Zá Liáo Fāng 雜療方
Miscellaneous Healing Recipes
Anonymous (Mawangdui tomb 3 manuscript corpus, sealed 168 BCE)
About the work
The Zá Liáo Fāng 雜療方 (“Miscellaneous Healing Recipes”) is a substantial collection of medical prescriptions and ritual procedures from the Mawangdui 馬王堆 tomb 3 silk manuscript cache, sealed 168 BCE at Changsha, Hunan. Its content is highly heterogeneous, encompassing formulas for enhancing sexual function (nèi jiā 內加, “internal enhancement”), vaginal constriction (yuē 約, “contracting”), qi-supplementation, lactation, postpartum care, disposal of the placenta (bāo 包/胞), wards against wèi 蜮 spirits (sand-shooting water demons), and treatment of stings and bites. The text illustrates the integration of pharmacological, gynecological, and apotropaic medicine in early Han healing culture.
Abstract
The Zá Liáo 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 title is a modern editorial designation. Scholars sometimes group this text with the Tāichǎn Shū KR2p0096 as “miscellaneous” texts, but its content is sufficiently distinct to warrant separate treatment.
The manuscript is structurally organized by recipe bullet markers (●), each introducing a distinct therapeutic procedure. The opening visible recipe is damaged, but the second intact recipe reads: “□□益氣：取白松脂、杜虞、□石脂等冶，并合三指大最，再直〼” — “[For] supplementing qi: take equal parts of white pine resin (bái sōngzhī 白松脂), dùyú 杜虞 (possibly Eucommia, dùzhòng 杜仲, or a related plant), and [white] stone-fat (shízhī □石脂), pulverize and combine; [take a] three-finger large pinch, [repeat] twice [daily].”
The nèi jiā 內加 (“internal enhancement”) series constitutes the largest single thematic block. These recipes use combinations of cinnamon (guì 桂), ginger (jiāng 薑), Sichuan pepper (jiāo 椒), jiāo jiá 蕉莢 (probably zàojiá 皂莢, Gleditsia), snake-bed (shéchuáng 蛇牀), and various animal products (dog liver, bee nests, etc.) to prepare cloth, pellets, or liquids for vaginal application, aimed at enhancing sexual pleasure or female receptivity. The yuē 約 (constriction) recipes form a parallel sub-series.
The apotropaic content is concentrated in a long section on warding off wèi 蜮, water spirits that shoot sand at travelers and cause illness. This section preserves a remarkable incantation: “某，女弟兄五人，某索智其名，而處水者為鮒，而處土者為蚑，棲木者為蠭、[蟲]斯，蜚而之荊南者為蜮” — “You five siblings: I know your names — those dwelling in water are called fish-spirits (fù 鮒), those in earth are qí 蚑, those in trees are wasps (fēng 蠭) and [spiders], those flying south in Jing are wèi 蜮.” Additional recipes guard against bites and stings through both pharmacological and ritualistic means.
An important section on placenta disposal (禹臧貍包圖法, “The Method of Burying the Placenta according to Yu’s [Chart]”) provides detailed instructions on burying the placenta (bāo 貍包) in an auspicious location to ensure the child’s intelligence, beauty (hǎo sè 好色), and good health. This passage connects the text to early Chinese birth ritual traditions.
The “益內利中” (“Supplementing the inner [body] and benefiting the center”) series employs egg-and-warm-wine preparations taken on a waxing schedule (one egg, then two, then three eggs mixed in wine, daily), beginning on the 1st of the 8th or 2nd month. The text claims this “使人面不焦，口唇不乾，利中益內” (“makes the complexion not parched, the lips not dry, and benefits center and inner [body]”).
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. — Translation and commentary.
- 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.
- Hinrichs, T.J., and Linda L. Barnes (eds.). Chinese Medicine and Healing: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013.
- Lo, Vivienne. “Pleasure, Prohibition, and Pain.” In R. Sterckx (ed.), Of Tripod and Palate. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005.
Other points of interest
The wèi 蜮 incantation in this text is one of the earliest extant Chinese exorcistic texts addressing a named category of demonic beings. The five-sibling taxonomy of the wèi’s kindred across water, earth, trees, and air — identified with fish-spirits, earth-crawlers, wasps, spiders, and the wèi proper — shows an early systematizing of the demon world that anticipates later Chinese demonology. The incantation uses the rhetorical strategy of naming the demon’s kin to strip it of power, a technique well-attested in later apotropaic traditions.