Quègǔ Shíqì 卻穀食氣
Eliminating Grain and Ingesting Qi
Anonymous (Mawangdui tomb 3 manuscript corpus, sealed 168 BCE)
About the work
The Quègǔ Shíqì 卻穀食氣 (“Eliminating Grain and Ingesting Qi”) is a yǎngshēng 養生 (“nurturing life”) text from the Mawangdui 馬王堆 tomb 3 silk manuscript cache, sealed 168 BCE at Changsha, Hunan. It describes the practice of eliminating grain (quègǔ 卻穀, also written 郄穀 in the source file) as a dietary-spiritual discipline, coordinated with lunar-calendar timing and the ingestion of breath (shíqì 食氣). The text also specifies appropriate and inappropriate atmospheric conditions for qi-ingestion across the four seasons. It is the earliest extant text specifically devoted to the bìgǔ 辟穀 / quègǔ tradition, and constitutes important evidence for the pre-Daoist cultivation practices that would later be codified in texts like the Bàopǔzǐ 抱朴子.
Abstract
Excavated in 1973 from Mawangdui tomb 3 and first published in 馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組, 《馬王堆漢墓帛書》 (文物出版社, 1985); definitive critical edition in 裘錫圭 et al. (eds.), 《長沙馬王堆漢墓簡帛集成》 (中華書局, 2014). The source file title reads 郄穀食氣 (with the character 郄 for 卻 / 卻); both forms appear in modern scholarly literature and refer to the same text.
The text opens with the central practice: “●去穀者食石韋，朔日食質，日駕一節，旬五而止；旬六始銧，日□一節，至晦而復質，與月進退” — “Those who eliminate grain eat shíwéi 石韋 (Pyrrosia, a fern used medicinally). On the first day of the month eat one [unit]; increasing by one unit per day; after fifteen days stop; then beginning on day sixteen [begin] to decrease by one unit per day; reaching the last day [of the month return] to one unit, advancing and retreating with the moon.” This calendrically coordinated rhythm of dietary restriction linked to lunar phases is the structural core of the practice.
A description of symptoms that should prompt warming breath-work follows: “為首重足輕𦡊軫，則昫炊之，視利止” — “When the head is heavy and the feet light and the body feels constricted, [perform the] xū chuī 昫炊 (warming breath) [exercise], and stop when you observe benefit.”
The text then gives a schedule for shíqì 食氣 (ingesting qi by controlled breathing): the practice is performed at the transitions between sleeping and waking (shǐ wò yǔ shǐ xīng 始卧與始興), with the number of breath cycles calibrated to age — e.g., “年廿者朝廿暮廿，二日之莫二百” (“For those aged twenty: twenty [breaths] in the morning and twenty in the evening; after two days [the evening total] is two hundred”).
The four seasonal sections identify favorable and harmful atmospheric conditions for qi-ingestion. In spring, one should “去濁陽” (“eliminate turbid yang [air]”) and combine shíqì with “銧光” and “朝暇” (types of beneficial qi associated with morning clearness); in summer with “朝暇” and “行暨”; autumn and winter have analogous specifications. Five types of harmful air are enumerated and glossed — including 濁陽 (“turbid yang: dark and sky-filling, the chaotic qi of heaven; and the fog at sunrise”), 湯風 (“scalding wind: a parching wind that enters people, [associated with] noon”), and 凌陰 (“piercing yin: entering the bones [like cold]”).
A cosmological coda distinguishes those who “eat qi” (食氣者食員, “those who ingest qi eat the round” — i.e., ingest the circular, heavenly principle) from those who eat grain (食穀者食方, “those who eat grain eat the square” — i.e., the terrestrial), aligning the practice with a heaven/earth cosmological polarity.
The text is anonymous; no attributed author appears. The quègǔ tradition represented here has antecedents in Warring States thought and is attested in other early texts including fragments attributed to Song Xing 宋銒 and Yin Wen 尹文. The text’s relationship to early Daoist breath cultivation practices and to later dǎoyǐn 導引 (gymnastic exercise) traditions is discussed extensively in Harper (1998).
Translations and research
- Harper, Donald. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. London: Kegan Paul International, 1998. — Translation and commentary; pp. 304–325.
- 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.
- 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.
- Lo, Vivienne. “The Influence of Nurturing Life Culture on the Development of Western Han Acumoxa Therapy.” In E. 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.
- Kohn, Livia. Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques. Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, 1989. — Contains discussion of the bìgǔ tradition.
Other points of interest
The Quègǔ Shíqì is unique in the Mawangdui corpus for its explicit focus on respiratory cultivation (shíqì) rather than pharmacological or vessel-based therapy. It belongs to a distinct textual tradition — the dǎoyǐn tǔnà 導引吐納 (“guiding and pulling; expelling and inhaling”) strand of yǎngshēng practice — and is most closely paralleled by the Dǎoyǐntú 導引圖 (gymnastic diagram, also from tomb 3) rather than by the medical prescription texts.