner or outer) an eternal nature. Reasoning from this, time in the temporal system of the world of the elixir cauldron should pass much faster than in the real world. This is another clear example of Taoism using the technique of controlling time to cultivate and realize the Tao.

3. The Relationships Among the Grotto-Heavens

Do the various Taoist grotto-heavens exist independently, or are they interconnected? What are their relationships with one another? Exploring these questions helps us understand the Taoist world of grotto-heavens further. From the perspective of religious geography, the Taoist conception of the world of grotto-heavens was built on the ancient Chinese ideas of the structure of the earth from the pre-Taoist period.

Earlier we mentioned such notions as heavenly pillars, earthly pillars, earth veins, and earth axles in the ancient Chinese view of the earth of the pre-Taoist period. The general theoretical background of these notions is the belief that the earth is hollow and that its internal space is maintained by being propped up by earthly pillars and earth axles. It was precisely on the basis of this view of the earth that Zhang Hua of the Western Jin concluded: “The famous mountains and great rivers have holes and caves that lead into one another.”[89] This clearly holds that there exists underground an interconnected spatial world. The Taoist idea that the grotto-heavens are connected and pass through to one another was built on this foundation. Judging from the accounts in surviving Taoist scriptures, the scriptures pay special attention to the pivotal position of the three grotto-heavens of Huayang, Linwu, and Xixuan in the interconnection of the world of grotto-heavens. Tao Hongjing's Declarations of the Perfected, describing the Huayang grotto-heaven, the eighth of the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, says: “The Gouqu grotto-heaven connects on the east with Linwu, on the north with Daizong, on the west with Emei, and on the south with Luofu; all these are great roads. In between, the small paths and byways, crossing and meeting like the paths between fields, are not in one place only.”[90]

Again, chapter 8 of the same book says: “The grotto of this mountain is empty, and one looks within; inside there is a numinous treasury; the Grotto Court opens on four sides, and its caves and peaks are linked far and long. The ancients called it the empty terrace of the Golden Altar, the side gate of the Heavenly Empress, the eastern window of Pure Emptiness, and the partition of Linwu. The many grottoes are connected, where the hidden roads lead; seven routes and nine sources reach in all four directions—truly a grotto of the Perfected and a lodge of the immortals.”

The grotto of Mount Linwu mentioned here is the ninth of the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens. Daizong, according to the register of grotto-heavens of Sima Chengzhen of the Tang, is ranked second among the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens; Emei is seventh among the Thirty-Six Lesser Grottoes; and Luofu is seventh among the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens.

According to Tao Hongjing, Maoshan at Gouqu is clearly the metropolis of the world of grotto-heavens and the capital of the mountains. Again, the Separate Biography of Xu Mai quoted in chapter 39 of the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era also holds that Maoshan is secretly connected with Dongting and the Five Peaks.[91] Evidently this was not Tao Hongjing's view alone. As for the Linwu grotto-heaven of Mount Bao, according to the Taoist scripture Preface to the Five Talismans of Lingbao cited earlier, its interior also has thousands of paths and ten thousand routes extending in all directions.[92] Again, the Record of the Mysterious Center (Xuanzhong Ji) quoted in the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era also says of Mount Bao: “It enters beneath the earth and runs hidden to connect with Langye and Dongwu.”[93] The Taoist scriptures' claim that the Linwu grotto-heaven of Mount Bao extends in all directions is not mere fancy but has a geographical basis, for which the various records of local customs of the Six Dynasties provide evidence. The Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall quotes Zhou Chu's Record of Customs and Lands (Fengtu Ji): “In Lake Tai there is Mount Bao; beneath the mountain there are caves that run hidden through the earth and connect everywhere; they are called the earth veins of Dongting.”[94] It also quotes Shan Qianzhi's Record of Wuxing: “In Lake Tai there is Mount Bao, more than a hundred li west of the capital, with several hundred households living there; the mountain produces bows and crossbows. Beside the village there is also a small mountain with a stone cave, entered from the southeast, which extends deep and far, and no one knows where it ends; it is called Dongting.”[95] It also quotes Gu Qiqi's Record of the Lou Region, which says the same.[96] I believe these accounts were not all copied from one source, but were based on actual experiences of cave exploration.

