![]() ![]() When the First Emperor arrived for the first time at the coast, he was greeted by a horde of magicians who told him stories about the elixir. The three mountains were known as Penglai, Fangzhang, and Yingzhou. Sima Qian explained in his “Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifices” that although the three mountains were close to land, once a boat arrived they would appear upside down in the water, and “when mariners drew closer the wind would push their boat out to sea.” He cites earlier rulers among those who had sent men to sea in the past to seek the elixir. ![]() There had existed for many centuries legends about the three spirit mountains in the Bohai Sea where fairies who possessed the elixir of immortality were said to live. He was willing to believe the tales of magicians and alchemists to a remarkable extent. The emperor himself certainly believed that he would be able both to live and to reign forever, and constantly sought elixirs which would guarantee eternal life. ![]() Qin Shihuang was a member of a ruling family which sought immortality from the early days. The philosopher’s art doubtless included much of what we shall later describe as ‘physiological alchemy’ with its various forms of bodily training, but it almost certainly included the ingestion of medicines.” These medicines could be herb-based or mineral-chemical, or combinations of both, and were widely used. Han Fei is skeptical, but British sinologist Joseph Needham points out after discussing the story: “What interests us is the fact that around 320 bc there were men prepared to teach the art of achieving material immortality, and educated patricians who were eager to listen to them. If he could not make himself immortal, how could he make the King live forever? Moreover, what a man cares for is nothing other than his own self. Indeed, to believe in an unattainable thing and chastise innocent subjects is the calamity of thoughtlessness. Thus, the King did not know that he himself had been deceived by the traveler, but censured the students for their tardiness. Enraged thereby, the King chastised the students. Before the men sent to learn completed their study, the traveler died. Once a traveler taught the King of Yan the way to immortality. He recounts an episode from the lifetime of King Huiwen: But his writings also contain rumination about what he called the “drug of deathlessness,” or elixir of immortality. Such beliefs were obviously attractive to kings, and later an emperor, who wished to prolong their reigns.Īs an adviser and through his writings, Han Fei is known to have had a huge influence on the thought of Qin Shihuang in the political sphere. Indeed from around 400 bc, a couple of generations before Huiwen, it was believed that some men had managed to liberate themselves from death and had achieved perpetual life. This obsession was something of a family tradition, for traces of it appear in all the chronicles and histories from the time of King Huiwen onward. His vision of a lasting dynasty was founded on personal immortality, so death was unthinkable as a scholar of Chinese religious practices expressed it, writing of the emperor’s Han successors, “Holiness essentially meant the art of not dying.” In fact we know from the biography by Sima Qian that Qin Shihuang hated even hearing conversations about death, to the point that his officials were afraid of mentioning the very word. After years of military conquests and bloody massacres he had good reason to fear revenge from victims whose spirits would also continue to live after death and might lie in wait for him. Qin Shihuang, First Emperor of China, survived assassination attempts, constantly feared conspiracies, and insisted on secrecy in his movements to the extent of building walls and corridors to disguise them from public view-and to render them invisible to malign spirits. ![]()
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