Chu (Taoism)

Chú ("kitchen; to cook; a cook") can be written with three Chinese characters 廚, 㕑, and 厨. The common traditional Chinese character 廚 combines the "house radical" 广 with a phonetic indicator shù 尌 (joining zhù 壴 "drum" and cùn 寸 "hand"); and the variant traditional character 㕑 has "cliff radical" 厂 instead of 广. The simplified Chinese character 厨 omits the 士 element in 壴, leading to a "graphic folk etymology" of "A 厂 'room' for cooking 豆 'beans' with your 寸 'hands'." (Bishop 2016). The Chinese logograph 廚 was anciently used as a loan character for chú 櫥 (with the "wood radical" 木, "cabinet") or chú 幮 ("cloth radical" 巾, "a screen used for a temporary kitchen").

The Modern Standard Chinese lexicon uses chu in many compound words, for instance, chúfáng (廚房 with 房 "room", "kitchen"), chúshī (廚師 with 師 "master", "cook; chef"), chúdāo (廚刀 with 刀 "knife", "kitchen knife"), and páochú (庖廚 with 庖 "kitchen", meaning "kitchen").

In Daoist specialized vocabulary, chu names a Kitchen-feast communal meal, and sometimes has a technical meaning of "magic", "used to designate the magical recipes through which one becomes invisible" (Maspero 1981: 290). The extensive semantic field of chu can be summarized in some key Daoist expressions: ritual banquets, communion with divinities, granaries (zang 藏, a word that also denotes the viscera), visualization of the Five Viscera (wuzang 五臟, written with the "flesh radical" ⺼), and abstention from cereals (bigu), and other food proscriptions (Mollier 2008a: 279). According to Daoist classics, when bigu "grain avoidance" techniques were successful, xingchu (行廚, Mobile Kitchens or tianchu (天廚, Celestial Kitchens) were brought in gold and jade vessels by the yunü (玉女, Jade Women) and jintong (金僮, Golden Boys), associated with the legendary Jade Emperor (Despeux 2008: 233–234).

Chinese Buddhist terminology applies chu (廚, cf. 櫥 "cabinet") "kitchen; kitchen cupboard" to denote the "cabinet for an image or relic of the Buddhas", translating Sanskrit bhakta-śālā "food-hall" or mahânasa "kitchen" (Digital Dictionary of Buddhism).

In Chinese astronomy, Tiānchú (天廚, Celestial Kitchen) is the name of an asterism in the constellation Draco, located next to Tiānbàng (天棓, Celestial Flail), and Nèichú (內廚, Inner Kitchen).

There is no standard English translation for either Daoist chu (廚, Kitchen) or xingchu (行廚, Mobile Kitchen). The former is rendered as:

• "kitchen festival", "kitchen feast" (Stein 1979)
• "Kitchens" (Maspero 1981)
• "kitchen banquets" (Verellen 2004)
• "cuisines" (Campany 2005, Kleeman 2008, Mollier 2008a)
• "Kitchens" (Mollier 2009)
• "cuisines" (Kroll 2017)

These Anglophone scholars render Chinese chu as either English kitchen ("a room for preparing food"), optionally clarified with K-, -festival or -feast, or cuisine ("a characteristic style of cooking, often associated with a place of origin"). The latter follows Francophone sinologists, for instance Maspero (1971) and Mollier (1999), who accurately translated Chinese chu as French cuisine ("kitchen; cooking") and xingchu as cuisine de voyage ("travel kitchen"). Although English kitchen and French cuisine are doublets deriving from Latin cocīna ("cooking; kitchen"), they are false friends with significant semantic differences between English kitchen and cuisine. Chinese usually translates English kitchen as chúfáng (廚房, "kitchen") and cuisine as pēngrèn (烹飪, "art of cooking").