Finally, regarding the Xixuan grotto-heaven, it ranks fourth among the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens, yet Sima Chengzhen was not certain of its geographical location in the real world; citing the Secret Instructions for Ascending to Perfection (Dengzhen Yinjue), he only conjectured that it was Mount Taiyi of the Zhongnan range, and Du Guangting says only in general terms that it is in Shuzhou.

According to the Biography of Lord Pei, Perfected of Pure Numinosity recorded in chapter 105 of the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel (Yunji Qiqian), Mount Xixuan is another name for Mount Geyan, a sacred mountain: “Xixuan is another name for Mount Geyan. Geyan consists of three connected mountains: the western is Xixuan, the eastern is Mount Yujuegen, and the central one is called Mount Geyan. The three mountains have three mansions, called the Three Palaces: Mount Xixuan has the Palace of Pure Numinosity, Mount Geyan the Palace of Purple Yang, and Mount Yujuegen the Palace of Ultimate Perfection. The three mountains wind around for thirteen thousand li and are two thousand seven hundred li high. Beneath them is a Grotto Court that runs hidden through the earth and connects with the Kunlun mansion of the Dark Continent.”

According to this account, Sima Chengzhen was right to say that the location of Mount Xixuan was not known in detail; it is in fact an immortal mountain. Besides the three mountains above, the literature also mentions that Mount Bozhong has caves secretly connected with the Wangwu grotto-heaven and Langfeng,[97] and that the Purple Mansion Grotto of the Wutai Mountains connects westward with Kunlun. Taking such accounts together, we can see that the immortal mountain of Kunlun must be the hub of all the grotto-heavens, its status above that of the Ten Great Grotto-Heavens; that it is the capital of the divine immortals is beyond doubt. As for the lines of authority among the grotto-heavens, the Taoist scriptures hold that the subordination of great and lesser grotto-heavens is like “a state having its provincial governments, commanderies, and counties, each subordinate to the next.” Du Guangting's Record of the Assembled Immortals of the Walled City (Yongcheng Jixian Lu) also holds that “the immortal bureaus of the grotto-heavens are like the commanderies, counties, and settlements of the human world.” This clearly holds that the grotto-heavens, like the human world, have immortal mansions, immortal bureaus, and various official posts. In addition, the grotto-heavens are closely connected with the immortal realms of the various heavens and with the immortal capital of Kunlun. Du Guangting says that at the great festivals of the Three Primes each year, each of the heavens sends high Perfected down to the grotto-heavens to inspect their state of governance, like the performance evaluations of officials in the human world.[98]

Again, the Inner Biography of Lord Zhou, Perfected of Purple Yang relates that Zhou Ziyang governed the Palace of Purple Yang in the Xixuan grotto-heaven and was the chief of the Eight Perfected, yet he too had to “ascend Kunlun three times a day and pay court to the Divine Lord of Grand Tenuity once each morning.” All this shows that the rulers of the grotto-heavens were subject to the immortal bureaus of the heavenly realm. Further, according to the “Biography of Cai Jing” in the Biographies of Divine Immortals, the great immortal Wang Fangping, besides administering the immortal capital of Kunlun, also went in and out of the immortal bureaus, traveled back and forth among the grotto-heavens of Luofu, Kuocang, and others, and heard and handled the major affairs of the bureaus of the Five Peaks: “(Cai) Jing's parents privately asked Jing: ‘Where does Lord Wang usually stay?’ Jing answered: ‘He usually governs at Kunlun and travels back and forth to Mount Luofu and Mount Kuocang. On all three of these mountains there are palaces, all alike. Lord Wang regularly settles the affairs of the heavenly bureaus; in the course of a single day he is in contact with heaven, going back and forth dozens of times. Matters of life and death under the Five Peaks on earth are all first referred to Lord Wang.’”

