Alchemy Furnace

Alchemy Furnace

The Alchemy Furnace is located to the right of Chongxu Temple. It stands 3.54 meters tall, with an octagonal base. The four corner pillars are carved with relief sculptures of clouds and dragons, and the top is shaped like a gourd. Constructed from twenty-four bluestone slabs, the furnace features Taoist yin-yang and eight trigrams patterns, as well as motifs of auspicious cranes and qilin. The furnace body consists of three parts: the base, the main body, and the cauldron. Legend has it that this is the “Zhi Chuan Alchemy Furnace” left by Ge Hong. It was with this very furnace that he produced the Nine-Turn Golden Elixir after refining it for forty-nine days, and upon consuming it, he ascended to immortality. He summarized: “Cinnabar, when burned, turns into —, and through accumulation and transformation, it reverts back to cinnabar,” marking one of the earliest documented records in the history of world chemistry regarding decomposition and compound reactions.

Su Dongpo inscribed the words “Ge Hong’s Alchemy Furnace.” During the Qianlong reign of the Qing Dynasty, Guangdong’s education commissioner Wu Hong added the inscription “Zhi Chuan Alchemy Furnace.” About ten meters to the left of Ge Hong’s Alchemy Furnace, on a large rock, Korean scholar Kim Byung-hoon carved the words “Dan yi qi shou shi” (“The elixir is sought to pray for long life”), pointing to the purpose of alchemy as the pursuit of health and longevity.