Zhènglèi běncǎo 證類本草
The Materia Medica Verified by Categorical Citations by 唐慎微 (Táng Shènwēi, zì Shěnyuán, fl. 1086–1108, of Shǔzhōu, 北宋) — base author; 曹孝忠 (Cáo Xiàozhōng, fl. 1116, 北宋) — Zhènghé period imperial collator; 寇宗奭 (Kòu Zōngshì, fl. 1116, 北宋) — author of the Yǎnyì (interpolated in JīnYuán recensions)
About the work
Táng Shènwēi’s foundational Sòng pharmacopoeia, the principal materia medica reference of the SòngYuánMíng tradition until superseded by Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù 本草綱目 (1593). The work is in 30 (or 31, or 32, depending on recension) juan, and integrates: (a) the Táng-period official Xīn xiū běncǎo 新修本草 (659, of Sū Jìng) and Bǔ zhù běncǎo 補注本草 (Sòng-period imperial revisions); (b) Chén Cángqì’s Běncǎo shíyí 本草拾遺 (Táng) and other supplementary sources; (c) more than 200 citations from non-medical literary sources where pharmaceutical material appeared — bǐjì miscellanies, anecdote collections, encyclopedias, geography works, and hagiography — making the Zhènglèi the principal indirect witness for hundreds of otherwise-lost pharmaceutical observations. The work circulates in two principal Sòng-imperial recensions: the Dàguān běncǎo (1108, edited under Sūn Gōng 孫公 and prefaced by Aì Shèng 艾晟; 31 juan + 1 contents juan) and the Zhènghé běncǎo (1116, edited under Cáo Xiàozhōng under Huīzōng’s commission; 30 juan with the original juan-31 incorporated into juan-30). The Jīn 大定 (1161–1189) and Yuán 大德 (1297–1307) reprints further interpolated Kòu Zōngshì’s Běncǎo yǎnyì 本草衍義 into the body of the work. The SKQS recension is from the Míng Chénghuà wùzǐ (1468) reprint of the Jīn Tàihé jiǎzǐ (1204) Huìmíngxuān 晦明軒 print of the Zhènghé recension; this is the more textually complete of the two principal lines.
Tiyao
Zhènglèi běncǎo, thirty juan, by Táng Shènwēi of the Sòng. According to Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí, the book is in 30 juan, with much overlap with the Dàguān běncǎo. Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū zhì gives the Zhènglèi běncǎo in 32 juan, also attributed to Táng Shènwēi. So already in the Sòng there were two recensions. The Yùhǎi records that on the 8th month, 15th day of Shàoxīng 27 (1157), Wáng Jìxiān 王繼先 submitted his collation of the Dàguān běncǎo in 32 juan + Shìyīn 釋音 1 juan; imperial decree ordered the Imperial Library to revise and refine, then to deliver to the Directorate of Education for printing. So in the Southern Sòng there was further an official print — but neither recension’s original print survives.
The two recensions current today: (1) the Míng Wànlì dīngchǒu (1577) reprint of the Yuán Dàdé rényín (1302) Zōngwén shūyuàn 宗文書院 print, with the 1108 Aì Shèng preface — Aì Shèng was Magistrate of Rénhé County (under the Liang-zhe Circuit) under Dàguān 2 (1108); his preface refers to the work as 31 juan + 1 contents juan, says Chief Editor Sūn Gōng obtained the manuscript and admired it, ordering officials to collate and print for circulation, and notes that Shènwēi’s place of origin and family-line were already lost in transmission. Chén Zhènsūn’s source was probably this Dàguān recension — therefore titled Dàguān běncǎo. (2) The Míng Chénghuà wùzǐ (1468) reprint of the Jīn Tàihé jiǎzǐ (1204) Huìmíngxuān recension, with the Sòng Zhènghé 6 (1116) preface by Tíjǔ Yīxué Cáo Xiàozhōng — saying that he respectfully received the imperial command (玉音), with envoy Yáng Jiǎn 楊戩 supervising the cutting and writing, and Cáo himself collating and refining. This recension is therefore titled Zhènghé běncǎo — but is in fact the same work [as the Dàguān běncǎo], differently collated.
The end of the Tàihé recension contains a Jīn Huángtǒng 3 (1143) postface by Hànlín Scholar Yǔwén Xūzhōng 宇文虛中, which says: “Shènwēi’s zì was Shěnyuán; he was a man of Chéngdū Huáyáng 成都華陽; in treating illness, he failed not one in a hundred. For literate-class patients he took no fee, but asked instead for famous prescriptions and secret records — and so the literati were especially fond of him. Whenever, in any classical or historical text, he encountered a single drug-name or single prescription, he would record it and report it to me. He gathered everything into this book. Shàngshū Zuǒchéng Pú Chuánzhèng wished to recommend him for an official post on the basis of his ministerial exemplary-conduct record, but Shènwēi refused and would not accept. Further, in the Yuányòu reign, when I [Yǔwén] was a child, I saw Shènwēi treat my father’s wind-poisoning, predicting that on a certain year-month-day it would relapse; he sealed the prescription and put it aside; on that day, my father took it as instructed — divinely effective.” So Yǔwén describes Shènwēi’s career in detail. After Jìngkāng (1127), the Imperial Archive’s books and records all entered the [Jīn] palace; this is why Chén Zhènsūn did not see this recension and did not know where Shènwēi was from. As for Cháo Gōngwǔ’s “32 juan” — perhaps counting the table of contents as a juan — he also did not see the Zhènghé print.
