Běncǎo chéngyǎ bàn jì 本草乘雅半偈
The Materia-Medica Quad-Multiplied Half-Verses by 盧之頤 (Lú Zhīyí, zì Zǐyóu, late 明 / early 清)
About the work
Lú Zhīyí’s late-Míng materia-medica commentary in 10 juan, structured around 365 substances (the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng’s canonical figure, corresponding to the days of the year): 222 from the Běn jīng, plus 143 selected from later authorities (Tao Hongjing’s Biélù, Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù, etc.) — to maintain the canonical 365 count. The title is opaque: Chéngyǎ 乘雅 — “chéng (multiply) by 4” — refers to the original work’s quad-structure under each substance: Hé 覈 (verification), Cān 參 (consultation), Yǎn 衍 (elaboration), Duàn 斷 (judgment). Bàn jì 半偈 — “half-verses” — reflects that the original text was lost in the late-Míng turmoil (likely Manchu invasion / Qīng conquest 1644+); Lú reconstructed from memory, but only the Hé, Cān, Yǎn, Duàn sub-headings survived (without the verse-form-paraphrase that originally accompanied them) — hence “half” of the original. The work was composed in a 18-year-span (1612–1630 per Háng Shìjùn’s biography) at the request of his father Lú Fù 盧復 (also a physician, author of the Běncǎo gāngmù bóyì 本草綱目博議). The “xiānrénzì” (先人字 “honored father’s letters”) in the work refers to Lú Fù’s Bóyì. The catalog meta gives 10 juan; Háng’s biography records 12 — a textual issue the SKQS editors flag without resolving.
Tiyao
Běncǎo chéngyǎ bàn jì, 10 juan, by Lú Zhīyí of the Míng. His statement: the Shénnóng běnjīng lists 365 substances, matching the days of the year; we cannot remove or add — but those substances ancient-extant-now-lost are about a third. He therefore takes 222 from the Běn jīng, plus 143 from later authorities (from Tao Hongjing’s Biélù through Lǐ Shízhēn’s Gāngmù) to maintain the 365 count. This is unavoidably forced, but the textual investigation is comprehensive and the discussion clear; on the various authorities’ substance-records he is quite strict in judgment. Although the wording is somewhat branching, on the materia medica he genuinely contributes.
The title “Chéngyǎ”: four-numbers is chéng. The original example for this book had the four entries: Hé (verify), Cān (consult), Yǎn (elaborate), Duàn (judge). Each substance’s entry had the four — hence Chéng (multiplication-by-four).
The “Bàn jì” (Half-Verses): late-Míng warfare destroyed his old draft. Zhīyí worked from memory to re-edit; Hé / Cān / Gāi / Yǎn / Duàn — but it is no longer the complete original. Therefore “Bàn” (Half).
The naming-conventions can also be called recondite-and-obscure.
Examining: Háng Shìjùn’s Zhīyí zhuàn says: “His father [Lú] Fù 復 was further skilled in medical principle. He once composed the Běncǎo gāngmù bóyì 本草綱目博議; had a doubt about the [pairing of] pepper-and-chrysanthemum’s double-virtue, could not resolve it; obtained Zhīyí’s private comment that resolved it; accordingly ordered him face-to-face to judge seven medicines, all of which had ultimate principle. The sickness pressed [his father] to urge Zhīyí to complete it. Eighteen years later, the Běncǎo chéngyǎ was finally produced. The ‘honored-father-letters’ in the middle refer to the Bóyì.*” So this book continues his father’s work. Only this base copy is 10 juan, but Hang’s biography says 12 juan — we do not know why.
(Respectfully verified, 5th month of Qiánlóng 46 [1781]. Chief Compilers Jì Yún, Lù Xīxióng, Sūn Shìyì; Chief Collator Lù Fèichí.)
Abstract
Composition window: 1626–1644, the 18-year span (per Háng Shìjùn’s biography) of Lú’s compilation work, completed before the MíngQīng transition and surviving the war-loss-and-reconstruction process. The catalog meta gives the dynasty as 明 reflecting the original composition; the Bàn jì reconstruction is post-1644 / early Qīng.
The work’s significance:
(a) The canonical 365-substance principle: Lú’s commitment to the Shénnóng běnjīng’s canonical 365-substance figure represents one of the more textually-conservative late-Míng pharmacopoeial positions. Where Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù expanded to 1,892 substances, Lú maintained the classical count.
(b) The four-fold per-substance structure: Hé (verification of identification) + Cān (cross-reference to other authorities) + Yǎn (elaboration of clinical applications) + Duàn (philological/medical judgment) — Lú’s four-fold per-substance structure is methodologically articulate and one of the more sophisticated late-Míng pharmacopoeial editorial designs.
(c) The Lú Fù → Lú Zhīyí father-son medical tradition: a useful documented case of inter-generational medical-philological scholarship. Lú Fù’s earlier Běncǎo gāngmù bóyì (a commentary on Lǐ Shízhēn’s work) is the basis on which Lú Zhīyí built; the “honored-father-letters” (先人字) in the Bàn jì mark the parental contribution.
(d) The war-loss-and-reconstruction history: the work’s survival of the 1644 Manchu conquest and Lú’s reconstruction from memory is one of the more dramatic late-Míng / early-Qīng medical-textual narratives. The “half” (bàn) of the title acknowledges the loss of the original verse-form material.
(e) The 10-vs-12-juan discrepancy: the SKQS tíyào’s frank acknowledgment of the unresolved juan-count question between this base text (10) and Háng’s biography (12) is a useful piece of mid-Qīng philological honesty.
The catalog meta dynasty 明 is correct; the surname slip 廬 / 盧 (preserved per CLAUDE.md, see 盧之頤 note).
Translations and research
- No substantial Western translation of this specific work.
- See KR3e0088 for principal references on Lú Zhīyí.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Zhōng-yī wénxiàn xué 中醫文獻學, Shànghǎi: Shànghǎi Kēxué Jìshù Chūbǎnshè, 1990 (entry on the Běn-cǎo chéng-yǎ bàn jì).
Other points of interest
The Chéngyǎ / Bàn jì recondite title is one of the more deliberately obscure late-Míng medical-work titles, locating the work within the elite-literary aesthetic of late-Míng prose stylistics. The SKQS editors’ judgment — “recondite-and-obscure” — is methodologically critical but historically apt.
The 18-year composition span (per Háng Shìjùn’s biography) is one of the longer Chinese medical-work composition durations, comparable to Lǐ Shízhēn’s reported 30-year Běncǎo gāngmù span and the multi-year compositions of 孫思邈 Sūn Sīmiǎo’s Qiānjīn corpus and 李時珍 Lǐ Shízhēn’s Běncǎo gāngmù.