Yǎngshēng Fāng 養生方
Recipes for Nourishing Life
Anonymous (Mawangdui tomb 3 manuscript corpus, sealed 168 BCE)
About the work
The Yǎngshēng Fāng 養生方 (“Recipes for Nourishing Life”) is one of the longest and most wide-ranging medical texts from the Mawangdui 馬王堆 tomb 3 silk manuscript cache, sealed 168 BCE at Changsha, Hunan. The manuscript is organized as a tabular compilation of recipes, each associated with a named therapeutic goal or condition. The topics covered range from sexual potency and vitality to hair removal, wound treatment, increased speed, longevity, and the “bedchamber arts” (fángzhōng shù 房中術). It is a major witness to the diversity of early Han yǎngshēng 養生 (nurturing life) practice.
Abstract
The Yǎngshēng Fāng was excavated in 1973 from Mawangdui tomb 3 and published in 馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組, 《馬王堆漢墓帛書》, vol. 4 (文物出版社, 1985); definitive 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 text title 養生方 is the modern editorial designation; the manuscript itself begins with a tabular header row listing therapeutic categories.
The source file opens with a column-header row listing therapeutic categories — 老不起 (“inability to rise in old age”), 洒男 (application to men), 巠身益力 (“make the body light and strengthen energy”), 醪利中 (“fermented liquor for benefiting the middle [jiao]”), 為醴 (“making sweet fermented wine”), 除中益氣 (“eliminating [blockage in] the center and supplementing qi”), 治不起 (“treating inability to rise”), 益甘 (“enhancing sweetness/pleasure”), 去毛 (“removing body hair”), 折角, 戲, 治力 (“strengthening force”), 走 (“running/speed”), 筭, 病最穜 (“treating swelling”), 便近內 (“facilitating closeness in bedchamber matters”), and others. Many of these categories relate to sexual potency and performance, confirming the overlap between fángzhōng 房中 and general yǎngshēng traditions in early Han thought.
Individual recipe sections include complex pharmaceutical preparations, often involving multi-stage fermentation, steeping in wine or vinegar, and careful dosing instructions. For example, the “加” (Enhancement) recipe calls for taking medicinal plants collected on the 15th day of the 5th month, shade-dried and pulverized, mixed in equal parts with powdered white pine resin (白松脂), wrapped in leather, and taken once daily — three-finger pinch doses stirred into wine, effective at any time. The “筭” section involves insects placed in a bamboo tube and heated, then combined with other ingredients.
A substantial section on “走” (Speed) contains not only pharmacological preparations for swiftness but also magical-religious formulas including Yǔ bù 禹步 (the ritual walking-step of Yu the Great), incantations addressed to celestial figures, and apotropaic rites — illustrating the blurred boundary between pharmacological and ritual medicine in this corpus. A dialogue section between Tāng 湯 and a court figure discussing proper sexual timing and the “seven positions” (qī fǎ 七法) echoes the sexual cultivation literature of the fángzhōng tradition.
The “□語” section contains a longer narrative involving Yǔ 禹 (the sage-king), river spirits (南河, 西河, 少河), and discussions of female pleasure and the proper harmony of male-female qì — a mythological framework for sexual cultivation that has parallels in later transmitted texts like the Sùnü jīng 素女經.
The text is anonymous. It is one of the richest sources for early Han yǎngshēng and fángzhōng practice, and, along with the Zá Liáo Fāng KR2p0095, represents the largest pharmacological compilation in the Mawangdui medical cache.
Translations and research
- Harper, Donald. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. London: Kegan Paul International, 1998. — Translation and detailed commentary; 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.
- 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.
- van Gulik, R.H. Sexual Life in Ancient China. Leiden: Brill, 1961. — Early study; does not use Mawangdui material but provides comparative context for fangzhong tradition.
- Lo, Vivienne. “Pleasure, Prohibition, and Pain: Food and Medicine in Traditional China.” In Roel Sterckx (ed.), Of Tripod and Palate. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
- Hinrichs, T.J., and Linda L. Barnes (eds.). Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
Other points of interest
The Yǎngshēng Fāng is significant for its early attestation of several plant and animal materia medica later standardized in the Shénnóng Běncǎo Jīng 神農本草經 and subsequent pharmacopoeias — including white pine resin (白松脂), wūhuì 烏喙 (aconite), cinnamon (guì 桂), ginger (jiāng 薑), and shéchuáng 蛇牀 (Cnidium). The Mawangdui pharmacological vocabulary shows numerous tōngjiǎ 通假 (phonetic loan character) substitutions that differ from received textual traditions, providing important evidence for Early Han pharmaceutical nomenclature.