The Chinese term zhë () commonly means "fungi; mushroom", best exemplified by the medicinal Lingzhi mushroom, but in Daoism it referred to a class of supernatural plant, animal, and mineral substances that were said to confer instantaneous immortality when ingested. In the absence of a semantically better English word, scholars have translated the wide-ranging meaning of as "s", "s", and "s".
Translating Chinese is problematic. For instance, a 2017 ChineseâÂÂEnglish dictionary says:
has synonyms of , , and , and is often associated with jade.
Several scholars have described the semantic range of .
Early Chinese dictionaries provide insight into the semantics of . The c. 4th or 3rd century BCE () defines as : " is a numinous mushroom". Guo Pu's c. 310 commentary says he was unfamiliar with the , and glosses, "The flowers three times in one year, it is a felicitous plant" (). The c. 1822 subcommentary of Hao Yixing () says is a copyist's error for (see below), which is another synonym of . The 121 CE (Plant Radical section ) defines as "divine plants" ().
The Chinese character for is classified as a typical radical-phonetic compound character combining the "plant" radical and a phonetic element. In ancient oracle bone script and bronze inscription script, < Old Chinese (, "to stop; stop in", originally a "foot" pictograph) was used as a phonetic loan character for < OC (). The ( with the "plant radical", also written ) refers to the fragrant "Chinese angelica".
The Chinese classics first recorded during the Warring States period (475âÂÂ221 BCE) and the Han dynasty (206 BCE â 220 CE). Occurrences in early Chinese histories, such as the (91 BCE) "Records of the Grand Historian" and (82 CE) "Book of Han", predominantly refers to the "Mushroom of Immortality; elixir of life". They record that fangshi "masters of esoterica; alchemists; magicians", supposedly followers of Zou Yan (305âÂÂ240 BCE), claimed to know secret locations like Mount Penglai where the magic mushroom grew. Some sinologists propose that the mythical derived from Indian legends about soma that reached China around the 3rd century BCE. courtiers convinced Qin and Han emperors, most notably Qin Shi Huang (r. 221âÂÂ210 BCE) and Emperor Wu of Han (r. 141âÂÂ87 BCE), to dispatch large expeditions (e.g., Xu Fu in 219 BCE) seeking the Plant of Immortality, but none produced tangible results. occurrences in other classical texts often refer to an edible fungus.
The "Record of Ritual" lists "lichens" as a type of condiment. The (Song of the South) metaphorically mentions, "The holy herb is weeded out". The (Philosophers of Huainan) records a aphorism, "The fungus grows on mountains, but it cannot grow on barren boulders".
The Jin dynasty Daoist scholar Ge Hong's c. 320 CE (Master Who Embraces Simplicity) is the earliest surviving source of information about excrescences.
Based upon no longer extant texts and illustrations, Chapter 11 () outlines folklore and knowledge about , and elucidates the classification system. The chapter begins with quoting from the lost that rates among "medicines of highest type", "The various (five) excrescences [mushrooms, lichens, etc.] may be nibbled, and cinnabar, jade flakes, laminar malachite, realgar, orpiment, mica, and brown hematite may be taken singly, and any of them can enable a man to fly and to enjoy Fullness of Life.".
Ge Hong then explains the five numinous classes based on their appearance and habitat, each said to have over 100 varieties: , , , , and , see above), which are translated as:
look like rocks, and grow from craggy cliffs or at the foot of lofty peaks. grow from the roots or congealed sap of ancient trees, usually evergreens. grow either among vegetation or in complete isolation from it, and appear morphologically identical to conventional plants, complete with stems, leaves, flowers, and fruit. include some exceedingly rare creatures, such as a 10,000-year-old horned toad, a 1,000-year-old white bat (which when eaten will extend one's lifespan to 40,000 or 1,000 years, respectively), and a 7-inch tall humanoid figure riding in a miniature horse-drawn carriage (which grants immediate -hood when consumed). flourish where standard fungal growths proliferate, and can look like dragons, tigers, human beings, palaces, or flying birds.
At one point in , Ge Hong mentions nine excrescences which are apparently especially important to the diet of the immortal (also known as "genies)": "Those that have acquired geniehood often mount to Paradise; or soar in the purple firmament; or travel to Dark Isle; or nest a while in Pan-tâÂÂung. They listen to GodâÂÂs (Creator Sky) music, and enjoy dishes of the nine sorts of excrescencesâ¦."
Based upon later accounts of Five classes, Lu Di tentatively identifies the three natural types. is described as a shapeless and colorless thing, sometimes looking like a mass of fat, perhaps some underground stem species, such as Tuber sinense and Rhizopogon piceus. is compared "tiny trees" on , which may refer to the fruiting bodies that grow out of the sclerotia. can refer to the orchid , the "root" of which is actually a stem tuber.
