Xuānmíng fānglùn 宣明方論
The Proclaimed-and-Clarified Discussions of Prescriptions by 劉完素 (Liú Wánsù, zì Shǒuzhēn, ca. 1110–1200, of Héjiān, 金)
About the work
Liú Wánsù’s prescriptive companion to the Sùwèn xuánjī yuánbìng shì (KR3e0047). The work — preserving the doctrinal application of the fire-and-heat school — is in 15 juan of disease-pattern and prescription material organized into 17 thematic gates: Zhū zhèng 諸證 (general patterns; 61 specific conditions drawn from Nèijīng with prescriptions following Zhāng Jī’s logic), Zhū fēng 諸風 (wind), Rè 熱 (heat), Shānghán 傷寒, Jī jù 積聚 (accumulation), Shuǐ shī 水濕 (water-damp), Tán yǐn 痰飲 (phlegm-and-fluid), Láo 勞 (consumptive), Xiè lì 洩痢 (diarrhea-and-dysentery), Fùrén 婦人 (women), Bǔ yǎng 補養 (supplementation), Zhū tòng 諸痛 (pains), Zhì lóu 痔瘻 (hemorrhoids-and-fistula), Yǎnmù 眼目 (eyes), Xiǎo’ér 小兒 (pediatrics), Zá bìng 雜病 (miscellaneous). Each gate opens with a comprehensive theoretical discussion (zǒnglùn) elucidating the yùnqì doctrine for that category. Liú’s original work — per his own preface to the Yuánbìng shì — was Yīfāng jīngyào xuānmíng lùn 醫方精要宣明論 in 3 juan, over 100,000 characters. The transmitted 15-juan recension printed in the Héjiān liùshū contains substantial post-Yuán additions: prescriptions of clearly-Míng-dynasty origin (Guàndǐng fǎwáng zǐ 灌頂法王子-attributed Xìnxiāng shí fāng 信香十方 and Qīngjīn gāo 青金膏 in juan 7) appear alongside Liú’s authentic late-Jīn material. The SKQS editors flag the explicitly-marked “newly-added” 新增 entries and identify the unmarked but anachronistic Míng-period interpolations.
Tiyao
Xuānmíng fānglùn, 15 juan, by Liú Wánsù of the Jīn. The book is wholly on prescription-by-disease method. It begins with the Zhū zhèng gate: from Jiān jué 煎厥, Bó jué 薄厥, Cān xiè 餐洩, Chēn zhàng 䐜脹, on through the various bì 痺 conditions and xīn shàn 心疝 — 61 conditions in all, drawn from the Nèijīng chapters, each condition with a principal-treatment prescription, throughout following Zhòngjǐng [Zhāng Jī]. The remaining gates are Zhū fēng, Rè, Shānghán, Jī jù, Shuǐ shī, Tán yǐn, Láo, Xiè lì, Fùrén, Bǔ yǎng, Zhū tòng, Zhì lóu, Yǎnmù, Xiǎo’ér, Zá bìng — 17 gates in total. Each gate has a comprehensive discussion that elucidates the yùnqì principle and integrates the various authorities. On the XuānQí (Yellow-Emperor / Qí Bó) doctrines, Liú genuinely contributes; but his liberal use of cooling prescriptions, when over-emphasized, is not without harm. Those who use the work well will adjust accordingly.
Examining the Yuánbìng shì’s preface, Liú says: “I have composed the medical-prescription-essential Xuānmíng lùn in one work, three juan, over 100,000 characters.” The present recension, however, printed in the Héjiān liùshū, has 15 juan. Among the entries: in juan 2, the Júyè fǎ 菊葉法 and Bóhé báitán tāng 薄荷白檀湯; in juan 4, the Miàogōng cángyòng wán 妙功藏用丸; in juan 12, the Bìchéngqié wán 蓽澄茄丸, Bǔzhōng wán 補中丸, and Chǔshízǐ wán 楮實子丸 — all are marked “newly added” (新增). But in juan 7, the Xìnxiāng shí fāng 信香十方 and Qīngjīn gāo 青金膏 are not so marked; according to the prescription’s small-preface, these were “transmitted by the Crown-Anointed Dharma-King’s Son” (灌頂法王子) and have an attached jiépǎ 偈㕨 [Buddhist verse-formula]. But under the Jīn there was no “Crown-Anointed Dharma-King” — a clear post-Yuán-Míng prescription that has been interpolated without being marked. We do not know how many such silent interpolations there are. The juan-count’s increase from the original 3 juan must be explained this way.
(Respectfully verified, 10th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1180–1186, the period of Liú Wánsù’s mature output. The original 3-juan / 100,000-character form mentioned in his own preface to the Yuánbìng shì was the authoritative Liú composition; the present 15-juan SKQS recension represents a substantially-augmented post-Yuán-Míng print line, with explicit and silent interpolations.
The work’s significance:
(a) Liú Wánsù’s prescriptive doctrine in clinical application: paired with the Yuánbìng shì (KR3e0047) — which provides the theoretical-doctrinal foundation — the Xuānmíng lùn applies the fire-and-heat doctrine to over 60 specific disease-conditions, providing a complete prescriptive matrix for clinical practice.
(b) The integration of Sùwèn aetiology with Zhāng Jī therapeutics: Liú’s prescriptive logic in the Zhū zhèng gate explicitly grounds itself in Zhāng Jī’s ShānghánJīnguì tradition while applying the Sùwèn’s fire-and-heat aetiological framework. This is the doctrinal move that defines the JīnYuán medical revolution: re-grounding the Héjì jú fāng’s prescription matrix in classical-textual reasoning.
(c) The post-Yuán-Míng interpolations: the SKQS editors’ detection of unmarked Míng-period prescriptions (the Guàndǐng fǎwáng zǐ-attributed entries) is a useful piece of textual-philological work. The interpolations are often Buddhist-medical or YuánMíng Daoist-medical material that was woven into the Liú Wánsù corpus to lend his prestige to later prescriptions.
(d) The Héjiān liùshū print line: the 15-juan recension circulating in the Héjiān liùshū (Six Works of Héjiān) is the principal post-Yuán carrier for Liú Wánsù’s prescriptive corpus; the SKQS-base print is from this line. Other Liú Wánsù works in the Liùshū / Kanripo series include KR3e0049 (the Sùshū bāomìng jí 素書包命集 / Sānxiāo lùn 三消論) and others.
The catalog meta gives the fl. date as 1186 — consistent with the SKQS-editor reading of Liú’s most active years.
Translations and research
- See KR3e0047 for the principal references on Liú Wánsù (Unschuld 1985; Despeux 2001; Goldschmidt 2009; Mǎ Bóyīng 2010; Shi Lan 2007; Liào Yùqún 2002).
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Xuān-míng lùn and the post-Yuán interpolations).
Other points of interest
The “Crown-Anointed Dharma-King’s Son” (灌頂法王子) — a Buddhist tantric epithet (referring to a guàn-dǐng 灌頂 abhiṣeka “crown-anointing” empowerment recipient) — in the unattributed prescription preface is one of the more telling pieces of philological evidence for the Yuán-Míng tantric-Buddhist contribution to Chinese medical literature. Yuán-period contact with Tibetan Buddhism brought tantric-medical material into the Chinese pharmacological canon, and this slip-through-as-Liú-Wánsù prescription is a small witness to that process.
The “newly-added” 新增 marker convention used by the Héjiān liùshū compilers is methodologically interesting: the compilers acknowledged some additions but suppressed others. The SKQS editors’ identification of the suppressed-but-anachronistic interpolations is one of the kind of philological cleanup the Sìkù compilers were good at.