Tuīqiú shī yì 推求師竟
Pursuing-and-Inquiring after the Master’s Meaning by 戴原禮 (Dài Yuánlǐ, personal name Sīgōng, 1324–1405, 明)
About the work
Dài Yuánlǐ’s exposition and elaboration of the previously-untransmitted clinical-doctrinal teachings of his master 朱震亨 Zhū Zhènhēng, in 2 juan. The title — “Pursuing-and-Inquiring after the Master’s Meaning” — derives from Confucius’s Lúnyǔ “one who is not striving will not learn the teacher’s meaning” (不憤不啟不悱不發), expressing Dài’s commitment to extending Zhū’s intent into areas Zhū had not himself directly addressed. The work was lost in independent transmission until rediscovered by Wāng Jī 汪機 of Qímén in the Jiājìng period (1522–1566) at Shèxiàn 歙縣; Wāng’s disciple Chén Què 陳桷 collated and printed it, with Wāng providing the title — the original Yuán-Míng-period title was unknown. Lǐ Lián’s Yīshǐ records that Dài’s surviving works are: revisions of Jīnguì gōuxuán (KR3e0062, 3 juan); the Zhèngzhì yàojué 證治要訣; the Zhèngzhì lèifāng 證治類方; the Lèizhèng yòngyào 類症用藥; this present work is presumably one of these. Modern scholarship suggests it is a fragment of one of those works.
Tiyao
Tuīqiú shī yì, 2 juan, by Dài Yuánlǐ of the Míng. Yuánlǐ is the same who collated-and-supplemented Zhū Zhènhēng’s Jīnguì gōuxuán. This compilation pursues-and-elaborates Zhènhēng’s unfinished meaning, set down in writing. The work had no transmission. In the Jiājìng period, Wāng Jī of Qímén obtained the copy at Shèxiàn and brought it back; Wāng’s disciple Chén Què collated it for printing — the title was given by Wāng Jī.
Examining Lǐ Lián’s Yīshǐ — the Yuánlǐ supplementary biography — Lián says: “[Yuánlǐ’s] lifetime writings are not many; he has the Order-correction of Zhū Dānxī’s Jīnguì gōuxuán in 3 juan, with appended his-own meanings; further the Zhèngzhì yàojué, the Zhèngzhì lèifāng, and the Lèizhèng yòngyào — all summarizing Dānxī’s writings.” So this 2-juan work is presumably one of these three [last-mentioned] works.
Yuánlǐ was Zhènhēng’s senior disciple, fully receiving the master’s transmission. The recorded material is therefore all secret-teaching subtle-words, not comparable to ear-snatching-and-eye-stealing pseudo-transmissions. Zhènhēng took yīn-supplementation as the principal strategy; the world’s saying that the directly-supplements-true-water [school] was first opened by him is in fact a result of this teaching. The work’s discussions broadly take this meaning as basis. But common-physicians who do not learn Zhènhēng well often correct-the-deficiency-too-far and reverse to killing people with cold-cool [medicine]. This work alone is able to weave-and-circle [the meaning] flexibly, allowing students to grasp the meaning without falling into the deficiency-flow — and so can be said to have achieved much for Zhènhēng.
(Respectfully verified, 6th month of Qiánlóng 43 [1778]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1370–1403, the late period of Dài’s life — after Zhū Zhènhēng’s death (1358) when Dài was working actively to preserve his master’s teachings, and before Dài’s own death in 1405. The catalog gives Dài’s death year as 1403 — slight variant from the standard 1405; the exact death year is uncertain.
The work’s significance:
(a) The most direct transmission of Zhū Zhènhēng’s clinical doctrine: Dài Yuánlǐ as Zhū’s senior disciple preserves the master’s previously-unwritten clinical material in this work. Through Dài, the Yuán-period Dānxī school doctrine reached the Míng in its most fully-developed form.
(b) The Confucian yǐn ér bù fā pedagogical principle: the title’s reference to Confucius’s “the master leads but does not draw out” (引而不發) principle locates the work in the broader Confucian-medical (rúyī) intellectual tradition, where master-and-disciple transmission required active student inquiry rather than passive reception.
(c) The Wāng Jī rediscovery and Chén Què printing: a useful piece of mid-Míng book-historical narrative. The work’s rediscovery by Wāng Jī at Shèxiàn — Wāng’s later printing through his disciple Chén Què — represents one of the better-documented mid-Míng medical-text recoveries. The original work-title being unknown and Wāng’s giving the present title is also philologically interesting.
(d) The corrective stance against Dānxī school excesses: the SKQS editors note that Dài Yuánlǐ’s work — flexible and balanced — provides a corrective against the misapplications of Zhū’s yīn-supplementing doctrine that produced the over-cooling pharmaceutical practice criticized by Zhāng Jièbīn and others. This is one of the more methodologically sophisticated late-Míng medical-pedagogical positions.
The catalog title 推求師竟 contains a possible typographical slip — the SKQS print and Lǐ Lián’s Yīshǐ both have 推求師意 (with 意 not 竟). Per CLAUDE.md, the slip is preserved in the catalog and flagged here.
Translations and research
- No substantial Western translation of this specific work.
- See KR3e0060 and KR3e0062 for the principal references on Zhū Zhènhēng and Dài Yuánlǐ.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Tuī-qiú shī yì).
Other points of interest
The “master leads but does not draw out” 引而不發 Confucian-pedagogical principle invoked by Dài’s title is one of the more philosophically articulate Míng-period medical-pedagogical positions. The principle locates medical-knowledge-transmission within the broader Confucian framework of master-and-disciple intellectual relationship.
The work’s recovery by Wāng Jī of Qímén in the Jiājìng period is part of a broader mid-Míng medical-textual recovery effort, which also included Wāng Jī’s reprint of Dài Qǐzōng’s Màijué kānwù (KR3e0065) with appended Màishū yàoyǔ and Jiǎoshì huòmài lùn. Wāng was a major mid-Míng medical philologist and book-publisher.