Of course, since the geographical space of the grotto-heavens lies within the human world, it stands to reason that they should have some relationship with the human world. Judging from the accounts in the Taoist scriptures, the connection between the grotto-heavens and the human world has two main aspects. First, the life and death, rise and fall, natural disasters and human calamities of the human world all originate in the grotto-heavens and are arranged in advance by them. Second, the dragon-god shrines and temples throughout the human world also belong to the grotto-heavens. In short, the fate of the human world is arranged by the grotto-heavens.

Taking all the above together, we can see that the grotto-heavens are linked above to the immortal bureaus of the heavenly realm and determine below the rise and fall of the human world, closely connected with both heaven and the human world. This transitional political role fits very well with the transitional position of the grotto immortals between heaven and humanity.

4. A Few Reflections

Above we have made a systematic study of the various topics of the Taoist idea of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, from which it can be seen that this theory contains an extremely broad and deep space for ecological interpretation. Through creative interpretation, it can fully open up a new line of thought for escaping the global ecological crisis that besets the world today. In academic circles some have likened the grotto-heavens and blessed lands to Taoist ecological reserves. This is certainly insightful, yet it is far from exhausting the interpretive space this idea contains. If we introduce a deconstructive approach and moderately deconstruct the existing science built on the Western tradition's views of matter and the cosmos, and thereby enter a post-scientistic attitude, we will find the prospects still very hopeful. What we call post-scientism does not deny existing science, but asks that the connotation and extension of contemporary science be further enlarged, and that science achieve its own self-transcendence in accordance with its nature. From a hermeneutic perspective, this means giving science a creative interpretation grounded in the historicity of present-day human existence, and thereby exploring the possibility of constructing an alternative science centered on the traditional Chinese holographic view of matter and of the world as a microcosm of the human body, and further considering whether a plurality of scientific paradigms is possible.

When we view the world through the holographic thinking contained in the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, we find that the picture of the world before us is entirely different, and that the so-called ecological predicament is in fact only a predicament produced by human thinking hitherto. For according to the insight of the Taoist theory of grotto-heavens and blessed lands, our present world is in fact a series of multiple worlds whose mode of existence is characterized by layers interlocking and rings nested within rings. We can seek outward for vast outer cosmic space, and we can also seek inward for deeper levels of the space-time world; and human existence has an inner harmony of space-time levels with the external natural world.

If only we dissolve and overcome the dualistic, either-or tradition of thinking that lies across the human mind today and achieve the liberation of thought, humanity can dismantle its barriers and merge into the natural world, entering the deep, lived paradise of Taoism—the grotto-heavens and blessed lands—where I and you, things and mind, humanity and heaven reach a wondrous state of seamless oneness and mutual interpenetration. The ancient Taoist tradition is calling today's rootless children, who have lost their home, to return to the native land of their ancestors.

Notes

[1] See the descriptions of early practitioners of the Tao living in the mountains in the Biographies of Immortals (Liexian Zhuan) and the Biographies of Divine Immortals. The author also plans to write “A Study of Stone Chambers” exploring this theme. On the tradition of mountain dwelling in ancient China, see Qian Mu, “A Study of Mountain Dwelling in Ancient China” (in Collected Essays on the History of Chinese Academic Thought, vol. 1, pp. 31–81), Zhang Taiyan, “On the Theory That the Son of Heaven Dwelt in the Mountains in the Age of Theocracy,” and others.

[2] “Heavenly Questions”: “The eight pillars—how are they placed?”

[3] Huainanzi, “Treatise on the Patterns of Heaven”: “Gonggong contended with Zhuanxu to become emperor; in his rage he butted against Mount Buzhou, the heavenly pillar broke, and the cords of the earth snapped.”

[4] Quoted in the Classified Collection of Literature, chapter 7, “Mountains” section.

