his search
for the elixir of life.

One day when he was engaged in experimenting with the 'Dragon-tiger
elixir' a spiritual being appeared to him and said: "On Po-sung
Mountain is a stone house in which are concealed the writings of the
Three Emperors of antiquity and a canonical work. By obtaining these
you may ascend to Heaven, if you undergo the course of discipline
they prescribe."

Chang Tao-ling found these works, and by means of them obtained
the power of flying, of hearing distant sounds, and of leaving
his body. After going through a thousand days of discipline, and
receiving instruction from a goddess, who taught him to walk about
among the stars, he proceeded to fight with the king of the demons,
to divide mountains and seas, and to command the wind and thunder. All
the demons fled before him. On account of the prodigious slaughter of
demons by this hero the wind and thunder were reduced to subjection,
and various divinities came with eager haste to acknowledge their
faults. In nine years he gained the power to ascend to Heaven.

The Founder of Modern Taoism

Chang Tao-ling may rightly be considered as the true founder of modern
Taoism. The recipes for the pills of immortality contained in the
mysterious books, and the invention of talismans for the cure of all
sorts of maladies, not only exalted him to the high position he has
since occupied in the minds of his numerous disciples, but enabled
them in turn to exploit successfully this new source of power and
wealth. From that time the Taoist sect began to specialize in the art
of healing. Protecting or curing talismans bearing the Master's seal
were purchased for enormous sums. It is thus seen that he was after
all a deceiver of the people, and unbelievers or rival partisans of
other sects have dubbed him a 'rice-thief'--which perhaps he was.

He is generally represented as clothed in richly decorated garments,
brandishing with his right hand his magic sword, holding in his
left a cup containing the draught of immortality, and riding a tiger
which in one paw grasps his magic seal and with the others tramples
down the five venomous creatures: lizard, snake, spider, toad,
and centipede. Pictures of him with these accessories are pasted
up in houses on the fifth day of the fifth moon to forfend calamity
and sickness.

The Peach-gathering

It is related of him that, not wishing to ascend to Heaven too soon,
he partook of only half of the pill of