Ge Hong also gives detailed Daoist purification and ritual instructions for gathering excrescences, such as an adept walking with Yu's Pace when approaching, and using a bone knife to harvest them. Anyone who wants to gather must wait for a calendrically auspicious day and can only enter the sacred mountains on the third or ninth lunar month, when the mountains are open to access and the with miraculous curative power come forth. The Daoist adept is advised to have a Lingbao amulet, a white dog, and a white chicken before making sacrificial offerings to the mountain gods. Ultimately, whether or not adepts can find depends upon their character and intelligence. Mediocre practitioners "do not know the art of entering mountains. One may have pictures, but if the shapes are not known it is utterly impossible to find the excrescences. All mountains, whether large or small, contain ghosts and gods which withhold these things from people, so it would be possible to be walking right over them without seeing them."
Another chapter uses ordinary and numinous as an analogy for natural and alchemical gold. "Mushrooms grow naturally, but some genii classics speak of five sorts of "stone" and five sorts of "wood" excrescences [], which are gathered and taken after they appear, and are no different from the mushrooms which occur in nature [], for all of them will bring a man to Fullness of Life." From this statement, Pregadio says although there may be no better translation than "mushrooms" or "excrescences", they "pertain to an intermediate dimension between mundane and transcendent reality".
Kristofer Schipper says that for Ge Hong, mushrooms had "immortalizing properties" because they are produced from the sublimation of alchemical minerals lying under the ground, notably gold and the divine cinnabar (cf. below). Mushrooms are, so to speak "natural alchemical products, comparable to the great elixir, the quintessence derived from the transmutation of these very minerals".
Two of Ge Hong's descriptions are found in the below.
The 3rd or 4th century is sometimes cited as another early source that mentions numinous mushroomsâÂÂa misunderstanding that is owing to the usage of () to mean "five plants" rather than "five excrescences". The text has a section titled , meaning "plants" since they are pine-resin (), sesame (), fagara (), ginger (), and calamus (). Steavu translates Five Plants and notes this as one of the unambiguous and relatively rare occasions when the term should be taken more generically as "plant" rather than "(numinous) mushroom".
However, the mentions an otherwise unattested text named , which scholars associate with the five lost texts listed in the bibliographic chapter: , , , , and .
The second earliest reliable source of information is the section of the 4th or 5th century Daoist Shangqing School classic . The text's three sections comprise an alchemical recipe for the famous Elixir of the Nine Cycles, two methods for compounding minor drugs, and a brief account of the Shangqing saint Mao Ying () planting five sacred varieties of . These sections were first appended to Lord Mao's revealed biography from earlier sources, and then separated from it to form the present text.
According to Shangqing traditions, the Queen Mother of the West gave numinous mushrooms to Lord Mao, who planted five kinds on the Shangqing center in Jiangsu, which is the site of , one of the ten greater Grotto-Heavens, and , one of the seventy-two Blissful Lands (or Paradises, ). The Daoist scholar and alchemist Tao Hongjing (456âÂÂ536), who compiled the Shangqing canon, recorded that the hidden mushrooms Lord Mao planted on Maoshan were still found during his lifetime.
The describes Lord Mao's five types of fungi, recommends searching for them in the third or ninth month, gives instructions for consumption, and accounts their expected benefits. Two of these five descriptions closely correspond, almost verbatim, to passages from the "plant mushrooms" and "wood mushrooms" sub-headings in the , underscoring the text's "status as a locus classicus of all things at once Daoist and fungal".
Concerning the uniting two sections about alchemical elixirs with one about excrescences, Strickmann says the "juxtaposition of alchemy and occult horticulture is very suggestive", and provides two other parallels for the Daoist fusion of plants and minerals. The alchemical , which is prepared through an "extraordinary amalgam" of vegetable and mineral processes, may have come into being through a conscious fusion of the two types of instructions, originally discretely mineral and vegetable, in the life of Lord Mao. Tao Hongjing's disciple Zhou Ziliang (, 497âÂÂ516) was commanded by Shangqing deities to commit ritual suicide with an elixir of poisonous mushrooms and cinnabar, which in one sense, indicated the "mortal-immortal's comprehensive power over the elements". The lethal ingredients in Zhou's were and jade-infused vermillion.
The third earliest source is the c. 7th or 8th century is the last section of the , and shares passages with another Shangqing text, the , probably dating from the late Six Dynasties (222âÂÂ589) or Southern dynasties (420âÂÂ589) periods.
