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馬王堆漢墓帛書‧十問

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Text ID
KR2p0173
Date
-300–-168
Dynasty
漢

Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū‧Shí Wèn 馬王堆漢墓帛書‧十問

Mawangdui Han Tomb Silk Manuscripts — Ten Questions

(anonymous; excavated silk manuscript, no attributable author)

About the work

The Shí Wèn 十問 (“Ten Questions”) is a Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 silk manuscript text from Tomb 3, sealed in 168 BCE. It is the longest and most elaborate of the fángzhōng 房中 (“bedchamber arts” / sexual cultivation) texts recovered from Mawangdui. The text consists of ten dialogues, each framed as a question posed by a legendary ruler or sage to a master of esoteric cultivation arts; the answers expound techniques for achieving longevity and physical vitality through the controlled management of sexual qi 氣, breathing (xī 息), dietary practices, and the regulated engagement with and retention of seminal essence (jīng 精). The interlocutors include the Yellow Emperor 黃帝, Yáo 堯, Shùn 舜, King Wén of Zhōu, the mythological figures Péng Zǔ 彭祖 and Yǔ 禹, and the historical King Wēi of Qí 齊威王. The text belongs to the larger Warring States–Hàn genre of yǎng shēng 養生 (“nurturing life”) literature, but is specifically focused on the cultivation of sexual vitality as a means of life prolongation.

Prefaces

No preface or postface preserved; excavated manuscript.

Abstract

Discovery and provenance. The Shí Wèn was among the Mǎwángduī Tomb 3 silk manuscripts recovered at Chángshā in 1973–74. The tomb was sealed in 168 BCE. The silk had broken into fragments; the text was reconstructed and published by the Mǎwángduī Hànmù Bóshū Editorial Group, first as a full set in 1985. The assigned title Shí Wèn derives from the text’s internal structure (ten question-and-answer units); the manuscript itself carries no preserved title.

Structure and content. The ten dialogues, each ending with a formula attributing the “Way” (dào 道) to a named master, are:

  1. Huángdì–Tiānshī 黃帝–天師: The Yellow Emperor asks the Heavenly Master about the principles of all things’ movement. The Heavenly Master expounds the “Way of Consuming Yin and Nourishing Yang” (shí yīn yì yáng 食陰益陽) — the method of drawing in female qi during intercourse to nourish the male body, achieving “spirit illumination” (shénmíng 神明). The key teaching: inhale without exceeding five breaths; each intake should reach the mouth, then the heart; the “jade spring” (yù quán 玄尊, i.e., female secretion) arrives; drinking without exceeding five amounts brings sweet flavour to the five viscera. Closing attribution: “The Heavenly Master’s Way of Consuming Divine Qi” (天師之食神氣之道).

  2. Huángdì–Dà Chéng 黃帝–大成: The Yellow Emperor asks Dà Chéng about how to make one’s complexion lustrous and youthful. The answer: observe the “inch pollution” (chǐ wū 尺汙, probably a technical term for a region of the body or a method of assessment), consume yīn essence through intercourse with many women (jiē yīn jiāng zhòng 椄陰將眾 — “receive yin from many”), supplement with cypress seeds (bǎi shí 柏實), drink the “spring essence of running beasts” (zǒu shòu quán yīng 走獸泉英, i.e., animal semen or marrow). The “jade stalk” (yù cè 玉筴, the penis) is revived; through sexual cultivation one can “raise the dead.” Closing: “Dà Chéng’s Way of Raising the Dead by Consuming Bird-Essence” (大成之起死食鳥精之道).

  3. Huángdì–Cáo Áo 黃帝–曹熬: The Yellow Emperor asks about how people live and die. Cáo Áo expounds the “closed jade” (yù bì 玉閉) technique — retaining the ejaculation completely so that the “jade spring” (yù quán 玉泉) does not tip over and the hundred diseases do not arise. The famous “Nine Retentions” (jiǔ zhì wù xiè 九至勿星/瀉) passage follows: “At the first climax without emission, ears and eyes become sharp; at the second, voice and breath are elevated; at the third, the skin has lustre; at the fourth, spine and ribs do not ache; at the fifth, buttocks and thighs are vigorous; at the sixth, the hundred vessels flow freely; at the seventh, the whole body loses its calamities; at the eighth, one can live long; at the ninth, one communicates with the spirit-illumined.”

