Hemp Goddess?
Ma Gu can be literally translated "Hemp Goddess/Priestess". The Way of Infinite Harmony is a modern Taoist sect that worships Ma Gu and espouses the spiritual use of cannabis.
Hellmut Wilhelm's book review (1944:213) of Eberhard's original German book (1943) suggested that Ma Gu was associated with cannabis. Eberhard dismissed this hypothesis in the English version.
I have no indication that the goddess ever was a goddess of the hemp plant (ma) as H. Wilhelm surmised (Monumenta Serica vol. 9, p. 213 note 9). She often wears aboriginal attire, a dress with a collar made of leaves, but not of hemp, which only sometimes has developed, according to a late fashion into a cape of cloth. (1968:125)
Campany mentions the Chinese use of ma "hemp" fibers as a weaving material.
(Note also her shimmering, multicolored gown, "not of this world"; but we are told that it was not woven, at least not in an ordinary way.) I know of no attempt to explain the name Ma gu (literally, "the Hemp Maiden"). (2002:267, fn. 487)
The historian and sinologist Joseph Needham connected myths about Ma Gu "the Hemp Damsel" with early Daoist religious usages of cannabis. Cannabis sativa is described by the oldest Chinese pharmacopeia, the (ca. 100 CE) Shennong Bencaojing 神農本草經 ("Shennong's Materia Medica Classic").
The flowers when they burst (when the pollen is scattered) are called 麻蕡 or 麻勃 . The best time for gathering is the 7th day of the 7th month. The seeds are gathered in the 9th month. The seeds which have entered the soil are injurious to man. It grows on Mount Tai. (tr. Bretschenider 1895:378)
Needham (1974:152) pointed out that Ma Gu was goddess of Shandong's sacred Mount Tai, where cannabis "was supposed to be gathered on the seventh day of the seventh month, a day of seance banquets in the Taoist communities." The (ca. 570 CE) Daoist encyclopedia Wushang Biyao 無上秘要 ("Supreme Secret Essentials", Needham 1974:150) records that cannabis was added into ritual censers.
The Shangqing School of Daoism provides a good example. Yang Xi 楊羲 (330-386 CE) was "aided almost certainly by cannabis" (Needham 1974:151) in writing the Shangqing scriptures during nightly visitations by Daoist "immortals". Tao Hongjing 陶弘景 (456-536 CE), who edited the official Shangqing canon, also recorded (Mingyi bielu 名醫別錄 "Supplementary Records of Famous Physicians", tr. Needham 1974:151), "Hemp-seeds ( 麻勃) are very little used in medicine, but the magician-technicians ( 術家) say that if one consumes them with ginseng it will give one preternatural knowledge of events in the future."
Needham concluded,
Thus all in all there is much reason for thinking that the ancient Taoists experimented systematically with hallucinogenic smokes, using techniques which arose directly out of liturgical observance. … At all events the incense-burner remained the centre of changes and transformations associated with worship, sacrifice, ascending perfume of sweet savour, fire, combustion, disintegration, transformation, vision, communication with spiritual beings, and assurances of immortality. Wai tan and nei tan met around the incense-burner. Might one not indeed think of it as their point of origin? (1974:154)
Waidan "outer alchemy" and neidan "inner alchemy" are the divisions of Chinese alchemy.
The cultural and linguistic origins of Ma Gu remain open questions.
Read more about this topic: Ma Gu