Bao Jing
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| Bao Jing | |||||||||||||||||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 鮑靚 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 鲍靓 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Korean name | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Hangul | 포정 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Hanja | 鮑靚 | ||||||||||||||||||||
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| Japanese name | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Kanji | 鮑靚 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Hiragana | ほうせい | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Bao Jing (鮑靚, 260?–330 CE) was a Chinese philosopher. He was a Daoist xian ("transcendent; 'immortal'") was best known for having been a disciple of the transcendent master Yin Changsheng from whom he received the Taixuan Yin Shengfu (太玄陰生符; "Yin Sheng's Talisman of Great Mystery"), and for having transmitted a version of the Sanhuang wen (三皇文; "Writings of the Three Sovereigns") to his disciple and son-in-law Ge Hong.
Bao Jing's courtesy name was Tàixuán (太玄; "Great Mystery"), which is a common Taoist term, e.g., Yang Xiong's c. 2 BCE Taixuanjing ("Canon of Supreme Mystery"), and the "Great Mystery" section of the Taoist Canon. He is honorifically called Bao Taixuan or simply Bao Xuan.
Another famous Taoist with the same surname is Bao Jingyan (鮑敬言), whose "anarchistic" views were partially preserved in an Outer Chapter of the Ge Hong's Baopuzi.[1] Joseph Needham says it "remains an open question" whether Bao Jing and Bao Jingyan were the same person.[2]
Life
According to different sources, Bao Jing was born in Chenliu (present-day Kaifeng, Henan), Shangdang (Changzhi, Shanxi), or Donghai (southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu). He is famous for having announced to his parents, at age five, that he was the reincarnation of a son of the Li family of Quyang (Hebei) who fell into a well and died when he was nine years old. Raised in a family of Han dynasty scholar-officials, including Bao Xuan (鮑宣, d. 3 CE) and Bao Yong (鮑永, d. 42), Bao Jing studied Daoism, Confucianism, esoterica, and astronomy. He had a successful career as a Western Jin dynasty official and was appointed Governor of Nanhai (Guangdong) in 313. In 318, he met the transcendent Yin Changsheng, who recognized his aptitudes and instructed him in Daoist techniques of immortality. Two years later he left his office and retired to Jurong (Jiangsu) or Danyang (near Nanjing, Jiangsu), where he practiced esoteric Daoist longevity techniques. Early texts record that Bao Jing was buried at Mount Luofu (Guangdong) or Shizigang (石子岡, Jiangsu), but his remains supposedly disappeared by means of shijie ("corpse liberation"), which enabled an adept to feign death and assumeng a new identity as an earthbound transcendent.[3][4]
The hagiography of Bao Jing in the Shenxian zhuan ("Biographies of Divine Transcendents"), which is partially attributed to the Daoist scholar Ge Hong (283-343), is a primary source of information. The Shenxian zhuan scholar and translator Robert Ford Campany analyzed the earliest dates by which various parts of the text are attested, and found that the Bao Jing material existed prior to 650.[5]
Bao Jing, styled Taixuan 太玄 was a native of Langye. He lived during the reign of Emperor Ming of Jin [r. 323-325], and was the father of the wife of Ge Hong. Lord Yin [Yin Changsheng] bestowed on him a method of "escape by means of a simulated corpse." One version has it that Bao was a native of Shangdang and was descended from Bao Xuan 鮑宣 a Director of Convict Labor during the Han. He cultivated his body and nourished his nature, and when he had passed the age of seventy he escaped and departed. There was one Xu Ning 徐寧. who served Bao Jing as his teacher. One night Xu Ning heard the sound of zither music coming from Bao's room. He asked about it and was told, "Ji Shuye 嵇叔夜 formerly left a trace at the eastern market, but actually he achieved 'martial liberation' (bingjie)."[6]
Ji Shuye is the courtesy name of Ji Kang (226-262), the famous Daoist poet and gujin virtuoso, who was executed on fabricated charges. This Shenxian zhuan context implies that Ji Kang faked his death in order to elude the imperial and spiritual bureaucracies. Bingjie (兵解; "deliverance by a military weapon" or "escape by execution") is a method of shijie liberation for those who have been executed, such as Zuo Ci (155–220).
The Shangqing classic Jianjing (劍經; "Sword Scripture"), preserved only in fragments, says Bao Jing carried out the bingjie procedure.
Formerly, Ge Hong maintained that Lord Yin transmitted to Bao Jing a method of escape by means of a simulated corpse. Later [Bao Jing] died and was buried .... Someone opened his coffin and saw in it [only] a large sword. Around the tomb could be heard the sounds of men and horses, so [the robbers] did not dare remove [the sword].[7]
This text claims that the method transmitted to Bao Jing by Yin Changsheng involved only a talisman, not an elixir, and that it was merely an evasive "escape by means of a simulated corpse" stratagem, using a talisman-empowered sword as one's substitute body.
The 648 Book of Jin biography of Bao Jing, which is untranslated, describes him exchanging texts and methods with his disciple Ge Hong, and says that "Jing once met the transcendent Lord Yin, who transmitted instructions of the Dao [daojue (道訣)] to him. He died at an age of over one hundred."[8]
The Book of Jin biography of Ge Hong[9] mentions Bao Jing several times, specifically in terms of neixue (內學; 'inner study'; "esoteric studies"), which includes self-cultivation, alchemy, breathing exercises, special sexual practices, medicine, magic spells, amulets, charms, and techniques of immortality.[10]
Ge Hong made another close friendship, that of Bao Jing. Likewise a noted devotee of and authority on neixue, Bao Jing is particularly well known as an expert on the Yellow River Map and Lo Shu Square. He was knowledgeable not only in the various aspects of neixue and magic, but in the classics as well. He is reputed to have been an expert on various sorts of magic, and his official biography mentions his innate knowledge of unusual events. As governor of the Nanhai region, he held considerable political power; and he was a conscientious official, ever bearing in mind the needs of the people he governed. The two became very close friends. Bao Jing gave his eldest daughter to Ge Hong in marriage.[11]
