Bigu (grain avoidance)

Terminology

The Chinese word bigu compounds bi 辟 "ruler; monarch; avoid; ward off; keep away" and gu 穀 or 谷 "cereal; grain; (穀子) millet". The bi 辟 meaning in bigu is a variant Chinese character for bi 避 "avoid; shun; evade; keep away" (e.g., bixie 辟邪 or避邪 "ward off evil spirits; talisman; amulet"). The alternate pronunciation of pi 辟 "open up; develop; refute; eliminate" is a variant character for 闢. The complex 14-stroke traditional Chinese character gu 穀 "grain" has a 7-stroke simplified Chinese character gu 谷 "valley; gorge." Although a few Chinese dictionaries (e.g., Liang & Chang 1971, Lin 1972) gloss the pronunciation of bigu 辟穀 as pigu, the definitive Hanyu Da Cidian (1997) gives bigu.

English lexicographic translations of bigu are compared in this table.

Catherine Despeux (2008:233) lists synonyms for bigu "abstention from cereals": duangu 斷穀 "stopping cereals" (with duan 斷 "cut off; sever; break; give up"), juegu 絕穀 "discontinuing cereals" (jue 絕 "cut off; sever; refuse; reject"), quegu 卻穀 "refraining from cereals" (que 卻 "retreat; decline; reject; refuse"), and xiuliang 修糧 "stopping grains" (with xiu 修 "repair; trim; prune' cultivate" and liang 糧 "grain; food").

Juegu, unlike these other alternative expressions, had meanings besides Daoist dietary practices. For instance, the (c. 139 BCE) Huainanzi uses juegu in a traditional saying (tr. Major et al. 2010:775): "Now, rejecting study because those who study have faults is like taking one instance of choking to refuse grain and not eat or taking one problem with stumbling to stop walking and not go [anywhere]." About one century later, Liu Xiang's Shuoyuan 說苑 "Garden of Stories" rephrases this simile about choking once and discontinuing grains.

Agricultural mythology

Chinese folklore and mythology associated several divinities with agriculture and grains.

In ancient times, the people fed on herbaceous plants and drank [only] water, picked fruit from shrubs and trees and ate the meat of oysters and clams. They frequently suffered tribulations from feverish maladies and injurious poisons. Consequently, the Divine Farmer first taught the people to plant and cultivate the five grains. He evaluated the suitability of the land, [noting] whether it was dry or wet, fertile or barren, high or low. He tried the taste and flavor of the one hundred plants and the sweetness or bitterness of the streams and springs, issuing directives so the people would know what to avoid and what to accept. At the time [he was doing this], he suffered poisoning [as many as] seventy times a day. (19, tr. Major et al. 2010:766-767)

While traditional Chinese mythology depicted cooking and agriculture as key elements of civilization, the Daoists created a "counter-narrative" (Campany 2005:16) to justify the idea of grain avoidance. For example, the Confucianist Xunzi and Legalist Hanfeizi describe Suiren as cultural folk hero.

In the earliest times ... the people lived on fruit, berries, mussels, and clams – things that sometimes became so rank and fetid that they hurt people's stomachs, and many became sick. Then a sage appeared who created the boring of wood to produce fire so as to transform the rank and putrid foods. The people were so delighted by this that they made him ruler of the world and called him the Fire-Drill Man (Suiren 燧人). (Hanfeizi 49, tr. Campany 2005:15)

In contrast, the Zhuangzi "Mending Nature" chapter mentions Suiren first in a list of mythic sage-rulers – Fu Xi, Shennong, Yellow Emperor, Tang of Shang, and Yu the Great, traditionally credited with advancing civilization – but depicts them as villains who began the destruction of the primal harmony of the Dao. Campany (2005:16) calls this "the decline of Power and the ever-farther departure from the natural Dao into systems of social constraint and what passes for culture."

