Chǎnyù bǎoqìng jí 產育寶慶集
The Treasured Auspicious Collection on Childbirth and Child-Rearing by 陳師聖 (Chén Shīshèng / Lǐ Shīshèng, late 北宋 / early 南宋) — discoverer of the base discussion-text; 郭稽中 (Guō Jīzhōng, fl. same period, 南宋) — original compiler of prescriptions
About the work
A composite SòngYuán women’s-and-childbirth medical text in 2 juan, with multi-stratum editorial history. The base layer is 21 piān of childbirth-discussions of unknown authorship, discovered by Lǐ Shīshèng (陳師聖 in catalog meta is likely a transcription error for 李 per Chén Zhènsūn). The early Southern-Sòng Yīxué jiàoshòu Guō Jīzhōng appended prescriptions to each discussion, producing the original 1-juan Chǎnyù bǎoqìng jí. Subsequent editorial accretions: (a) Chén Yán 陳言 (author of the Sānyīn jíyī bìngzhèng fānglùn KR3e0041) wrote critiques of each prescription’s strengths and weaknesses; (b) the Wū physician Dù Jiāo 杜荍 incorporated Chén Yán’s critiques under each entry; (c) Zhào Yíng 趙瑩 obtained a Chǎnrǔ bèiyào 產乳備要 (Essentials of Childbirth-and-Nursing) and supplemented with Yáng Zǐjiàn 楊子建 (hào Yáng Tān 楊倓)‘s seven discussions; (d) Jì Zhìjūn 冀致君 added prescriptions from the Imperial Pharmacy and miscellaneous-disease formularies, plus the Tǐxuánzǐ jièdìfǎ 體玄子借地法 (a Daoist-medical placement-of-the-afterbirth ritual). The SKQS recovery from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn presents the work in 2 juan: juan 1 = the 21 discussions + 16 Chén Yán critiques + 34 prescriptions; juan 2 = 62 prescriptions on childbirth-and-nursing-and-pregnancy. The Tǐxuánzǐ ritual section is missing from the Yǒnglè recovery.
Tiyao
Chǎnyù bǎoqìng fāng, 2 juan. The old base copy carries no compiler’s name. The Sòng shǐ yìwén zhì attributes the work to Guō Jīzhōng. Examining Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí: “Lǐ Shīshèng of Púyáng obtained a Chǎn lùn in 21 piān, having discussions but no prescriptions; the Imperial Medical Academy Professor Guō Jīzhōng, an esteemed physician of the time, appended prescriptions to the discussions, making it a complete book.” So Guō’s contribution was to add new prescriptions to Shīshèng’s recovered base text, not to compose the work himself. The Sòng shǐ attribution did not see Chén Zhènsūn’s note.
But Guō’s combined-with-original-discussions work was 1 juan, not matching this base text. Examining the prefaces at the head of this volume: Chén Yán of Kuòcāng composed the Sānyīn fāng and once took these prescriptions and discussions and critically evaluated each, scoring strengths and weaknesses. The Wū physician Dù Jiāo took the evaluations and incorporated them under the corresponding entries. Later, Zhào Yíng 趙瑩 obtained a Chǎnrǔ bèiyào 產乳備要 and supplemented with Yáng Zǐjiàn 楊子建’s seven discussions, joining them with the Chǎn lùn into a single collection. A man named Jì Zhìjūn 冀致君 further excerpted the Imperial Pharmacy’s miscellaneous-disease prescriptions and discussions, the Rùyuè chǎn tú 入月產圖 (lying-in diagrams), and the Tǐxuánzǐ jièdìfǎ (Daoist placement-of-the-afterbirth ritual) and the Ānchǎn cángyī fāngwèi 安產藏衣方位 (calm-childbirth and afterbirth-disposal directions) — appending all at the end. So the work has been continuously expanded — already not Guō’s original — but circulates under the original title.
The work has rarely circulated in independent transmission. We have now from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn recovered: 21 discussions, 16 of Chén Yán’s critiques, and 34 prescriptions — into 1 juan; the Chǎnrǔ bèiyào + 62 jīngqì rènshēn prescription items — into 1 juan. The Tǐxuánzǐ jièdìfǎ is missing from the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn and is therefore lacking here.