The term xingchu (行廚) has been translated as

• "Traveling Canteen" (Ware 1966)
• "mobile kitchen" (Sivin 1968)
• "perform the Kitchen" (Maspero 1981)
• "travelling kitchen-feast" (Penny 2000)
• "traveling canteen' (Campany 2002)
• "traveling kitchen" (Campany 2005)
• "movable cuisines" (Despeux 2008, Mollier 2008a)
• "Mobile Kitchens" (Mollier 2009)

Joseph Needham calls Ware's "Traveling Canteen" a "bizarre translation" (1976: 29). While Maspero uniquely interprets the xing (行) in xingchu as a verb ("to perform"), the other scholars read it as a modifier ("to go; to move") translated as traveling, mobile, or movable (cf. movable feast). The chu noun in xingchu is translated as English kitchen, cuisine, or canteen. However, the latter ambiguous word has several meanings besides canteen ("a cafeteria or snack bar provided by an organization"), canteen ("a small water bottle"), and British English canteen ("a case or box containing a cutlery set"). To further complicate translating xingchu, travelling canteen was the 18th-century equivalent of a picnic basket. In modern terms, the xingchu is comparable with a mobile kitchen (Sivin's translation), military field kitchen, food truck, or food cart.

The chu (廚, Kitchen), also known as fushi (福食, "good luck meal"), was a religious banquet that usually involved preliminary fasting and purification before consuming a meal of vegetarian food and Chinese wine. The banquet was hosted by families on the occasion of births and deaths, prepared for a ritually-fixed number of parishioners, and accompanied by specific ritual gifts to the Daoist priest. Although the Kitchen Feast became a regular element of organized Daoist religious traditions, scholars do not know the date when it was introduced into the liturgy. One early textual record is the c. 499 Zhen'gao saying that Xu Mi (許谧, 303–376) offered a Kitchen meal to five persons (Stein 1979: 57).

These communal chu Kitchen banquets have a pre-Daoist antecedent in popular Chinese folk religion: the term chu was anciently used for the ceremonial meals organized by communities to honor the she (社, God of the Soil). Although orthodox Daoists criticized, and sometimes banned, these chuhui (廚會, "cuisine congregations") for making immoral animal sacrifices, they nevertheless perpetuated the custom by adapting and codifying it (Mollier 2008a: 279). Chu kitchen-feasts have many features in common with another Daoist ritual meal, the zhāi (齋, "fast; purification; retreat"), and the two are frequently treated as having the same functions. The 7th-century Daoist Zhaijielu (齋戒錄, Records of Fasting) suggested that zhai were anciently called shehui (社會, "festival gatherings of the soil god"—now the modern Chinese word for "society"), which was later changed into zhaihui (齋會) (Stein 1979: 75).

The Way of the Celestial Masters religion, founded by Zhang Daoling in 142 CE, celebrated chu kitchen festivals at New Year and the annual sanhui (三會, Three Assemblies), which were major Daoist festivals held in the first, seventh, and tenth lunar months, when believers assembled at their local parish to report any births, deaths, or marriages, so that the population registers could be updated. Parishioners who had reason to celebrate on these occasions would host a chu feast for other members of the community in proportion to the significance of their auspicious event and their means. Accounts of these banquets "emphasize both the sharing of food and the affirmation of the unique, religious merit-based social order of the Daoist community" (Kleeman 2008: 839–840).

The chu sacrament had three levels of banquets and ritual gifts, depending upon what the family was celebrating. For the birth of a boy, the shangchu (上廚, Superior Ceremony of the Kitchen) was a banquet offered to the priest and ten members of the parish, with gifts to the priest of a hundred sheets of paper, a pair of ink brushes, an inkstick, and an ink scraper. For the birth of a girl, it was the less expensive zhongchu (中廚, Middle Ceremony of the Kitchen) with a banquet for five parishioners, and the gifts, which the parents had to provide within one month following the birth, were a mat, a wastebasket, and a broom. For the death of a family member, the xiachu (下廚, Inferior Ceremony of the Kitchen), also called jiechu (解廚, Kitchen of Deliverance), is not described in Daoist texts, and we only know that the rival Buddhist polemicists claimed it was a "great orgy" (Maspero 1981: 290).

The anti-Daoist Erjiaolun (二教論, Essay on Two Religions) by the Buddhist monk Dao'an (312–385) said chu kitchen-feasts were intended to bring about jiěchú (解除, "liberation and elimination") from pollution and sins, which were connected with the soil god and tombs (Stein 1979: 71). The parallel passage in the 6th-century Bianhuolun (辯惑論, Essay on Debating Doubts) uses the homophonous graphic variant of jiěchú (解廚, "liberation kitchen"), thus connecting both chú "kitchen" and chú "liberation" to non-Daoist gods of the soil (Stein 1979: 74).

