Eight Immortals- Chinese GroupCollective"Patrons of Good Fortune"

How They Found the Way

Lü Dongbin fell asleep at an inn and dreamed fifty years of life. He married, passed the imperial examinations, rose to high office, fathered children, lost everything, and died old and alone. When he woke, the innkeeper had not finished heating his millet. Lü Dongbin left the inn and did not look back. In the mountains he found Zhongli Quan, a Han Dynasty general who had traded war for alchemy, and became his student in the arts of inner transformation.

Li Tieguai's path was stranger. He left his body behind to visit Laozi in heaven, telling his disciple to guard the corpse for seven days. On the sixth day, the disciple's mother fell gravely ill. Believing his master gone forever, the disciple cremated the body and rushed home. When Li Tieguai's spirit descended, it found only ashes. The nearest vessel was a dead beggar by the roadside, lame and covered in sores. Li Tieguai entered the corpse, stood on its one good leg, and fashioned a crutch from iron.

They were eight in all. Wu Yuantai's Dongyou Ji tells their story as a group, though they came from different centuries and different lives. Among them a maiden who ate a peach and never hungered again, and an elder whose white donkey could be folded like paper and tucked into a sleeve.

Crossing the Eastern Sea

The eight were returning from Xiwangmu's birthday feast on Mount Kunlun when they reached the shore of the Eastern Sea. Lü Dongbin proposed a challenge: rather than ride clouds, each should cast their own treasure on the waves and cross by its power alone.

Zhongli Quan laid his great feather fan on the water and stepped onto it, gliding across the surface. Li Tieguai tossed his iron gourd into the swells and rode it between the waves. The others followed, each on their own device.

Their passage disturbed the Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. Ao Guang's crown prince saw Lan Caihe's flower basket drifting on the waves and dragged it beneath the surface. The immortals turned back. Lü Dongbin drew his demon-slaying sword. The sea churned as the Dragon King sent his aquatic armies upward, and the battle raged until two higher powers intervened: Guanyin descended from her southern isle, and the Jade Emperor sent word from heaven. Lan Caihe's basket was returned. The eight reached the far shore. The story gave Chinese its proverb: "The Eight Immortals cross the sea, each displaying their special powers" (八仙過海，各顯神通).