Entry Index

An Qisheng is an immortal figure in early Chinese and Daoist traditions, associated with the eastern sea, Penglai, and stories about imperial searches for immortality. The accounts document a developing belief and literary figure, not a verified life of extraordinary longevity.

Baduanjin, often called the Eight Pieces of Brocade, is a group of traditional Chinese movement and breath-cultivation routines organized around eight sections. Historical sources record multiple seated and standing forms; the name does not guarantee a single fixed sequence or origin.

Bafeng originally describes winds from eight directions. Ancient works attach different names to the directions; some Daoist body texts further associate them with illness, a historical model rather than a modern diagnosis.

The Eight Trigrams (bagua) are the eight basic three-line figures of the Zhouyi, formed from combinations of yin and yang lines: Qian, Kun, Zhen, Xun, Kan, Li, Gen, and Dui. They are used in divination and Changes interpretation, and Daoist texts also draw on them to discuss yin and yang, directions, cultivation, and ritual.

Bagua fangwei places the eight trigrams in directional diagrams. Earlier Heaven and Later Heaven arrangements differ in both positions and interpretation; a specific diagram should be identified by its textual tradition.

Bagua xinggong fa is the name of a bodily cultivation routine described in a source associated with Li Qingyun. Its presentation links the method to the Eight Trigrams and to an older Eight Brocades tradition, but those lineage claims are part of the source's account.

Ba Hui can refer to eight qi produced from three cosmic elements and five phases, a sacred-script tradition called Sanyuan Bahui, eight early Quanzhen associations, or other sets of seasonal or directional meetings.

Bajing has several senses in Daoist texts: a divine carriage's eight-direction scenery, seasonal manifestations, an astral grouping, or symbolic bodily gateways. Its referent must be established from the passage at hand.

Bamen, or eight gates, can designate spatial features of Daoist ritual, symbolic body gateways, heavenly directions, or sets in traditional divination. The different systems share a number, not a universal map.

Banan, the Eight Difficulties, is not one fixed Daoist list. Different works enumerate rare conditions for encountering the Dao, obstacles to religious learning, forms of suffering, or calamities.

Ba Shen has several unrelated lists of eight: Qin-Han sacrificial powers, directional gods, sets of Daoist inner-body deities, and the symbolic spirits of Qimen Dunjia. A shared number does not make one pantheon.

Bashi, the Eight Stones, may denote a set of minerals in waidan literature, but the actual eight vary by work. Neidan commentators also explain the phrase symbolically through the body, qi, or the eight trigrams. Some named substances are toxic; these lists are not recipes.

The Eight Immortals commonly means Zhongli Quan, Li Tieguai, Zhang Guolao, Lü Dongbin, He Xiangu, Lan Caihe, Han Xiangzi, and Cao Guojiu. Stories about individual figures circulated earlier, but this particular group was not fixed in the Song and Yuan. Its familiar roster became more stable through Ming fiction, theatre, and images.

Ba Xian Tu is an artistic subject featuring the Eight Immortals and their stories in murals, paintings, prints, paper cuts, and temple decoration. Early groups need not match the later standard cast.

The White Tiger is the western figure among China's Four Symbols, associated with seven western lunar mansions and the metal phase. Daoist texts also personify it as a guardian; other traditions interpret a white-tiger presence as an ill omen. These uses share imagery but are not a single biography.

Baihu shoujing is a contested expression in internal-alchemy commentaries on the Wuzhen Pian. Explanations differ over whether it signifies primordial qi, an alchemical substance, or a sexualized reading of 'first' essence.

Bai Juyi's Daoist-themed poems are writings on Daoist ideas, specialists, temples, and immortal imagery, not a single classical book he compiled. Critical poems on quests for immortality and later poems of religious association require distinct readings.

Baixue has several meanings in alchemical texts: a reported white visual image, an inner-alchemy image associated with mercury or an elixir, and a name for an external-alchemy substance. Genre must be identified first.

Bai Yuchan, also known as Ge Changgeng and Haiqiongzi, was a Southern Song Daoist associated with the southern internal-alchemy lineage. Later tradition counts him as its fifth patriarch, while details of his birthplace, dates, and life vary among accounts.

Beijing Baiyun Guan is a major Quanzhen Daoist temple linked to Qiu Chuji and the Yuan-period Changchun Gong. Its Tang predecessor, later temple name, and surviving buildings belong to different historical phases.

Baiyun Guan Zhi is a modern temple gazetteer compiled by Japanese scholar Koyanagi Shigeta after fieldwork at Beijing's Baiyun Guan in 1931. Its four main fascicles accompany three fascicles on Dongyue Miao and an appendix.

Baojuan, or 'precious scrolls,' are religious and popular narrative texts shaped for recitation or performance. They cannot be assigned to Daoism alone.

Baopuzi is a work by Ge Hong divided into Inner Chapters and Outer Chapters. The former discuss immortality and Daoist practices; the latter address society, politics, and literary judgment.

Baopuzi Neipian is the twenty-chapter Inner Chapters of Ge Hong's fourth-century Baopuzi. It is a major source for early medieval Daoist ideas and external alchemy.

Baoyi is an expression in Laozi and later Daoist commentary about holding to 'the one.' That one may be read as Dao, underlying unity, or a relation of body and spirit, depending on the interpreter. It is not a single universal bodily exercise.