The ancients, in the midst of chaos, were tranquil together with the whole world. At that time, yin and yang were harmoniously still, ghosts and spirits caused no disturbances; the four seasons came in good time; the myriad things went unharmed; the host of living creatures escaped premature death. … This condition persisted until integrity deteriorated to the point that Torchman [Suiren] and Fuhsi arose to manage all under heaven, whereupon there was accord, but no longer unity. Integrity further declined until the Divine Farmer and the Yellow Emperor arose to manage all under heaven, whereupon there was repose, but no longer accord. Integrity declined still further until T'ang and Yu arose to manage all under heaven. They initiated the fashion of governing by transformation, whereby purity was diluted and simplicity dissipated. (tr. Mair 1994:149)

Grains in Chinese agriculture and culture

The traditional Chinese symbol for civilization and state was gu "grains; cereals" (a synecdoche for "agricultural products").

The Wangzhi "Royal Regulations" chapter of the Liji uses cooking food and eating grains to culturally classify the Chinese "Middle Kingdom" bordered by the "Four Barbarians" (eastern Yi, southern Man, western Rong, and northern Di).

Thus the people of the five regions … each had their several natures, which they could not be made to alter. Those of the east were called Yi; they wore their hair unbound and tattooed their bodies, and some of them ate their food without cooking it. [The people of] the south were called Man; they tattooed their foreheads and had their feet turned in toward each other, and some among them ate their food without cooking it. [The people of] the west were called Rong; they wore their hair unbound and wore skins, and some of them did not eat grain. [The people of] the north were called Di; they wore feathers and furs and lived in caves, and some of them did not eat grain. (tr. Campany 2005:7-8)

Kwang-chih Chang (1977:42) interprets this Liji context to mean, "One could eat grain but also eat raw meat or one could eat his meat cooked but eat no grain. Neither was fully Chinese. A Chinese by definition ate grain and cooked his meat."

During the first dynasties of the Qin and Han, when Daoism simultaneously became a mass movement, Chinese agricultural techniques were revolutionized. Applying methods from the (256 BCE) Dujiangyan Irrigation System, arable land was converted into rice fields, with two or more harvests annually, resulting in widespread deforestation.

The nong 農 "peasant; farmer" was second-highest of the Four Occupations under the traditional Chinese feudal system. Kristofer Schipper says,

The peasants depended entirely on agriculture and were forever tied to their land through all kinds of fiscal and administrative measures. As a result, the rural communities became an easy prey to all the ills of sedentary civilization: ever-higher taxes, enslavement to the government through corvée labor and military draft, epidemics, periodic shortages and famines, and wars and raids by non-Chinese tribes from across the borders. (Schipper 1993:168)

When natural or human catastrophes occurred, the peasants could take refuge in non-arable regions of mountains and survive on wild foods other than grains.

The sheji 社稷 "altars to soil and grain gods" were the ritual center of a Chinese state. Originally, she 社 was the "god of the land" and ji 稷 the "god of the harvest" (cf. Houji above), and the compound sheji "gods of soil and grain" metaphorically means "the state; the nation". The Shiji (Campany 2005:21) says establishing a new dynasty required eliminating the sheji altars of the preceding dynasty and erecting one's own.

Offerings of grain, liquor (a grain product), and meat were necessary not only for sheji sacrifices but for ancestral sacrifices. The obligation to feed the ancestral dead was fundamental to Chinese society. Campany summarizes the cultural importance of sacrificing "grains" to feed both natural and ancestral spirits.

Grain was, in short, a symbol and summation of culture itself, or rather of nature acculturated, as well as of the completely human community. A natural locus of nutritive "essence" (jing), grain nevertheless required cooperative, communal and differentiated stages of production—planting, tending, harvesting, storing, thrashing, milling, mixing, and cooking—to be transformed into food. Thus transformed, it was perhaps the most culturally celebrated food of humans (both living and dead) and of gods. (2005:24)

The Chinese character for jing 精 "spirit; essence of life; energy" is written with the rice radical 米.

Daoist rejection of grain

The avoidance of "grain" signifies the Daoist rejection of common social practices. According to Kohn (1993:149), "It is a return to a time in the dawn of humanity when there were as yet no grains; it is also a return to a more primitive and simple way of eating."

Daoist bigu practices created excuses to quit the agricultural-based Chinese society in which grains were necessary for basic food, ancestral sacrifices, and tax payments.

