Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c12.s2.18

v2.c12.s2.18

Famous Daoist scholar and medical doctor, Tao Hongjing (452 ~ 536 CE) composed ‘*Yangsheng Yanming Lu: Fu qi liaobing pian* (Extracts on Nourishing Spiritual Nature and Prolonging BodilyLife/Cultivation and Longevity – Cultivating Qi For Healing)’. He summarised the approach to longevity and treatment of disease through Prāṇāyāma. Monk Tanluan (476 ~ 542 CE) left home at a young age due to his illness. He went to the southern reaches of the Yangtze to receive medical training and knowledge from Master Hongjing and thoroughly learnt ten volumes of ‘*Xian Jing* (Classic for Immortality)’. Later, he also trained under Bodhiruci (c. 5th – 6th century CE), a north Indian monk in China. Influenced by him, he burnt Daoist text *Xian Jing* (Classics for Immortals) and converted to Buddhism with great fanfare. He spent his remaining life writing several books. Among them, important ones concerning self-cultivation and well-being were *Diao Qi Lun* (Theories of Prānāyāma), *Fuqi Yaojue* (Essential Methods for Breathing Exercises) - later also known as *Tanluan fashi fuqi fa* (Monk Tanluan’s Breathing Exercises), *Liao bai bing za wanfang* (Prescriptions for Miscellaneous Pills to Cure Hundreds of Diseases), and others.