[5] Record of the Dadi Grotto-Heaven, middle chapter, in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, case Dang.

[6] Treatise on Curiosities, chapter 1.

[7] Quoted in the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, chapter 37, “Earth” section.

[8] Commentary on the Water Classic, chapter 2, quoting the “Biography of Meng Tian” in the Records of the Grand Historian.

[9] The Guanzi says: “Water is the blood and qi of the earth, flowing and circulating like the sinews and vessels.”

[10] Garden of Marvels, chapter 1.

[11] Collected Chants on the Chart of the Cinnabar Mountain of the Siming Grotto-Heaven, in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, case Ju.

[12] Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall: “Mount Kunlun is the axle of the earth; the Dongting Cave is called the earth vein.”

[13] Quoted in the Treatise on Curiosities, chapter 1.

[14] Quoted in the Pearl Bag of the Three Caverns, chapter 1, “Salvation and Guidance,” in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, case Huai.

[15] Ren Fang of the Liang, in the Records of Strange Things, also relates a similar version of the Pangu creation myth: “Of old, when Pangu died, his head became the Four Peaks, his eyes the sun and moon, his fat the rivers and seas, his hair the grasses and trees. A popular saying of the Qin and Han period: Pangu's head became the Eastern Peak, his belly the Central Peak, his left arm the Southern Peak, his right arm the Northern Peak, and his feet the Western Peak. The former Confucians said: Pangu's tears became the rivers, his breath the wind, his voice the thunder, and the pupils of his eyes the lightning. An ancient saying: Pangu's joy became clear weather, his anger overcast skies. A saying from the region of Wu and Chu: Pangu and his wife were the beginning of yin and yang.” According to this account, the Pangu myth has distant origins and was very widely told among the people; the Records of the Three and Five was clearly quoting folk legend.

[16] The Tao Te Ching has the words “The Tao gives birth to the One, the One gives birth to the Two, the Two give birth to the Three, and the Three give birth to the myriad things.” The Qianzaodu apocryphon of the I Ching (Book of Changes) likewise, on the basis of the differing states of qi, proposes the stages of cosmic creation called the Great Change, the Great Simplicity, the Great Beginning, and the Great Origin.

[17] Liezi, as quoted in the Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, chapter 1, “Heaven” section.

[18] See “Le jet des dragons” (1919).

[19] Michel Soymié, “Le Lo-feou chan: étude de géographie religieuse.” Miura Kunio, “A Short Essay on Grotto-Heavens and Blessed Lands,” Toho Shukyo (Eastern Religions), no. 61.

[20] Records of Strange Things, second chapter.

[21] Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 11, in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, cases An and Ding.

[22] The Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall, chapter 149, “Heaven” section, quotes the Inner Biography of Lord Mao: “Within the great heaven there are thirty-six grotto-heavens within the earth,” and lists the details of nine grottoes, omitting Mount Weiyu. The Classified Collection of Literature, chapter 7, and the Bai-Kong Six Tablets, chapter 5, “Mountains” section, under Mount Luofu, likewise say: “The Inner Biography of Lord Mao says: Within the great heaven there are thirty-six grotto-heavens within the earth. The grotto of Mount Luofu is five hundred li in circumference and is called the Heaven of Vermilion Brightness and Radiant Perfection.”

[23] The Records for Beginning Learners and the Bai-Kong Six Tablets, chapter 5, entry “Mount Tai,” quote the Inner Biography of Lord Mao in similar words.

[24] Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, chapter 28, “Earth,” part 3.

[25] Note: In the pre-Qin period there were only four peaks, namely the Eastern Peak, Mount Tai; the Western Peak, Mount Hua; the Southern Peak, Mount Heng; and the Northern Peak, Mount Heng. The Zuo Commentary, fourth year of Duke Zhao: “The Four Peaks and Santu.”

[26] Liu Xiang's Garden of Persuasions (Shuoyuan) names the Five Peaks as the five mountains Tai, Huo, Hua, Heng, and Song.