The Beidi Black Regulations (Beidi heilü) designate a group of texts and disciplinary terms concerning ritual officers, celestial offices, and ranks in some Beidi and Fengdu traditions. Titles associated with this cluster include the Beiyin Fengdu Taixuan Zhimo Heilü Lingshu and the Heilü Yige. These regulations do not represent every aspect of the Beidi tradition or a universal Daoist code.

The Beidi tradition is a Daoist scriptural and register-based ritual lineage centred on the Northern Emperor, related scriptures, and divine marshals such as Tianpeng. Beidi scriptures have earlier roots, while later accounts place Deng Ziyang and the Mount Magu transmission at the centre of a more specific lineage. The formation of Beidi ritual traditions should not be collapsed into a single founding date for a Beidi school.

The Northern Dipper, or Beidou, is the familiar seven-star asterism in the northern sky and an important group of stellar deities in Daoist tradition. Astronomical star names, cosmological correspondences, and divine titles are different ways of describing it.

The Eight Northern Heavenly Emperors form the northern group in a Daoist scheme of thirty-two heavens. Their number belongs to that scheme; other enumerations of heavens give the north a different number of rulers.

The Northern Pole Exorcism Office is a celestial office and system of ritual ranks described in some Beidi and Fengdu Daoist texts. Titles including office commissioner, judge, departmental minister, and palace envoy express divisions of responsibility. It is a sacred institution within religious literature, not a real-world government office or the Beidi tradition as a whole.

Beijing White Cloud Temple is a major Daoist temple associated with the Quanzhen tradition and its Longmen lineage. The site has carried different names and undergone repeated rebuilding; its present buildings should not be treated as unchanged structures from its earliest reported foundation.

Northern Celestial Masters is a scholarly designation for the northern reform tradition associated with Kou Qianzhi under the Northern Wei. It drew on the earlier Celestial Masters yet changed aspects of their institutions and ritual rules.

Beiyue Temple in Quyang, Hebei, is a historic temple dedicated to the deity of the Northern Peak. The Chinese entry dates its foundation to the Northern Wei and associates major surviving architecture and murals with the Yuan period.

Beizong means Northern School or Northern Branch, but the label has different referents in Chan Buddhism, landscape-painting theory, and Daoist internal-alchemy history. In a Daoist setting it commonly distinguishes a Quanzhen-associated northern current from a southern current.

Benming can refer to the basis of life in inner-alchemy commentary or to a person's birth designation in the sixty-term calendrical cycle. The source and its vocabulary determine which meaning is intended.

The Bidong lineage is a Qing-period branch of the Longmen tradition within Quanzhen Daoism. Its history is associated with Chen Qingjue and Daoist institutions in Sichuan.

Bigu, literally 'avoiding grains,' is a historical Chinese practice of restricting staple foods, often described alongside Daoist cultivation and longevity beliefs. It is not necessarily abstention from all food.

Biqi is a historical term in Daoist breathing literature. Its interpretations range from deliberately holding the breath to letting breathing become quiet without force.

Bixia Yuanjun is a Daoist goddess of Mount Tai, also called Taishan Niangniang. Her relationship to the mountain god and the story of her origin are told in several different ways in the Chinese sources.

Bianhua zhi shu refers to Daoist accounts of techniques or powers of transformation. Texts use it for changes in a person, in objects, or in the perceived order of nature.

Bojiadao was an early Daoist tradition traditionally linked to Bo He, also written Bai He. Sources associate it with popular worship and prayer and place adherents in the Jiangsu-Zhejiang region during the Northern and Southern Dynasties. Its founder story and precise institutional form remain uncertain.

Bu Lou Jing Jue is a historical label in some Daoist longevity and inner-alchemy writing for conserving jing, or vital essence. Associated statements about sexual behavior and health are not modern medical advice or guarantees of longevity.

Buqi can describe the spreading of qi through the cosmos or a historical claim that one person conveyed qi to another for healing. The latter is not evidence of medical effectiveness.

Buxu first names a Daoist liturgical form combining ceremonial movement, praise, and recitation. It also names associated lyrics and melodic traditions. From the Sui and Tang periods onward, literary authors used buxu as a poetic form about journeys among immortals. Ritual, music, and literature must therefore be distinguished.

Non-contention, or buzheng, is an ethical and philosophical ideal associated with the Daodejing: acting without struggling for status, profit, or dominance. Daoist traditions later developed it as a principle of conduct; it does not mean refusing every action or judgment.

Caishen is a designation for deities associated with wealth and trade, not the name of a single god. Zhao Gongming, Guan Yu, Bi Gan, and Fan Li appear in different traditions.

Zangwai Daoshu is a large modern facsimile collection of Daoist materials outside the main Daozang and its supplement. It brings scattered manuscripts, printed works, and temple or library holdings together, but each volume and base witness must be checked.

Cao Guojiu is one of the Eight Immortals, portrayed as a figure connected with the Song imperial family who turned away from wealth and privilege. Guojiu is a title of imperial kinship, not an ordinary personal name.

Ceshen, the 'latrine deity,' commonly refers to Zigu in Chinese popular religion. Other names and associations include Zigu, Qigu, and Keng San Guniang, but their stories do not form one verified biography.

Changchun Zhenren Xiyou Ji is Li Zhichang's two-juan record of Qiu Chuji's westward journey to meet Chinggis Khan. As a companion's account, it is important for Quanzhen history and for the geography and societies encountered along the route.