The Enduring Appeal of China’s Eight Immortals

This summer season, “All Wishes Come True!” took in more than 1.8 billion yuan ($268 million) at the Chinese ticket office, ending up being the most recent in a string of hit animated movies motivated by standard Chinese misconceptions and legends. The motion picture reimagines the Eight Immortals, a group of famous figures in Chinese folklore and Taoism, as common mortals who impersonate immortals and endeavor into the celestial world of Penglai. There, the mismatched group discovers itself captured up in a dispute including effective gods, consisting of the warrior divine being Erlang Shen.

Regardless of the movie’s prevalent recognition, some Taoist buddies of mine were far from amazed. They think it trivializes essential figures in Taoist custom, totally reimagining their stories while just obtaining the names of Chinese immortals as a trick. How repaired are the stories of the Eight Immortals in the very first location?

What makes the Eight Immortals– one of the best-known groups of immortals in Chinese culture– so unique? And how precisely are they comprehended within Taoism?

Let’s begin with why there are 8. In standard Chinese culture, the number 8 has actually long been connected with efficiency and balance. The “Zhou Yi” (or “Book of Changes”), for instance, explains the 8 trigrams; conventional cosmology divides area into 8 instructions; and ancient individuals worshipped 8 farming divine beings jointly connected with the harvest.

There are the “immortals” themselves. The Chinese word xianor “never-ceasing,” has actually long been connected with hermits who withdraw into the mountains in pursuit of spiritual growing. In Taoism, immortals stand out from shenor divine beings, because regular human beings can obtain immortality through growing. Immortals therefore inhabit an area in between the human and spiritual worlds, embodying the Tao in the human world.

Before the Eight Immortals ended up being developed as a group, numerous specific members had actually currently appeared in historic works and paintings from the Tang (618– 907) and Song (960– 1279) dynasties, each connected with their own supernatural tasks.

Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin practiced neidana Taoist custom of spiritual growing in some cases called “internal alchemy,” and often connected with the prominent Taoist priest Chen Tuan. Zhang Guolao when showed numerous incredible Taoist arts before Emperor Xuanzong of the Tang dynasty. Han Xiangzi might make flowers flower quickly. Lan Caihe was a beggar who used a shoe on one foot while leaving the other bare, frequently singing and dancing while drunk and bring a big clapper.

Once they had actually formed into a group, nevertheless, the Eight Immortals did not just pull away into the mountains or ascend to paradise. Rather, they stayed carefully linked to the human world. The most representative figure in this regard is Lü Dongbin, who picks to stay amongst mortals and conserve them. He presumes different guises, consisting of those of an angler, an ink and paper peddler, an ill beggar, and even a pregnant nun. Stories and pictures of Lü spread throughout China, with conserving and informing regular individuals ending up being a main style in legends surrounding him.

The Yuan dynasty (1279– 1368) mural “The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” at Yongle Palace in Ruicheng, in northern China’s Shanxi province, reveals that the Eight Immortals had already end up being a recognized topic in Taoist art. Closer examination exposes that the only woman member of today’s group, He Xiangu, is missing out on. In her location is Xu Shenweng, a Taoist figure related to the Northern Song duration (960– 1127) who when ranked amongst the Eight Immortals. To put it simply, the Eight Immortals were initially an all-male group.

When did He Xiangu end up being one of the Eight Immortals? One early look of her as part of the group is available in the Yuan dynasty drama “Chen Jiqing Mistakenly Boards a Bamboo Leaf Boat” by Fan Kang. By the time Wu Yuantai composed the mythological unique “Journey to the East” throughout the Ming dynasty (1368– 1644), she had actually ended up being an irreversible member of the group.

This modification came amidst the growing of ladies’s literary and spiritual activity throughout the mid-to-late Ming. Like male scholars, informed ladies took part in spiritual and intellectual life and produced literary works of their own. In “Journey to the East,” He Xiangu’s specifying supernatural capability is her power to anticipate great and bad fortune. Born into a household that ran a natural medication store, she has medical understanding and utilizes encounters with individuals looking for treatment as chances to motivate them to do great.