The is the only text in the Daoist Canon that precisely explains the fungiculture for numinous , in contrast, other canonical texts simply guide mushroom hunters in identifying and locating in the wild. It contains instructions attributed to Laozi that the best are those that grow above deposits of cinnabar (), gold (), laminar malachite (), and realgar (), and teaches how to bury these minerals in the four seasons and the four directions of a mountain in order to generate the four excrescences. This Daoist text has an unusually detailed description of only four , rivaling the in terms of "the amount of information provided per specimen".
The text begins with a passage contrasting three kinds of plant-based medicinal and spiritual substances: longevity drugs, naturally growing excrescences, and artificially cultivated ones. Traditional Chinese medicines, such as asparagus root (), or atractylis (), can be effective in improving health and extending lifespan, but only if properly consumed every day. The varieties of numinous mushrooms that grow on trees or mountains can bestow full immortality, however most need to be ingested gradually over many years before the adept achieves transcendence. Only that are cultivated above four special soil conditioning minerals, which are highly valued in Chinese alchemy, can grant immortality almost instantly upon ingestion. The esoteric basis for these mushrooms' exceptional potency is explained, <blockquote>Indeed, accretions on top of cinnabar, accretions on top of gold, accretions on top of laminar malachite, and accretions on top of realgar, all of them generate [numinous] mushrooms. These mushrooms are not those of utmost virtue that respond to divinity, for one can encounter them yet not see them and not be able to eat them. The reason why these mushrooms can immediately make people become immortals is because, by receiving the perfect essence [] of those four substances, they incorporate the harmonious breath [] of Heaven and Earth and Yin and Yang along with its fragrant fluids; and by means of this they accomplish generative transformation. These [four] medicines are in fact divine on account of the basic nature of those four substances.</blockquote>
Take laminar malachite (), the first of the four alchemical minerals, as an example of the 's detailed instructions for cultivating supernatural . <blockquote>On a day at the beginning of spring, dig up the ground at the [shaded] East-northeast area of a household. Whether it is on the inside or the outside of the dwelling does not matter; it is only necessary to obtain [a site with] good soil that is not too ashen. Dig and make hole that is three feet deep and three feet across. Take one catty [1.3 pounds] of laminar malachite mineral and process it into grounds. Wrap the grounds in a sheep's [skin] to keep them together. Sprinkle with half a liter of blue cockscomb (Celosia cristata) [and place them in the hole]. Cover with soil and pound on top. After seven days, there should be blue clouds that come and cover the site, and after seventy days, it will generate blue breath that [rises and] connects with the blue clouds above. After a hundred days, a [blue] mushroom will sprout atop the site, as shown in the following image [the image is missing]. On a day following sunset, make an offering of three feet of blue silk, while grasping a bone knife, perform the Pace of Yu and cut out the mushroom. [Depart] and be careful not to look back [after completing the harvest]. Then, return to dry the mushroom in the shade for one hundred clays and process it into grounds. Ingest one spatula full and take it thrice daily by means of fragrant well water. When the mushroom is entirely consumed, you will immediately be able to lightly float about. Gods will arrive to welcome you. You will ascend to heaven in broad daylight and be as limitless as Heaven and Earth.</blockquote> Several of these particular ritual elements for cultivating a malachite are found in the passage on mushroom , including the exorcistic Pace of Yu, the bone knife, and the specifics of drying and processing. These instructions are essentially a more intricate version of what is found in the , a source that "set the standard for texts on numinous mushrooms and was still used as a template over five hundred years after it was written".
Directives for the three remaining types of mushrooms follow the same sacramental blueprint as well. The adept follows a precise practice of planting, harvesting, and consuming fungi that sprout upon a divine class of minerals identified with four of the Wuxing (Five Agents, Five Phases), corresponding to the spring/east/blue malachite in seasons, cardinal directions, cloud and mist colors, and supernatural results. Summer/south/red cinnabar : will transform all internal illnesses into turbid blood that flows out through the mouth and nose, and adepts will "immediately be able to pace on water, [pass through] flames and fire without getting burned, and cut out grains and not eat [without being hungry]". Autumn/west/yellow gold : ensures that "the old will be young anew, the young will develop a beautiful countenance, white hair will all turn black, and lost teeth will grow back". Winter/north/purple realgar : they will "enjoy longevity coterminous with Heaven. Stabbing and slicing will not pierce them, nor will fire burn them, and submerging them in water will not [even] wet them. The five poisons will keep away from them, evil spirits will be dispelled, and they will not know hunger or thirst".
The c. 10th- or 11th-century is part of a larger section on mountain survival in the . This source is a compilation of methods traditionally associated with the Sanhuang (, Three Sovereigns) tradition, which was an integral part of the southern Jiangnan esoteric lore, including the mycological path to immortality, that Ge Hong documented in his . This chapter on mushrooms lists the names of four sets of nine numinous mushrooms, divided according to where they grow (on sacred mountains, along riverbanks, in caves, or on withered trees) along with details of their respective appearances and benefits.
