Zúbì Shíyī Mài Jiǔjīng 足臂十一脈灸經
Moxibustion Canon of the Eleven Foot-and-Arm Vessels
Anonymous (Mawangdui tomb 3 manuscript corpus, sealed 168 BCE)
About the work
The Zúbì Shíyī Mài Jiǔjīng 足臂十一脈灸經 (“Moxibustion Canon of the Eleven Foot-and-Arm Vessels”) is one of two vessel-theory texts recovered from the medical cache of Mawangdui 馬王堆 tomb 3, sealed 168 BCE at Changsha 長沙, Hunan. Written on silk, the text describes eleven body vessels — six foot vessels (足脈) and five arm vessels (臂脈) — tracing the pathway of each vessel and listing the diseases for which moxibustion (灸, written 久 in the manuscript) along the full vessel course is indicated. A closing section lists combinations of signs that portend death. The manuscript is divided into two sequential sections (釋文-足 and 釋文-臂) corresponding to the foot and arm vessel groups. Together with the companion text Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔjīng 陰陽十一脈灸經, it constitutes the earliest surviving systematic account of vessel theory in Chinese medicine.
Abstract
The Zúbì Shíyī Mài Jiǔjīng was excavated in 1973 from Mawangdui tomb 3 near Changsha, Hunan, the tomb of Li Cang’s 利蒼 heir, interred in 168 BCE. The manuscripts were published by the Mawangdui Silk Manuscripts Collation Group (馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組) in 1985 and received their canonical scholarly edition in Qiu Xigui 裘錫圭 et al. (eds.), 《長沙馬王堆漢墓簡帛集成》, 7 vols. (中華書局, 2014).
The text names the six foot vessels with archaic terminology: 足泰陽 (Greater Yang foot), 足少陽 (Lesser Yang foot), 足陽明 (Yang Brightness foot), 足少陰 (Lesser Yin foot), 足泰陰 (Greater Yin foot), and 足帣陰 (Reverting Yin foot, written 帣 for 厥). The five arm vessels are: 臂泰陰, 臂少陰, 臂泰陽, 臂少陽, and 臂陽明 — notably, no arm yin brightness (臂陽明, written as such) or arm reverting yin vessel appears, yielding eleven rather than twelve vessels. This eleven-vessel scheme differs from the twelve-vessel system standardized in the received Huángdì Nèijīng Língshu 黃帝內經靈樞 and is generally considered more archaic.
For each vessel the text gives: (1) the course of the vessel traced from distal extremity toward the body (or from foot/hand outward), (2) a list of diseases associated with the vessel (“其病”), and (3) the therapeutic directive “诸病此物者，皆久[vessel name]” — “for all diseases of this kind, apply moxibustion to the [vessel].” The text uses jiǔ 久 (“long/endure”) as a tōngjiǎ 通假 (phonetic loan) for jiǔ 灸 (“moxibustion”). Crucially, the treatment is moxibustion along the entire vessel pathway, not at specific loci (xuéwèi 穴位/acupoints), confirming that acupoint-specific needling therapy had not yet crystallized at the time of composition.
The closing portion (beginning “皆有此五病者，有煩心，死”) contains a prognosis section listing fatal symptom combinations involving the three yin and three yang vessels — an early example of prognostic medicine embedded in vessel theory.
Dating is difficult to pin precisely. The tomb was sealed no later than 168 BCE, but the manuscripts were likely copied from older originals. The vessel theory represented here is less developed than that in the Língshu, suggesting composition no earlier than the late Warring States period (c. 300 BCE). Donald Harper dates the Mawangdui medical manuscripts generally to the late Warring States through early Western Han (c. 300–168 BCE).
The text is anonymous; no attributed author appears anywhere in the manuscript.
Translations and research
- Harper, Donald. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. London: Kegan Paul International, 1998. — Standard English translation and study; essential reference.
- 馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組 (ed.). 《馬王堆漢墓帛書》, vol. 4. 北京: 文物出版社, 1985. — Primary publication.
- 裘錫圭 et al. (eds.). 《長沙馬王堆漢墓簡帛集成》, 7 vols. 北京: 中華書局, 2014. — Definitive critical edition.
- Lo, Vivienne. “The Influence of Nurturing Life Culture on the Development of Western Han Acumoxa Therapy.” In Elisabeth Hsu (ed.), Innovation in Chinese Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001, pp. 19–50.
- Hinrichs, T.J., and Linda L. Barnes (eds.). Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
- Yamada Keiji 山田慶兒. 《中国医学の起源》. 東京: 岩波書店, 1999. — Important study of early Chinese vessel theory.
Other points of interest
The Zúbì Shíyī Mài Jiǔjīng and the companion Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔjīng 陰陽十一脈灸經 are among the most significant texts for tracing the pre-history of Chinese acumoxa medicine. Their eleven-vessel, moxibustion-only framework predates the mature twelve-vessel, needle-and-moxa system of the canonical Nèijīng, and they demonstrate that channel theory and acupoint theory developed along separate trajectories that merged only gradually. The two Mawangdui vessel texts also show overlap with the Zúbì text containing older stratum material.