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Tao Hongjing

Tao Hongjing

456 CE536 CE · Nanjing

Tao Hongjing (456–536), courtesy name Tongming, was a Chinese alchemist, astronomer, calligrapher, military general, musician, physician, and pharmacologist during the Northern and Southern dynasties period. A polymathic individual of many talents, he was best known as a founder of the Shangqing "Highest Clarity" School of Taoism and the compiler-editor of the basic Shangqing scriptures.

Adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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NanjingChina

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About Nanjing

Nanjing, on the Yangtze in eastern China, a southern Ming capital. Matteo Ricci established a Jesuit residence there around 1599 before reaching Beijing.

In Nanjing at the same time

Zu Chongzhi

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The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Tao Hongjing’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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Related figuresGe HongSuggested by shared subject matter, not a documented teaching relationship.