Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng 銅人鍼灸經
The Bronze-Man Acupuncture and Moxibustion Classic by 闕名 (anonymous; in fact most likely 王惟一 Wáng Wéiyī, fl. 1023–1049, 宋)
About the work
A Northern-Sòng acupuncture treatise in seven juan, anonymous in the SKQS recension but on the philological evidence of Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Hòu zhì and Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi in fact identical with — or a re-divided form of — the famous Tóngrén shūxué zhēnjiǔ tújīng 銅人腧穴鍼灸圖經 in three juan compiled by the Northern-Sòng imperial physician 王惟一 Wáng Wéiyī under Sòng Rénzōng’s commission of 1027. Wáng Wéiyī’s commission accompanied the casting of two life-sized bronze acupuncture mannequins (the famous tóngrén 銅人) used to test medical students: the bronze figures were hollow, filled with water, sealed with yellow wax over the surface acu-points; a student “treating” the figure would have to insert the needle precisely at the correct point, whereupon the wax would yield, the needle would penetrate, and water would jet out. The text accompanying the bronze figures — the present Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng — set out the channels, the points, their indications, and the appropriate needling depths and angles. The work is the textual ancestor of the entire SòngYuánMíng acupuncture-and-moxibustion tradition.
Tiyao
Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng, seven juan, no compiler’s name. According to Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū hòu zhì: “Tóngrén shūxué zhēnjiǔ tú in three juan, by Wáng Wéidé 王惟德 of our imperial dynasty. Rénzōng once commanded Wéidé to examine and reorder the methods of acupuncture and moxibustion, casting bronze mannequins as the standard, the zàngfǔ and twelve channels demarcated, with the points where they meet annotated alongside; he engraved the names and made figures of the methods and indications, and printed the blocks for circulation.” Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi says: “On the rénchén day of the 10th month of Tiānshèng 5 (1027), the Imperial Medical Court presented the two bronze mannequins they had cast. By imperial decree, one was placed at the Imperial Medical Court, one at the Rénjì Hall of the DàXiàngguó Temple. Earlier, the emperor, observing that acupuncture-and-moxibustion methods were transmitted in conflicting forms, commanded the Imperial Pharmacy Officer (尚藥奉御) Wáng Wéiyī 王惟一 to investigate the assemblage of points on the Míngtáng and the channels, and to cast the bronze mannequin standards. He further compiled the old transmissions, corrected their errors and made the Tóngrén shūxué zhēnjiǔ tújīng in three juan. Now, on this date, he submits it. Imperial decree: print and circulate. Hànlín Scholar Xià Sǒng 夏竦 wrote the preface.”
What Wáng Yīnglín reports is broadly the same as Cháo, except that Wáng’s name is given as 惟德 in one and 惟一 in the other — slight variation. The present text’s juan-count does not match — three vs. seven — but the broad outline agrees with both witnesses; we suspect this is the Tiānshèng (1023–1031) old text, later re-divided by editorial subdivision into seven juan.
Zhōu Mì 周密’s Qídōng yěyǔ 齊東野語 says: “I once heard from my maternal uncle Zhāng Shūgōng 章叔恭 that, when he served as Vice-Prefect of Xiāngzhōu, he obtained an entire bronze mannequin for testing acupuncture: it was made of pure bronze, with all the fǔ and zàng completely articulated; on the surface, the points were inscribed with their names in inlaid gold; back and front, the two halves of the figure fitted together to make a whole body. This is what the old capital used to test medical students. The method was: the surface was coated with yellow wax, the inside was filled with water; the medical student then estimated the cùn and pressed for the point and inserted the needle. If he hit the point, the needle penetrated and the water came out; if he was off by even a little, the needle could not penetrate.” A truly ingenious instrument! Later, Zhào Nánzhòng 趙南仲 returned the [bronze mannequin] to the imperial palace; Shūgōng once made two diagrams from it, cut the blocks, and circulated them. Today neither the Sòng bronze-man nor Zhāng’s diagrams survive; only this book preserves their general outline.
(Respectfully verified, 1st month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: set at 1027/1027, the date of the original Wáng Wéiyī presentation under Sòng Rénzōng. The seven-juan recension transmitted in the SKQS represents a later re-division (probably late-Northern-Sòng or Southern-Sòng) of the original three-juan presented work; the substantive content remains Wáng Wéiyī’s. The Cháo Gōngwǔ “Wáng Wéidé” reading is a transcription error for Wáng Wéiyī, as the Yùhǎi and Xià Sǒng’s preface make clear; the SKQS tíyào notes the variation but does not adjudicate, characteristically.
The work’s significance: (a) it is the textual companion to the Tóngrén bronze acupuncture mannequins of 1027, the imperial standardization of acupuncture point-locations that became canonical for SòngYuánMíngQīng practice; (b) it is the first work to systematically rationalize the inherited HànSuíTáng acupuncture record under a single emperor-sponsored bureau, anticipating the Sòng校正醫書局 work on the medical canon by thirty years; (c) it is the textual basis for acupuncture pedagogy under Sòng imperial medicine — the test-the-mannequin-with-water-filled-needling examination method preserved by Zhōu Mì is one of the most striking instruments in the global history of medical pedagogy.
The bronze mannequins themselves were lost or melted down at various points in subsequent history (one is reported to have been carried off as plunder and remained in the steppe), and only a much later Míng replica survives. The textual record in this work is therefore the principal evidence for what the Sòng standardization actually contained.
The catalog meta retains 闕名 (anonymous) by deference to the SKQS recension’s anonymous transmission, but the philological evidence assembled in the tíyào itself makes the Wáng Wéiyī attribution overwhelming.
Translations and research
- Goldschmidt, Asaf. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200, London: Routledge, 2009 (esp. ch. 3 on the bronze-man and Wáng Wéi-yī’s commission).
- Despeux, Catherine. Préscriptions d’acuponcture valant mille onces d’or: Traité d’acuponcture de Sun Simiao du VIIe siècle, Paris: Trédaniel, 1987 — and her broader work on the Sòng acupuncture canon.
- Lu Gwei-Djen and Joseph Needham, Celestial Lancets: A History and Rationale of Acupuncture and Moxa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980. Standard general history; treats the bronze-man at length.
- Huáng Lóngxiáng 黃龍祥, Zhōngguó zhēnjiǔ shǐ tújiàn 中國針灸史圖鑒, 2 vols., Qīngdǎo: Qīngdǎo Chūbǎnshè, 2003. Standard mainland Chinese history of acupuncture, with extensive treatment of the bronze-man and the Tóng-rén jīng.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Tóng-rén shū-xué zhēn-jiǔ tú-jīng kǎo 銅人腧穴鍼灸圖經考, in his collected papers; standard textual study.
Other points of interest
The Sòng校正醫書局’s collation of the Zhēnjiǔ jiǎyǐ jīng (KR3e0005) cites Wáng Wéiyī’s Tóngrén tú 銅人圖 as one of its principal apparatus sources for variant readings, indicating that even within the Sòng imperial medical bureau the Tóngrén was treated as the canonical reference for acupuncture point-locations. The integration of the Tóngrén tradition with the Sòng校正醫書局’s Jiǎyǐ jīng recension thus produced the standard SòngYuán acupuncture canon.
The hollow-bronze water-filled mannequin is one of the world’s earliest sustained uses of a hands-on simulated-patient teaching instrument in any medical tradition. Its sophistication — including the inlaid-gold inscription of point-names and the matched-half construction — represents Northern Sòng metalworking and pedagogical innovation at its height.