ABSTRACT
The *Quanzhen master Ma Yu (Ma Danyang) was the heir of an auent family living at the tip of the Shandong peninsula. So rich as to be nicknamed “he who owns half the prefecture” (banzhou 半州), he seems to have led an idle life and to have had a keen interest in Taoist pursuits, becoming a friend of an ascetic called Li Wumeng 李無夢 but not establishing formal links with any Taoist institution. In 1167, *Wang Zhe arrived in Ma’s hometown as a hermit from Shaanxi and met Ma at a gathering of the local gentry. Ma was impressed by Wang and invited him to stay at his home. Wang built a hut, the Quanzhen an 全真菴 (Hermitage for Completing Authenticity), where he began to receive disciples. In the winter of 1167-68, he enclosed himself in the hut for one hundred days (from the rst of the tenth lunar month to the tenth of the rst lunar month), a practice that later became the paradigm of the *huandu retreat. During that time, Wang regularly sent poems and sliced pears (fenli 分梨) to Ma and his wife, *Sun Bu’er, to convince them to separate (fenli 分離) from each other and live as celibate ascetics. These poetic exchanges were later edited in the Fenli shihua ji 分梨十化集 (Anthology of the Ten Stages of Pear-Slicing; CT 1155). In the spring of 1168, Ma nally assented to his master’s injunctions and became a renouncer. From then on, he followed Wang on his mountain retreats and tours of the Quanzhen association halls. Wang repeatedly tested Ma by sending him to beg in places where he had formerly been the local rich man. By the time he died in Kaifeng (Henan) in early 1170, Wang deemed Ma to have achieved spiritual transformation and anointed him as his spiritual heir. From 1170 to 1172, Ma visited the sites of Wang’s earlier ascetic life together with three other intimate disciples, *Tan Chuduan, *Liu Chuxuan, and *Qiu Chuji. They carried Wang’s con back from Kaifeng, buried him in the Zuting 祖庭 (Ancestral Court, his former hermitage), and observed the mourning rites for the prescribed period of over two years. In 1174 his three fellow disciples left, but Ma stayed at the Zuting enclosed in a huandu for three years. Many young adepts from Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Henan began to gather around him and build an active community primarily devoted to the teaching of *neidan. After 1178, Ma became more active and toured the area, preaching in ocial foundations (guan 觀), private chapels (an 庵 or 菴), and private houses, direct-
ing various rituals, and enclosing himself in huandu built for him for periods of one hundred days, where he received his most devoted adepts. In 1182, Ma returned to his native Shandong, possibly forced to do so by a local government suspicious of itinerant preachers. He revived the lay associations (hui 會) founded by Wang and performed miracles; the most famous was the apparition of a city oating on the sea, which resulted in the local shermen ceasing the killing of living beings and burning their shing nets. Finally, Ma learned of his former wife’s death and died himself shortly thereafter.
