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馬王堆漢墓帛書‧陰陽十一脈灸經（乙本）

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Text ID
KR2p0172
Date
-300–-168
Dynasty
漢

Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū‧Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng (Yǐ Běn) 馬王堆漢墓帛書‧陰陽十一脈灸經（乙本）

Mawangdui Han Tomb Silk Manuscripts — Canon of Moxibustion on the Eleven Yin-Yang Vessels (Version B)

(anonymous; excavated silk manuscript, no attributable author)

About the work

The Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng Yǐ Běn 陰陽十一脈灸經乙本 (“Canon of Moxibustion on the Eleven Yin-Yang Vessels, Version B”) is an early Chinese medical text recovered from Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 Tomb 3 at Chángshā, sealed in 168 BCE. It describes eleven body vessels (mài 脈), giving the course of each vessel, the diseases caused when each is disturbed (shì dòng zé bìng 是動則病), and the diseases produced by each vessel (suǒ chǎn bìng 所產病). The Yǐ Běn uses the yin-yang (陰陽) nomenclature for the vessels — Jù Yáng 巨陽, Shǎo Yáng 少陽, Yáng Míng 陽明, etc. — and employs the standard graph 脈 for “vessel,” in contrast to the archaic 眽 used in the parallel Zú Bì Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng Jiǎ Běn KR2p0170. The Yǐ Běn appears on the same silk roll as the Mài Fǎ 脈法 (a short text on vessel diagnostics) and the Yīnyáng Mài Sǐhòu 陰陽脈死候 (a text on fatal vessel conditions); together these three texts constitute a coherent medical-theoretical unit. The file header in the CHANT transcription explicitly reads 馬王堆漢墓帛書-陰陽十一脈灸經乙本釋文.

Prefaces

No preface or postface preserved; excavated manuscript.

Abstract

Discovery and provenance. Like all the Mǎwángduī medical texts, the Yǐ Běn was found in the lacquered box in Tomb 3, recovered by the Húnán Provincial Museum during the 1973–74 excavations. The silk had deteriorated; the text was reconstructed and published by the Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū Editorial Group in 1985. The title Yīnyáng Shíyī Mài Jiǔ Jīng was assigned by the editors; no ancient title survives.

Textual content. The Yǐ Běn opens with the Jù Yáng Mài 巨陽脈: “Runs along the outer calf from below, exits from the popliteal fossa, comes out from the sacral region, flanks the spine, exits at the nape of the neck, [passes] the temple, descends the face, flanks the [nose bridge], and terminates at the inner corner of the eye.” It then records shì dòng diseases (潼, headache, back pain, lumbago, knees feel knotted, etc.) and categorizes this syndrome as Ankle Inversion (huái jué 踝厥), followed by twelve suǒ chǎn diseases. This structure is repeated for all eleven vessels: Jù Yáng 巨陽, Shǎo Yáng 少陽, Yáng Míng 陽明, Jiān 肩, Ěr 耳脈, Chǐ 齒脈, Jù Yīn 巨陰, Shǎo Yīn 少陰, Jué Yīn 厥陰, Bì Jù Yīn 臂巨陰, and Bì Shǎo Yīn 臂少陰.

Relationship to the Jiǎ Běn. The Yǐ Běn and the Jiǎ Běn (KR2p0170) are parallel texts describing the same eleven-vessel body, but with significant differences:

  1. Nomenclature system: The Jiǎ Běn classifies vessels by the anatomical foot/arm (足臂) distinction; the Yǐ Běn classifies by yin-yang polarity (陰陽), a more theoretical framework that aligns more closely with the organization of the received Língshu 靈樞.
  2. Graph for “vessel”: The Jiǎ Běn uses the archaic 眽; the Yǐ Běn uses standard 脈 throughout.
  3. Pathological terminology: The Yǐ Běn uses jué 厥 (reversal/inversion) where the Jiǎ Běn uses jué 蹶 (stumble/fall) for the pathological syndrome names — a terminological shift suggesting the Yǐ Běn represents a later or at least a distinct textual layer.
  4. Disease descriptions: The Yǐ Běn descriptions of shì dòng diseases are often abbreviated or slightly differently worded relative to the Jiǎ Běn, and the final suǒ chǎn disease counts sometimes differ.

The relationship between the two texts has been interpreted in two main ways: (a) both derive independently from a common antecedent tradition that had not yet stabilized, and (b) the Yǐ Běn is a revised or updated version of the Jiǎ Běn tradition, reflecting a stage closer to the canonical twelve-vessel Nèijīng system. The scholarly consensus, following Harper and Yamada, favors the view that the foot-arm system is older and the yin-yang system represents a later theoretical overlay that was eventually incorporated into the received tradition.

Relationship to the received Nèijīng. Several passages in the Yǐ Běn — particularly the Shǎo Yīn Mài 少陰脈 section, with its distinctive therapeutic instruction to “eat abundant food to build flesh, loosen the belt, use a large staff, let the hair hang loose, wear heavy shoes and walk slowly, breathe slowly for a long time, and the disease will be cured” — appear in very close verbal parallel in Língshu chapter 10 (Jīngmài 經脈). This demonstrates a direct textual relationship between the Mǎwángduī tradition and the received medical classics.

Mài Fǎ and Yīnyáng Mài Sǐhòu. The Yǐ Běn is transmitted on the same silk roll as two companion texts:

  • Mài Fǎ 脈法: a short text on vessel diagnostics and the rationale for using the vessels as the primary object of medical attention. It includes the statement that “the hundred diseases are all born from vessels” (百病皆生於脈).
  • Yīnyáng Mài Sǐhòu 陰陽脈死候: a brief catalogue of fatal vessel conditions, listing symptoms indicating imminent death in cases of yin-vessel and yang-vessel pathology.

These companion texts are not separately represented in the Kanripo corpus but are part of the same transmitted Mǎwángduī medical-theoretical complex.

Related texts. The Hé Yīnyáng 合陰陽 bedchamber arts text — KR2p0015 — is another Mǎwángduī Tomb 3 silk manuscript from the same physical cache, though belonging to the fángzhōng 房中 (bedchamber arts) genre rather than vessel medicine.

Dating. Sealed before 168 BCE. The underlying tradition is probably late Warring States to early Western Hàn in composition, consistent with the dating of the parallel Jiǎ Běn text.

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. — Critical edition.
  • Harper, Donald J. Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts. Kegan Paul International, 1998. — Full translation and commentary of the Yǐ Běn and related texts.
  • Yamada, Keiji. “The Formation of the Huang-ti Nei-ching.” Acta Asiatica 36 (1979): 67–89. — Key analysis of the relationship between the Mawangdui vessel texts and the received Nèijīng.
  • Unschuld, Paul U. Medicine in China: A History of Ideas. University of California Press, 1985.
  • 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 University Press, 2001.
  • 山田慶兒. 《中国医学の起源》. 岩波書店, 1999. — Fundamental Japanese study of the origins of Chinese medical theory.

Other points of interest

The Shǎo Yīn Mài 少陰脈 passage in the Yǐ Běn contains the closest known verbal parallel between the Mawangdui texts and the received Língshu, making it a crucial locus for arguments about the direct textual transmission from excavated manuscript tradition to received canonical text. The instruction to use a “large staff” (dà zhàng 大杖), let the hair hang loose (bèi fà 被髮), and walk in “heavy shoes” (zhòng lǚ 重履) as therapeutic measures for a Shào Yīn vessel condition appears in the Língshu with only minor verbal differences — a textual bridge of nearly two millennia between excavated manuscript and received canon.

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