Daoist sources record that the people invited to a chu Kitchen feast would first observe a period of purification that included fasting and abstention from sex. Kitchen rituals lasted for one, three, or seven days. Participants consumed exclusively vegetarian food and moderate amounts of wine, which was considered as a mandatory element of the banquet (Mollier 2008a: 279). For the Superior Kitchens five sheng of wine (about a liter) per person was planned, for the Middle Kitchens, four sheng, and for the Inferior Kitchen three. The participants "must have departed a bit happy, but not drunk." (Maspero 1981: 290). The leftovers were given to other parishioners who could thereby share in the ritual.

Besides annual festivals on fixed dates like the Three Assemblies, chu Kitchen ceremonies were also performed in special circumstances, particularly when there was disease, sin, or death pollution. They were believed to have exorcistic and salvific powers and to confer good luck or merit upon the adepts (Mollier 2008a: 279). Kitchen ceremonies often involved Daoist ritual jiao (醮, "offerings") of cakes and pieces of fabric in order to obtain particular favors, such as petitions for recovery from illnesses, prayers for rain in time of drought, and thanksgivings for favors received. An altar was laid out in the open air, and the priest recited prayers (Maspero 1981: 34–35).

Ge Hong's c. 318 Baopuzi (see below) mentions profligately expensive chu Kitchen Feasts in contrasting heterodox yaodao (妖道, "demonic cults"), which involved sacrificing animals to gods who enjoyed their blood, with the Lijia dao (李家道, Way of the Li Family) (Stein 1979: 56). The context praises the contemporary charlatan healer Li Kuan (李寬) for not following the ancient tradition of animal sacrifice, while blaming him for extravagance.

The more than a hundred ways for dealing with demons [諸妖道百餘種] all call for slaying living creatures so that their blood may be drunk. Only the doctrine of the Lis [李家道] is slightly different. Yet, though it does no butchering, whenever its "good-luck food" is served [每供福食], it includes varieties of mixtures without limit. In planning the meal, one strives for sumptuousness, and the rarest things must be purchased. Several dozen may work in the kitchen [或數十人廚], and costs for food can run high indeed. In turn, these are not completely disinterested affairs, and they might well be classed with things to be forbidden. (tr. Ware 1966: 158)

In Daoist hagiographies and stories, the esoteric ability to summon a xingchu (行廚, Mobile Kitchen) was a standard trope for the powers of a xian transcendent. The xingchu, which Campany called a "curious business" (2002: 29), was a sumptuous banquet of rare delicacies, exotic foods, and wines that could be instantly served up by spirits anywhere on command.

The tradition of xingchu "meditational cuisines" or "contemplative cuisines" seems to have developed in a parallel and complementary manner to the chu "communal cuisine liturgy" (Mollier 2008a: 280). Xian transcendents were portrayed as eschewing what counted in China as ordinary foods, especially grains (see bigu), and instead eating superior, longevity-inducing substitutes such as sesame seeds and lingzhi mushrooms, typically found in distant and legendary places removed from the heartland of agriculture-based Chinese civilization. Transcendents were frequently depicted as winged beings able to fly long distances rapidly and summoning a xingchu banquet at will eliminated the need to travel across the world and heavens in order to obtain rare foodstuffs of immortality (Campany 2005: 46–47).

The Jin Dynasty Daoist scholar Ge Hong compiled the two primary sources of information about xingchu Mobile Kitchens, the Baopuzi and Shenxian zhuan. Ge portrayed adepts seeking xian-hood as avoiding ordinary food such as grains, instead eating "rare, exotic foodstuffs from the far reaches of the cosmos", marvelous products conveying the "numinous power" suggested by their peculiarity. "The ability to command at will a spirit-hosted serving of exotic food and drink in elegant vessels may seem trivial, but when one recalls that many Daoist scriptures prohibit the feasting on sacrificial meats and liquors enjoyed by the aristocracy, and that many adepts did their work on mountains and were isolated from agricultural communities and markets, the practice assumes a more serious aspect." (Campany 2002: 221)

Shenxian zhuan

The c. 318 Shenxian zhuan (Hagiographies of Divine Transcendents) uses xingchu (行廚, Mobile Kitchen) six times. The hagiography of Wang Yuan gives a detailed description of summoning a xingchu. Other adepts who are also said to have this ability include Li Gen, Liu Jing, Zuo Ci, Liu Zheng, and Taixuan nü (Campany 2002: 222).

