Lü Dongbin
Chinese Taoist scholar and poet during the Tang Dynasty
Lü Dongbin was a Daoist scholar and poet who lived during the Tang dynasty in China, and whose lifetime supposedly spanned two hundred and twenty years. Elevated to the status of an immortal in the Chinese cultural sphere by Daoists, he is one of the most widely known of the group of deities known as the Eight Immortals. Lü is also a historical figure and mentioned in the official history book History of Song. He is widely considered to be one of the earliest masters of neidan, or internal alchemy. He is also depicted in art dressed as a scholar carrying a sword to dispel evil spirits.
Character
Lü Dongbin is usually portrayed as a scholarly, clever man with a genuine desire to help people obtain wisdom/enlightenment and to learn the Tao. However, he is often portrayed as having some character "flaws," not an uncommon theme for the colorful Taoist immortals, all of whom in general have various eccentricities:
He is portrayed as having bouts of drunkenness, which was not uncommon among the often fun-loving Eight Immortals. This also parallels several Taoist artists renowned for their love of drinking.
One story relates that early on after becoming immortal, he had a strong temper as a "young" immortal, even deforming a riverbank in a bout of anger.
He is said to be a ladies man, even after (or only after) becoming an immortal – and for this reason he is generally not invoked by people with romantic problems.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Lü Dongbin” as chinese Taoist scholar and poet during the Tang Dynasty. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as chinese Taoist scholar and poet during the Tang Dynasty. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q698314. VIAF identifies the subject as 262696880. The Library of Congress control number is n82070161. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lü Dongbin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.