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| title | chunk | source | category | tags | date_saved | instance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baopuzi | 3/6 | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baopuzi | reference | science, encyclopedia | 2026-05-05T16:14:03.629395+00:00 | kb-cron |
The description of one process deserves special discussion, for it evidently concerns the preparation of stannic sulfide or "mosaic gold" and is perhaps the earliest known description of the preparation of this interesting substance. Mosaic gold exists in flakes or leaflets which have the color and the luster of gold, it does not tarnish, and is used at present for bronzing radiators, gilding picture frames and similar purposes. As Ko Hung describes the process, "tin sheets, each measuring six inches square by one and two-tenths inches thick, are covered with a one-tenth inch layer of a mud-like mixture of Ch'ih Yen (Red Salt) and Hwei Chih (potash-water, limewater), ten pounds of tin to every four of Ch'ih Yen." They are then heated in a sealed earthenware pot for thirty days with horse manure (probably with a smoldering fire of dried manure). "All the tin becomes ash like and interspersed with bean-like pieces which are the yellow gold." The large portion of the metallic tin is converted into some ash-like compound or possibly into the ash-like allotropic modification, gray tin. A small portion of the tin is converted into bean-sized aggregates of flaky stannic sulfide. The yield is poor, for the author says that "twenty ounces of gold are obtained from every twenty pounds of tin used." The authors add, "It seems likely that Ko Hung was personally experienced in the chemistry of tin, for the Chinese say that he was the first to make tin foil and that he made magic or spirit money out of it."
=== Outer Chapters === The fifty Waipian "Outer Chapters" are more diffuse than the Inner ones. Ge Hong diversely wrote essays on Jin dynasty issues of philosophy, morality, politics, and society. This Baopuzi portion details everyday problems among Han dynasty northerners who fled into southern China after the fall of Luoyang. Some of the Outer Chapters are thematically organized. Ge Hong wrote chapters 46, 47, and 48 to dispute three adversaries: Kuo Tai 郭太 (128-169), who founded the Qingtan "pure conversation" school, Ni Heng 禰衡 (173-198), who was an infamously arrogant official of Ts'ao Ts'ao, and Pao Ching-yen 鮑敬言 (ca. 405-ca. 466), who was an early anarchist philosopher.
== Translations == The Baopuzi has been translated into English, Italian, German, and Japanese. There exist more English translations of the twenty Inner Chapters than of the fifty Outer Chapters. The Inner Chapters have several partial translations. Tenney L. Davis, professor of organic chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, collaborated on first translations of the Inner Chapters relevant to the history of alchemy. Wu and Davis translated chapters 4 "On the Gold Medicine" and 16 "On the Yellow and White" (i.e., gold and silver). Davis and Ch'en translated chapters 8 "Overcoming Obstructions" and 11 "On Hsien Medicines", and provided paraphrases or summaries of the remaining Inner Chapters. The German sinologist Eugene Feifel made English translations of chapters 1–3, 4, and 11. More recently, excerpts from the Inner Chapters are quoted by Verellen and Pregadio. An early, outdated complete translation was published by James R. Ware, which also includes Ge Hong's autobiography from Outer Chapter 50. Several reviewers censured the quality of Ware's translation, for instance, Kroll called it "at times misguided". Huard's and Wong's critical assessment of Ware was criticized in turn by Sivin. "Their review, nonetheless, can only be described as perfunctory. Only the forematter and endmatter of Ware's book are evaluated, and that in a curiously cursory fashion." Ware's translation has now been supplanted by the recent (2025) complete annotated translation of the Daoist Translation Committee 道教翻譯學會 (DTC), which is under the supervision and editorial direction of Dr. Louis Komjathy 康思奇 of the Center for Daoist Studies 道學中心. Translating the fundamental Taoist word Tao ("way; path; principle") as English God is a conspicuous peculiarity of Ware's Baopuzi version. The Introduction gives a convoluted Christian justification, first quoting J.J.L. Duyvendak's translation of Tao Te Ching 25, "Its rightful name I do not know, but I give It the sobriquet Tao (= God). If a rightful name is insisted upon, I would call It Maximal."
Then, upon noticing that Tao Te Ching, verse 34, is willing to call the Something "Minimal," every schoolman would have understood that the Chinese author was talking about God, for only in God do contraries become identical! Accordingly, the present translator will always render this use of the term Tao by God. In doing so, he keeps always in mind as the one and only definition the equation establishable from Exod. 3:13-15 and Mark 12:26-27, to mention only two very clear statements. It will be recalled that in the first God says, "My name is I am, I live, I exist," while the second reads, "God is not of the dead but of the living." Therefore, God = Life or Being. Ware admitted his God for Dao translation cannot be applied consistently.
It is clear that the word tao appears frequently in this text not as a designation of God but of the process by which God is to be approximated or attained. In such cases I shall translate it as "the divine process." In instances where either this or "God" would be appropriate, a translator is obliged to be arbitrary. The term tao shih is rendered "processor"; hsien is translated "genie" rather than "immortal". These Chinese words are Tao-shih' 道士 ("Taoist priest or practitioner" )and "hsien" 仙 ("immortal; transcendent".) Ho Peng-Yoke, an authority in the History of science and technology in China, criticized Ware's translations.