The "cutting off" of grains, which were the basic staple food for the peasants, was also a rejection of their sedentary life and the peasant condition as such. This refusal should not solely be interpreted in the light of the miseries endured by farmers, but also in a much more fundamental way. Agriculture has occasioned, since Neolithic times, a radical break with the way of life that prevailed for almost the entire prehistory of humankind. Agriculture has also been the main culprit of the imbalances of human civilization over the last ten thousand years or so: the systematic destruction of the natural environment, overpopulation, capitalization, and other evils that result from sedentariness. (Schipper 1993:170)

Grain abstention was prerequisite for the Daoist practice of yangxing 養性 "nourishing the inner nature". Maspero explains.

Nourishing the Vital Principle consists in suppressing the causes of death and creating in oneself the immortal body which will replace the mortal body. The causes of death are especially the Breath of Grains and the Breath of Bloody Food: hence the alimentary regimens which are designated by the generic name Abstinence from Grains. One must succeed in replacing vulgar food with the Food of the Breath, like an aerophagia which consists of breathing air in, holding it in as long as possible without allowing it to escape and, while it is held in, making it pass, in identical mouthfuls with great gulps of water, from the trachea into the esophagus, so that it can be sent on into the stomach like real food. The body is made of Breaths, like all things; but it is made of coarse breaths, whereas air is a light, subtle and pure Breath. Vulgar food, after digestion, supplies the body with the Breaths of the Five Flavors, common and impure Breaths which make it heavy. By contrast, Food of the Breath little by little replaces the coarse matter of the body with light, pure Breaths; and when the transformation is completed, the body is immortal. (1981:255)

Some versions of "grain avoidance" could result in health problems, as discussed by Maspero.

This very severe diet was not without its painful moments. Without grains and meat, whoever practices it is undernourished; and the Taoist authors admit that at the beginning one may have numerous troubles, some of them general (vertigo, weakness, sleepiness, difficulties in moving), others local (diarrhea, constipation, and so on). Nevertheless, they advise persevering, insisting that these disappear after several weeks and that the body soon feels as before, and even better: more calm and more at ease. They also advise practicing it only gradually, and they recommend a number of drugs for the period of transition and adaptation which, according to them, lasts thirty to forty days. The recipes for drugs to help in the practice of Abstention from Cereals are numerous: ginseng, cinnamon, pachyma cocos [i.e., Fu Ling], sesame, digitalis, licorice, and all the traditional Chinese tonics play a preponderant role in them. (1981:335)

Chinese Buddhism adopted Daoist grain abstention as a preparation for self-immolation. For instance (Benn 2007:36-7), the monk Huiyi 慧益 (d. 463), who vowed to burn his body in sacrifice to the Buddha, began preparations by queli "abstaining from grains" (eating only sesame and wheat) for two years, then consumed only oil of thyme, and finally ate only pills made of incense. Although Emperor Xiaowu of Liu Song (r. 453–464) tried to dissuade Huiyi, he publicly immolated himself in a cauldron full of oil, wearing an oil-soaked cap to act as a wick, while chanting the Lotus Sutra.

The Three Corpses or Worms

Avoiding grains was the primary medical cure for eliminating the sanshi 三尸 "Three Corpses" or sanchong 三蟲 "Three Worms", which are evil spirits believed to live in the human body and hasten death. Livia Kohn (1993:148) describes the Three Corpses as "demonic supernatural creatures who feed on decay and are eager for the body to die altogether so they can devour it. Not only do they thus shorten the lifespan but they also delight in the decaying matter produced by the grains as they are digested in the intestines. If one is to attain long life, the three worms have to be starved, and the only way to do so is to avoid all grain."

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

The Three Corpses allegedly enter the human body at birth, and reside in the Upper, Middle, and Lower Dantian "Cinnabar Fields" within the brain, heart, and abdomen, respectively. After their host dies, they become ghosts and are free to roam about stealing sacrificial offerings. These pernicious corpse-worms seek to harm both their host's body and fate. First, they weaken the bodily Dantian energy centers. Second, the Three Corpses keep records or their host's misdeeds, ascend to tian "heaven" bimonthly on the Chinese sexagenary cycle day gengshen 庚申 "57th of the 60", and file reports to the Siming 司命 "Director of Destinies" who assigns punishments to shorten the host's lifespan. Forgenghsen days, the (4th century) Huangtingjing 黃庭經 "Yellow Court Scripture" (tr. Schipper 1978:372) says, "Do not sleep either day or night, and you shall become immortal."

