Liu Haichan

Liu Haichanwas a (c.10th century)Daoistxian("transcendent; immortal") who was a patriarch of theQuanzhen School, and a master ofneidan"internal alchemy" techniques. Liu Haichan is associated with other Daoist transcendents, especiallyZhongli QuanandLü Dongbin, two of theEight Immortals. TraditionalChineseandJapanese artfrequently represents Liu with a string of square-holedcashcoins and a mythical three-leggedchanchu(蟾蜍; "toad; toad in the Moon"). In the present day, it is called theJin Chan(金蟾), literally meaning "Money Toad", and Liu Haichan is considered an embodiment ofCaishen, the God of Wealth.
Liu Haichan is known by many names.Liu劉is a commonChinese family name, notably for theHan dynastyimperial family. Haichan combineshǎi海"sea; ocean; huge group (of people/things)" andchán蟾"toad", used in thecompoundchánchú蟾蜍 (蟾諸 or 詹諸) "toad; fabled toad in the moon". One source, the (early 17th century)Lidai Shenxian tongjian歷代神仙通鑒 "Complete Historical Record of Immortals" takes Liuhai 劉海 as aChinese compound surname, but that is otherwise unsupported.Liu'sgiven namewas Cao 操 "grasp; conduct", which he later changed to Xuanying 玄英 "mysterious blossom".Han ZhaoEmperorLiu Cong(d. 318) had a son also named Liu Cao 劉操, who became Prince ofWeiin 312. Liu Haichan'scourtesy nameswere Zongcheng 宗成, Zhaoyuan 昭元, and Zhaoyuan 昭遠. Liu's Daoistphilosophical nameis Haichanzi 海蟾子 "Master Sea-Toad". In later generations, he was simply called Liu Hai 劉海.
The immortal Liu Hai is usually depicted as a young man withbangs, and hiseponymliúhǎi劉海means "bangs; fringe" inModern Standard Chinese.
In Chinesebiological classification, the namehǎi chánchú海蟾蜍 (lit. "sea toad") designates the toad speciesBufo marinus(which is not native to China), whilehǎi chányú海蟾魚 (lit. "sea toad fish") designates the genusThalassophryneof the toadfish familyBatrachoididae(Greekθαλασσαthalassa"sea" + φρυνεphryne"toad") - likewise not native to China.
Certain species of subfamilyBatrachoidinaeof the Batrachoididae, on the other hand, are native toSoutheast Asianwaters and, with their toad-like appearance (featuring a bloated thorax narrowing abruptly to a slender tail) bear a distinct similarity to the traditional jīnchán: the thin tail of the toadfish, with its attendant tail fin resembles the curious third leg (with its attendant webbed foot) of the jīnchán .
The English common namesea toad, by contrast, is a catch-all for the deep-seaanglerfishfamilyChaunacidae.
In theJapanese language, Ryū Kaisen 劉海蟾 is also called GamaSennin蝦蟇仙人 "Toad Immortal" and his three-legged toad companion is identified as Seiajin 青蛙神 "Frog God". ChineseQīngwā Shén青蛙神The Frog Godis ashort storybyPu Songlingcollected in the (1740)Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio
The sinologist Henri Doré says there is no agreement as to Liu Haichan's name, much less as to his acts and deeds.
Thehagiographicdata on Liu Haichan are scant. His name is rarely mentioned, even in records about his putative beneficiaryZhang Boduan, except for one statement that Liu conveyedjīndān金丹  "pill of immortality" formulas to Zhang during his visit to the region ofShuin 1069.
Liu Haichan is first recorded in several collections ofbiji"miscellaneous notes; notebooks" as a disciple ofChen Tuan(d. 989).Later hagiography is only found in compilations of the Quanzhen School, which claimed him as a patriarch.
The earliest biography of Liu Haichan is in the (1241)Jinlian zhengzong ji金蓮正宗記 "Records of the Orthodox Sect of the Golden Lotus", which inspired most later accounts of his life.It records that Liu was a native of theYan Mountains, a major mountain range in northernHebeiprovince, near present-dayBeijing. During the turbulentFive Dynastiesperiod (907-957), Liu, who was an expert inHuang-Laophilosophy, passed theimperial examinationwith ajinshidegree.After briefly serving as a minister toLiu Shouguang, the self-declared emperor of theYan state(911-914), Liu Haichan was appointed prime minister underAbaojiin 916, the founder of the foreignLiao dynastyor Khitan Empire (907-1125).
