Three Corpses

Sanshi
Chinese	三尸
Literal meaning	three corpses
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin sānshī Wade–Giles san-shih Middle Chinese Middle Chinese sansyij Old Chinese Baxter–Sagart (2014) s.ruml̥[ə]j
Alternative Chinese name
Traditional Chinese	三蟲
Simplified Chinese	三虫
Literal meaning	three worms
Transcriptions Standard Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin sānchóng Wade–Giles san-ch'ung Middle Chinese Middle Chinese sandrjuwng Old Chinese Baxter–Sagart (2014) s.rumC.lruŋ

Sanshi 三尸 "Three Corpses" illustration from the (c. 9th century) Chu sanshi jiuchong baosheng jing 除三尸九蟲保生經

The sanshi 三尸 "Three Corpses" or sanchong 三蟲 "Three Worms" are a Daoist physiological belief that demonic creatures live inside the human body, and they seek to hasten the death of their host. These three supernatural parasites allegedly enter the person at birth, and reside in the three Dantian "energy centers", respectively located within the head, chest, and abdomen. After their human host dies, they are freed from the body and become malevolent ghosts.

The pernicious Three Corpses/Worms work to harm their host's health and fate by initiating sicknesses, inviting other disease-causing agents into the body, and reporting their host's transgressions to the gods. The Three Corpses are believed to keep records of their host's misdeeds, ascend to tian "heaven" bimonthly on the night of Chinese sexagenary gengshen 庚申 "57th of the 60-day cycle" while the host is sleeping, and file reports to the Siming 司命 "Director of Destinies" who deducts a certain number of days from the person's life for each misdeed. One way of avoiding this bureaucratic snitching is to stay awake for the entire gengshen day and night, thus preventing the Three Corpsesfrom leaving one's body (a belief later assimilated into the Japanese Kōshin 庚申 tradition).

For a Daoist adept to achieve the longevity of a xian "transcendent; immortal", it was necessary to expel the Three Corpses from the body. Since these evil spirits feed upon decaying matter produced by grains being digested in the intestines, the practice of bigu "abstinence from grains and cereals" is the first step towards expelling them. Bigu alone will not eliminate the Three Corpses, but weakens them to the point where they can be killed with waidan alchemical drugs such as cinnabar, and ultimately eliminated through neidan meditation techniques.

Terminology

The Chinese terms sānshī and sānchóng compound sān 三 meaning "three, 3; several, many" with shī 尸 or 屍 "corpse, dead body; ritual personator representing a dead relative during Chinese ancestral sacrifices" and chóng 蟲 or 虫 "insect; worm; bug".

The usual English translation of sanshi is "three corpses" or "Three Corpses". However, this Daoist term does not literally refer to "corpses; dead bodies" within the human body, but is linguistically causative meaning the eventual "death; mortality" produced by these demonic agents (Arthur 2013). Compare the English slang verb corpse meaning "to make a corpse of, to kill" (Oxford English Dictionary 2009). More accurate translations of sanshi are "Three Deathbringers" (Kohn 1993), "Three Death-bringers" (Komjathy 2007), or "three corpse [evils]" (Zhang & Unschuld 2014).

Synonyms for sanshi include fúshī 伏尸 "hidden corpse", shīchóng 尸虫 "corpse worms", shīguǐ 尸鬼 "corpse ghosts", and in reference to the three corpses named Peng (below), shīpéng 尸彭 "corpse Pengs" or sānpéng 三彭 "three Pengs". Sānshīshén 三尸神 "Lord Three Corpses" is an honorific alternate with shen "spirit; god; deity

Sanchong, which the Lunheng (see below) used to mean "intestinal parasites", is normally translated as "three worms" or "Three Worms"; "Three Cadavers" is another version (Schipper 1993). Owing to the semantic polysemy of chong, the term is also translatable as "three pests" (Needham and Lu 1986) or "three bugs" (Zhang and Unschuld 2014).

