Illustrating Dan: A Study on the Iconography of Liu Yiming’s Alchemical Doctrine

Liu Yiming, a Daoist priest of the Quanzhen Longmen sect during the Qing Dynasty, lived during the Qianjia period, a time marked by the overall decline of Daoism. To correct the vulgarization of theories surrounding Neida 內丹 (internal alchemy), he constructed a Neidan system based on the metaphysical foundations of the cosmological theories of the Book of Changes (易經) and the philosophy of Laozi. Liu argued that “the path of alchemy is the path of the Book of Changes,” and he extensively employed graphical tools such as figures of the Book of Changes and alchemical symbols to transform the abstract theories of Neidan into intuitive visual expressions. These images are concentrated in works of his such as Zhouyi chanzhen (周易闡真) (True Explanation of the “Changes”) and Xiangyan poyi (象言破疑) (Resolving Doubts through Images and Words). The study reveals that Liu Yiming’s reliance on imagery constituted a creative strategy to address the rigidity of Neidan theory and the crisis of its transmission. His iconography was not merely an interpretive technique but a crucial theoretical practice that revitalized the orthodoxy and vitality of Neidan during its period of decline.