[Pre-natal-education] tāi jiào methods were highly valued in antiquity — the Jiǎ Yì 賈誼 Xīn shū 新書 cites the Qīngshǐ shuō 青史說; Liú Xiàng’s 劉向 Liènǚ zhuàn records [the great consort] Tàirèn 太任’s care of the infant Wénwáng — both can still be glimpsed. But of childbirth specifically, prescription-books are rare. The Táng yìwén zhì records Zǎn Yīn’s Chǎn bǎo 產寶 in 1 juan, the first separate gate; that book is now lost. The discussion of pregnancy-and-childbirth must therefore take the present work as its oldest [extant source].
In the work, only Chén Yán’s discussions are explicitly tagged with author-name; the rest are unattributed. We can deduce by structural-precedent: the upper juan’s prescriptions are likely Guō’s; in the lower juan, miǎnrǔ 娩乳, ānchǎn 安產, jīngqì 經氣 three entries aside, the rest are presumably Yáng Zǐjiàn’s discussions, with the prescriptions appended being those collected by Jì Zhìjūn from the Imperial Pharmacy. Chén Yán’s Sānyīn fāng is independently catalogued; Yáng Zǐjiàn (named Tān) had a Yángshì jiācáng fāng 楊氏家藏方, not now seen. Lǐ Shīshèng et al. are Southern-Sòng men. Jì Zhìjūn’s preface refers to these men as “Sòng Confucian scholars” and says he was “recently in the YānZhào region” — so Jì must be Yuán-period.
(Respectfully verified, 9th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1100–1300 — bracketing the late-Northern-Sòng Lǐ Shīshèng / Guō Jīzhōng base composition through the Yuán-period Jì Zhìjūn final supplementation. The work’s multi-stratum editorial history (Lǐ Shīshèng → Guō Jīzhōng → Chén Yán’s critiques → Dù Jiāo’s incorporation → Zhào Yíng’s supplementation with Yáng Zǐjiàn → Jì Zhìjūn’s Yuán-period further additions) is one of the more elaborate in any SòngYuán medical work, and the SKQS tíyào’s philological-historical reconstruction is one of its more thorough.
The work’s significance:
(a) The principal extant pre-Yuán Chinese childbirth manual after Zǎn Yīn’s lost Chǎn bǎo: at 21 base discussions and over 100 supplementary prescriptions, the Chǎnyù bǎoqìng jí is the most comprehensive surviving SòngYuán resource on parturition specifically (as opposed to women’s medicine in general, for which see Chén Zìmíng’s KR3e0038).
(b) The multi-stratum editorial history: an unusually transparent case of how a Sòng medical text accreted material across multiple editorial generations. The work transmits not a single author’s voice but a SòngYuán cumulative women’s-medicine tradition.
(c) The Yuán-period Daoist-ritual addenda: the Tǐxuánzǐ jièdìfǎ and Ānchǎn cángyī fāngwèi — Daoist-ritual placement-of-the-afterbirth and direction-of-childbirth-confinement — would have given the work a religious-ritual dimension complementary to its pharmacological-medical content. The SKQS-version’s loss of these chapters (per the Yǒnglè dàdiǎn lacuna) is a substantive loss for the history of Daoist-medical interaction.
The catalog meta retains 陳師聖 (likely error for 李師聖) and 郭稽中 as the named persons; the prose reflects Chén Zhènsūn’s correction.
Translations and research
- Furth, Charlotte. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China’s Medical History, 960–1665, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999. The standard English-language work on Chinese women’s-medicine; treats the Chǎn-yù bǎo-qìng jí.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Chǎn-yù bǎo-qìng jí and its multi-stratum textual history).
Other points of interest
The “Chén Shīshèng / Lǐ Shīshèng” surname error in the catalog meta is one of the more common Sòng-bibliographic transmission errors. Modern scholarship follows Chén Zhènsūn’s Shūlù jiětí in giving the correct surname Lǐ; the catalog’s preservation of the erroneous Chén is presumably derived from an inferior bibliographic line.
The Tǐxuánzǐ jièdìfǎ — preserved in some non-Yǒnglè lines but missing from the SKQS recovery — is one of the more interesting Daoist-medical ritual texts of the Sòng period, an instructional text on the ritual placement of the afterbirth in a designated direction-and-position (the fāngwèi) for the well-being of the child. It is a unique witness for the integration of Daoist directional ritual with Chinese childbirth medicine.