Conceive Of Flying In Taoism Since The North And South Dynasties

Flying, the best proof of becoming immortals for Taoism, is also the common dream of people through the ages. Since the North and South Dynasties, it has been passing from generation to generation due to the development and reform of Taoism. From then on, people continue their exploration on ways and tools of flight, some of which are still considered to be positive at present.Tentative ideas of people on flying varied in Taoism, among which the most traditional one they thought was animal-based. They believed that animals like Crane, Phoenix, Dragon, Tiger, Deer, Fish and Turtles were able to fly to the immortal place, as well as those vehicles driven by them. In addition, elixir was also inherited and alcohol was popularly considered to assist flying in Tang dynasty. Also wing-based flying was found in the portrait bricks of tombs in the North and South Dynasties.The most Taoist tentative ways for flying were created by its followers during their daily exercise such as gathering energy from the Nature, drawing special symbols and doing meditation. To be more specific, they designed many magic symbols for flying, excogitated the way to gather rays of the sun, moon and stars, and created lots of Meditative Spells such as riding the clouds, striding in air, wearing Jue (one kind of special shoes), flying to the sun and moon, boarding Five Stars. The logic of Taoism ran through these ideas in spite of their strong fantasy. It was believed that the combination of the internal potential in human bodies and the external energy of Nature could certainly produce extraordinary ability for man to fly.It was said in historical records that Gao Yang, Emperor Wen Xuan of North Qi Dynasty had his trail in flying. He asked the convicts who had sentenced to death to fly down from the Platform of Golden Phoenix by paper-made kites and one named Yuan Huangtou succeeded to land after a certain distance of flying. That was named as the earliest flying record in Chinese history. One more aviation need to mention was made by Wan Hoo in Ming Dynasty. He designed one flight powered by the ancient rocket. Although it ended up in tragedy, it was a significant event in this field.Moreover, there were some other inventions and designs in ancient China which could fly themselves but just could not take people to the sky, such as kites, bamboo dragonflies and sky lanterns. They were the rudiment of aircraft today and reflected the development of human space exploration. They were unique because they were the beautiful dreams of ancient people in flying and nowadays they still have the inspiring meaning towards modern aviation technology.Furthermore, we could also find the flying dreams of human beings in literature works. Scholars nurtured by the Taoist belief of immortals conceived of extraordinary aviations in their poetries and novels, through which we could feel the common wish and intelligence of human beings.