Images of Liu Haichan: The formation and transformation of a Daoist immortal's iconography (China)

This dissertation examines the formation and transformation of the iconography of a Daoist immortal, Liu Haichan. Liu Haichan was a court official in the tenth century who became a famous Daoist immortal. He has been worshipped as the fourth patriarch of the Quanzhen School, one of the largest schools of religious Daoism since the 13th century. From the middle of the Ming period, he has been extraordinarily popular and gradually transformed into a folk symbol of good fortune. Many images of Liu Haichan have been produced in various formats, such as painting, prints, and craft works. In art, he is usually represented carrying an auspicious three-legged toad. The earliest extant picture of Liu Haichan is dated to the Yuan period, and his image was a popular subject matter from the Ming period onward. However, no textual descriptions explained his association with the three-legged toad until the late Ming period. This discrepancy between text and image has led to questions about the original identity of the “Toad Immortal.” Sometimes other immortals are proposed to replace Liu Haichan. These candidates, however, do not qualify. Judging from fictions of the Song period, hagiographies of the Yuan period, and many other later records, Liu Haichan is still the most plausible person to be this immortal.; Along with the popularization of the cult of Liu Haichan, the pictorial representation of him has changed from a serious wanderer to a cheerful young boy. It is also a change from a religious immortal to a secular figure and from a symbol of spiritual enlightenment to that of monetary luck. These changes occurred in response to religious, political and social situations. The transformation of Liu Haichan's iconography is also accompanied by the change of the styles, functions and meanings of the images. Some pictures of the later period show an amalgamation of Liu Haichan and Shide, an eccentric Buddhist monk of the Tang period. This indicates the visual syncretism of Daoism and Buddhism.