Nanzong (Southern Lineage of internal alchemy)

Nanzong (Southern Lineage of internal alchemy) is recorded within Taoism and is no longer extant. Also written 南宗, Southern Lineage of neidan, Zhang Boduan lineage.

Origin

Founders named in the sources: Zhang Boduan, author of the Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality), subsequent patriarchs: Shi Tai, Xue Daoguang, Chen Nan, Bai Yuchan. No founding year is given below, because the sources read do not agree on one and a date has not been chosen for them. No founding date, and deliberately so: Pregadio states that 'Nanzong was not a lineage in the common sense of the term, and that the sequence of its masters was established at a later time, apparently by Bai Yuchan himself in the early 13th century.' Pregadio gives the patriarch sequence as spanning 987?–1229?, with the query marks his. Nanzong emphasises a gradual process beginning with the cultivation of ming (life/existence), in contrast to Beizong's emphasis on xing (inner nature). Its practitioners were absorbed into Quanzhen under the Yuan.