The two subsequent chapters in the describe a list of thirty-six medicinal and (), and a talismanic seal of the by means of which practitioners can cause numinous herbs and mushrooms to manifest before them ().
The early 11th-century Song dynasty , contained in the 1444 Ming dynasty edition "Daoist canon", contains brief descriptions and illustrations of 127 types of numinous . A 1598 Ming dynasty reprint includes woodblock pictures (see below), whose aesthetic appeal typifies the of uncommon objects compiled by Song and later literati.
The text uses botanical terms to describe the appearance of (stalk, branch, leaf, root), depicts the habitats and the seasons suitable for growth, and reports tastes, as well as methods of picking, preparing, and eating. Some illustrations even show the gills. Not all the 127 kinds of have a unique name: twelve terms are used to name twenty-eight kinds of , for example, five are named . Twenty-five of these terms correspond with the Five Phases theory of , , , , and . For instance, each phase name is compounded with -, see and below. One scholar divided the 127 types of into six groups: single umbrella-shaped (34 kinds), umbrella-shaped macrofungi in clusters (8), umbrella-shaped and cup-shaped macrofungi with branches on a stalk (12 kinds), umbrella-shaped macrofungi in layers (18 kinds), strange umbrella-shaped and cup-shaped macrofungi (29), and non-macrofungi (26 kinds).
For example, the entry says, "The ghost mushroom grows on the shady [north] side of famous mountains, and has a white lid shaped like cooking pot. Two ghosts who guard it will disappear if seen by a human. One should gather it at night, dry it in the shade for 100 days, and directly consume it in a single dose like a medicinal powder. The legendary Weaver Girl took one dose and became a transcendent who rose right up into heaven" (). Despite the epigrammatic nature of its entries, the is exceptional on account of its "exhaustive scope and its vivid iconography". It was likely compiled as a throwback to the lost illustrated mycological inventories mentioned in the , and in faithfully emulating these early sources, the text "established itself an enduring paragon of the genre".
Daoist metaphors originally associated with supernatural excrescences were gradually lost, resulting in more "secular" views. Some pharmacopoeias that incorporated the may have played a role in this process, as the term became identified with common mushrooms, resulting in an emphasis on their healing properties.
The (ca. 1st or 2nd century CE) (Divine Farmer's Classic of Pharmaceutics) classifies into six color types, each of which is believed to benefit the "Life Force" in a different part of the body: for Liver, for Heart, for Spleen, for Lungs, for Kidneys, and for Essence. According to the Chinese mycologist Zhao Jiding (), Green refers to Coriolus versicolor, Red to Ganoderma lucidum, Yellow to Laetiporus sulphureus, White to Fomitopsis officinalis, Black to Amauroderma rugosum or Polyporus melanopus, and Purple to Ganoderma sinense.
The (1596) (Compendium of Materia Medica) has a category that includes the same green, red, yellow, white, black, and purple and sixteen other fungi, mushrooms, and lichens, such as the . The author Li Shizhen classified these six differently colored as , and described the effects of "red mushroom": "It positively affects the life-energy, or of the heart, repairing the chest area and benefiting those with a knotted and tight chest. Taken over a long period of time, the agility of the body will not cease, and the years are lengthened to those of the Immortal Fairies."
The does not list as a variety of , but as an alternate name for the . According to George Ashur Stuart and Frederick Porter Smith, "[The ] is edible, and has all of the good qualities of the ([]), it is also being used in the treatment of gravel, and said to benefit virility. It is specially used in hemorrhage from the bowels and prolapse of the rectum".
Chinese pharmaceutical handbooks on mushrooms were the first illustrated publications in the history of mycology. The historian of Chinese science Joseph Needham discussed a lost illustrated text from the Liang dynasty (502âÂÂ587) called . "The pictures of mushrooms, in particular, must have been an extremely early landmark in the history of mycology, which was a late-developing science in the West. The title of [this book] shows that fungi of some kind were being regularly cultivated â hardly as food, with that special designation, more probably medicinal, conceivably hallucinogenic."
Pharmaceutical substances categorized as hallucinogens typically tend to induce an altered state of consciousness with well-known qualities, such as sensations of flying, images of visiting places with fantastic features and inhabitants, dissolution of person and merging with a cosmic all, and other transcendent experiences of self, space, and time -- along with various culturally-specific facets. Ge Hong's suffered through the vicissitudes of time and chance and has not survived as a complete work; however, evidence of the pharmacological qualities of certain excrescences have survived through incorporation of a excerpt into the Encyclopedia of Literary Collections (). These not-so-specific descriptions evidence the hallucinogenic qualities of least the mushroom type of . Centuries later, the () provides further evidence of belief in the ability of excrescences to alter the normal time-space continuum.