Clerics › Religious Figure
Bai Yuchan
Southern Song Daoist born Ge Changgeng, styled Haiqiongzi, an inner-alchemy theorist regarded as the effective founder of the Southern branch of the Golden Elixir school and honoured as a patriarch of the Shenxiao school.
In a temple courtyard at dusk, a great bronze bell hangs at the right and incense smoke rises from a bronze urn; monks in orange robes and plainly dressed visitors walk toward a lamplit hall, lotus flowers bloom in a stone basin, and a gold prayer wheel stands at the left.
Also known as Ge Changgeng (birth name) · Courtesy name Ruhui · Style name Haiqiongzi · Style name Ziqing
Bai Yuchan, born Ge Changgeng, took the surname Bai when his mother remarried; his courtesy name was Ruhui, also Ziqing, and his style names were Haiqiongzi and Wuyi Sanren. His family came from Minqing in Fujian and he was born at Qiongshan in Qiongzhou (modern Hainan). A Southern Song Daoist and theorist of inner alchemy who taught the joint cultivation of nature and life, he is regarded as the effective founder of the Southern branch of the Golden Elixir school, counted among the Five Southern Patriarchs, and honoured by the Shenxiao school as well. His writings include the Yulong Ji, Shangqing Ji and Wuyi Ji; disciples compiled the Haiqiong Yuchan Xiansheng Wenji, and thunder-rite texts of his are in the Daofa Huiyuan.
Life and times
Dates Birth year given variously as 1134 or 1194; died c. 1229 CE