[27] Classified Collection of Literature, chapter 7, “Mountains” section.

[28] Classified Collection of Literature, chapter 7, “Mountains” section.

[29] The Shuowen explains xian (immortal) thus: “An immortal: the appearance of a person on a mountain.”

[30] The Scripture and Chart of the Mysterious Vista of Mount Renniao describes Mount Renniao in the immortal realm thus: “The Most High Great Lord of the Tao of the Jade Dawn said: Mount Renniao has a great many names. It is also called Mount Sumeru, Mount Xuanpu, the Golden Root Mountain of the Great Earth, the Mountain of Original Nonbeing and Wondrous Mystery, the Mountain of the Precious Grotto of Primordial Qi, and the Mountain of Viewing Heaven through Seven Changes and Seven Turns of Divine Mystery. One mountain with seven names, collectively called the Mysterious Vista. It washes away flaws and leaks and gathers the vast and clear. Its height is without limit, its power equal to the Tao; it shows itself as having bounds, soaring into the dark void. Its base spreads over three hundred sixty billion li; on its face there are two million four hundred thousand gates, and inside and out there are natural palaces of the seven treasures, where divine immortals roam and sacred Perfected rest. The Primordial Heavenly King governs on the mountain; above there are also the palace of the Heavenly Emperor and the chamber of the Grand Emperor, and the Perfected of Highest Clarity meet one another in numbers beyond counting. In the mountain there is naturally the golden liquid and returned elixir, and a numinous incense of seven names; this incense is not burned yet constantly gives off a wondrous vapor, which can be smelled seven thousand li away even against the wind. It is the incense of the divine immortals; those who obtain it do not die. Groves of chun trees and precious woods, trees of gold and jade, shine brilliantly as the sun, their essence penetrating the void; when they sway they make sounds, forming the eight tones of themselves. Golden-winged phoenixes, the peng bird and the vermilion bird, divine dragons, qilin, and lions, the bronze-headed and iron-browed, the bixie and the chisel-toothed—great divine birds and beasts—roam in its precious groves; giant kun fish and scaly creatures swim beneath its jade pools. Its numinous things and rare auspicious signs cannot be fully set out.” In the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, case Guo. It also appears as the “Scripture and Chart of the Primordial Vista of Mount Renniao” in the “Talismans and Charts” section of the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 80.

[31] See the chapter “Numinous Mountains” in the Supreme Secret Essentials.

[32] Note: In the registers of grotto-heavens and blessed lands of Sima Chengzhen and Du Guangting, the Five Peaks are placed among the Thirty-Six Lesser Grotto-Heavens, which are of lower rank.

[33] Note: Judging from its place in the order in the text, this Mount Difei refers not to Gouqu (Maoshan) but to the Zhongnan Mountains. The Bai-Kong Six Tablets, chapter 5, quoting the Record of the Three Qin, calls the Zhongnan Mountains Mount Difei.

[34] Judging from the cosmic board unearthed from the Warring States tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, the arts of kanyu were already current in the Warring States period. See the lacquered clothes chest C1.66 (color plate 13) in The Tomb of Marquis Yi of Zeng, edited by the Hubei Provincial Museum, Cultural Relics Publishing House, 1989.

[35] Inner Chapters of the Baopuzi, “Subtle Import.”

[36] Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 11.

[37] Selections of Refined Literature, chapter 11.

[38] The “Preface to the Poems of the Winding Stream on the Third Day of the Third Month” says: “The Garden of Fragrant Groves is where the recesses of blessed lands converge, the old site of the Cinnabar Mound and the Ruo River.”

[39] Classified Matters and Aspects of the Shangqing Tao, chapter 1, in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, case Gu.

[40] Shangqing Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth, in the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 27, in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, beginning at case Shu.

[41] Li Sicong, Collection of the Grotto Abyss, chapter 5, in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, case He.

[42] Garden of Marvels, chapter 5.