  4. Huángdì–Róng Chéng 黃帝–容成: Discourse on the observation of Heaven and Earth’s dao as the basis of longevity cultivation. Includes a substantial section on the regulation of breathing at four times of day and four seasons, the avoidance of noxious climatic qi (zhuó yáng 濁陽 in spring, tāng fēng 湯風 in summer, shuāng lì 霜 in autumn, líng yīn 凌陰 in winter), and the centrality of the inhalation-exhalation cycle for the renewal of vital energy. This is the longest and most philosophically elaborated dialogue in the text, containing a passage (sù qì wéi lǎo, xīn qì wéi shòu 宿氣為老，新氣為壽: “stale qi makes one old, new qi makes one long-lived”) that has been frequently cited in studies of early Chinese qi cultivation. The passage on “the sage Wú Chéng Zhào 巫成柖” — a mythological figure who cultivates the four seasons as aid and Heaven and Earth as warp — is obscure and may represent a quotation from a separate text.

  5. Yáo–Shùn 堯–舜: Yáo asks Shùn what is most precious in the world. Shùn replies: “Life (shēng 生) is most precious.” The dialogue expounds the importance of “cherishing and delighting in” the penis (ài ér xǐ zhī 必愛而喜之), feeding and nourishing it, and practicing the retention technique while keeping it “firm and strong” (jiān qiáng 堅強). The numbered regimen of strokes (guān 貫) is specified, concluding: “At one hundred years one will surpass what one was.”

  6. Wáng Zǐ Qiǎo Fù–Péng Zǔ 王子巧父–彭祖: Péng Zǔ 彭祖 — the legendary figure celebrated for his extreme longevity — expounds the method of “protecting and loving the penis” (bǎo ài 葆愛). He teaches: “the human qi is finest in the penis” (rén qì mò rú jùn jīng 人氣莫如竣精); obstruction of this qi produces a hundred diseases; failure of this qi to flourish means failure to multiply. The cultivation method involves preliminary self-massage and circular movements of the abdomen (mǐ fù cóng yīn cóng yáng 靡腹從陰從陽), then inhaling the “penis qi” (jùn qì 竣氣), nourishing the penis like a “precious infant” (chì zǐ 赤子 — the penis is explicitly compared to an infant needing to be kept warm and stimulated without sudden withdrawal or shock).

  7. Dì Pán Gēng–Gǒu Lǎo 帝盤庚–耇老: The legendary Shāng 商 king Pán Gēng 盤庚 asks the Elder Gǒu (an immortal-style figure) about the practice of “receiving yin” (jiē yīn 椄陰). Five cultivation stages are expounded: (1) hanging the branches, straightening the spine, bending the sacrum; (2) loosening the thighs, activating the yin, pulling the “prefecture”; (3) closing the eyelids without listening, inhaling qi to fill the chest; (4) holding the five flavors, drinking the “spring essence”; (5) all essences rising, inhaling the great brightness. When one reaches five: “spirit energy rises daily.”

  8. Yǔ–Shī Guǐ 禹–師癸: The Great Yǔ, exhausted by his ten years of flood-control labor in the field, complains that his four limbs no longer function and that his household is in disarray. The master Shī Guǐ explains that the vital-energy system has broken down (described as yōu yāng 歀央 — “sluggish calamity”), the vessels and sinews are neglected. The remedy is threefold: wèi 味 (appropriate food and drink), zhì 志 (meditative concentration), and shì 事 (physical movement of the four limbs through therapeutic exercise). Specific practices include pulling the yin (引陰 — probably referring to an exercise), which is called “refining the sinews” (liàn jīn 練筋), and stretching and contracting, called “refining the bones” (liàn gǔ 練骨). Yǔ proceeds to drink milk (tóng 湩), eat the five flavors, and thereby restores his vitality — and, by implication, also the wellbeing of his consort Hòu Yáo 后姚 (his household harmony is restored).

  9. Wén Zhí–Qí Wēi Wáng 文執–齊威王: This dialogue has a different register from the others: rather than legendary figures, it depicts the historical King Wēi of Qí 齊威王 (r. 356–320 BCE) asking the physician and counselor Wén Zhí 文執 (the same figure known from other Hàn texts as a famous doctor) about cultivation arts. Three questions are posed: (1) What is the foremost of three hundred methods? — Answer: sleep (wò 卧). (2) What food to eat at sleep time? — Answer: rice wine with strong-smelling leeks (chún jiǔ dú jiǔ 淳酒毒韭). (3) Why leeks? — Because leeks are “the king of the hundred grasses” (bǎi cǎo zhī wáng 百草之王): they receive Heaven’s qi early and Earth’s qi fully, so they strengthen sinews, brighten eyes, and in three spring months drive away all calamities. The dialogue continues with a discussion of wine as the “quintessential qi of the five grains” and of sleep as necessary for digesting food (“one night without sleep, one hundred days without recovery”).