The expressions Three Corpses and Three Worms are used in traditional Chinese medicine. Zhang and Unschuld (2014: 414) translate sanchong 三蟲 as "three bugs; three worms" and define two meanings: "Etiological Agent of all microorganisms in the body that bring forth disease", citing Li Shizhen's (1578) Bencao Gangmu (chongbu 蟲部 "bugs/worms section") that, "Bugs/worms are small organisms. There are very many types. This is the meaning of 'three bugs/worms'"; and "Combined Designation of huichong 蛔蟲, roundworms, chichong 赤蟲, red worms, and naochong 蟯蟲, pinworms", citing the (c. 610) Zhubing yuanhou zonglun 諸病源候總論 "General Treatise of Causes and Symptoms of Illnesses", "The three worms include long worms, red worms, and pinworms". They give sanshi 三尸 "three corpse [bugs/worms]" as an Alternative Name for shichong 尸蟲 "corpse bugs/worms", and define it as the "Etiological Agent of microorganisms that can bring forth all types of shibing 屍病 "corpse [qi] disease", citing the Zhubing yuanhou zonglun again that, "Inside the human body there are from the beginning all the three corpse [bugs/worms]. They come to life together with man, but they are most malicious. They are able to communicate with demons and the numinous, and they regularly invite evil [qi] from outside, thereby causing human suffering".

Demonic possession and demonic medicine are ancient Chinese beliefs (Unschuld 1986: 29-46). For example, the Bencao gangmu chapter (52) on medicines derived from the human body says "bregma; skull bone" is good for treating tuberculosis-like consumptive diseases that are supposedly caused by evil spirits, such as chuánshī 傳尸, which is translated as "cadaver vector disease" (Cooper & Sivin 1973), "consumptive and infectious disease" (Luo 2003), "corpse [evil] transmission" (Zhang & Unschuld 2014). Compare the medical term wǔshī 五尸 or 五屍 "five corpse [evils]" "disease-causing demons that can cause death", namely the fēishī 飛尸 "flying corpse", dùnshī 遁尸 "run-away corpse", fēngshī 風尸 "wind[-type] corpse", chénshī 沉尸 "sunken corpse", and shīzhù 尸疰 "corpse attachment-illness" (Zhang and Unschuld 2014: 543).

Since the idea of Three Corpses within the human body is unfamiliar to most Westerners, meaningful English descriptions are problematic. Scholars have termed them as gods ("transcendental beings" Fischer-Schreiber 1996, "supernatural beings with physical and ephemeral spirit components" Arthur 2013, "internal gods" Benn 2001); demons ("a sort of demon" Pas 1988, "maleficent demons" Maspero 1981, "malevolent beings in the body" Eskeldsen 1998, "demonic supernatural creatures" Kohn 1993); or both ("semi-divine, semi-demonic agents" Campany 2005); parasites ("biospiritual parasites" Campany 2002), "body parasites" Yamada 1989, "parasites said to live inside the human body" Cook 2008); and other terms ("factors in the human body" Needham and Lu 1986).

Classical descriptions

The received canon of Chinese classics first mentioned the Three Corpses and Three Worms in the Han dynasty period (206 BCE-220 CE). Beginning in the Jin dynasty (265-420 CE), Daoist texts portrayed them in both zoomorphic and bureaucratic metaphors (Campany 2005:43).

Liexian zhuan

Liu Xiang's (late 1st century BCE) Daoist hagiography Liexian Zhuan "Biographies of Exemplary Immortals" (tr. Kaltenmark 1953: 177-78) first records the Three Corpses in the biography of Zhu Huang 朱璜. His Daoist master Ruan Qiu 阮丘 expelled the Three Corpses from Zhu Huang by means of a prescription combining seven drugs, administered nine times daily, over a period of a hundred days. It also quotes the Huangtingjing 黃庭經 "Yellow Court Scripture" (tr. Schipper 1978:372) that for genghsen days, "Do not sleep either day or night, and you shall become immortal."

