Wagering Mount Hua at Chess
Legend has it that he played chess with Zhao Kuangyin before the latter became the founding Song emperor, wagering Mount Hua against the emperor's favor — and won. Mount Hua has paid no taxes since.
睡
陳摶老祖
Chen Tuan, the Sleeping Immortal of Mount Hua
Sage of the Five Dynasties
Era · 871–989 CE, Five Dynasties–Song
Sage of the Five Dynasties
He transmitted the diagrams of the Great Ultimate that shaped both Taoist inner alchemy and Song dynasty cosmology. His 'sleeping meditation' earned him the name of the Sleeping Immortal; emperors sought his counsel and called him the Recluse of Mount Hua.
- The diagrams of Wuji and Taiji
- Sleeping meditation
- Mount Hua
Era · 871–989 CE, Five Dynasties–Song
History · 史记
Historical Record
Chen Tuan (871–989), styled Master of the Hidden, was the hermit of Mount Hua whose influence on Chinese thought exceeds almost any recluse's — with a biography in the Song Shi. He transmitted the Wuji Tu and Taiji Tu, diagrams that, through Zhong Fang, reached Zhou Dunyi and became the cosmological foundation of Neo-Confucianism. He wrote on the Yi and on alchemy, and he slept: his months-long meditative sleep earned him the name the Sleeping Immortal.
He also shaped politics: he advised the founding Song emperors, refused their offices, and was received at court as living proof that the new dynasty held heaven's favor.
Stories of the Divine
The Thousand-Year Sleep
He slept through the chaos of the Five Dynasties — literally, by report, in sleeps of a hundred days. Asked what he gained, he answered that in sleep he had traversed all the worlds. The Song emperors summoned him precisely to see whether such a man was real.
Classical Sources
- 01
宋史·隱逸傳
The official biography recording his summons, his sleep and his counsel to emperors.
- 02
無極圖與太極圖
The diagrams he transmitted, which through Zhou Dunyi shaped Neo-Confucian cosmology.