But Zhào Yǔshí’s 趙與旹 Bīntuì lù 賓退錄 says: “Táng Shènwēi was a man of Shǔzhōu Jìnyuán; his family had been physicians for generations; he was deeply learned in the prescription literature. In the Yuányòu period, the Shǔzhōu Provincial Inspector Lǐ Duānbó 李端伯 invited him to take up residence at Chéngdū. He once composed the Zhènglèi bèijí běncǎo in 32 juan.” Aì Shèng’s preface to the Dàguān recension said Shènwēi was “of unknown origin”; Zhào Yǔshí takes the trouble to point out that Shǔzhōu is the same as the present Chóngqìngfǔ. So Zhào’s career-account differs slightly — perhaps Yǔwén’s childhood memory only knew Shènwēi’s residence-of-record [in Chéngdū], not his ancestral seat [Jìnyuán]?
The Dàdé recension, 31 juan, agrees with Aì Shèng. The Tàihé recension shifts the original 31st juan in front of the 30th, combining them into a single juan — already not the Dàguān original. The Tàihé text further has a Dàdìng jǐyǒu (1189) preface by Má Gé 麻革 and a postface by Liú Qí 劉祁, both saying that Píngyáng’s Zhāng Cúnhuì 張存惠 interpolated Kòu Zōngshì’s Běncǎo yǎnyì — even more not Shènwēi’s original. But the Dàdé Dàguān recension also contains the Yǎnyì interpolation, agreeing with the Tàihé — so the Yuán reprinters added it from the Jīn base text.
Now collating the two recensions: the Dàdé Dàguān is clearer in distinguishing the red-script and black-mortise format (the original each entry calls black-mortise-and-below the Shènwēi continuation; like the fish-tail device in modern blockcutter usage); the Tàihé Zhènghé is often inconsistent with this rule, but its blockcutting is cleaner and more orderly, and the prefaces and postfaces are more complete. The Tàihé recension is therefore preferable. We record the Tàihé recension here; the Dàdé recension is mentioned in passing and not separately catalogued.
(Respectfully verified, [no specific month/day], Qiánlóng [10s]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1108–1116, the period of the two principal Sòng imperial collations. Táng Shènwēi’s underlying composition is conventionally dated to the Yuányòu / Yuánfú / Dàguān years (1086–1108) on the basis of Yǔwén Xūzhōng’s childhood-memory anchor, but the work appears to have been continuously revised and not fixed in a final form until the imperial collation. The 1108 Dàguān and 1116 Zhènghé recensions are accordingly the two textually-fixed forms.
The work’s significance:
(a) The Sòng-period materia medica summa: the Zhènglèi běncǎo is the most comprehensive Chinese pharmacopoeia until Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù (1593), surpassing all earlier běncǎo in scope and citational depth. It is the textual basis for nearly all SòngYuánMíng pharmacopoeial work.
(b) Indirect preservation of lost sources: Táng’s distinctive citational method — gathering pharmaceutical references from non-medical literary sources — preserves through indirect citation hundreds of references to lost pre-Sòng medical and botanical works (Chén Cángqì’s Běncǎo shíyí, the various lost regional běncǎo, the Hǎiyào běncǎo, etc.).
(c) The Dàguān vs. Zhènghé editorial divide: Sòng-period imperial medicine produced two simultaneous and rival editorial traditions of the Zhènglèi. The SKQS editors’ philological reconstruction of this rivalry is one of the better worked-out pieces of Sòng-imperial-publication history.
(d) The JīnYuán transmission and Kòu Zōngshì interpolation: the work crossed the JīnSòng frontier through the imperial library’s transfer to Jīn rule in 1127; the Jīn Tàihé and Yuán Dàdé prints are the two principal post-Sòng recensions, both with the Yǎnyì interpolated.
The catalog meta retains 唐慎微 / 曹孝忠 / 寇宗奭 as the three named persons, mirroring the SKQS print’s frontmatter but reflecting the work’s complex multi-stratum textual history.
Translations and research
- Joseph Needham (with Lu Gwei-Djen and Huang Hsing-tsung), Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 6 (Biology and Biological Technology), part 1 (Botany), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986. Treats the Zhèng-lèi běncǎo extensively as the principal Sòng materia medica summary.
- Unschuld, Paul U. Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986. Standard English-language history; the Zhèng-lèi is the central Sòng-period work.
- Goldschmidt, Asaf. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200, London: Routledge, 2009 (treats the Zhèng-lèi’s editorial history).
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (extensive entry on the Zhèng-lèi’s recensions).
- Shàng Zhì-jūn 尚志鈞, Lì-dài běncǎo wén-xiàn jīng-yào 歷代本草文獻精要, Beijing: Zhōng-yī-yào Kējì Chūbǎnshè, 1985. Standard mainland scholarship on the běncǎo tradition.
- Métailié, Georges. Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 6, part 4 (Traditional Botany: An Ethnobotanical Approach), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Covers the Zhèng-lèi’s botanical content.
Other points of interest
The Zhènglèi běncǎo’s “red-script-and-black-mortise” 朱書墨葢 typographical convention — Táng Shènwēi’s continuations of earlier běncǎo entries are marked with a black mortise (魚尾)-style device, while inherited material is in red script — is one of the more sophisticated typographical conventions in any Sòng-period printed book, anticipating the modern critical-edition apparatus. The SKQS editors’ detailed observation of this convention’s preservation in the two recensions is a good example of mid-Qīng book-historical scholarship.
The work’s preservation of Táng-period běncǎo witnesses (the Xīn xiū běncǎo, Běncǎo shíyí, Běncǎo yīnyì) is the principal source for the reconstruction of pre-Sòng pharmacopoeial work, and is the basis for modern critical editions of the Xīn xiū běncǎo (Shàng Zhìjūn 1981) and other lost works.