[43] The Record of the Customs and Lands of Guilin says: “Mount Li is two li south of the city, on the north bank of the Li River, from which it takes its name. It is also called Mount Chenshui. The mountain rises alone and steep, with a clear pool below; it is more than three hundred chi high, with caves at its side. The cave is several zhang wide and runs straight through from south to north; above are strange rocks, precariously tilted, thickly entwined with vines. In times of turmoil, the people could take refuge there from bandits and disorder.”

[44] See the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 47.

[45] See the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 46.

[46] See the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 23.

[47] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 20.

[48] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 17, “Pei Chen.”

[49] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 83, “Zhang Zuo.”

[50] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 83, “Zhang Zuo.”

[51] Quoted in the Gazetteer of Mount Hua, the Western Peak, in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, case Di.

[52] See the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 25, “The Herb-Gathering Commoner.” Note: descriptions of this kind abound in the various cases of straying into grotto-heavens and are not limited to the entry “The Herb-Gathering Commoner.”

[53] Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 11.

[54] Classified Matters and Aspects of the Shangqing Tao, chapter 1.

[55] Classified Collection of Literature, chapter 7, “Mountains” section.

[56] The Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 14, says: “On Mount Luji there is a sealed grotto. A sealed grotto has only one or two mu of empty space and leads nowhere; hence it is a sealed grotto. On the four sides of the grotto chamber there is blue-white stone, which also shines with natural light, spread out like an open canopy, and the floor is perfectly level. There are naturally stone beds and stone couches, curved or narrow, long or short, with partitions dividing them, as if carved, and all neat and complete.”

[57] Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 13.

[58] Gazetteer of Maoshan, chapter 13, in the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, beginning at case Long.

[59] See the relevant parts of the Declarations of the Perfected, chapters 12 and 13.

[60] The Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 12, says: “In the grotto there are the Yiqian Lodge and the Hanzhen Terrace, both names of palaces.” “The Hanzhen Terrace is for women who have attained the Tao; it belongs to the Eastern Palace of Taiyuan and has nearly two hundred people. These two palaces are entirely palaces of women.” Chapter 13 says: “The two palaces of Yiqian and Tongchu are the halls and lodges of men and women.” “Hanzhen Terraces exist in all the grotto-heavens, not only here. This one terrace belongs specifically to the Taiyuan Bureau and is subordinate to the Director of Destinies; two female Perfected are in charge of it.”

[61] The Illustrated Account of the Seven Realms of Cultivating Perfection and Their Attainments says: “The first attainment, immortals of the grotto palaces… dwell within the ten grottoes and thirty-six grottoes in the earth, and in the grotto residences of the Five Peaks and famous mountains. They have their own sun and moon dividing their essence, golden towers, jade halls, and immortal palaces—everything is complete.” In the Zhengtong Taoist Canon, case Guo.

[62] Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 113, “Preface to the Continued Biographies of Immortals.”

[63] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 34.

[64] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 25.

[65] Shangqing Chart of the Palaces and Residences of Heaven and Earth, in the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 27.

[66] Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 11.

[67] Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 11.

[68] Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 11.

[69] In Search of the Supernatural (Baihai edition), chapter 11.

[70] Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural, chapter 1.

[71] See the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 28, entry “Xi Jian.”

[72] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 36, entry “Li Qing.”

[73] Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural, chapter 1; the Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall, chapter 157, cites it as from Liu Yiqing's Shishuo.

[74] Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall, chapter 157, “Earth,” part 2, “Caves.”

[75] Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, chapter 49.

[76] Sequel to In Search of the Supernatural, chapter 1.

[77] Records of Encounters with Divine Immortals, in the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 112.

[78] The Biographies of Divine Immortals, “The Gourd Master,” says: “The Master said to Fang: When you see me jump into the gourd, you may imitate me and jump, and you will get in of your own accord. Changfang did as he was told, and indeed, before he knew it, he was inside. Once inside, it was no longer a gourd; he saw only a world of immortal palaces, with towers, observatories, layered gates, and covered walkways. The Master had dozens of attendants on his left and right.”

