Names and variants
- Simplified
- 闾丘方远
- Traditional
- 閭丘方遠
- Other names
- Luqiu Fangyuan, Lv Qiu Fang Yuan, Dafang, Xuantong Xiansheng
- Pinyin
- Lǘ qiū fāng yuǎn
- English
- Lüqiu Fangyuan
Overview
Lüqiu, whose courtesy name was Dafang, studied with several teachers rather than following a single undifferentiated course. The biography associates Chen Yuanwu with his early learning, Zuo Yuanze with alchemical study, and Liu Chujing with religious cultivation at Mount Xiandu. It records his reception of registers from Ye Cangzhi at Yuxiao Palace on Mount Tiantai at the age of thirty-four.
He later lived in retreat at Dadi Grotto on Mount Tianzhu in Yuhang. The account says he declined repeated summons from Emperor Zhaozong but nevertheless received honorary titles, including Xuantong Xiansheng. Court recognition did not necessarily require residence or service at court.
The biography describes a community of more than two hundred disciples, naming Nie Shidao, Cheng Zixiao and Xia Yinyan among them. It also remembers Lüqiu as a reader and compiler. These details distinguish the teacher, his community and his scholarly work without turning the stages of his biography into a prescribed course of practice.
References
- [1]Dictionary of Daoism