SūShěn liáng fāng 蘇沈良方
The Sū-Shěn Excellent Prescriptions by 沈括 (Shěn Kuò, 1029–1093, 宋) — base author; 蘇軾 (Sū Shì, 1037–1101, 宋) — posthumously appended
About the work
A Northern-Sòng combined formulary in eight juan: at its base is Shěn Kuò’s Liáng fāng 良方 (10 juan), his personal clinical formulary completed in retirement at Mèngxī 夢溪 in the late 1080s; to it later editors appended Sū Shì’s medical-and-pharmacological miscellanies on technical and herbal questions. The combined recension circulated under the title SūShěn liáng fāng (or in some witnesses SūShěn èrnèihàn liáng fāng 蘇沈二內翰良方), and from the late Northern Sòng onward eclipsed the original Liáng fāng in circulation. The work was lost in independent transmission and recovered by the SKQS editors from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn. Shěn Kuò’s preface — preserved at the head of the recovered text and explicitly mentioning only “the Liáng fāng I have composed” with not a word about Sū Shì — confirms the composite character of the received recension.
Tiyao
SūShěn liáng fāng, eight juan, the prescription book compiled by Shěn Kuò of the Sòng, to which later editors appended Sū Shì’s discussions. Examining the Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì, one finds a Língyuàn fāng 靈苑方 by [Shěn] Kuò in twenty juan and a Liáng fāng in ten juan; separately, a SūShěn liáng fāng in fifteen juan with the note “by Shěn Kuò and Sū Shì.” Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí has a SūShěn liáng fāng in ten juan and no Shěn Cúnzhōng liáng fāng; Yóu Mào 尤袤’s Suìchū táng shūmù is the same. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì lists both books, with the entry under Shěn Cúnzhōng’s Liáng fāng noting: “some have appended Sū Zǐzhān’s discussions of medicines and miscellaneous matters”; under SūShěn liáng fāng it likewise says: “Kuò compiled this ‘Tested-Effective Prescriptions’ as a single work; later editors appended Sū Shì’s medical miscellanies.” So Cháo’s entry under Liáng fāng is Shěn’s original, and the note “some have appended Sū Zǐzhān…” refers to the SūShěn liáng fāng. The two books originally circulated together; later, the SūShěn with the appended Sū Shì material became dominant, the Liáng fāng original faded — hence Yóu and Chén do not list the original. The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn preserves the SūShěn liáng fāng original preface in one juan, also entirely by Shěn Kuò, and it explicitly says, “the Liáng fāng I have composed”, without one word of Sū. So the title was retroactively re-edited by later editors, who not only appended material to the body but also altered the title.
The Míng Cháo Lì 晁瑮’s Bǎowéntáng shūmù records a SūShěn èrnèihàn liáng fāng — so the transmitted text was not yet lost in the early- to mid-Míng (Zhèngdé to Jiājìng); when it was lost is unclear. Now from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn’s preserved fragments we have collected and re-arranged into eight juan.
The Sòng shǐ says of Shěn Kuò: “On medicine, pharmacy, and divination he was wholly proficient; on each he wrote and discussed.” His Mèngxī bǐtán 夢溪筆談 ends with the Yào yì 藥議 in one juan, treating the form, nature, taste, authenticity, and identity-or-difference of medicinal substances with particular precision. Sū Shì in his miscellanies discusses medical theory; he too studied the matter rather thoroughly. Pharmaceutical matters are such that the fāngshù (technical-arts) men can practice the technique but not understand the why; the Confucian scholars can illuminate the principle but often have not tested it in practice. This book, as a tested-effective formulary in the hands of two scholars of broad knowledge of physical reality, is therefore not what other prescription works can match.
(Respectfully verified, 10th month of Qiánlóng 49 [1784]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1086–1100. The base Liáng fāng is dated by reference to Shěn’s retirement period at Mèngxī (1086–1093, the period of the Bǐtán); the later appending of Sū Shì’s medical miscellanies — Sū died in 1101 — brackets the upper end of the formation of the SūShěn liáng fāng compound recension. The mid-twelfth-century Língyuàn fāng / Liáng fāng / SūShěn liáng fāng triple bibliographic listing in the Sòng zhì implies that the compound recension was already current by the time the Sòng zhì materials were compiled.
The work’s significance: (a) the natural-philosopher’s clinical formulary — Shěn Kuò’s prescriptions are accompanied throughout by careful empirical observations on materia medica’s identity, authentication, and therapeutic mechanism, the most original such observations in the Sòng medical literature outside the imperially-commissioned Tàipíng shènghuì fāng; (b) the joint SūShěn editorial combination — a Sòng-period editorial decision to combine the practical work of Shěn (the natural philosopher) with the theoretical and reflective work of Sū Shì (the literary intellectual interested in medical questions), producing a hybrid genre uncommon in the Chinese medical tradition; (c) the SKQS Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery as a model of textual-recovery scholarship.
The catalog meta lists 蘇軾 as primary author by long-standing convention (the title order Sū before Shěn reflects Sū’s higher literary stature, not editorial priority); the SKQS tíyào and modern philology unanimously identify Shěn as the actual base author.
Translations and research
- Sivin, Nathan, “Shen Kua: A Preliminary Assessment of His Scientific Thought and Achievements,” Sung Studies Newsletter 13 (1977): 31–56. Foundational English-language study of Shěn Kuò.
- Sivin, Nathan, Granting the Seasons: The Chinese Astronomical Reform of 1280, with a Study of Its Many Dimensions and an Annotated Translation of Its Records, New York: Springer, 2009 (esp. on Shěn’s Yào yì and natural-historical method).
- Goldschmidt, Asaf. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200, London: Routledge, 2009 (treats the Sū-Shěn liáng fāng in the Sòng medical-literary context).
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Sū-Shěn liáng fāng and the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovery).
- Egan, Ronald. Word, Image, and Deed in the Life of Su Shi, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 1994. On Sū Shì’s medical interests.
Other points of interest
The Yǒnglè dàdiǎn-preserved preface — explicitly identifying the work as Shěn Kuò’s alone — is the cornerstone of the SKQS editors’ attribution argument. Its disagreement with the received compound title is one of the more elegant examples of SòngYuán title alteration tracked by Qīng philology.
Sū Shì’s medical writings in the appended portion include observations on artemisinin-related botanical questions (the qīnghāo 青蒿 / yīnchénhāo 茵陳蒿 distinction), on stone-sourced laxative pharmacology, and on the use of mineral preparations in clinical practice. Many of these draw on Shěn Kuò’s natural-historical observations in the Mèngxī bǐtán’s Yào yì chapter — making the SūShěn liáng fāng an editorial tribute to a productive late-Sòng literary-scientific collaboration whose principal publication, the Mèngxī bǐtán, was Shěn’s own.