T'AO HUNG-CHING

born 451, Mo-ling, China died 536, Hua-yang Pinyin Tao Hongjing Chinese poet, calligrapher, physician, naturalist, and the most eminent Taoist of his time. A precocious child, T'ao was a tutor to the Imperial court while still a youth. In 492 he retired to Mao Shan, a chain of hills southeast of Nanking, to devote himself to the life and study of Taoism. There he established a mountain retreat where whole families lived under his spiritual guidance. T'ao was an adviser and friend to the emperor Wu Ti, and his retreat survived the proscription of all other Taoist sects in 504. The major work of T'ao Hung-ching was the editing and annotation of the religious writings of Yang Hsi, Hs Mi, and Hs Hui, composed at Mao Shan in the 4th century. This enormous body of work includes Taoist scriptures, lives, and visionary dictations (dictes) that are the highest literary achievement of the formative period of esoteric Taoism. T'ao produced two compendiums of the literature, the Chen Kao (Declarations of the Perfected) and the Teng-chen yin-cheh (Secret Instructions for Ascent to Perfection). At Mao Shan, T'ao attempted to recreate the daily practices of Taoism laid down in these works in their original setting. In the course of his research into proper eating and living practices, he produced the T'u ching yen i pen ts'ao, one of the major pharmacological works of China. T'ao also effected a working synthesis of the private and individual practices of the Mao Shan literature with the 4th-century public rites of the Ling Pao liturgies. His writings on the Ling Pao pantheon reveal his familiarity with Buddhist as well as Taoist literature.