Portrait of the Immortal Magu (National Palace Museum, Taipei)

First, the hagiography of Wang Yuan (王遠) and Magu (Cannabis Maiden) says Wang was a Confucianist scholar who quit his official post during the reign (146–168 CE) of Emperor Huan of Han and went into the mountains to study Daoist techniques. Wang achieved xian transcendence through shijie "liberation by means of a simulated corpse", described with the traditional cicada metaphor, his "body disappeared; yet the cap and garments were completely undisturbed, like a cicada shell." During his travels, Wang met the peasant Cai Jing (蔡經), whose physiognomy indicated he was destined to become a transcendent, so Wang took him on as a disciple, taught him the basic techniques, and left. Soon afterwards Cai also used alchemical shijie liberation, his body became extremely hot, and his flesh and bones melted away for three days. "Suddenly he had vanished. When his family looked inside the blanket, only his outer skin was left, intact from head to foot, like a cicada shell." (tr. Campany 2002: 260).

After Cai had been gone for "over a decade", he unexpectedly returned home, looking like a young man, announced to his family that Lord Wang would visit on the "seventh day of the seventh month" (later associated with the Cowherd and Weaver Girl lovers' festival), and ordered them to "prepare great quantities of food and drink to offer to his attendants." When Wang Yuan and his heavenly entourage arrived on the auspicious "double-seven" day, he invited his old friend Magu to join their celebration because it had been over five hundred years since she had been "in the human realm." When the Cannabis Maiden and her attendants arrived at Cai's household,

She appeared to be a handsome woman of eighteen or nineteen; her hair was done up, and several loose strands hung down to her waist. Her gown had a pattern of colors, but it was not woven; it shimmered, dazzling the eyes, and was indescribable – it was not of this world. She approached and bowed to Wang, who bade her rise. When they were both seated, they called for the travelling canteen [坐定召進行廚]. The servings were piled up on gold platters and in jade cups without limit. There were rare delicacies, many of them made from flowers and fruits, and their fragrance permeated the air inside [Cai's home] and out. When the meat was sliced and served, [in flavor] it resembled broiled mo and was announced as kirin meat. (tr. Campany 2002: 262)

Compare Maspero's translation, "everyone steps forth to 'perform the Kitchen'" (1981: 291). Guo Pu's commentary to the Classic of Mountains and Seas described the mò (貘, giant panda) as "bear-like, black and white, and metal-eating" (tr. Harper 2013: 216); and the mystical qilin beast is sometimes identified as a Chinese unicorn (Penny 2008: 731).

Wang Yuan then announced to the Cai family that he had brought some exceptional wine from the Tianchu (天廚, Heavenly Kitchen) asterism.

I wish to present you all with a gift of fine liquor. This liquor has just been produced by the celestial kitchens. Its flavor is quite strong, so it is unfit for drinking by ordinary people; in fact, in some cases it has been known to burn people's intestines. You should mix it with water, and you should not regard this as inappropriate." With that, he added a dou of water to a sheng of liquor, stirred it, and presented it to the members of Cai Jing's family. On drinking little more than a sheng of it each, they were all intoxicated. After a little while, the liquor was all gone. (tr. Campany 2002: 263)

In traditional Chinese units of measurement, a dǒu ( 斗) was approximately equivalent to 10 liters and a shēng 升) approximately 1 liter.

Second, the Shenxian zhuan narrative of Li Gen (李根) says he studied under Wu Dawen (吳大文) and obtained a method for producing alchemical gold and silver.

Li Gen could transform himself [into other forms] and could enter water and fire [without harm]. He could sit down and cause the traveling canteen to arrive, and with it could serve twenty guests [坐致行廚能供二十人]. All the dishes were finely prepared, and all of them contained strange and marvelous foods from the four directions, not things that were locally available. (tr. Campany 2002: 219)

Third, Liu Jing (劉京) was an official under Emperor Wen of Han (r. 180–157 BCE) who "abandoned the world and followed Lord Zhang 張君 of Handan to study the Way." By using methods for subsisting on "efflorescence of vermilion" pills [朱英丸] and "cloud-mother [mica]" pills, Liu "lived to be one hundred thirty years old. To look at him, one would judge him to be a person in his thirties." He could also foretell the auspiciousness of future events. (tr. Campany 2002: 249).

