Li Tieguai
Iron-crutch Li (李铁拐/李鐵拐, PY: Lǐ Tiěguǎi, WG: Li T'ieh-kuai, Japanese: Tekkai) is the most ancient of the Eight Immortals of the Daoist pantheon. He is irascible and ill-tempered, but also benevolent to the poor, sick and the needy, whose suffering he alleviates with medicine from his gourd bottle. He is portrayed as an ugly old man with dirty face, scraggy beard, and messy hair held by a golden band, walking with the aid of an iron crutch.
He is also called Hollow-eyed Li (李孔目, Lǐ Kǒngmù) or Li Ningyang (李凝阳/李凝陽, Lǐ Níngyáng).
Member of the Eight Immortals
Li Tieguai is one of the illustrious Eight Immortals (Ba Xian), a group of Daoist/folk deities who play an important role in Chinese religion and culture. While they are famed for espousing and teaching Daoist philosophy and cultivation practices, they are also figures of popular myth and legend that are known for their devotion to the downtrodden and their collective lifestyle of “free and easy wandering.” Though they are most often depicted and described in the context of their group, each has their own particular set of tales, iconography, and areas of patronage. Each of these three elements will be elaborated on below.
Legends
<intro>
By all accounts, Li Tieguai was a likely candidate for the attainment of immortality, as he was universally described as a handsome, self-possessed and motivated man who achieved fame for his ascetic and philosophical acumen. By his early thirties, he was able to go for weeks without eating or drinking, and could become so attuned to the Dao that he was like unto a dead man. Word of these exploits eventually reached the divinized Laozi, who returned to earth to become Li's patron and mentor.[1]
Under Laozi's expert tutelage, Li's aptitude at various magical and superhuman feats flourished, eventually earning him a following of devoted pupils and admirers. Eventually, Laozi taught Li how to make a voyage of the spirit - separating his soul from his body in order to travel to the celestial realms. After this final lesson, the Old Master invited his pupil to visit him in the heavenly abode of the immortals and gods. Duly excited, Li Tieguai instructed his most prized student in how to care for his material body while he was away. As a contingency, he advised his student that his body should be immediately cremated if he did not return within seven days.
While Li Tieguai's spirit was off among the celestial spheres, his pupil received some troubling news: his beloved mother had taken ill. Conscious of his duty to his master, the young apprentice continued his vigil over Li's lifeless body, all the while fretting about his mother's health. However, on the evening of the sixth day, this stress proved to be too much. The student, sure that his master had forever departed the material realm, quickly burned his body and rushed home to tend to his mother. Soon after, Li's soul returned to our plane, only to find that his fine-featured body had been reduced to a pile of ashes. Fearful that he should be extinguished, Li quickly found the first available material form that he could - the body of a recently expired beggar-man.
At first, Li Tieguai's vanity railed against this repulsive form (as the beggar was covered in sores, had enormous bulging eyes, and smell incredibly foul) and he considered leaving it in the search for a preferable form. However, Laozi suddenly appeared and suggested that accepting this body might be the final step he would require to truly embrace immortality. No sooner had these words been spoken than Li realized the irrelevance of the form of his material body. In honour of his student's revelation, Laozi gave him two gifts: an unbreakable staff and a gourd filled with a magical elixir that could cure all ills. With that, Laozi instructed his newly-immortal pupil to act for the good of all people and vanished. Li Tieguai's first act as an immortal was to visit his neglectful student's home to cure his ailing mother.[2]
As one of the more popular immortals, numerous tales depict Li Tiegui's exploits following his assumption into the ranks of the Ba Xian.
<extro> (Zhuangzi and the ugly teachers)
Iconographic Representation
His characteristic emblems are the gourd bottle, which identifies him as one of the Eight Immortals, and his iron crutch. A vapour cloud emanates from the gourd, and within it is the sage's hun (soul); which may be depicted as a formless shape, or as a miniature double of his bodily self. Sometimes the hun is replaced by a spherical object representing the "Philosopher's Stone". He is sometimes shown riding on a chimera.
Area of Patronage
Notes
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- The Eight Immortals of Taoism. Translated and edited by Kwok Man Ho and Joanne O'Brien, with an introduction by Martin Palmer. New York: Meridian, 1990. ISBN 0-452-01070-5.
- Fowler, Jeaneane. An Introduction to the Philosophy and Religion of Taoism. Portland, OR: Sussex *Academic Press, 2005. ISBN 1-84519-085-8.
- Goodrich, Anne S. Peking Paper Gods: A Look at Home Worship. Monumenta Serica Monograph Series XXIII. Nettetal: Steyler-Verlag, 1991. ISBN 3-8050-0284-X.
- Kohn, Livia. Daoism and Chinese Culture. Cambridge, MA: Three Pines Press, 2001. ISBN 1-931483-00-0.
- Ling, Peter C. "The Eight Immortals of the Taoist Religion." Journal of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society XLIX (1918). 58-75.
- Pas, Julian F. in cooperation with Man Kam Leung. “Li T’ieh-Kuai/Li Tieguai.” Historical Dictionary of Taoism. Lanham, M.D. & London: The Scarecrow Press, 1998. 201-202. ISBN 0-8108-3369-7.
- Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993. ISBN 0-520-05488-1.
- Werner, E.T.C. "Pa-Hsien" in A Dictionary of Chinese Mythology. Wakefield, NH: Longwood Academic, 1990. 341-352. ISBN 0-89341-034-9.
- Wong, Eva. Tales of the Taoist Immortals. Boston & London: Shambala, 2001. ISBN 1-57062-809-2.
- Yetts, W. Perceval. "The Eight Immortals." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Britain and Ireland for 1916 (1916). 773-806. Accessed online at: http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/jras/1916-21.htm.
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