Maming Sheng (馬鳴生, "Master Horse-neigh", fl. c. 100 CE) was a legendary Han dynasty Daoist alchemist and xian ("transcendent; immortal"). He was a disciple of the transcendent and fangshi ("master of methods") Anqi Sheng, who transmitted a secret waidan external alchemical scripture to him. Maming refined this elixir of immortality, but rather than take a full dose and immediately ascend to heaven, he only took half and lived for over 500 years as a secret dìxiān (地仙, "earthbound transcendent"). Master Horse-neigh was a key figure in the Daoist Taiqing (太清, Grand Purity) alchemical tradition. Furthermore, in Chinese Buddhism, Maming (馬鳴, "Horse-neigh") translates the name of the 2nd-century CE Indian Buddhist monk and polymath Aśvaghoṣa (from Sanskrit áśva अश्व, "horse" and ghoṣa घोष, "cry; sound"), so-called because when teaching the Dharma his words were intelligible even to animals.
Names
The Chinese appellation Maming Sheng ("Master Horse-neigh") combines the courtesy title shēng (生, "master; sir") with mǎmíng (馬鳴, lit. "horse cry/sound": "neigh; whinny; nicker; whicker"). Some later texts write Maming Sheng as (馬明生, "Master Horse-bright") with the variant Chinese character míng (明, "bright; clear") instead of míng (鳴, "cry; sound"). Since Ma (馬) is a common Chinese surname, a few scholars (e.g., Young 2013) parse this name (馬鳴生) as "Ma Mingsheng" instead of "Maming Sheng"). The following Shenxianzhuan hagiography of Maming Sheng says his surname was He (和) and original name was Junxian (君賢).
Hagiographies
Maming Sheng is known primarily from two hagiographies in the Shenxian zhuan ("Biographies of Divine Transcendents"), which is traditionally attributed to the Daoist scholar Ge Hong (283-343), one is for Maming Sheng himself and the other hagiography is for his disciple Yin Changsheng (陰長生, Long-Life Yin, see below) (Penny 2008: 732). The Shenxian zhuan scholar and translator Robert Ford Campany identified the earliest dates by which various parts of the text are attested, and concluded that the Yin Changsheng material is reliably attributed by the year 500 and the Maming Sheng material by 650 (2002: 127).
The Shenxianzhuan hagiography of Maming Sheng says his original name was He Junxian (和君賢) and he came from Linzi (modern-day Linzi District, Shandong). Master Horseneigh was a native of Linzi. His original surname was He 和, and his given name was Junxian 君賢. When he was young, he served as a district-level lictor, rounding up bandits, and he was once injured by a bandit and temporarily died. But he suddenly encountered a divine person on the road, and this Person gave him medicines and saved him, bringing him back to life. Master Horseneigh had nothing with which to repay this divine person, so he quit his office and followed him. So it was that he took Master An Qi as his teacher, following him all over the world and enduring all manner of hardships for many years so as to prepare himself to receive scriptures. At first he merely wanted methods for making gold; only later did he realize that there was a Way of long life. He followed An Qi for a long time, carrying his writings for him. To the west they reached Nuji Mountain; to the north, Xuandu; to the south, Lujiang. An Qi finally bestowed on him two alchemical scriptures, the Grand Purity and the Gold Liquor. He entered mountains and refined the medicine. When it was completed, he took only half the dose, as he took no delight in ascending to Heaven but preferred to become an earthbound transcendent. He traveled about through the nine provinces for over five hundred years, no one realizing that he was a transcendent, as he built himself a house and raised animals just like ordinary people, moving every three years or so. People did wonder at his nonaging, however. Then [one day] he ascended to Heaven in broad daylight. (tr. Campany 2002: 325) Campany translates this textual name Taiqing jinye danjing (太清金液丹經) as two Taiqing texts Scripture on [the Elixir of] Grand Purity and the Scripture on the [Divine] Elixir of Gold Liquor, but also notes it is translatable as one Taiqing Scripture on Gold Liquor (2002: 325). Instead of Maming living for over five centuries, some texts say one century (Campany 2002: 507). Another source gives the revealed text's name as the Taiyang shendan jing (太陽神丹經, Scripture of the Divine Elixirs of Great Yang) (Penny 2008: 733).