In the early Liang dynasty of the Southern and Northern Dynasties, there was a famous Taoist monk named Tao Hongjing, who was known as a Huayang resident, a jingdao family medicine, and a thinker, a writer, and an alchemist.
During the Northern Qi Dynasty, Tao Hongjing entered the dynasty as a general in the Left Wei Temple, which was only an idle post, and the actual work was to be responsible for serving the kings.
In the 10th year of Yongming (493 AD), Tao Hongjing resigned as an official and lived in seclusion at Mount Juqu (in present-day Maoshan, jurong, Jiangsu), and later studied under the master of Science and Technology, Sun Youyue.
During his study tour, Tao Hongjing traveled to the famous mountain Dayue to search for immortal medicine.
Xie Shichen "Tao Hongjing Returns the Mountain Map" part
Emperor Wu of Southern Liang was a good friend of Tao Hongjing, claiming that the empress had been hired by courtesy, but Tao Hongjing was not allowed to resign.
Emperor Wu of Liang, in desperation, exchanged letters with Tao Hongjing and asked for advice on how to govern the country. Because he often discussed the politics of the dynasty, he was like a cabinet figure of the Liang Dynasty, and was called "the prime minister of the mountain" by the people of the time.
Tao Hongjing's academic thought originated from Laozi and Zhuangzi, and was later influenced by Ge Hong, advocating the unity of The three religions of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism.
Tao Hongjing is also good at calligraphy, especially in Lishu, and has been involved in astronomy, geography, medicine and other disciplines.
Tao Hongjing sorted out the ancient edition of the Shennong Materia Medica, which added some new drugs developed by famous doctors during the Wei and Jin dynasties, and wrote the "Notes on the Collection of Materia Medica", which included more than 700 kinds of drugs.
Tao Hongjingzhi was rigorous in his studies, did not die reading books, attached importance to practical observation and hands-on experiments, and was a practitioner of Mencius's view that "if you believe in books, you are not as good as no books".
When Tao Hongjing was a teenager, he liked to be more genuine, and he would never give up until he reached his goal.
There is a sentence in the Book of Verses: "The moth has a son, and the worm [guǒ luǒ] bears it." ”
It means that the grasshopper adopts the larvae of the borer.
Li Shan, who notes the Selected Writings of Zhao Ming, explains:
"Cockroaches, bee worms also ... The bee worm is childless, and takes the mulberry insect to hide [yì], and raises it quietly, and wishes: 'Like me! 'Long then transformed into a bee worm. ”
Cockroach is a collective name for wasps, wasps and other bees, because there are no offspring, they adopted the grasshopper as a righteous son, often praying: Look like me! Looks like me! Over time, the grasshopper becomes a wasp.
In fact, this is a misunderstanding of the ancients, in order to spread false rumors, "borer" gradually became a synonym for the righteous son, such as in the "Romance of the Three Kingdoms": Guan Yu opposed Liu Bei's appointment of Liu Feng as his heir, "The King of Hanzhong sent people to Jingzhou to ask Guan Gong, and Guan Gong was the son of a general and could not be arrogant." ”
Through long-term observation, Tao Hongjing found that this metaphor is fallacious, the moth can produce offspring, bring the borer back to their nest, in order to lay eggs in the borer body, after hatching the borer larvae feed on the borer.
Tao Hongjing did not blindly believe in the inherent views of the sages and sages, but concluded through his own investigation and research that this scientific rigorous, truth-seeking and pragmatic attitude is worth learning from our descendants.