Abrahamic religions

Buddhism

• Vipassī, the twenty-second of twenty-eight Buddhas, lived for either 80,000^[28] or 100,000 years.^[29] In Vipassī's time, the longevity of humans was 84,000 years.
• Taṇhaṅkara, the first Buddha, lived for 100,000 years.

Falun Gong

Chapter 2 of Falun Gong by Li Hongzhi (2001) states,

A person in Japan named Mitsu Taira lived to be 242 years old. During the Tang dynasty in our country, there was a monk called Hui Zhao [慧昭, 526–815^{[citation needed]}] who lived to be 290 [288–289] years old. According to the county annals of Yong Tai in Fujian Province, Chen Jun [陈俊] was born in the first year of Zhong He time (881 AD) under the reign of Emperor Xi Zong during the Tang Dynasty. He died in the Tai Ding time of the Yuan Dynasty (1324 AD), after living for 443 years.^[30]

Hinduism

• The Hindu god Rama is said to have ruled his kingdom Ayodhya for 11,000 years by the time he died according to the Ramayana.^[31]
• Rama's father Dasharatha lived for more than 60,000 years according to the Ramayana.^[32]
• Bhagiratha did tapas for 1000 deva or god years (360,000 years in Human years) to please Ganga, to gain the release of his 60,000 great-uncles from the curse of saint Kapila. So, Bhagiratha lived for more than 360,000 years.^[33]
• The Hindu god Krishna is said to have lived for 125 years and 8 months from 3228 BCE to 3102 BCE. According to Hindu scriptures, the age of Kali Yuga began after he ascended to his abode Vaikuntha.^{[34][better source needed]}
• Ashwatthama, a hero of the Mahabharatha, is said to be over 6,000 years old and still alive.^{[citation needed]}
• Devraha Baba (died June 19, 1990) claimed to have lived for more than 900 years.^[35]
• Trailanga Swami reportedly lived in Kashi since 1737;^[36] the journal Prabuddha Bharata puts his birth c. 1607 CE, corresponding to year 1529 of the Shaka era (age 279–280),^{[37][38][need quotation to verify]} upon his death in 1887.^[37][36]
• The sadhaka Lokenath Brahmachari reportedly lived 1730–1890 (age 159–160).^[36]
• Shivapuri Baba, also known as Swami Govindanath Bharati, was a Hindu saint who purportedly lived from 1826 to 1963, making him allegedly 136–137 years old at the time of his death. He had 18 audiences with Queen Victoria.^[39][40]

Jainism

Extreme lifespans are ascribed to the Tirthankaras, for instance:

• Neminatha was said to have lived for over 10,000 years before his ascension.
• Naminatha was said to have lived for over 20,000 years before his ascension.
• Munisuvrata was said to have lived for over 30,000 years before his ascension.
• Māllīnātha was said to have lived for over 56,000 years before his ascension.
• Aranatha was said to have lived for over 84,000 years before his ascension.
• Kunthunatha was said to have lived for over 200,000 years before his ascension.
• Shantinatha was said to have lived for over 800,000 years before his ascension.
• Dharmanatha was said to have lived for over 2,500,000 years before his ascension.
• Anantanatha was said to have lived for over 3,500,000 years before his ascension.
• Vimalanatha was said to have lived for over 6,000,000 years before his ascension.
• Vasupujya was said to have lived for over 7,200,000 years before his ascension.
• Shreyansanatha was said to have lived for over 8,400,000 years before his ascension.^[41]

Sikhism

• Baba Sri Chand, the founder of Udasi sect, was said to live 134 years.^[42][43][44]
• Baba Biram Das, an udasi saint, is said to have lived for 321 years.^[45][46][47]

Taoism

The term xian refers to deified persons who have achieved immortality. The Old Man of the South Pole is a common archetype and symbol for longevity.