The Shangqing (Supreme Purity) tradition Han Wu Di neizhuan (漢武帝内傳, Esoteric Traditions of Han Emperor Wu), which was written between 370 and 500, has some later accretions that resemble Shenxian zhuan (Campany 2002: 76). The passage about Liu Jing says,

Later he served Ji Zixun [薊子訓, i.e., Ji Liao 薊遼] as his teacher. Zixun transmitted to him all the secret essentials of the Five Thearchs, Numinous Flight (lingfei, 靈飛), the six jia spirits, the Twelve Matters (shier shi 十二事), and the Perfected Forms of the Ten Continents of Divine Transcendents (shenxian shizhou zhenxiang 神仙十洲真形). Liu Jing practiced them all according to the instructions, and they were mightily efficacious. He could summon ghosts and spirits, immediately cause wind and rain to arise, cause the traveling canteen to arrive [名致行廚], and appear and disappear at will. He also knew the auspiciousness or inauspiciousness of people's future affairs and of particular days. (tr. Campany 2002: 449)

Fourth, the transcendent Zuo Ci (左慈) was a fangshi ("method master") famous for his abilities at divination, fenshen multilocation, and shapeshifting (Pregadio 2008: 1305),

Seeing that the fortunes of the Han house were about to decline, he sighed and said, "As we move into this declining [astral] configuration, those who hold eminent offices are in peril, and those of lofty talent will die. Winning glory in this present age is not something to be coveted." So he studied arts of the Dao. He understood particularly well [how to summon] the six jia spirits, how to dispatch ghosts and other spirits, and how to sit down and call for the traveling canteen [坐致行廚]. (tr. Campany 2002: 279)

Fifth, the Shenxian zhuan says that Liu Zheng (劉政) used the same alchemical text attributed to Mozi that the Baopuzi says was used by Liu Gen (劉根, or Liu Jun'an 劉君安, see Campany 2002: 240–249).

Later he arranged [a copy of] Master Mo's Treatise on the Five Phases (Mozi wuxing ji 墨子五行記) and, [based on it], ingested "efflorescence of vermilion" pills. He lived for more than one hundred eighty years, and his complexion was that of a youth. He could transform himself into other shapes and conceal his form; multiply one person into a hundred or a hundred into a thousand or a thousand into ten thousand; conceal a military force of three brigades by forming them into a forest or into birds and beasts, so that they could easily take their opponents' weapons without their knowledge. Further, he was capable of planting fruits of all types and causing them immediately to flower and ripen so as to be ready to eat. He could sit down and cause the traveling canteen to arrive [生致行廚], setting out a complete meal for up to several hundred people. His mere whistling could create a wind to set dust swirling and blow stones about. (tr. Campany 2002: 322)

Transcendental whistling was an ancient Daoist yogic technique.

Sixth, the brief hagiography of the female transcendent Taixuan nü (太玄女, Woman of the Grand Mystery) says.

The Woman of the Grand Mystery was surnamed Zhuan 顓 and named He 和. While still young, she was bereaved of her husband, so she practiced the Way. Disciplining herself in the arts of the Jade Master, (Yuzi) she could sit down and cause the traveling canteen to arrive [坐致行廚], and there was no sort of transformation she could not accomplish. (tr. Campany 2002: 367).

In addition, the Shenxian zhuan hagiography for Mao Ying (茅盈) describes what sounds like a xingchu without using the name (Campany 2002: 328). After twenty years studying the Dao, Mao Ying returned home to his parents and announced that he had been commanded to enter heaven and become a transcendent. The people of his home village came to give him a going-away party, and Mao said,

"I am touched by your sincere willingness to send me off, and I deeply appreciate your intention. But please come empty-handed; you need not make any expenditure. I have a means whereby to provide a feast for us all." On the appointed day, the guests all arrived, and a great banquet was held. Awnings of blue brocade were spread out, and layers of white felt were spread out beneath them. Rare delicacies and strange fruits were piled up and arrayed. Female entertainers provided music; the sounds of metal and stone mingled together, and the din shook Heaven and Earth; it could be heard from several li away. Of the more than one thousand guests present that day, none failed to leave intoxicated and sated. (tr. Campany 2002: 327)

Mao Ying and his brothers Mao Gu (茅固) and Mao Zhong (茅衷) are considered of the founders of the Shangqing School of Daoism.