Lunheng

Wang Chong's (c 80 CE) Lunheng (tr. Forke 1907 2: 316) compares the sanchong 三蟲 "Three Worms" to zhì 蛭 "leeches" (also written with insect radical 虫 generally used for characters naming insects, worms, spiders, and smaller reptiles ). Wang censures critics who metaphorically describe corrupt officials as worms or parasites, "Man has three worms in his intestines [人腹中有三蟲]. The worms living in low marshes are called leeches. They eat man’s feet, as the three worms eat his bowels [蛭食人足，三蟲食腸]. To whom will these critics, so fond of similarities, compare the three worms?"

Baopuzi

The "Inner Chapters" of the (c. 320 CE) Baopuzi, written by the Jin Dynasty scholar Ge Hong, is the earliest source of detailed information about the Three Corpses. This Daoist text describes the sanshi parasites causing illnesses during unlucky times in the Chinese calendar and reporting sins on gengshen days, as well as gives several methods for preparing poisonous waidan alchemical elixirs to eliminate the Three Corpses.

The Baopuzi records how the Three Corpses and Zaoshen 竈神 "God of the Stove" make regular reports to Siming 司命 "arbiter of human destiny", who shortens the host's lifespan accordingly.

It is also said that there are Three Corpses [三尸] in our bodies, which, though not corporeal, actually are of a type with our inner, ethereal breaths, the powers, the ghosts, and the gods [魂靈鬼神之屬也]. They want us to die prematurely. (After death they become a man's ghost and move about at will to where sacrifices and libations are being offered.) Therefore, every fifty-seventh day of the sixty-day cycle they mount to heaven and personally report our misdeeds to the Director of Fates. Further, during the night of the last day of the month the hearth god also ascends to heaven and makes an oral report of a man's wrongs. For the more important misdeeds [ji 紀 "12 year period; discipline; mark"] a whole period of three hundred days is deducted. For the minor ones they deduct one reckoning [suan 算 "calculate; count"], a reckoning being three days. Personally, I have not yet been able to determine whether this is really so or not, but that is because the ways of heaven are obscure, and ghosts and gods are hard to understand. (6, tr. Ware 1966:115-6)

Compare Campany's (2002: 49) translation, "As for the sort of beings they are, they have no physical forms but are nevertheless real, of a type with our cloud-souls and numina, ghosts and spirits (hunling guishen 魂靈鬼神)".

Another germane Baopuzi passage explains how the Three Corpses take advantage of shuaiyue weiri 衰月危日 "months of weakness and days of peril", which is a technical term for cyclical times of special vulnerability (Campany 2006: 51). Ge Hong says even someone with xindao zhi xin 信道之心 "a heart believing in the Dao" must expel the Three Corpses.

If all you have is a heart faithful to God and yet do nothing for your own benefit – your predestined life span being defective and your body threatened with harm – the Three Corpses will take advantage of your weak months and perilous days [三尸因其衰月危日], the hours when your longevity could be interrupted or sickness incurred, to summon vicious breaths and bring in any demons they might be able to find to do you injury. (15, tr. Ware 1966: 252-253)

The Baopuzi uses sanchong 三蟲 "Three Worms" to mean sanshi 三尸 "Three Corpses", and mentions both jiuchong 九蟲 "Nine Worms" internal parasites and the all-encompassing sanshi jiuchong "Three Corpses and Nine Worms".

Sanchong "Three Worms" synonymously means "Three Corpses", and the Baopuzi says both can be expelled through cinnabar-based alchemical elixirs. The first method of Xianmenzi 羡門子 expels the corpse-worms, provides immortality, and exorcises ghosts.

... mixes three quarts of wine with a pound of cinnabar and exposes it to the sun for forty days. After it has been taken for one day the Three Worms and all illnesses are immediately purged from the patient [三蟲百病立下]. If taken for three years, it will confer geniehood and one is sure to be served by two fairies, who can be employed to summon the Traveling Canteen. This elixir can exorcize ghosts. When the unburied dead everywhere are possessing people and harming them, inflicting injuries upon our homes, and throwing up earthworks to obstruct people, no harm will come to us if this elixir is hung pointed toward the sources of disaster. (4, tr. Ware 1966: 84)

The second method of Wu Chengzi 務成子 expels the Three Worms, works miracles, and provides virtual immortality. The complex instructions involve melting mercury and lead in a crucible – made from heating realgar, earthworm excreta, and cinnabar inside iron and copper tubes – in order to produce 1500 pounds of gold.