Theosophy/New Age

• Mahavatar Babaji is said to be an "Unascended Master" purportedly many centuries old (said to have been born as early as 203 AD) and is claimed to live in the Himalayas. The Hindu guru Paramhansa Yogananda claimed to have met him and was supposedly one of his disciples.^[48][49]

China

• Fu Xi (伏羲) was supposed to have lived for 197 years.^[50]
• Lucian wrote about the "Seres" (a Chinese people), claiming they lived for over 300 years.
• Zuo Ci who lived during the Three Kingdoms Period was said to have lived for 300 years.
• In Chinese legend, Peng Zu was believed to have lived for over 800 years^[51] during the Yin Dynasty (殷朝, 16th to 11th centuries BC).^[52]

Egypt

The Egyptian historian Manetho, drawing upon earlier sources, begins his Egyptian king list with the Graeco-Egyptian god Hephaestus (Ptah) who "was king for 9,000 years".^[54]

Greece

A book Macrobii ("Long-Livers") is a work devoted to longevity. It was attributed to the ancient Greek author Lucian, although it is now accepted that he could not have written it.^[55] Most examples given in it are lifespans of 80 to 100 years, but some are much longer:

• Tiresias, the blind seer of Thebes, over 600 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Nestor, over 300 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Members of the "Seres" (a Chinese people), over 300 years.^{[citation needed]}

According to one tradition, Epimenides of Crete (7th, 6th centuries BC) lived nearly 300 years.^[56]

Japan

Some early emperors of Japan are said to have ruled for more than a century, according to the tradition documented in the Kojiki, viz., Emperor Jimmu and Emperor Kōan.

• Emperor Jimmu (traditionally, 13 February 711 BC – 11 March 585 BC) lived 126 years according to the Kojiki. These dates correspond to 125 years, 339 days, on the proleptic Julian and Gregorian calendars. However, the form of his posthumous name suggests that it was invented in the reign of Kanmu (781–806 AD),^[57] or possibly during the time in which legends about the origins of the Yamato dynasty were compiled into the Kojiki.
• Emperor Kōan, according to Nihon Shoki, lived 137 years^[58] (from 427 BC^[59] to 291 BC).

Korea

• Dangun, the first ruler of Korea, is said to have been born in 2333 BCE and to have died in 425 BCE at the age of 1,908 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Taejo of Goguryeo (46/47 – 165) is claimed to have reigned in Korea for 93 years beginning at age 7. After his retirement, the Samguk Sagi and Samguk Yusa give his age at death as 117–118,^[60] while the Book of the Later Han states he died in 121 at age 73–74.

Persian empire

The reigns of several shahs in the Shahnameh, an epic poem by Ferdowsi, are given as longer than a century:

• Zahhak, 1,000 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Jamshid, 700 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Fereydun, 500 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Askani, 200 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Kay Kāvus, 150 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Manuchehr, 120 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Lohrasp, 120 years.^{[citation needed]}
• Goshtasp, 120 years.^{[citation needed]}

Ancient Rome

In Roman times, Pliny wrote about longevity records from the census carried out in 74 AD under Vespasian. In one region of Italy many people allegedly lived past 100; four were said to be 130, others up to 140.^{[citation needed]}

Sumer

Age claims for the earliest eight Sumerian kings in the major recension of the Sumerian King List were in units and fractions of shar (3,600 years) and totaled 67 shar or 241,200 years.^[61]

In the only ten-king tablet recension of this list three kings (Alalngar, [...], kidunnu, and En-men-dur-ana) are recorded as having reigned 72,000 years together.^[16][62] The major recension assigns 43,200 years to the reign of En-men-lu-ana, and 36,000 years each to those of Alalngar and Dumuzid.^[61]

Vietnam

• Kinh Dương Vương, the first King of Vietnam, is said to be born in 2919 BC and died in 2792 BC (aged about 127 years).^[63]
• Lạc Long Quân reigned from 2793 BC to 2524 BC (about 269 years).^[64]

Isolated

Some of this section's listed sources may not be reliable. (March 2023)

Documented

The following cases have been documented in detail over time.

