Chapter 26 Li Jiadao

During the time of Emperor Wu of the Three Kingdoms, in the middle of Sichuan, which is today's Sichuan, there was a strange man named "Li A". He lived in a cave and didn't eat at ordinary times. is convincing.Later, he disappeared strangely. Some years passed, and a man named Li Kuan came to the state of Wu, which is today's Zhejiang area. He spoke Shu dialect, which is Sichuan dialect, to heal diseases.He did not use medicine and acupuncture to practice medicine, but only asked "holy water" to treat patients. After drinking the holy water, the patients were cured, so people from far and near said that Li Kuan was Li Ah, and called him "Li Babai".

From then on, everyone from the princes and ministers to the common people gathered at his gate. Later, because there were too many people, they couldn't see Li Kuan, so they just worshiped at Li Kuan's outer gate and then went back.That's it, there were nearly a thousand officials and civilians who escaped corvee and attached themselves to Li Kuan as their disciples in that year. When Li Kuan was old, he got plague once, and he pretended to everyone that he was going to fast in the Daolu, and died there.His believers say that he is a "transfigured corpse", that is, he has become a fairy, and he is not really dead.

This story is actually about the origin of "Li Jiadao". "Li Jiadao" is a Taoist school in the Wei and Jin Dynasties, active in the south of the Yangtze River.According to "Baopuzi Daoyi" records: Li Jiadao originated in Sichuan, and was widely spread in Wu State during the Three Kingdoms period. It used water blessing charms to heal people, which is similar to Zhang Daoling's Taoism of Heavenly Masters. In the history of Taoism, Li Jiadao was more mature than the early five buckets of rice, and had spread to the upper class of society, and was still prevalent in the south of the Yangtze River in the Eastern Jin Dynasty.After the Jin Dynasty, Li Jiadao gradually faded out of the historical stage. The reason for this has not been verified, probably because it merged with the Tao of Heavenly Masters.