Bao Jing

Another famous Taoist with the same surname is Bao Jingyan (鮑敬言), whose "anarchistic" views were partially preserved in an Outer Chapter of the Ge Hong's Baopuzi.

[2] According to different sources, Bao Jing was born in Chenliu (present-day Kaifeng, Henan), Shangdang (Changzhi, Shanxi), or Donghai (southern Shandong and northern Jiangsu).

Early texts record that Bao Jing was buried at Mount Luofu (Guangdong) or Shizigang (石子岡, Jiangsu), but his remains supposedly disappeared by means of shijie ("corpse liberation"), which enabled an adept to feign death and assumeng a new identity as an earthbound transcendent.

[3][4] The hagiography of Bao Jing in the Shenxian zhuan ("Biographies of Divine Transcendents"), which is partially attributed to the Daoist scholar Ge Hong (283-343), is a primary source of information.

The Shenxian zhuan scholar and translator Robert Ford Campany analyzed the earliest dates by which various parts of the text are attested, and found that the Bao Jing material existed prior to 650.

Formerly, Ge Hong maintained that Lord Yin transmitted to Bao Jing a method of escape by means of a simulated corpse.

[7]This text claims that the method transmitted to Bao Jing by Yin Changsheng involved only a talisman, not an elixir, and that it was merely an evasive "escape by means of a simulated corpse" stratagem, using a talisman-empowered sword as one's substitute body.

"[8] The Book of Jin biography of Ge Hong[9] mentions Bao Jing several times, specifically in terms of neixue (內學, lit.

Likewise a noted devotee of and authority on neixue, Bao Jing is particularly well known as an expert on the Yellow River Map and Lo Shu Square.

[13] Second, Bao Jing was a disciple of the transcendent Zuo Ci, who allegedly presented him with the Wuyue zhenxing tu (五嶽真形圖, Charts of the Real Forms of the Five Peaks) and alchemical writings.

Bao instructed Ge in Daoist alchemy and transmitted a version of the Sanhuang wen (三皇文, Writings of the Three Sovereigns) that had been divinely revealed to him while meditating in a cave on Mount Song.

Ge quotes his teacher Zheng Yin (鄭隱, c. 215-c. 302) saying that there are no more important Daoist books than the Sanhuang nei wen and Wuyue zhenxing tu.

"[19] The latter revelation narrative says that during the Yuankang era (291-299) of the Jin dynasty, when Bao Jing was fasting and meditating in "Lord Liu's grotto" at Mount Song, the "writings spontaneously carved themselves on the walls".

[17] Both Dao'an's Erjiao lun (二教論, Essay on the Two Teachings) and Zhen Luan's Xiaodao Lun (Essays to Ridicule the Dao), which were presented to Emperor Wu of Northern Zhou in a 569-570 court Buddhist-Daoist debate, report that the Sanhuang wen was revealed to Bao Jing on the walls of a cave, and when imperial authorities discovered this, the Sanhuang wen was proscribed and "he was sentenced to death".