Shānghán zhígé fāng 傷寒直格方
Direct Templates and Prescriptions for Cold-Damage by 劉完素 (Liú Wánsù, attributed) — combined SKQS recension also includes Shānghán biāoběn xīnfǎ lèicuì 傷寒標本心法類萃 (in 2 juan) under same authorship attribution
About the work
Two cold-damage works in the Liú Wánsù corpus, both judged by the SKQS editors as likely Yuán-period pseudepigraphic compositions in Liú’s name rather than authentic Liú compositions: Shānghán zhígé fāng 傷寒直格方 (3 juan) and Shānghán biāoběn xīnfǎ lèicuì 傷寒標本心法類萃 (2 juan). The Zhígé fāng’s general thrust derives from the Yuánbìng shì (KR3e0047) — but the Yījiàn 醫鑒’s citation of “Píngchéng Dí Gōng’s preface comparing ‘walking by night with a lamp’” agrees with the present preface, suggesting the work may be by the late-Jīn / early-Yuán physician Dí Gōng 翟公 of Píngchéng — an attribution carried over into Liú’s corpus. The juan-header further attributes editing to Línchuān Gě Yōng 葛雍, suggesting Yuán-period editorial intervention. The Biāoběn xīnfǎ lèicuì divides into upper (symptom-pattern-and-priority) and lower (prescription) juan; its self-praise of the Shuāngjiě sǎn and Yìyuán sǎn (both Liú’s own prescriptions) as “divine prescriptions” is editorially incongruous with Liú’s own preface to the Yuánbìng shì indicating he had completed his cold-damage discussion in the Xuānmíng lùn (KR3e0048) and had no separate cold-damage book.
Tiyao
Shānghán zhígé fāng, 3 juan; Shānghán biāoběn xīnfǎ lèicuì, 2 juan; both with the old attribution to Liú Wánsù of the Jīn. The Zhígé fāng’s general thrust is in-and-out of the Yuánbìng shì; but the Yījiàn citation of Dí Gōng of Píngchéng’s “walking by night with a lamp” remark agrees exactly with the present preface — perhaps the work is by Dí Gōng. The Yījiàn further says: “Wánsù composed the Liùjīng chuánbiàn zhígé in one work, 17,009 characters; further, in the Xuānmíng lùn he gathered tight-and-key prescriptions, 60 entries, distributed in 6 gates, also titled Zhígé.” This book has prescriptions and discussions but does not divide into gates — one cannot definitely identify it as either of these. The juan-header further attributes editing to Línchuān Gě Yōng — so it has been re-edited by later hands and may not be Liú’s original.
The Shānghán biāoběn xīnfǎ lèicuì’s upper juan distinguishes outer-and-inner and discriminates the gradations; the lower juan records the prescriptions. In the Chuánrǎn (epidemic transmission) entry, the Shuāngjiě sǎn 雙解散 and Yìyuán sǎn 益元散 are praised as “divine prescriptions”; but these two prescriptions are Liú Wánsù’s own creations — he would not so highly praise himself. Examining: Liú’s Yuánbìng shì preface says: “I gathered the cold-damage and miscellaneous-disease pulse-and-symptom-and-prescription-and-discussion text into a work titled Yīfāng jīngyào xuānmíng lùn.” Examining the Xuānmíng lùn, it already contains 2 juan on cold-damage; so Liú’s cold-damage method is already in the Xuānmíng lùn and not a separate book. These two works likely come from later attribution. Yet they have circulated for a long time, and we provisionally preserve them for reference.
(Respectfully verified, 12th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1180–1300, the broad late-Jīn to mid-Yuán period during which the work was likely produced — by Dí Gōng or by anonymous Yuán-period physicians working in Liú Wánsù’s school. The catalog meta retains 金 (Jīn) as dynasty per the conventional attribution, but the prose makes the SKQS editors’ attribution-doubt clear.
The work’s significance:
(a) Witness to the Liú Wánsù school’s institutional propagation: even as a pseudepigraphic composition, the work documents how Liú Wánsù’s doctrines were further developed and applied by his disciples and immediate successors. The Yuán-period propagation of the Héjiān school is partly visible through these school-attributed works.
(b) The Dí Gōng of Píngchéng / Gě Yōng of Línchuān editorial layer: the SKQS editors’ identification of these likely contributors is a useful piece of textual-philological work, locating the work in the Yuán-period medical-school transmission.
(c) The internal-evidence test for pseudepigraphy: the editors’ detection that the Biāoběn xīnfǎ lèicuì’s self-praise of Liú’s own prescriptions as “divine” is incongruous with Liú’s authentic voice is a textbook example of stylistic-internal-evidence philology. Liú’s authentic preface to the Yuánbìng shì is taken as the baseline against which the present work’s editorial voice is measured.
(d) The “Six Books of Héjiān” 河間六書 transmission: this work and KR3e0047, KR3e0048 together with several other Liú-attributed works form the Héjiān liùshū corpus that propagated the school’s doctrine through YuánMíngQīng. The SKQS editors’ careful authentication of which works are genuine Liú and which are pseudepigraphic is a useful guide for modern users of the corpus.
The catalog meta combines two separately-titled works (Shānghán zhígé fāng + Shānghán biāoběn xīnfǎ lèicuì) into a single entry under the Zhígé fāng title; the prose makes the composite character of the entry clear.
Translations and research
- See KR3e0047 for the principal references on Liú Wánsù.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Hé-jiān liù-shū corpus and pseudepigraphic-attribution analysis).
Other points of interest
The Héjiān liùshū (Six Works of Héjiān) corpus is one of the more interesting cases of school-attributed pseudo-corpus formation in Chinese medical history. After Liú Wánsù’s death, his disciples and immediate successors continued producing works in his name, gradually building a six-work corpus of which only some were genuinely his. The SKQS tíyào on this work and KR3e0048 is one of the better Qing-period sortings of the corpus.