  10. Wáng Qī–Qín Zhāo Wáng 王期–秦昭王: King Zhāo of Qín 秦昭王 (r. 306–251 BCE) asks the master Wáng Qī about cultivation. The response emphasizes facing the sun and moon to inhale their “essential light” (jīng guāng 精光), eating pine and cypress (sōng bǎi 松柏), drinking the “spring essence of running beasts” (zǒu shòu quán yīng), and avoiding fire for cooking in the summer months (use the sun’s heat to cook instead). The sexual cultivation teaching: “use stillness as strength” (yǐ jìng wéi qiáng 以靜為強); keep the mind calm as water; use the “jade stalk” (yù cè 玉筴) gently, without agitation; let the five tones resonate in harmony. By these means, “one’s lifespan equals that of the sun and moon, and one becomes the finest of Heaven and Earth” (壽參日月，為天地英).

Genre and intellectual context. The Shí Wèn belongs to the fángzhōng 房中 tradition recognized by the Hàn bibliographers. The Hànshū Yìwén Zhì 漢書藝文志 lists eight titles under fángzhōng — none are identical to Shí Wèn, but the genre is documented. The Shí Wèn is closely related to other Mawangdui texts including the Hé Yīnyáng KR2p0015 and the Tiānxià Zhìdào Tán (not separately cataloged in Kanripo). Together these constitute the largest surviving collection of early Chinese sexual cultivation literature. The theoretical underpinning is the theory of jīng 精 (vital essence/semen) as the most concentrated form of bodily qi: by retaining and recirculating jīng rather than expending it through ejaculation, the practitioner accumulates vitality and achieves longevity. This framework is shared with the Huángdì Nèijīng at the level of general principles but is developed far more explicitly in the fángzhōng texts.

Dating. Copied before 168 BCE. The underlying tradition is probably Warring States to early Western Hàn, possibly late third or early second century BCE.

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 all Mawangdui medical texts, including the Shí Wèn.
  • Harper, Donald J. “The Sexual Arts of Ancient China as Described in a Manuscript of the Second Century B.C.” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47.2 (1987): 539–593. — The first and still most detailed English-language analysis of the Mawangdui sexual cultivation texts.
  • Wile, Douglas. Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics Including Women’s Solo Meditation Texts. SUNY Press, 1992. — Translation of the major Chinese sexual cultivation texts including the Mawangdui materials.
  • Lo, Vivienne. “Tracking the Pain: Jue and the Formation of a Theory in Early Chinese Medicine.” Sudhoffs Archiv 83.2 (1999): 191–211.
  • Despeux, Catherine. “Le corps, champ spatio-temporel, souche d’identité.” L’Homme 137 (1996): 87–118. — French-language analysis of early Chinese body cultivation texts.
  • 李零. 《中國方術考》. 人民中國出版社, 1993, rev. ed. 東方出版社, 2000. — Important Chinese-language study of the fāngshù 方術 tradition including the Mawangdui texts.

Other points of interest

The Shí Wèn is remarkable for the authority it deploys through its cast of interlocutors: by placing these teachings in the mouths of the Yellow Emperor, the sage-kings Yáo and Shùn, the ancient culture hero Yǔ, the legendary long-liver Péng Zǔ, and historical monarchs (King Wēi of Qí, King Zhāo of Qín), the text claims for sexual cultivation the same kind of cosmological and political sanction that the Lünjǔ 論語 and the classical canons claim for moral cultivation. The move is particularly notable in the Yǔ dialogue (Dialogue 8), which resolves the problem of Yǔ’s exhaustion from flood-control labor — a canonical story of self-sacrificial government — by recourse to sexual and breath cultivation. This is a creative rewriting of a foundational mythological narrative in the idiom of yǎng shēng practice.

The dialogue with King Wēi of Qí (Dialogue 9) is historically significant because it inserts the cultivation master Wén Zhí 文執 into a known historical context: the same figure (under the name Wén Zhī 文摯) appears in the Lǚ Shì Chūnqiū 呂氏春秋 and the Zhànguó Cè 戰國策 as a physician of the Qi state, famous for deliberately angering King Mǐn 閔王 of Qi as a therapeutic stratagem. The Shí Wèn version provides a completely different — and more philosophically positive — context for the same figure.

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