Shangqing Daoists took the stock literary phrase zuo zhi xingchu (坐致行廚)—used above in the Baopuzi for Liu Gen, "sits down and causes the Traveling Canteen to arrive" (tr. Ware), and in the Shenxian zhuan for Li Gen, Zuo Ci, and Taixuan nü, "sit down and cause the traveling canteen to arrive" (tr. Campany)—and actualized it as a visualization technique for "making the movable cuisines come [while] sitting [in meditation]" (tr. Mollier). "This method, accessible only to the initiate who possessed the proper series of talismans (fu 符) and had mastered certain visualization techniques, conferred powers to become invisible, to cause thunder, and to call for rain." This form of sitting meditation was so popular during the Tang period that Chinese Esoteric Buddhism also adopted it. (Mollier 2008a: 280)

Following upon the Celestial Masters liturgical Kitchen feasts and xian transcendents' Mobile Kitchens, the third stage of Daoist chu traditions was the Tang dynasty (618–907) wǔchú (五廚, Five Kitchens) contemplation technique, which recast the concept of ritual banquets in terms of psychophysiological neidan Internal Alchemy (Verellen 2004: 351). In Chinese cosmological wuxing Five Phases correspondence theory, the wuchu Five Kitchens or wuzang (五臟, Five Viscera / Orbs) system includes not only the physiological internal organs (lungs, kidneys, liver, gallbladder, and spleen), but also the associated psychological range of mental and emotional states (Roth 1999: 41–42). The 735 Wuchu jing (五廚經, Scripture of the Five Kitchens), which poetically describes a visualization practice for circulating qi energies through the Five Viscera, was so popular that Tang Buddhists forged the esoteric Sānchú jīng (三廚經, Sutra of the Three Kitchens) based on the Daoist text (Mollier 2008b: 1051).

There are two extant editions of Wuchu jing (translated by Kohn 2010: 198–206). First, the 763 Tang Daozang (Daoist Canon) edition titled Laozi shuo Wuchu jing zhu (老子說五廚經, Commentary to the Scripture of the Five Kitchens as Revealed by Laozi) contains a preface dated 735 and a commentary, both signed by Yin Yin (尹愔, d. 741). The reduplicatedly named Yin Yin was a prominent Daoist and Confucian scholar under Emperor Xuanzong of Tang (r. 712–756), and abbot of the Suming guan (肅明觀, Abbey of Reviving Light) temple in the capital Chang'an. The late Tang Celestial Master Zhao Xianfu (趙仙甫, fl. 732) also wrote a commentary (Verellen 2004: 351). Second, the 1019 Yunji Qiqian (Seven Bamboo Tablets of the Cloudy Satchel) anthology edition titled Wuchu jing qifa (五廚經氣法, Energetic Methods of the Scripture of the Five Kitchens), also includes Yin's commentary, with slight variations, such as noting the text was presented to the emperor in 736 (Verellen 2004: 351). The qi "energetic" methods of the text are recommended by Sima Chengzhen (司馬承禎, 647–735) in his Fuqi jingyi lun (服氣精義論, Essay on the Essential Meaning of Breath Ingestion) text on physical self-cultivation (Mollier 2008b: 1051). Although the presence of Yin's preface might suggest a Tang date for the Wuchu jing, the origins of this text may be much earlier. Ge Hong's c. 318 Baopuzi mentions a Xingchu jing (行廚經, Scripture of the Movable Kitchens) and a Riyue chushi jing (日月廚食經, Scripture of the Kitchen Meals for the Sun and the Moon), which could be the ancestors of the received texts (Mollier 2008b: 1051).