There is a famous story about how Liu Haichan was converted to Daoism. One day, at the height of his glory, Liu met a Daoist monk who called himself Zheng Yangzi 正陽子 "Master of CorrectYang"—but was actually the renowned ImmortalZhongli Quan. He asked Liu to get ten eggs and ten gold cash coins (with a hole in the middle), and then placed a coin under each, and piled them one on top of another. Liu yelled "How dangerous!" and the Daoist smilingly replied, "The position of a prime minister is much more dangerous!".Liu was suddenly awakened, resigned from his position, gave up his wealth, left home, and went wandering. He changed his name to Liu Xuanying and the Daoists called him Haichan "Sea Toad". Liu lived alone and practiced self-cultivation while travelling inShaanxibetweenMount Hua, a famous location for Daoist and Buddhist monks, and theZhongnan Mountains, until he achieved Daoistxian-hood "immortality; transcendence".
As an immortal, Liu Haichan was especially revered in the 12th and 13th centuries. Quanzhen accounts said he was a friend of the Daoist adeptsChen Tuan(d. 989), Zhong Fang 種放 (955-1015), and Zhang Wumeng 張無夢 (fl. 985-1065). Liu was much less famous than his disciple Zhang Boduan 張伯端 (d. 1082), the author of theWuzhen pian.
Liu Haichan's teachers were two of theEight Immortals,Zhongli Quan(aka Zheng Yangzi above) andLü Dongbin. These three were famous for roaming the world and persuading people to search for Daoist immortality. Their encounters were favorite topics not only of hagiographic works, but also of poems and plays. Although Zhongli and Lü have enjoyed a more durable popularity, Liu plays an eminent role in a number of stories. For example, the semi-vernacularNingyang Dong zhenren yuxian ji凝陽董真人遇仙記 "Records of the Perfected Person Dong Ningyang's Encounters with Immortals", which tells the tale of a Jurchen soldier, Dong Shouzhi 董守志 (1160-1227), who repeatedly received visits and instructions from Liu, Lü, and Zhongli, and started a new Daoist school.
Scholars are uncertain about the dates of Liu Haichan's life, and have said he lived in the 10th century,Five Dynasties Period (907-960),floruit1031,.and died before or circa 1050.Holmes Welch notes the chronological problem with Liu Haichan's hagiography.If he was a disciple of Lü Dongbin (fl. c. 800), a minister to Liu Shouguang in 911-913, and the teacher of Zhang Boduan in 1070, Liu Haichan "must have lived some 270 years, a ripe old age even among Taoists". Welch concludes that a disciple could adopt a Daoist master posthumously, either through books orvisions.
Although Liu Haichan's alchemical texts and poems seem to have been well-known, many becamelost works, excepting some citations in the canonicalDaozangand quotes in several Song and Yuanneidanworks. Liu was also famous for his poetry and the calligraphic traces he left on temple walls—a way of creating new holy places that was also favored by Lü Dongbin.
The official bibliography sections of the (1060)New Book of Tangand the (1345)History of Songboth ascribe theHuanjin pian還金篇 "Chapters on Reverting Gold" to Liu Haichan, called Haichanzi Xuanying 海蟾子玄英, combining his Daoist names.Another text attributed to Liu is theHuangdi Yinfujingjijie黃帝陰符經集解 "Collected Interpretations of the Yellow Emperor's Hidden Talisman Classic",which is purportedly drawn from ten different sources, many of which are clearly late fabrications.
Liu's autobiographicalRudao ge入道歌 "Song on Becoming a Taoist", which is probably a Quanzhenapocryphon, is included in his standard biography found in theJinlian zhengzong ji, and was carved on stone in several locations.
A short work entitledZhizhen ge至真歌 "Song of Ultimate Perfection" is ascribed to Liu in the (1796-1820) Daozang jiyao 道藏輯要 "Essentials of the Daoist Canon". However, it identifies him as Haichan dijun 海蟾帝君, using the honorific title Dijun帝君 "Sovereign Lord" that Song emperorKülüg Khanbestowed on him in 1310, suggesting that this edition, if not the composition itself, dates no earlier than the 14th century.
According to traditional Daoist legend, the Quanzhen "Complete Perfection" School was founded byWang Chongyang(1113-1170) after he received enlightenment from the teachings of the immortals Zhongli Quan, Lü Dongbin, and Liu Haichan in 1159. After Wang's death, these four and Donghua dijun 東華帝君 "Master of Eastern Florescence" were declared the Five Patriarchs of the Quanzhen School.
In the late 12th century, the Quanzhen Schoolneidan"internal alchemy" tradition came to be divided into a Beizong 北宗 "Northern Lineage" and Nanzong 南宗 "Southern Lineage", terms first used byChan Buddhism. The date when the term Nanzong came into use is uncertain, and Boltz describes the lineage as ex post facto.The Northern Lineage emphasized monastic discipline, ascetic practices, and celibacy, along with someneidanpractices.The primary concern of the Southern Lineage wasneidan, and compared to the Nanzong, it was smaller, more loosely organized, and did not require members to become monks.