After soaking for a hundred days in Vitex or red panicled millet wine, this gold softens sufficiently to be miscible with other things. If one pill of it the size of a gram is taken three times daily until one pound has been consumed, the Three Worms will cry for mercy and all illnesses will quit the body [三蟲伏尸百病皆去]. The blind will see; the deaf, hear; the aged will become like thirty; those entering fire will not be burned; all evils, all poisons, cold, wind, heat, and dampness—none of these will be able to attack such a man. If he continues the dosage until three pounds have been consumed, he will be able to walk on rivers and all the gods of the mountains and streams will come to serve and protect him. His lot of longevity will last as long as all nature. (16, tr. Ware 1966: 275-6)

Jiuchong "Nine Worms" broadly means "internal worms and parasites" in the Baopuzi, for instance, (5, tr. Ware 1966: 103), "Eulalia and male fern are vermifuges" [萑蘆貫衆之煞九蟲]. Ge Hong says that medicinal lacquer, instead of mercury, will eliminate the Nine Worms.

If pure, unadulterated lacquer is taken, it will put a man in communication with the gods and let him enjoy Fullness of Life. Directions: Mix it with ten pieces of crab. Take it with mica water, or mixed with jade water. The Nine Insects will then drop from you, and the bad blood will leave you through nose-bleeds [九蟲悉下惡血從鼻去]. After a year, the six-chia gods and the Traveling Canteen will come to you. (11, tr. Ware 1966:190)

Sanshi jiuchong "Three Corpses and Nine Worms" is a generic name for "bodily parasites". They can be eliminated with a elixir called shendan 神丹 "Divine Cinnabar" or shenfu "Divine Amulet" 神符.

Take it for one hundred days and you will be a genie. To cross streams or pass through fire, smear the soles of your feet with it and you will be able to walk on water. After taking only three spatulas of it you will see that the Three Corpses and the Nine Worms in your body will disappear, and all your illnesses will be cured [三尸九虫皆即消壞百病皆愈也]. (4, tr. Ware 1966: 77)

Cinnabar, the reddish ore of mercury, is the essential ingredient in Daoist magical elixirs that expel the Three Corpses, most of which (including the above Xianmenzi, Wu Chengzi, and Shendan preparations) are also said to cure bǎibìng 百病 "100 sicknesses; all kinds of diseases and ailments". Ge Hong gives the Recipe for Nibbling Melted Gold attributed to Liangyizi 兩儀子 (4, tr. Ware 1966: 96), which involves alternately dipping gold 100 times into boiling hog fat and vinegar, and concludes, "If you wish to take medicine that will banish [the Three Corpses] from your body, you must take cinnabar." For example, the xiaodan 小丹 "Lesser Elixir",

Take one pound of cinnabar, pestled and sifted, three quarts of strong vinegar, and two quarts of lacquer. Mix these three thoroughly, and cook over a slow fire until the compound can be shaped into pills. Take three, the size of a hempseed, twice daily for thirty days, and all abdominal illnesses will be cured, and the Three Corpses that are in your body will depart [腹中百病愈三尸去]. Take for one hundred days, and your flesh and bones will become strong and sturdy. Take for one thousand days, and the Governor of Fates will strike your name from the Book of Death; you will last as long as all nature, and the sun and moon will always shine on you. You can change shape continuously. You will cast no shadow in the sun, for you will radiate your own light. (4, tr. Ware 1966: 95)

Lastly, a Baopuzi discussion about avoiding illnesses uses what commentators gloss as a variant name for the Three Corpses: sānshǐ 三使 "Three Envoys [of Death]", with shǐ "send (an envoy); make; cause".