With the addition of He Xiangu, the lineup familiar today ended up being set and significantly popular. The Eight Immortals ultimately ended up being prominent adequate to draw in the attention of European missionaries studying Chinese faith and folklore. French Jesuit Henri Doré (1859– 1931), for instance, assembled stories about them in “Researches into Chinese Superstitions,” his multivolume research study of Chinese popular faith, folklore, and custom-mades.

The Chinese Jesuit priest Pierre Hoang (1830– 1909), likewise called Huang Bolu, on the other hand, explained the Eight Immortals as representing a cross-section of society: the old and young, males and females, the abundant and bad, the worthy and lowly. In another analysis, Zhang Guolao represents aging; Lan Caihe and Han Xiangzi, youth; Zhongli Quan, the armed force; Lü Dongbin, the scholar; Cao Guojiu, the nobility; Li Tieguai, the ill; and He Xiangu, ladies.

The Eight Immortals therefore concerned incorporate a broad variety of social identities and experiences. They had, jointly, seen lots of sides of the human world, permitting individuals from various backgrounds to acknowledge something of themselves in the group. Their distinctions likewise produced a sort of balance, remembering a passage in Chapter 2 of the “Tao Te Ching,” which specifies: “Thus presence and non-existence produce each other; the hard and the simple produce each other; the long and the brief impart kind to each other; the high and the low comply [or change places] with each other; noises and voices balance with each other; concern and series alternate with each other.”

From the mid-to-late Ming dynasty onward, the Eight Immortals likewise ended up being a popular ornamental concept on ceramics produced in both royal and personal kilns. They typically appeared more discreetly on daily things, consisting of furnishings, utensils, clothes, and architectural decors. Instead of portraying the immortals themselves, craftsmens represented them through 8 things related to the group: Li Tieguai’s gourd, Zhongli Quan’s fan, Zhang Guolao’s fish drum, Lan Caihe’s flower basket, Cao Guojiu’s jade tablet, Han Xiangzi’s flute, He Xiangu’s lotus, and Lü Dongbin’s sword. Craftsmen integrated these signs with scrollwork, bats, clouds, and waves to produce ornamental structures that likewise communicated long for durability, good luck, and wealth.

Stories about the Eight Immortals were likewise versatile. Amongst citizens, plays such as “The Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea” and “The Eight Immortals Assembly Celebrate Longevity” were commonly carried out. By the Qianlong and Jiaqing rules (1736– 1820) of the Qing dynasty (1644– 1911), such stories were significantly related to birthday events, with events of the Eight Immortals representing durability, pleasure, and good luck.

Amongst intellectuals, on the other hand, the Eight Immortals acted as a source of innovative motivation. One example is “The Record of Handan,” the last of the “Four Dreams of Linchuan” by the fantastic Ming playwright Tang Xianzu. Instead of concentrating on reunion, the play utilizes Lü Dongbin to check out the illusory nature of worldly aspiration.

In the play, Lü fulfills a bad scholar consumed with accomplishing popularity and offers him a porcelain pillow. After placing on a pot of rice to boil, the scholar goes to sleep and dreams that he weds, positions initially in the royal evaluations, and invests years browsing political machinations before ending up being an effective and honored authorities, just to ultimately pass away from overindulgence. Waking to discover his pot of rice still cooking, the scholar understands his whole life time of aspiration was simply a short dream. Lü then starts the procedure of informing him, presenting him to the other immortals, who appear one by one to advise him up until he lastly awakens to the vacuum of his desires.

All this reveals simply how versatile the stories of the Eight Immortals have actually constantly been. Taoist customs and popular folklore have constantly shaped and improved one another, producing brand-new variations of the group for various audiences and ages.

Because sense, what is occurring to the Eight Immortals today is absolutely nothing brand-new.

Translator: David Ball.

(Header image: An Eight Immortals space screen at a museum in Suzhou, Jiangsu province. VCG)