Other

• The Assamese polymath Sankardev (1449–1568) allegedly lived to the age of 118.^{[lower-alpha 9]}
• Albrecht von Haller allegedly collected examples of 62 people ages 110–120, 29 ages 120–130, and 15 ages 130–140.^[212]
• A 1973 National Geographic article on longevity reported, as a very aged people, the Burusho–Hunza people in the Hunza Valley of the mountains of Pakistan.^[177]
• Swedish death registers contain detailed information on thousands of centenarians going back to 1749; the maximum age at death reported between 1751 and 1800 was 147.^[213]
• Cases of extreme longevity in the United Kingdom were listed by James Easton in 1799, who covered 1,712 cases documented between 66 BC and 1799, the year of publication;^[214] Charles Hulbert also edited a book containing a list of cases in 1825.
• A periodical The Aesculapian Register, written by physicians and published in Philadelphia in 1824, listed a number of cases, including several purported to have lived over 130. The authors said the list was taken from the Dublin Magazine.^[215]
• Deaths officially reported in the Russian Empire in 1815 listed 1,068 centenarians, including 246 supercentenarians (50 at age 120–155 and one even older).^[72] Time magazine considered that, by the Soviet Union, longevity had elevated to a state-supported "Methuselah cult".^[216] The USSR insisted on its citizens' unrivaled longevity by claiming 592 people (224 male, 368 female) over age 120 in a 15 January 1959 census^[217] and 100 citizens of the Russian SSR alone aged 120 to 156 in March 1960.^[218] According to the opinion of Time magazine, in Georgia such claims were fostered by Georgian-born Joseph Stalin's apparent hope that such longevity might rub off on him.^[216] Zhores A. Medvedev, who demonstrated that all 500-plus claims failed birth-record validation and other tests,^[216] said that Stalin "liked the idea that [other] Georgians lived to be 100".^[218]
• An early 1812 Peterburgskaya Gazeta reports a man between ages 200 and 225 in the diocese of Yekaterinoslav (now Dnipro, Ukraine).^[72]
• An anonymous lady lived for 116 years in Dhaka, Bangladesh until her death in 2018.

Poland

• Piast Kołodziej, King of Poland, died in 861 at the alleged age of 120 (740 AD/861 AD).^[78]

Wales

• Welsh bard Llywarch Hen (Heroic Elegies) died c. 500 in the parish of Llanvor, traditionally about age 150.^[72]

England

• Edgar Ætheling, English prince who was briefly King of England after the death of Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings in late 1066. Edgar is said to have died shortly after 1126, when William of Malmesbury wrote that he "now grows old in the country in privacy and quiet".^[219] However, two pipe rolls exist from the years 1158 and 1167 which list Edgar. The historian Edward Augustus Freeman stated that this referred either to Edgar (aged at least 115), to a son of his, or to another person who bore the title Ætheling.^[220]

Diets

According to a 2021 review, there is no clinical evidence that any dietary practice contributes to longevity.^[221]

Alchemy

Traditions that have been believed to confer greater human longevity include alchemy.

• Nicolas Flamel (early 1330s – c. 1418) was a 14th-century scrivener who developed a reputation as alchemist and creator of an "elixir of life" that conferred immortality upon himself and his wife Perenelle. His arcanely inscribed tombstone is preserved at the Musée de Cluny in Paris.
• Fridericus (Ludovicus) Gualdus (Federico Gualdi [it]), author of "Revelation of the True Chemical Wisdom", lived in Venice in the 1680s. His age was reported in a letter in a contemporary Dutch newspaper to be over 400. By some accounts, when asked about a portrait he carried, he said it was of himself, painted by Titian (who died in 1576), but gave no explanation and left Venice the following morning.^[222][223] By another account, Gualdus left Venice due to religious accusations and died in 1724.^[224] The "Compass der Weisen" alludes to him as still alive in 1782 and nearly 600 years old.^[222]

Fountain of Youth