The c. 905 Daojiao lingyan ji (道教靈驗記, Record of Daoist Miracles), written by the Daoist priest, author, and court official Du Guangting, says a Buddhist monk fraudulently transformed the Wuchu jing Scripture of the Five Kitchens into the Sanchu jing (三廚經, Sutra of the Three Kitchens). Du records that the Chinese Buddhist canon of the Tang period contained a text titled Fo shuo san tingchu jing (佛說三停廚經, Sutra of the Three Interrupted Kitchens, Preached by the Buddha) (Verellen I992: 248–249). According to Du Guangting, the monk Xingduan (行端), who had "a presumptuous and fraudulent disposition", saw that the widely circulated Daoist Wuchu jing consisted of five stanzas (jì 偈, "gatha; poetic verse; versified utterance") of incantations (zhòu 咒, "mantra; religious incantation; mystical invocation"), rearranged them, and expanded the title into Fo shuo san tingchu jing (佛說三停廚經). "The five incantations he turned into 'five sutras spoken by Tathagata,' and at the end he added a hymn. The additional phrases amounted to no less than a page." Verellen suggests that the scripture, with its "Buddho-Daoist content and quasi-magical use", originated as a late Six Dynasties (220–589) Tantric zhoujing (咒經, "incantations scripture", cf. the Divine Incantations Scripture). (Verellen, 1992: 250–51).

Du Guangting gives a lengthy narrative about the Daoist miracle involving supernatural retribution for Xingduan's forgery. One day after the monk had already given several copies of the altered scripture to others, a "divine being eight or nine feet tall" and holding a sword reprimands him for the counterfeiting and brandishes his sword to strike the monk. As Xingduan "wards off the blow with his hand, several fingers are lopped off", he begs for mercy, and the Daoist deity agrees to spare his life if he retrieves and destroys all the fakes. Xingduan and his companions search everywhere for the texts, but can only find half of them, the remainder having already been carried abroad by Buddhist monks. Xingduan prepares ten fresh copies of the original scripture, offers incense, repents, and burns the altered copies. Then the divine being reappears and announces: "Having vilified the sage's text, restitution won't save you—you do not deserve to escape death", the monk falls prostrate and dies on the spot (Verellen 1992: 251).

In the present day, early copies of this apocryphal Buddhist sutra have been preserved. Four textual versions were discovered in the Chinese Dunhuang manuscripts, two versions, dated 1099 and 1270, are kept in the Japanese Mount Kōya manuscripts. In addition, the modern Japanese Taishō Tripiṭaka canon includes the text (Mollier 2009: 26–28).

The highly abstract Wuchu jing mystical poem comprises five stanzas consisting of four five-character lines each. The Yunqi qiqian edition shows that the five stanzas were associated with the Five Directions of space: east (lines 1–4), south (lines 5–8), north (lines 9–12), west (lines 13–16), and center (lines 17–20) (Verellen 2004: 351). For example, the first four lines (tr. Kohn 2010: 200–201):

The content of the Wuchu jing guides adepts toward a detached mental state of non-thinking and equanimity. The Five Kitchens refer to neidan Internal Alchemy "qi-processing on a subtle-body level", and signify the energetic, transformative power of the Five Viscera (Kohn 2010: 71). Yin Yin's introduction says,

As long as you dwell in the qi of universal oneness [一氣] and in the harmony of cosmic peace [泰和], the five organs [五臟] are abundant and full and the five spirits [五神] are still and upright. "When the five organs are abundant, all sensory experiences are satisfied; when the five spirits are still, all cravings and desires are eliminated. This scripture expounds on how the five organs taking in qi is like someone looking for food in a kitchen. Thus, its title: "Scripture of the Five Kitchens." (tr. Kohn 2010: 200)

Commenting on Yin's interpretation, Du Guangting claims more explicitly that practicing this scripture will enable an adept to stop eating. (Verellen 2004: 352)

Techniques in the Wuchu jing (五廚經, Scripture of the Five Kitchens) mainly involve visualizing the Five Viscera of the body and chanting incantations. These methods supposedly allow the adept to obtain satisfaction and harmony, and, after some years of training, even transcendence (Mollier 2008a: 279–280). Despite this concern with the human body, the text strongly emphasizes mental restructuring over physical practices, saying that "accumulating cultivation will not get you to detachment" and that methods of ingestion are ultimately useless. However, reciting the scripture is beneficial, especially if combined with mental and ethical practices, so that "you will easily get the true essentials of cultivating the body-self and protecting life." More specifically, chanting the text one hundred times and practicing the harmonization of the five qi allows adepts to abstain from grain and eliminate hunger (Mollier 1999: 62–63). Many present-day Daoists consider the Wuchu jing as a talismanic text to be chanted for protection (Kohn 2010: 71).

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