By the 13th century, the Five Patriarchs of the Southern Lineage were identified as Liu Haichan (fl. 1031), Zhang Boduan (d. c. 1082), Shi Tai 石泰 (d. 1158), Xue Zixian 薛紫賢 (d. 1191), and Chen Nan陳楠 (d. 1213).Liu Haichan and his teachers Zhongli Quan and Lü Dongbin are revered by both the Quanzhen and Nanzong lineages. Liu's importance, however, appears to have waned already by theYuan dynasty(1271-1368), and very few texts are attributed to him in later anthologies.
By the early 14th century, a number of Quanzhen works asserted that Liu had conveyed the teachings of the venerable Zhongli Quan toWang Chongyangin the north and toZhang Boduanin the south, a claim that was no doubt extremely useful to Quanzhen textual codifiers who sought to find a common origin for their Northern and Southern Lineages.
InChinese mythologyandyin yangtheory, the three-legged toad is a Moon symbol and thethree-legged crowis a Sun symbol (compare theyu魊"a three-legged tortoise that causes malaria"). According to an ancient tradition, thetripedaltoad is the transformedChang'elunar deitywho stole theelixir of lifefrom her husbandHouyithe archer, and fled to the Moon where she was turned into a toad.
Ge Hong's (c. 320 CE)Baopuzilists10,000-year oldchanchutoad as a magicalrouzhi肉芝 "meat/flesh excrescence" that provides the invulnerability and longevity associated with Daoistxian. (Zhi芝usually means "mushroom; fungus", especially thelingzhi mushroom, but Daoists also uses it to mean "excrescence;numinoussubstance".)
AnotherChinese folkloretradition is that during the night, Liu Hai's three-legged toad produces a pearl that, when eaten, can change a person into axianimmortal or can restore a corpse to life.
Traditional Chinese medicineuseschánsū蟾酥 "dried venom of toads; toad-cake;bufotoxin" as an anesthetic and heart tonic. Since ingesting bufotoxin can producehallucinogeniceffects, there is apsychoactive toadhypothesis to explain the relationship between Liu Haichan and his toad.Joseph NeedhamandLu Gwei-djensay the three-legged toad and drug-poundingMoon rabbitboth symbolize the Moon and therefore of the Yin force, which was vital for makingwaidanalchemical elixirs. Some ancient Daoists valued toad flesh "as an aid to prolongevity and immortality", and which could cause a person to escape invisibly from captivity.
The original identity of the Daoist master Liu Haichan as a teacher of esotericneidantechniques greatly differs from his contemporary persona as a god of wealth and business success.reproduces aDragon Boat Festivaltalisman of Liu Hai and his toad that was believed to provide a family good luck and protection.
Liu Haichan is traditionally represented as a child with a string or sash of coins and a three-legged toad (symbols of good fortune), two attributes "probably borrowed" from the immortalsLan Caiheand Helan Qizhen 賀蘭棲真, both of whom were irregulars in the Eight Immortals.First, Lan Caihe was known for dragging a string of coins casually on the ground when begging in streets, symbolically showing an utter contempt for money.Once the string of coins changed hands, it created a new iconography for Liu's enlightenment by Zhongli Quan stacking up eggs and coins to represent the precariousness of human existence.Second, theNorthern Song dynastyDaoist master Helan Qizhen 賀蘭棲真 (d. 1010) supposedly achieved immortality by devouring a three-legged golden toad. The Yuan dynasty author Luo Tianxiang 駱天驤 wrote,"In White Deer Abbey on Mount Li, there is a Toad Well, in which there was a three-legged toad of golden color. 'This is a meat fungus,' [i.e.,rouzhi肉芝 above] exclaimed Master He-lan when he saw it. He cooked and ate it, whereupon he flew up to the sky in broad daylight." Anning Jingsuggests this story about Helan Qizhen eating a toad might have been a literal interpretation of a Daoistneidanin which "golden toad" represents thezhēnjīng真精 "true essence"; which is mentioned in a poem by the Southern Songscholar-officialLi Shih 李石 (1108-1181): "I have heard that the delicacy of old toad is a drug / That can turn even grass into golden bud; / But would it be better to close [my] mouth and nourish internally / To replace your [toad's] ugly substance and nurture [my internal] bud. / Riding you, I shall fly to the palace in the moon / And descend to see the mulberry sea that reaches the clouds beyond the sky."
There are two versions of the Chinese folktale calledLiúhǎi xì [jīn]chán劉海戲[金]蟾 "Liu Hai plays with the [golden] toad"
Liu sometimes figures as adoor godat Chinese temples, in partnership with the Tianguan Dadi.
Lastly, Liu Hai is the Chinesepatron saintof needle makers.
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