Hao Datong (郝大通)
Hao Datong (1140–1212), the Quanzhen Seven Perfected's diviner: the young master of the Book of Changes who joined Wang Chongyang from divination, the six silent years under the Zhao bridge, and the Huashan lineage he founded.
Who he was
Hao Datong (1140–1212) was the Quanzhen Seven Perfected’s reader of the Book of Changes. Born Hao Lin in Ninghai, he grew up on the Laozi, Zhuangzi, and Liezi and especially on the Yijing — the sources say he understood yin-yang, calendrics, and divination, and that he disliked the scramble for office so much that he hid his gifts behind a diviner’s stall, telling fortunes to keep people from finding out what he was. Two dates for his birth circulate (1140 and 1149); the site registers both without adjudicating, as it does the two dates for his conversion (1167 or 1168). What the sources agree on is the shape of the life: the Yijing man who became a silent ascetic.
The years that made him
- The diviner who joined. In 1167 (or 1168) Hao entered Wang Chongyang’s school. When the master left for Guanzhong in 1169 with Qiu, Liu, Tan, and Ma, he did not take everyone: Hao and Wang Chuyi were left to practice on Kunyu Mountain — the archive’s mark of the inner circle of four (whom Wang Chongyang, in the surviving metaphor, called his brother, nephew, and sons) and the second ring around them.
- The six years under the bridge. The signature Hao story is dated to 1175: begging in Wozhou, he had a sudden insight, and spent six years practicing under a bridge, silent. People called him “the master who does not speak” (不语先生). The site files the story in its traditional layer and notes its function: it is the Seven Perfected’s most literal version of the empty boat claim — a man who removed himself so completely that speech itself was dropped, and the silence was the teaching.
- The northern mission. After the nine-fold work was, in the tradition’s word, completed, Hao went north to teach — the record that completes the Seven Perfected’s geographical map: Shanxi, Hebei, and the north for Hao, as Luoyang had been for Tan and Liu.
The lineage and the books
Hao founded the Huashan (华山) lineage, the branch of Quanzhen named for Mount Hua and anchored, in the tradition’s later reckoning, in the Yijing-framed inner alchemy that was his specialty — the baike entry’s phrase is 卦爻周天丹道: the hexagram-and-line orbit alchemy, using the Changes to lay out the stages and fire-phases of the practice. His recorded works run the same line: the Sanjiao ruyi lun, the Shijiao zhiyan, a Heart Sutra commentary, a Zhouyi cantong qi jianyao shiyi, the Taiyi tu — collected in the Taigu ji preserved in the Daoist canon.
Boundary notes, stated plainly
The bridge silence and the sudden insight are traditional records, registered in the tradition’s layer; the historical core is the disciple, the school, and the lineage. The birth-year and conversion-year discrepancies are kept visible rather than smoothed over, per the site’s standing rule for the Seven Perfected’s dates. What no source disputes: Hao Datong was one of the seven disciples, the founder of the Huashan lineage, and the Quanzhen master whose practice vocabulary ran through the Book of Changes.
Sources
- Zh.daoinfo.org lineage table, 北七真: 华山派 太古真君郝大通 (the daoinfo 北七真 table gives 郝大通's school as 华山派 with the title 太古真君)
- Sohu history article 424586196 (2020-10-14), 郝大通 section: 郝大通(公元1149--1212)名璘，字太古，号恬然子，又号广宁子，自称太古道人，法名大通。宁海(今山东牟平)人。自幼通读《老子》《庄子》《列子》，犹喜《易经》，洞晓阴阳、律历、卜筮之术。不慕荣仕，禀性颖异，厌纷华而慕淡雅，渐隐以卜筮自晦。金大定七年（公元1167年）（一说大定八年，公元1168）皈依全真教，大定十五年于沃州行乞时突有所悟，于桥下苦修六年，人称'不语先生'。九转功成后，往北传教。著作颇丰，有《三教入易论》《示教直言》《心经解》《救苦经解》《周易参同契简要释义》《太易图》等，今见《道藏》中的《太古集》录有《周易参同契简要释义》《周易象图》《金丹诗》等
- Taiwan Ministry of the Interior, Religion and Ritual Division (religion.moi.gov.tw), 全真七子 entry: 郝大通(公元1140年-公元1212年)，初名昇，寧海人 (birth year 1140 — the site registers both 1140 and 1149 without adjudicating)
- Baike.baidu.com entry 全真七子 (item 142146): 王重阳在山东半岛创教传教只有三年，大定九年秋他留王处一、郝大通在昆嵛山修炼，自己携邱刘谭马四大弟子返关中；郝大通则是卦爻周天丹道，用《周易》原理指导炼丹法度火候