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馬王堆漢墓帛書‧足臂十一脈灸經（甲本）

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Text ID
KR2p0170
Date
-300–-168
Dynasty
漢

Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū‧Zú Bì Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng (Jiǎ Běn) 馬王堆漢墓帛書‧足臂十一脈灸經（甲本）

Mawangdui Han Tomb Silk Manuscripts — Canon of Moxibustion on the Eleven Foot-and-Arm Vessels (Version A)

(anonymous; excavated silk manuscript, no attributable author)

About the work

The Zú Bì Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng 足臂十一脈灸經 (Jiǎ Běn 甲本, “Version A”) is one of the earliest surviving Chinese medical texts, recovered from Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 Tomb 3 at Chángshā 長沙, Húnán, sealed in 168 BCE. The text systematically describes eleven body vessels (mài 眽/脈), tracing the pathway of each and listing the diseases it governs. It is organized by the foot-arm (zú-bì 足臂) framework — six foot-associated vessels and five arm-associated vessels — rather than the yin-yang framework used by the parallel Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng KR2p0172. The text predates the received Huángdì Nèijīng 黃帝內經 and represents an independent tradition in which the body has eleven vessels, not the canonical twelve. The title assigned to this manuscript by modern editors derives from the organizing principle of the text itself; no ancient title is preserved.

Prefaces

No preface or postface preserved; excavated manuscript.

Abstract

Discovery and provenance. Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 is a Han-period cemetery site on the eastern outskirts of Chángshā. Three tombs were excavated between 1972 and 1974. Tomb 1 contained the well-preserved corpse of the wife of Lì Cāng 利蒼, Marquis of Dài 軑侯 (the marquisate was located in what is now Húnán). Tomb 2 contained the tomb of Lì Cāng himself. Tomb 3 was sealed in 168 BCE and contained an unnamed male occupant now believed to be the son of Lì Cāng. The silk manuscripts (bóshū 帛書) were found in Tomb 3, wrapped in a lacquered box. They comprised dozens of texts, including philosophical works, maps, divination manuals, and a substantial group of medical texts — the present manuscript among them. The silk had partially deteriorated in the tomb; the medical texts were reconstructed and published by the Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū Editorial Group (馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組) in 1985.

Content. The Jiǎ Běn 甲本 opens with the Jù Yáng mài 鉅陽眽 (= 巨陽脈, Greater Yang vessel — the archaic graph 眽 for mài 脈 is diagnostic of the text’s antiquity). For each vessel, the text supplies three elements: (1) the course (dào 道) — a description of where the vessel travels in the body; (2) shì dòng zé bìng 是動則病 — “when this vessel is activated the following diseases arise,” describing symptoms caused by disrupted vessel qi; and (3) qí suǒ chǎn bìng 其所產病 — “the diseases produced by this vessel,” a list of pathological conditions the vessel governs, each batch enumerated with a final count (e.g., “twelve diseases,” “five diseases,” “one disease”). The eleven vessels in order are: 鉅陽眽, 少陽眽, 陽明眽, 肩眽, 耳眽, 齒眽, 大陰眽, 厥陰眽, 少陰眽, 臂鉅陰眽, 臂少陰眽. The vessel names use older, non-systematized nomenclature; the courses are described in concrete anatomical terms (e.g., “travels below the outer ankle, winds through the popliteal fossa, comes out at the sacrum, goes up beside the spine, comes out at the nape of the neck”).

Relationship to received texts. The received Huángdì Nèijīng Língshu 黃帝內經靈樞 (especially chapter 10, Jīngmài 經脈) describes a twelve-vessel system organized by the yin-yang principle. The Mǎwángduī text presents eleven vessels, lacks the pericardium vessel (juéyīn 厥陰 of the arm) that completes the canonical twelve, and uses anatomical descriptions that differ in important ways from the received system. The shì dòng zé bìng / suǒ chǎn bìng distinction of the Mǎwángduī text was retained in the Língshu, but has been the subject of substantial modern debate: some scholars take the two categories to reflect different clinical traditions (disturbance of circulation vs. direct pathological products); others read the shì dòng section as describing more acute, externally caused symptoms and suǒ chǎn as chronic internal conditions. Moxibustion (jiǔ 灸) as the therapeutic modality implied by the title is not extensively discussed in the text; the title was assigned by editors on the basis of parallel passages in the companion text Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng.

Dating. The manuscript was copied before 168 BCE (the tomb-sealing date). Palaeographic and textual evidence suggests the composition of the underlying medical tradition is considerably older — possibly late Warring States (c. 300–225 BCE), though the precise horizon is debated. The notBefore date of -300 reflects a conservative estimate for the earliest possible composition of the tradition; notAfter -168 reflects the tomb-sealing date as the terminus ante quem.

A parallel text. The Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng exists in two versions: Version B (Yǐ Běn 乙本), KR2p0172, which is closely related in content but uses the yin-yang (陰陽) vessel nomenclature rather than the foot-arm (足臂) system. The relationship between the two nomenclature systems has been a major question in the history of Chinese medicine: the foot-arm system appears to be the older of the two.

Translations and research

  • 馬王堆漢墓帛書整理小組. 《馬王堆漢墓帛書》[肆]. 文物出版社, 1985. — editio princeps of the medical texts.
  • Harper, Donald J. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. Kegan Paul International, 1998. — The standard English-language critical edition and translation of all Mawangdui medical manuscripts, including full translation of the Zú Bì Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng.
  • 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 University Press, 2001, pp. 19–50.
  • Unschuld, Paul U. Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. University of California Press, 1985. — Contextualizes the Mawangdui medical texts within the broader history of Chinese medical theory.
  • Keegan, David J. “The ‘Huang-ti nei-ching’: The Structure of the Compilation; The Significance of the Structure.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1988.
  • 山田慶兒. 〈馬王堆出土の医書〉, 收入《中国医学の起源》. 岩波書店, 1999. — Important Japanese scholarship on the origin of Chinese medical theory in light of the Mawangdui materials.
  • Yamada, Keiji. “The Formation of the Huang-ti Nei-ching.” Acta Asiatica 36 (1979): 67–89.

Other points of interest

The archaic graph 眽 (mài, vessel/pulse) used throughout the Jiǎ Běn — as opposed to the standard 脈 of the Yǐ Běn — is one of several palaeographic features that have led scholars to argue the Jiǎ Běn text preserves a somewhat older textual stratum. The eleven-vessel system (lacking the pericardium circuit) represents a stage of medical thinking that predates the systematization of the canonical twelve-circuit model, and its discovery at Mawangdui has fundamentally reshaped understanding of early Chinese medical history: it is now clear that the twelve-vessel orthodoxy of the received Nèijīng was not the original form of the tradition but was the product of a gradual systematization, probably in the late Warring States or very early Western Hàn.

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