Abstract
Collected Biographies of Immortals (Lie-xian Zhuan) is the first collection of immortals’ hagiographies among existing ancient documents. Previous generations of scholars have paid much attention to the editing of texts and the exact time when and by whom the book was written, falling short of further systematic research on the religious beliefs reflected in the stories, as well as their relation to the establishment of early Daoism. Therefore, deeper inquiry into the process of immortalization and the supernatural abilities thus acquired can help us achieve a clearer understanding of the religious thought of the book and its relation to the early development of Daoism. The scope of this research also includes the authors’ motivation and purpose of composing these hagiographies and the collector’s criteria of selection. This essay begins with various questions concerning the original author of the book, the exact time of its composition, the content of the preface, and so forth, proposing a new viewpoint based upon literature review. With the help of this basic and correct understanding of the profile of the book, I shall give an extensive analysis of the process of immortalization described in the stories, such as the necessary condition and method of immortalization, the immortals’ whereabouts after immortalization, their reappearance in the secular world, and the wide array of acquired special abilities, leading to an account of the features of the theology exhibited by the book. Finally, the reasons behind the construction of the immortals’ temples for ritualistic practices will be delineated; lack of description of the heavenly world is another feature of the book which will be explained by comparing it with other collections of immortals’ hagiographies, written records, ancient sculptures, and other kinds of historical texts and artefacts.