In addition to the Three Corpses making a bimonthly report to the Director of Fate, the Baopuzi records the Hearth God making one.

It is also said that there are Three Corpses in our bodies, which, though not corporeal, actually are of a type with our inner, ethereal breaths, the powers, the ghosts, and the gods. 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 a whole period of three hundred days is deducted. For the minor ones they deduct one reckoning, 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)

Bigu abstinence from grains and cereals, which allegedly makes the Three Corpses waste away, is the basis for many Daoist dietetic regimens, which can also exclude wine, meat, onion, and garlic. The Jinjian yuzi jing 金簡玉字經 "Classic of Jade Characters on Slips of Gold" (tr. Maspero 1981:334) specifies, "Those who, in their food, cut off cereals must not take wine, nor meat, nor plants of the five strong flavors; they must bathe, wash their garments, and burn incense." Practicing bigu alone cannot eliminate the Three Corpses, but will weaken them to the point where they can be killed with alchemical drugs, particularly cinnabar (Schipper 1993:167).

Early Daoist texts and traditions portray the Three Corpses in both "zoomorphic and bureaucratic metaphors" (Campany 2005:43). 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 them living in the Three Cinnabar Fields.

Compare the (9th century) Chu sanshi jiuchong baosheng jing "Scripture on Expelling the Three Corpses and Nine Worms to Protect Life" description.

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).

The Japanese folk tradition of Kōshin (namely, the Japanese pronunciation of gengshen 庚申 "57th") 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.

Famine foods

Famine food plants, which are not normally considered as crops, are consumed during times of extreme poverty, starvation, or famine. Bigu diets were linked with mountain wilderness areas in which one relied upon non-grain foods, including famine foodstuffs and underutilized crops. Despeux (2008:234) said, "Abstention from cereals should also be situated in the historical context of social unrest and famine."

The Mouzi Lihuolun introduction describes people who fled China after the death of Emperor Ling of Han and moved south to Cangwu in Jiaozhou (present day Tonkin).

It happened that, after the death of Emperor Ling (189 C.E.), the world was in disorder. Since only Chiao-chou [a colonial district in the far south] remained relatively peaceful, otherworldly people from the north came en masse and settled there. Many of them practiced the methods of the spirit immortals, abstaining from grains to prolong life. These methods were popular then, but Mou-tzu unceasingly refuted them by employing the Five Classics, and none among the Taoist adepts or the Magicians dared engage him in debate. (1, tr. Keenan 1994:52)

These refutations of grain avoidance are found in Mouzi Lihuolun Article 30 (Keenan 1994:151-153).

The Baopuzi discussion of grain abstention notes,

Should you take to the mountains and forests during political troubles, you will avoid dying of starvation by observing the rule about starches. Otherwise, do not rush into this practice, for rushing cannot be very beneficial. If you dispense with meat while living among others, you will find it impossible not to desire it deep in your heart when you smell its fat or freshness. (15, tr. Ware 1966:244)

The Chinese published the oldest book on famine foods: the Jiuhuang Bencao 救荒本草 "Materia Medica for the Relief of Famine". Zhu Su 朱橚 (1361–1425), the fifth son of the Hongwu Emperor, compiled this treatise describing 414 famine food plants. Bernard Read (1946) translated the Jiuhuang bencao into English.

Modern interpretations

The ancient Daoist practice of bigu grain avoidance resonates in present-day trends such as low-carbohydrate diets, gluten-free diets, cyclic ketogenic diets.

Schipper uses medical terminology to explain grain avoidance.

One can advance positive explanations for this belief, and the practice that derives from it, if one thinks, for example, of the relative abundance of feces produced by cereals as compared to that produced by a diet of meat. The conclusion of recent studies on the harmful effect of excessive amounts of carbohydrates in the form of sugar and bread, have led some to see the Taoist abstinence from cereals as the result of an ancient empiricism in matters of diet. (Schipper 1993:167)

Some contemporary researchers (such as Yan et al. 2002) are clinically investigating bigu fasting.