According to the Records of Mr. Huayang's Seclusion, Tao Hongjing was born into a noble family, saying that he was a good book at the age of four or five, and read classics such as The Book of Rites, Zhouyi, Spring and Autumn Annals, Analects of Confucius, Filial Piety and Shangshu at the age of nine. Ten-year-old Ge Hong studied The Legend of the Immortal day and night, so he had the ambition to keep fit and be born. At the age of fifteen, I wrote "Looking for the Mountain" to show my interest in seclusion and my ambition to return to the original without being tired of things.
In 502 AD, Xiao Yan usurped the state power of Qi, and later negotiated with ministers on the title of the state, but never reached a unified opinion. Tao Hongjing suggested that the title of the country should be "Liang". According to the detailed calculation, he also calculated the date and hour of enthronement. From then on, whenever something important happened, Liang Wudi would send someone to ask for his advice. Later, Liang Wudi invited him to help the government, but he drew two cows to give them. One cow is free to drink and eat grass by the water grass, and the other cow is led by a golden bridle. After reading it, Liang Wudi knew that his ambition was not in officialdom, so he had to give up. From then on, the world addressed Tao Hongjing as "the Prime Minister in the Mountain".
Tao Hongjing wrote a large number of important Taoist works in his life, discussing astronomy, geography, medicine and health preservation, and then smelting. According to statistics, there are as many as seventy or eighty kinds of his related works. Up to now, there are True Spirit Bitmap, True Patents, Tactics for Ascending Truth and Hiding, Health Guide, Records of Nourishing Nature and Prolonging Life, Notes on Materia Medica, Hundred Prescriptions after Elbow, Herbal Medicine for Tao's Seclusion, General Tactics of Medicine and Collection of Golden Pills and Yellow Pills. Among them, The Bitmap of the True Spirit arranges the gods, vulgar gods and four blasphemous gods in Taoist belief according to their grades, forming a huge and complete Taoist immortal pedigree with orderly grades and distinct levels.
In the field of health care, Tao Hongjing emphasized that nourishing the heart should be the idea of "less selfish desires", "swimming quietly with a guilty conscience" and "resting without doing anything". At the same time, we should also adjust our emotions to prevent ourselves from being upset. In shaping, he asked for "moderate diet and moderate daily life" to avoid overwork and indulgence.
Tao Hongjing paid special attention to alchemy. He practiced alchemy for 20 years from his four years in Tian Liang (505-525). On the basis of enriching alchemy, he summed up and wrote some important works, such as Taiqing Zhudan Medicine Collection, He Dan Medical Law Festival, Jindan Huangbai Prescriptions Collection, and Miscellanies of Refining and Chemical Engineering. His achievements in alchemy have played a positive and important role in enriching and enriching the later Chinese medicine and promoting the progress of paleochemistry and smelting.
Tao Hongjing is also one of the most famous physicians in the history of drug development in China. He advocated that the treatment of diseases should vary from person to person, that is, the differences between men and women, young and old, deficiency and excess, and environment make great differences in etiology and pathology, and make relative diagnosis and treatment. He also classified the upper, middle and lower categories in Shennong's Classic of Materia Medica according to the nature of drugs for the first time. Drugs are divided into seven categories: jade, herbs, wood, insects and animals, fruits and vegetables, rice and food, and famous and unused drugs. In addition, he put forward the name of "universal drugs for various diseases" for the first time, and listed more than 80 kinds of universal drugs for diseases, which not only brought convenience to doctors, but also pioneered the classification of drugs according to indications. At the same time, he also stipulated the production rules of pills, powders, ointments, soups and medicinal liquor, and checked the weights and measures of drugs.
Tao Hongjing also made many expositions and contributions in astronomical calendar and geography. He once made a muddy image of the sky, about three feet high, with the ground in the center and the sky motionless. No matter the degree of 28 nights, Qiyao Road is dim, satellites can see it sooner or later, and they all meet the sky. He carefully proofread the chronological almanac of 50 families from Huang San to Bamboo Slips in Jizhong, and compiled it into five volumes of Emperor's Almanac. In addition, he also wrote three volumes of Records of Counties in Ancient and Modern Times (that is, maps and geographical knowledge) and a map of the western regions. He made great contributions to astronomy, calendar and geography of later generations.
Tao Hongjing also has rich exposition and attainments in calligraphy methods, metallurgy and so on. He is the most famous and versatile Taoist in the history of Taoism. He has made great contributions to ancient chemistry, metallurgy, medicine, health preservation and astronomical calendar in China.