Míngtáng jiǔ jīng 明堂灸經
The Hall-of-Brightness Moxibustion Classic by 西方子 (Xīfāngzǐ “Master from the West”, pseudonymous, late 北宋 / 金 / 元)
About the work
A specialist moxibustion treatise in eight juan, attributed to the pseudonymous Xīfāngzǐ and printed (alongside the Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng KR3e0017) at the imperial printing-house of Píngyángfǔ 平陽府 in Shǎnxī during the late Northern Sòng to JīnYuán period. Where the Tóngrén shows the human figure only in front-back-left-right perspective, the Míngtáng jiǔ jīng adds side and supine views, considerably expanding the precision of point-localization. The work treats moxibustion exclusively, with no acupuncture content — following the Táng-period precedent of Wáng Tāo’s Wàitái mìyào (KR3e0015), which on the SKQS tíyào’s reading drastically reduced acupuncture content out of caution about needling errors and elevated moxibustion as a freestanding therapeutic discipline. The book is the principal SòngJīnYuán specialist moxibustion treatise.
Tiyao
Míngtáng jiǔ jīng, eight juan, attributed to Xīfāngzǐ; the man is unidentifiable. It was printed at Shānxī Píngyángfǔ together with the Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng. The book treats only moxibustion. Where the Tóngrén gives only front-and-back, left-and-right human figures, this work also includes side-and-supine views, considerably more detailed. Examining the Táng zhì, one finds a Huángdì shí’èr jīng míngtáng yǎncè rén tú 黃帝十二經明堂偃側人圖 in twelve juan; this present work may transmit its method.
The title Míngtáng — Qián Zēng’s Dúshū mǐnqiú jì says: “Long ago the Yellow Emperor questioned Qí Bó on the channels and meridians of the human body and recorded all he was told, depositing the records in the chamber of the Spirit Tower (靈臺); when Léi Gōng asked further, he sat in the Míngtáng (Hall of Brightness) and transmitted them. Hence the title Míngtáng in later medical works.” Today, when the medical schools mark acupuncture-and-moxibustion points by setting up an idol-figure with the locations dotted, they call this a Míngtáng — but this is incorrect. Examining the Jiù Tángshū jīngjí zhì, one finds a Míngtáng and a jīngmài class as two separate categories — confirming Qián Zēng’s account.
The old technique mostly speaks of acupuncture and moxibustion together, or speaks of acupuncture alone (using “needling” to imply moxibustion as well; the Língshū is called Zhēn jīng on this principle). It was Wáng Tāo who first vigorously argued, in his Wàitái mìyào, against the danger of misplaced needling: he therefore deleted both needling protocols and acupuncture-points, and established moxibustion as a separate gate. The present work speaks of moxibustion but not of needling, following Wáng Tāo’s zhì.
(Respectfully verified, 12th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1100–1300, the period during which the Píngyángfǔ imperial printing-house was active under late Northern Sòng, Jīn, and Yuán rule. The catalog meta leaves the dynasty field blank — reflecting the SKQS editors’ inability to identify Xīfāngzǐ — and the work-note follows that practice. The Píngyáng printing context is the principal evidence for the date.
The work’s structural innovations: (a) moxibustion as a freestanding discipline, with no acupuncture content; (b) side-and-supine human-figure illustrations, considerably advancing point-localization precision over the front-back-left-right standard of the Tóngrén; (c) systematic exposition of moxibustion for each individual point, with cone-count, indication, and treatment-rationale.
The pseudonym Xīfāngzǐ has resisted identification: the name suggests either a non-Han Western Regions origin (the Xīfāng of Buddhist literature) or a Daoist self-styling. The Píngyáng printing-house was a major source of JīnYuán Daoist texts, which lends some weight to the latter reading. Modern scholarship has been unable to reach a firm identification.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western secondary literature on this specific work. It is treated in the broader histories of Chinese acupuncture and moxibustion (Lu Gwei-Djen and Needham 1980; Despeux 1987; Huáng Lóngxiáng 2003).
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhēnjiǔ shǐ huà 針灸史話, Beijing: Rénmín Wèishēng, 1985. Treats the Míng-táng jiǔ jīng as the principal Jīn-Yuán moxibustion classic.
- Huáng Lóngxiáng 黃龍祥, Zhēnjiǔ míng-jiā xué-shù tǐ-xì 針灸名家學術體系, Beijing: Huá Xià Chūbǎnshè, 2007 (chapter on the Míng-táng tradition).
Other points of interest
The Píngyángfǔ 平陽府 (modern Línfén, Shǎnxī) was the principal SòngJīnYuán imperial printing center for the medical canon under non-Sòng-court rule, especially during the Jīn period after the Sòng court’s southward retreat. The bracketing of the Míngtáng jiǔ jīng and the Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng as a Píngyáng twin-print is one of the more interesting witnesses to north-south medical canon distribution in the 12th–13th centuries.
The Wáng Tāo / Wàitái mìyào lineage of “moxibustion-only” pedagogy — explicitly cited by the SKQS editors as the Míngtáng jiǔ jīng’s precedent — represents a minority but enduring strand within the Chinese acupuncture tradition that emphasized moxibustion’s lower risk profile relative to needle-based interventions. The strand has reappeared in the modern revival of moxibustion in 20th-century mainland Chinese medicine.