The minor elixirs for recalling a man's ethereal breaths, the pills for countering the three Messenger-corpses [召魂小丹三使之丸], and lesser medicines made from the Five Brilliances and the Eight Minerals will sometimes melt hard ice instantly or keep one afloat in water. They can intercept ghosts and gods, lay tigers and leopards, and disperse accumulations in the digestive system and our organs. They dislodge the two lackeys of illness from the heart region and the diaphragm (Tso, Ch'eng 10.5); they raise those who have just died; return frightened ethereal breaths to the body they had quit. All these are common, everyday medicines. And, if they can still restore the dead to life, why should the superior medicines not be able to make the living immortal? (5, tr. Ware 1966: 102)

This refers to the Zuozhuan (tr. Legge 1872: 374) recording that after Duke Jing of Jin dreamed about two boyish disease-demons hiding in his body, he fell into a latrine and died in 581 BCE.

Ziyang zhenren neizhuan

The (4th century CE) Ziyang zhenren neizhuan 紫陽真人內傳 "Inner Biography of the True Person of Purple Yang" (tr. Maspero 1981:332) described the Three Corpses living in the three dantian centers.

• Qīnggǔ 青古 "Old Blue" dwells in the Muddy Pellet Palace within the Upper Dantian, "It is he who makes men blind, or deaf, or bald, who makes the teeth fall out, who stops up the nose and gives bad breath."
• Bái gū 白姑 "White Maiden" dwells in the Crimson Palace within the Middle Field, "She causes palpitations of the heart, asthma, and melancholy."
• Xuè shī 血尸 "Bloody Corpse" dwells in the Lower Dantian, "It is through him that the intestines are painfully twisted, that the bones are dried out, that the skin withers, that the limbs have rheumatisms..."

Chu sanshi jiuchong baosheng jing

The (9th century) Chu sanshi jiuchong baosheng jing 除三尸九蟲保生經 "Scripture on Expelling the Three Corpses and Nine Worms to Protect Life" contains illustrations and descriptions of the Three Corpses and the Nine Worms, and methods for expelling them from the body.

The Chinese names of the death-hastening Three Corpses' have the surname Peng (surname) 彭 "sound of a drum", which ironically derives from the God of Longevity Peng Zu 彭祖 who legendarily lived to the age of 800.

• The upper corpse, Péng Jū 彭琚, lives in the head. Symptoms of its attack include a feeling of heaviness in the head, blurred vision, deafness, and excessive flow of tears and mucus.
• The middle corpse, Péng Zàn 彭瓚, dwells in the heart and stomach. It attacks the heart, and makes its host crave sensual pleasures.
• The lower corpse, Péng Jiǎo 彭矯, resides in the stomach and legs. It causes the Ocean of Pneuma resides in the stomach and legs. It causes the Ocean of Pneuma (qihai 氣海, an area corresponding to the lower dantian) to leak, and makes its host lust after women. (tr. Cook 2008: 846)

This text's woodblock illustrations depict the upper corpse as a scholarly man, the middle as a short quadruped, and the lower corpse as "a monster that looks like a horse's leg with a horned human head" (tr. Maspero 1981: 333).

Traditional Chinese medicine associates the mythological Three Corpses/Worms with the intestinal jiǔchóng 九蟲 "Nine Worms", which correspond to parasites such as roundworms or tapeworms that weaken the host's body and cause various physical symptoms (Cook 2008: 844).

The Chu sanshi jiuchong baosheng jing lists the Nine Worms.

