Ma Yu (马钰)
Ma Yu 马钰 (1123–1183), style name Danyang Zi — the wealthy host who became Wang Chongyang's first disciple: the man known as 'Half of Ninghai' gave away the fortune, funded the Quanzhen Hermitage that named the school, followed the master west, buried him, and kept a three-year mourning so severe the records still quote it. Quanzhen's second patriarch, and its most expensive convert.
The man and the arc
- The school’s most expensive convert. The records agree on the arithmetic that makes Ma Yu unique in the Quanzhen founding: he was the rich one. 马半州 — “Ma of half the prefecture” — was already a byword for the family fortune when Wang Chongyang walked into Ninghai in 1167, and the Weihai account preserves the sequence: the couple received the stranger with tea, talked, and ended by funding the building — the 全真庵, the Hermitage of Complete Truth, from which the whole school takes its name. The site’s founder page holds the arc from the other side (the grave-house years, the eastward journey); this page holds the receiving end: the school’s first act in Shandong was paid for by the man who then joined it. The site’s dropped-jade story is the book’s own version of the arithmetic — the thing of value is dropped when the pressure comes, and what is kept is the living bond — and Ma Yu is the tradition’s case study: the fortune went to the sons, and the man followed the master.
- The renaming, and the hesitation before it. The Daoist Association’s profile preserves the traditional machinery of the conversion: Ma Yu’s recorded dream-poem (烧得白，炼得黄，便是长生不老方 — burn it white, refine it yellow, that is the ageless recipe), after which Chongyang gave him the name 钰 with the style 丹阳子 — the dream as the traditional account’s seal on the renaming. And the profile is equally specific about the cost: 初为家事所累 (at first burdened by family affairs), unable to decide, he was persuaded — the traditional account’s device is the divided pear (分梨, a pun on 分离, separation) — and only then handed the family wealth to his sons and left with the master. The site’s teacher-line question holds the pattern this makes visible: in the tradition’s own record, even the school’s first convert did not leave easily — the departure is depicted as an extraction, not a flight.
- The three years of mourning. 1170: Wang Chongyang dies in Bianliang, and the four disciples — Ma, Tan, Liu, Qiu — carry the coffin west to Liujiang village near Zhongnan. Ma Yu then keeps the mourning hut for three years, and the records quote the severity in a single breath: 修真功，积真行。服纸麻之服，食秣粮之食。隆冬祁寒，露体跣足，怡然不之顾，唯一志于道 — paper-hemp clothes, fodder-grain food, midwinter bare-bodied and barefoot, undisturbed, intent on the Way alone. The site’s ascetic-wing page holds the school’s parallel severity (the nine years in the cave); this page holds the mourning version — and the pair shows the founding generation’s shared grammar: proof, in Quanzhen’s record, is measured in what the body endures, and the sitting practice pages keep the boundary on that grammar for the modern reader.
- The rule of the second patriarch. After the mourning, Ma Yu returned east and taught between the capital region and Shandong — and the records’ summary of his conduct is a rule, not an anecdote: 安贫慈下，不用人一钱，不接人一物 — content in poverty, kind to the lowly, taking no one’s coin, accepting no one’s thing. The man who had funded the school now refused its money. The site’s Qiu Chuji page holds the court wing of the same school (the Western journey, the emperor’s favor); the records make the contrast explicit in one portrait sentence — 其安心定性则清虚淡泊，其接物导人则慈爱恺悌 (settling the mind with clear emptiness, guiding people with loving courtesy) — by which, the records say, people from near and far flocked to him, and the Yuxian branch (遇仙派, the Encountering-Immortals branch) was founded. The founder gathered seven disciples; the second patriarch set the school’s two wings in motion, and this page registers the one that asked for nothing.
- The dates, registered. The records disagree about the death year: most give 1123–1183, the Wikipedia article gives 1123年6月15日—1185年1月25日. The site registers both without adjudicating, per its dual-registration discipline — and the same discipline covers the small disagreements that trail the record (玄宝/玄玉, 马半州/马半街). A founder’s biography is a record with edges, and the edges are part of the record.
- Why he belongs here. He completes the site’s Quanzhen founding portrait as the material term of the sequence: Wang Chongyang the founder who made the grave-house years the school’s origin myth, Ma Yu the host who made the school’s name out of his own house, Qiu Chuji the court wing, and Wang Chuyi the mountain wing. The site’s craftsman-mystic line gets its northern mirror once more: the southern lineage’s founders came from the trades (the barrel-hooper Chen Nan); the northern school’s first disciple came from the fortune — and both traditions record the same conversion: the thing that was theirs became the thing they gave.
The most prominent woman of the Seven Perfected has her own page: Sun Bu’er (孙不二).
Sources
- The biographical records (the Baidu Baike Quanzhen-seven entry; the Chinese Wikipedia article with exact dates 1123年6月15日—1185年1月25日; the China Daoist Association's profile; the Weihai municipal government's Quanzhen founding story; the Sohu survey; the Kaiwind survey), agreeing on: Ma Yu, 1123–1183 (the Wikipedia dates 1123–1185 registered as the disagreement), original name Congyi 从义, courtesy name Yifu 宜甫; after entering the way renamed Yu 钰, courtesy name Xuanbao 玄宝 (one Daoist Association passage prints 玄玉 — registered), childhood name Shantong 山侗, style name Danyang Zi 丹阳子, known as Ma Danyang; from Ninghai, Shandong (modern Muping); from a great local family, rich enough to be nicknamed 马半州 'Ma of half the prefecture' (the Weihai account writes 马半街 'Ma of half the street' — registered); wife Sun Fuchun (the later Sun Bu'er), three sons Tingzhen, Tingduan, Tinggui; in 1167 Wang Chongyang arrived in Ninghai, the couple received him with tea, funded the building of the 全真庵 Quanzhen Hermitage (the school's name taken from this building), and both became disciples; the Daoist Association's account of the renaming (a dream-poem 烧得白，炼得黄，便是长生不老方, after which Chongyang named him Yu with the style Danyang Zi); the hesitation and its resolution (burdened by family affairs, he was persuaded through the traditional account's device of the divided pear, and handed the family fortune to his sons); in 1170 Wang Chongyang died in Bianliang and Ma, Tan, Liu, Qiu carried the coffin back to Liujiang village near Zhongnan, where Ma kept the mourning hut for three years — the records' quoted severity: 修真功，积真行。服纸麻之服，食秣粮之食。隆冬祁寒，露体跣足，怡然不之顾，唯一志于道 (cultivated true merit, accumulated true conduct; wore paper-hemp clothes, ate fodder-grain; in the deep cold of midwinter, bare-bodied and barefoot, undisturbed, intent on the Way alone); after mourning he returned east and taught between the capital region and Shandong — the records' rule of his conduct: 安贫慈下，不用人一钱，不接人一物 (content in poverty, kind to the lowly, taking no one's coin, accepting no one's thing); the portrait phrase: 其安心定性则清虚淡泊，其接物导人则慈爱恺悌 (settling the mind and nature with clear emptiness, meeting and guiding people with loving courtesy), by which 远近趋风 and the Yuxian (Encountering-Immortals) branch was founded; the second patriarch of Quanzhen after Wang Chongyang; from youth drawn to the Way (the records' childhood reading of riding-clouds verses and a dream of following a Daoist up to heaven), fond of poetry and wine, skilled in acupuncture, generous with the family wealth