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Texts I Ching Tao Te Ching Zhuangzi Huainanzi Taipingjing Xiang'er Liezi Sanhuangjing Huahujing Qingjing Jing Baopuzi Daozang
Theology Hongjun Laozu Three Pure Ones Yuanshi Tianzun Lingbao Tianzun Daode Tianzun Four heavenly ministers Jade Emperor Ziwei Emperor Tianhuang Emperor Houtu Queen Mother of the West King Father of the East Three Great Emperor-Officials Eight Immortals Chang'e Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors Yellow Emperor Guan Yu Li Hong Body god
People Laozi Zhuang Zhou Lie Yukou Heshang Gong Wei Boyang Zhang Daoling Gan Ji Zhang Jue Zhang Lu Ge Xuan He Yan Wang Bi Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove Guo Xiang Sun Hanhua Wei Huacun Ge Hong Bao Jingyan Kou Qianzhi Lu Xiujing Tao Hongjing Cheng Xuanying Chen Tuan Zhang Boduan Sun Bu'er Wang Chongyang Qiu Chuji Zhang Guoxiang Zhang Sanfeng Zhu Quan Fangshi
Schools Huang–Lao Way of the Taiping Xuanxue Shangqing School Way of the Li Family Lingbao School Chongxuan School Quanzhen School Dragon Gate) Wuliupai Way of the Celestial Masters Way of the Five Pecks of Rice Way of the Celestial Masters#The Southern Celestial Masters The Northern Celestial Masters Zhengyi Dao Chinese ritual mastery traditions Yao Taoism
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Institutions and organizations Chinese Taoist Association Celestial Masters Taoist priests
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In Taoism, body gods (shēnshén, 身神), also inner gods or internal gods (nèishén, 内神) are deities situated within the human body. As many as 36,000 inner gods are described, "who raise the whole body and let it ascend to Heaven."^[1] Often they appear as "bureaucrats reporting to the stars."^[2][3]

The Taoist conception of the body contains a number of "body residents", including gods, hun and po souls, and disease-causing spirits such as the Three Corpses (sanchong, 三蟲). Meditation can allow the adept to control or manage these entities.^[4] The 2nd century Taipingjing describes one such method:

There are ten spirits of spring that look like boys dressed in blue; ten spirits of summer that look like boys dressed in red; ten spirits of fall that appear like boys dressed in white; ten spirits of winter that look like boys dressed in black; twelve spirits of the four seasons that seem to be boys dressed in yellow. These are the gods residing in the inner organs of male adepts. The same numbers of gods [in female form] reside in those of a female. Males best meditate on [the gods] in male form, while females envision them in female form. Each should be [painted] about one chi [roughly one foot] tall. [If] the images are nicely painted and lovable, adepts will feel happy and their spirit souls promptly return to the body.^[5]

Inner gods are among the earliest images in Taoism, but literary sources predate any visual iconography.^[6][7] Body gods can be traced to the social and political upheaval of the declining Han dynasty, where a "process of deification" on the microcosmic level supplanted a notion of organs as impersonal storehouses of qi. The body was therefore transformed into the "dwelling place of powerful internal spirits or gods."^[8] The "impersonal entities" seen in earlier texts such as the Huainanzi or Guanzi transitioned to anthropomorphic gods of the body.^[9] Anthropomorphism made the visualization of cosmic principles easier and emphasized their "living" or generative functions.^[10] The identification of the body with the celestial realm originates in yin-yang cosmology and the wuxing. Meditation "accordingly served to turn the adept’s body into a cosmic body, a 'theater of moving gods.'"^[11] The first systematic description of inner gods is found in the Yellow Court Classic, where each organ is designated as a ministry and is managed by a god residing in a palace.^[12]

A late 2nd century commentary on the Daodejing, the Master of the Riverbank, contains a description of five spirits inhabiting the liver, lungs, heart, kidney, and spleen. These organs can be emptied of "excessive emotions and desires" to make room for the descent of cosmic deities.^[8] The early medieval Laozi zhongjing describes a pantheon of inner gods in a hierarchical arrangement similar to the Eastern Han court, supported by eight-thousand attendants.^[13] The Central Scripture describes the lung as a secretary, the liver as a librarian, the heart as a minister of military affairs, the left kidney as a minister of education, and the right kidney as the minister of public works.^[8]

The Taipingjing describes Taiyi (太一 "the one"), initially personified as an astral deity at the center of the universe, as an inner god:

On the head, the One is the top;
Among the seven orifices, it is found in the eyes;
In the center of the body, it is the navel;
Among the five orbs, it is the heart;
Among the members of the body, it is the hands;
Among the bones, it is the spinal column;
In the flesh of the body, it is found in the five orbs and the stomach.^[14]

The Sanhuangsanyijing opens with a method for moving Taiyi from the Upper Cinnabar Field to the Middle Cinnabar Field, located in the heart, then to the top of the spleen, and finally between the kidneys and below the navel.^[15] Taiyi's integration as an internal god situated a state of cosmic unity within the body.^[16]

Ge Hong's Baopuzi elevates Taiyi above all others, prescribing a practice referred to as "guarding the One" (shouyi, 守一).^[17] It describes the One as

0.9 inch[es] in length in the male, and 0.6 inch[es] in the female. Sometimes it is in the lower cinnabar field 1.4 inches beneath the navel. At other times it is in the central cinnabar field, i.e., the golden gate or purple palace, in the heart.^[18]

• Microcosm and macrocosm
• Soul dualism
• Internal alchemy

• Andreeva, Anna; Steavu, Dominic (2016). Transforming the void: embryological discourse and reproductive imagery in East Asian religions. Leiden Boston: Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-30652-3.
• Huang, Shih-Shan Susan (2011). "Daoist Imagery of Body and Cosmos, Part 2: Body Worms and Internal Alchemy". Journal of Daoist Studies. 4 (1): 32–62. doi:10.1353/dao.2011.0001. ISSN 1941-5524.
• Huang, Shih-shan Susan (2015). Picturing the True Form. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-50428-8.
• Huang, Shih-Shan Susan (2017). "Daoist Imagery of Body and Cosmos, Part 1: Body Gods and Starry Travel". Journal of Daoist Studies. 3 (3). University of Hawai'i Press: 57–90. doi:10.1353/dao.2009.0019. ISSN 1941-5524. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
• Kohn, Livia; Sakade, Yoshinobu (1989). Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques. Ann Arbor, Mich: University of Michigan Center for Chinese Studies. ISBN 978-0-89264-085-0.
• Littlejohn, Ronnie L. (2019). Historical Dictionary of Daoism. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-1-5381-2273-0.
• Pregadio, Fabrizio (2011). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Taoism. London New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-0-415-67858-2.
• Pregadio, Fabrizio (2016). "Religious Daoism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)". plato.stanford.edu. Retrieved 22 December 2023.
• Tavor, Ori (2022). "Surveilled, harmonized, purified: the body in Chinese religious culture". Body and Religion. 5 (1): 24–44. doi:10.1558/bar.17840. ISSN 2057-5831.