• The "ambush worm" (fuchong 伏蟲) saps people's strength by feeding off their essence and blood.
• The "coiling worm" (huichong 蛔蟲 [now meaning "roundworm"]) infests the body in pairs of male and female that live above and below the heart, consuming their host's blood.
• The "inch-long white worm" (cun baichong 寸白蟲) chews into the stomach, weakening the inner organs and damaging the digestive tract.
• The "flesh worm" (rouchong 肉蟲) causes itching and weakens the sinews and back.
• The "lung worm" (feichong 肺蟲) causes coughing, phlegm buildup, and difficulty in breathing.
• The "stomach worm" (weichong 胃蟲) consumes food from its host's stomach, causing hunger.
• The "obstructing [or "diaphragm"] worm" (gechong 膈蟲) dulls the senses, induces drowsiness, and causes nightmares.
• The "red worm" (chichong 赤蟲) causes stagnation of the blood and pneuma, heaviness in the waist, and ringing in the ears.
• The "wriggling worm" (qiaochong 蹺蟲) causes itching sores on the skin and tooth decay. (tr. Cook 2008: 846)

The Japanese folk tradition of Kōshin (namely, the Japanese pronunciation of gengshen 庚申 "57th of the 60-day cycle") combines the Daoist Three Corpses with Shintō and Buddhist beliefs, including the Three Wise Monkeys. People attend Kōshin-Machi 庚申待 "57th Day Waiting" events to stay awake all night and prevent the Sanshi 三尸 "Three Corpses" from leaving the body and reporting misdeeds to heaven.

References

• Arthur, Shawn (2013), Early Daoist Dietary Practices: Examining Ways to Health and Longevity, Lexington Books.
• Benn, Charles D. (2001), Daily Life in Traditional China: The Tang Dynasty, Greenwood Press.
• Campany, Robert Ford (2005), "Two Religious Thinkers of the Early Eastern Jin: Gan Bao and Ge Hong in Multiple Contexts", Asia Major 18.1: 175-224.
• Campany, Robert Ford (2005), "The Meanings of Cuisines of Transcendence in Late Classical and Early Medieval China," T'oung Pao 91.1: 1-57.
• Cook, Theodore A. (2008), "Sanshi and jiuchong 三尸・九蟲, three corpses and nine worms," in The Encyclopedia of Taoism, ed. by Fabrizio Pregadio, 844-846.
• Eskildsen, Stephen (1998), Asceticism in Early Taoist Religion, SUNY Press.
• Forke, Alfred, tr. (1907), Lun-hêng, Part 2, Philosophical Essays of Wang Ch'ung, Harrassowitz.
• Kohn, Livia (1993), The Taoist Experience: An Anthology, SUNY Press.
• Kohn, Livia (2009), Readings in Daoist Mysticism, Three Pines Press.
• Luo Xiwen, tr. (2003), Bencao Gangmu: Compendium of Materia Medica, 6 vols., Foreign Languages Press.
• Maspero, Henri (1981), Taoism and Chinese Religion, tr. by Frank A. Kierman Jr., University of Massachusetts Press.
• Needham, Joseph and Lu Gwei-Djen (1986), Science and Civilisation in China, Biology and Biological Technology, Part I: Botany, Cambridge University Press.
• Robinet, Isabelle (1993), Taoist Meditation: The Mao-Shan Tradition of Great Purity, SUNY Press.
• Schipper, Kristofer (1978), "The Taoist Body," History of Religions 17.3/4: 355–386.
• Schipper, Kristofer (1993), The Taoist Body, translated by Karen C. Duval, University of California Press.
• Strickmann, Michel (2002), Chinese Magical Medicine, Stanford University Press.
• Unschuld, Paul Ulrich (1986), Medicine in China, A History of Pharmaceutics, 本草, University of California Press.
• Ware, James R. (1966), Alchemy, Medicine and Religion in the China of A.D. 320: The Nei Pien of Ko Hung, Dover.
• Zhang Zhibin and Paul U. Unschuld (2014), Dictionary of the Ben cao gang mu, Volume 1: Chinese Historical Illness Terminology, University of California Press.

External links

• The Three Corpses, Taoist Resource
• Taoist Views of the Human Body, The Golden Elixir
• 太上除三尸九蟲保生經, Taishang chu sanshi jiuchong baosheng jing, Taiwan Taoist Database Template:Zh icon
• Yoked to Earth: A Treatise on Corpse-Demons and Bigu, Frederick R. Dannaway (2009)