What is Four Modes of Birth 四生?
Paul Peng
Four Modes of Birth refer to viviparity, oviparity, damp birth, and transformation birth. Taoism holds that all sentient beings in the world go through birth and death in no more than these four forms. Humans and livestock belong to viviparity; fowls such as chickens, ducks, geese, and birds are oviparous; fish and insects in water and soil are of damp birth; and creatures like butterflies fall into transformation birth.
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