CCWV.LIFE Support This Site

Qiu Chuji meets Genghis Khan

1222 · The Hindu Kush (Afghanistan)

Summoned by Genghis Khan, the seventy-four-year-old Qiu Chuji, called Changchun, travelled three years from Shandong across Central Asia to the conqueror's camp in the Hindu Kush. The Khan asked for a medicine of immortality; Qiu answered that there is no such medicine, only a way of guarding life, and counselled him to curb killing and desire. His disciple's record of the journey is a classic of travel writing, and the Khan's grant of tax exemption to Quanzhen clergy made the order rich and saved many lives in the conquest's aftermath.

Tagged: Daoism Quanzhen

The Event

Date
1222 (exact)
Also called
Changchun, the Journey to the West
Era
Song and Jin: Quanzhen; Standard periodization of Daoist history
Location
The Hindu Kush; today Afghanistan
Traditions
Daoism
Streams
Quanzhen
Key figures
Qiu Chuji, Genghis Khan
Key texts
Changchun's Journey to the West

Connections

Illustration for Quanzhen founded History Event Quanzhen founded 12th century follows from

Primary Sources

  • Li Zhichang, Changchun's Journey to the West.

Secondary Sources

  • Kirkland, Russell. Taoism: The Enduring Tradition. Routledge, 2004.
  • Kohn, Livia, ed. Daoism Handbook. Brill, 2000.

Provenance: HIST-0812; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-28.

Related on This Site

The Hanging Temple's halls and walkways cling halfway up a sheer cliff face near Mount Heng, braced on wooden stilts above the gorge. Art Entry The Hanging Temple A monastery of forty halls pinned to a cliff face on Mount Heng, holding altars to Confucius, Laozi, and the Buddha under one roof; the Three Teachings in a single building. A tall Qing-dynasty Water-Land hanging scroll shows ranked Buddhist and Daoist divinities descending in clouds, painted in mineral colors on silk. Art Entry The Shuilu (Water-Land) Paintings Sets of hanging scrolls that assemble the whole cosmos; Buddhas, Daoist gods, ancestors, and the hungry dead; for the Water-Land rite, Chinese religion's most inclusive ceremony of deliverance. The shrine of Confucius in the Dacheng Hall at Qufu: the sage's tablet in its canopied altar beneath plaques honoring him as teacher of ten thousand generations. Art Tradition Daoism and Confucianism Temple imagery, ritual painting, ancestor tablets, and the syncretism of the three teachings. A long horizontal detail of the Eighty-Seven Immortals handscroll, attributed to Wu Daozi: dozens of robed celestial figures in flowing procession, drawn in fine uninked line. Artist Wu Daozi The Tang muralist whose temple walls made crowds gasp; the sage of painting in Chinese tradition, whose work survives in copies and in legend. Illustration for Cultural Revolution suppression History Event Cultural Revolution suppression 1966-1976 Illustration for Post-Mao revival History Event Post-Mao revival 1980s Illustration for Quanzhen founded History Event Quanzhen founded 12th century Illustration for Wang Chongyang History Event Wang Chongyang 1113-1170