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40 An Iron Tree at Jingyang Palace Subdues Demons Spring ushers in a riot of colors: Peach blossoms pink, plums white, and willows green. Horse carriages come and go at leisure, Bringing the east wind to the forbidden city. Finish the wine, intone poems to our hearts’ content, And forget all about fame and fortune. In reminiscing about past events, We recall Jingyang’s conquest of the water demon.1 When the primeval chaos had cleared away and humans and all other living beings on earth began to multiply, there emerged three leading sages who founded three religions. What are the three religions? One is Confucianism, founded by Confucius, who edited the Six Classics and laid down rules that were to last till the end of time.2 He is the teacher of all the emperors and kings and the patriarch of all literary writings. This is one. There is also Buddhism. The Buddha Sakyamuni of the west, born in the kingdom of Sravasti [in present-day Nepal] of King Suddhodana of the Kshatriya caste, illuminated the entire world with his wisdom. His six-foot-tall gilded body was poised upon golden lotus flowers that rose out of the ground, and he could transform himself into whatever shape and size he wanted. For his work of redeeming all living creatures, he was given the epithet Teacher of Heaven and Humans. This is another religion. Then, there is Daoism. It was founded by Laozi, progenitor of the vital force that gave birth to the sky and the earth, the buddhas and the immortals. Called the Supreme God of Masters of Iron and the Primeval Yang, he metamorphosed into the innumerable grains of sand of the mortal world. In the forty-eighth year of the reign of King Tang of the Shang dynasty, he presented himself to the mortal world again, transforming himself into a pill, which, filled with the essence of the sun, maneuvered itself into the mouth of the Jade Maiden. Soon after she swallowed it, the Jade Maiden knew she was pregnant. In the ninth year of King Wuding’s reign, after an eighty-one-year pregnancy, she gave birth through her ribcage to a 673 baby who came to be called Laozi [Old Child] because his hair was white at birth. Having been born under a plum tree, he assumed the surname Li [Plum] and the given name Er, courtesy name Boyang. Later, when he rode on a green buªalo out of the Hangu Pass, O‹cer Yin Xi, who guarded the pass, knew from the purple aura above him that he was no ordinary man. He sought from Laozi the fivethousand -character Daodejing [Tao te ching], which has been handed down from generation to generation. Laozi then went to the desert, where he attained immortality through spiritual cultivation. He now resides in the Grand Pure Fairyland under the title The Daode Heavenly Venerable One. So, that is another religion. Of the founders of the three religions, only Laozi, the patriarch of Daoism, lives in the Grand Pure Fairyland, where wispy, curling, colorful clouds emit an auspicious air. Once, on the occasion of his birthday, a grand gathering of immortals took place in the palace on the thirty-third layer of heaven. Thousands upon thousands of immortals from the Zhongnan Mountains, the Penglai Mountains, the Langyuan Mountains, the thirty-six caves, and the seventy-two blessed lands descended on the scene of the festivities, borne by wafting clouds and riding on colorful divine birds, white cranes, red dragons, and red phoenixes. One after another, they oªered their congratulations along with poems written for the occasion, and they kowtowed, prostrating themselves on the ground in ritualistic tribute. There is in evidence a lyric poem, “Song of the Water Dragon”: Thronging with red clouds and purple canopies, The palace is filled with dignitaries. Black cranes and green buªalo come and go Amid clouds of never-fading colors. A grand birthday banquet it is, To honor the Daodejing of eternal fame. The banquet for the divine immortals Oªers fruits never seen in the world below: Dates large as melons, peaches of ten thousand years, And lotus roots ripened over one thousand years. His age equals that of the universe, As eternal as the deep, vast oceans. Delighted by this grand assembly of immortals, present to oªer him congratulations , the Venerable Laozi had a banquet set out in their honor. When the company was well warmed with...

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