[79] The biography of Ji Zonglao in Du Guangting's Records of Encounters with Divine Immortals describes the gourd of a wandering Taoist seen by Ji Zonglao, a Taoist priest of Yuzhang: “Ji Zonglao was a Taoist priest of Yuzhang. He traveled around the famous mountains seeking teachers and pursuing learning, but had not yet attained anything. In the second year of the Dazhong era, a Wuchen year, at a village temple in Shuzhou, he met a Taoist in tattered clothes, braving the wind and snow in great haste. Suddenly he saw him come seeking shelter at the temple, and gave him a room in the Taoist quarters to spend the night. When it grew dark there was no lamp or candle, and the snow was very heavy. Suddenly he saw light in the room; peeping through a crack, he saw that it was bright without lamp or candle, and that from a small gourd came forth quilts, bed curtains, cushions, mattresses, and utensils, furnishings, clothes, and curios—everything one could want. Zonglao knew he was extraordinary and knocked at the door to call on him, but the Taoist did not answer, and the light in the room soon went out.” Note: The Extensive Records of the Taiping Era cites this entry as from the Records of Original Transformations, under the title “Old Man Pan.”

[80] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 74.

[81] The entry “Emperor Xianzong of Tang” in chapter 47 of the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era tells of the recluse Yiqi Xuanjie and the wooden carving of the Three Islands: “Xuanjie was about to return to the Eastern Sea and repeatedly asked the emperor's leave, but it was not granted. It happened that in the palace three mountains had been carved of wood, decorated with gorgeous silk and inlaid with pearls and jade. On New Year's Day the emperor viewed them with Xuanjie. The emperor pointed to Penglai and said: ‘Were I not a high immortal, I would have no way to reach such a realm.’ Xuanjie said: ‘The Three Islands are only a foot away—who says they are hard to reach? Though I have no ability, let me try to make a journey there for Your Majesty, to explore the beauty and ugliness of its scenes.’ He at once leapt up into the air, gradually growing smaller, and in a moment entered the left side of the gold and silver gate towers. The emperor called to him again and again, but he was not seen again. The emperor longed for him and lamented, until he nearly fell ill; so he named the mountain the Island of the Hidden Perfected. Every morning he burned phoenix-brain incense before the island to show his reverence. Ten days later, Qingzhou reported: Xuanjie has crossed the sea riding a yellow mare.”

[82] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 79.

[83] See the Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 74, entry “Zhang Ding,” quoting the Gleanings of Biographies of Immortals (Xianzhuan Shiyi).

[84] Records of Strange Things, first chapter.

[85] Garden of Marvels; see also the account of Wang Zhi in the Biographies of Grotto Immortals in the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 110.

[86] “Biography of Cai Jing” from the Biographies of Divine Immortals, in the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 109.

[87] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 23, “Feng Jun.”

[88] Extensive Records of the Taiping Era, chapter 23, “Feng Jun.” Note: accounts of this kind are very numerous in miscellaneous notes and fiction and are virtually commonplaces.

[89] Treatise on Curiosities, chapter 1.

[90] Declarations of the Perfected, chapter 8.

[91] The Separate Biography of Xu Mai says: “Maoshan of Yanling is the western gate of Dongting and is secretly connected with the Five Peaks.”

[92] See the passage cited in section 4 of this article.

[93] Imperial Readings of the Taiping Era, chapter 44.

[94] Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall, chapter 157, “Earth” section, “Caves.”

[95] Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall, chapter 157, “Earth” section, “Caves.”

[96] Excerpts from Books in the Northern Hall, chapter 157, “Earth” section, “Caves.”

[97] Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 106, Inner Biography of Lord Zhou, Perfected of Purple Yang.

[98] Record of the Assembled Immortals of the Walled City, “Yangping Parish,” in the Seven Slips from the Cloudy Satchel, chapter 116.