Slideshow  Timeline  Timemap  Comments (0)

The Sanzuiting, sits on the right of the Yueyanglou. In this pavillion are the image of Lu Dongbin and the inscription of a poem of his recounting the three times he got drunk here. "Lu Dongbin呂洞賓 stands at the head of the best known group of Daoist immortals: the Eight Immortals 八仙, each of whom has particular iconographic attributes. Lu is depicted as a scholar with a fly whisk and a demon-slaying sword. The Eight Immortals do not appear as a group until the Yuan Dynasty and it is in dramatic rather than religious texts that this tradition appears. In Yuan plays Lu appears a s a hero, characteristically transforming tree spirits and scholars into immortals. The escapades of the group remained a popular topic in drama and prose and has pervaded both folklore and visual presentations, including postcards, comic books and movies. Patriach Lu, Luzi 呂祖, as Lu Dongbin is also known, is traditionally dated to the second half of the Tang Dyansty, though the earliest records of him are from the early Song Dynasty. Lu's accession to immortality is told in the famous story of the 'Yellow Millet Dream' in which he is made aware of the worthlessness and mutability of earthly success. The innkeeper, who prepares the millet while Lu dreams an entire life, turns out to be Han Zongli. In addition, early versions of Lu's legend show him a s specialist in inner alchemy, a calligrapher and a poet, a purveyor of drugs both medicinal and transcendental, a possessor of healing ink, a patron of mediums and exorcists, a soothsayer, a merchant and an artisan and a Buddhist." From chapter five, Immortality and Transcendence by Benjamin Penny in the monumantal Daoism Handbook, edited by Olivia Kohn and published by Brill.

Related Items:

Mounting Yueyang Tower 登岳陽樓

Dù Fǔ (712-770) 杜甫

Lǐ Bái 699-762 李白

Dòngtīnghú 洞廳湖

Húnán 湖南

Yuèyáng 岳陽

Yuèyánglóu 岳陽樓