Huángdì Nèijīng Sùwèn 黃帝內經素問
The Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic — Basic Questions by 王冰 (Wáng Bīng, fl. 762, 唐) — second-stage redactor and commentator; 顧從德 (Gù Cóngdé, fl. mid-16th c., 明) — Jiajing-era publisher of the Sòng-replica woodblock edition
About the work
The Sùwèn is the foundational classic of Chinese medicine, a dialogic exposition of yīnyáng physiology, pathology, diagnostics, acupuncture, and cosmological correspondence cast as conversations between the Yellow Emperor (Huángdì 黃帝) and his physicians (Qí Bó 岐伯, Léi Gōng 雷公, Guǐ Yúqū 鬼臾區, and others). The received recension in twenty-four juan / eighty-one 篇 is Wáng Bīng’s redaction of 762, which reordered the chapters of 全元起 Quán Yuánqǐ’s (Liáng/Suí) eight-juan recension, supplied the so-called “seven great treatises” (七篇大論, j. 19–22) on cosmological cycles, and added Wáng’s own commentary. The version digitized in the jicheng.tw corpus here is the Míng-Jiajing 顧從德覆宋刻本 of 1550 — a high-fidelity facsimile cut from the Northern Sòng校正醫書局 (林億 Lín Yì et al.) print of 1069, which has become the standard collation source for modern critical editions. This entry covers the work as transmitted in that line; for the WYG/SBCK digitization of the same recension see KR3e0001.
Prefaces
The source file KR3ea001_000.txt reproduces the postface (後序) by 顧從德 Gù Cóngdé, dated Jiājìng gēngxū qiūbāyuè jì wàng 嘉靖庚戌秋八月既望 = 1550, eighth lunar month, day after the full moon. The postface relates that Gù’s father (顧定芳 Gù Dìngfāng, 御藥院供奉) loved medicine since youth and was urged by an unnamed elder to study the Nèijīng and the Five-colour Diagnostics. The father was given a “good Sòng-cut copy” (宋刻善本) on a trip north and entrusted it to Gù Cóngdé to recut and disseminate. Gù traces the Wú-medical lineage through 王賓 Wáng Bīn (the Hóngwǔ-era Guāng’ān studio master, pupil of 戴原禮 Dài Yuánlǐ) → 盛啟東 Shèng Qǐdōng and 韓叔陽 Hán Shūyáng → court appointment under the Yǒnglè 文皇帝 emperor → the imperial 御藥院 of which Gù’s father was a member. He explicitly identifies this print with the duty of imperial-style “上醫醫國” public benefaction.
The other front-matter typically printed with this recension — the Chóngguǎng bǔzhù Huángdì nèijīng Sùwèn xù 重廣補注黃帝內經素問序 by 林億 Lín Yì et al. (1069) and Wáng Bīng’s own Zhòngguǎng bǔzhù Huángdì nèijīng Sùwèn xù 序 of 762 — is here distributed across the body files of the parallel entry KR3ea003 (the Lín Yì Chóngguǎng bǔzhù) and is not duplicated in _000.txt.
Abstract
The Sùwèn exists in three transmissional layers. (1) A pre-Hàn / Western Hàn nucleus of medical dialogues, attested in the bare title Huángdì nèijīng 黃帝內經 (18 篇) of the Hàn shū yìwén zhì. The Mǎwángduī 馬王堆 silk medical manuscripts (excavated 1973, copied second century BCE) and the Zhāngjiāshān 張家山 bamboo slips confirm that medical dialogues with strong stylistic and topical affinity to the Sùwèn circulated already in early Hàn, although none of those manuscripts is the Sùwèn itself. (2) A Liù Cháo / early-Táng received text in eight juan with the seventh missing, transmitted via 全元起 Quán Yuánqǐ’s commentary. (3) The Wáng Bīng recension of 762 in twenty-four juan / eighty-one 篇, restoring a “seventh juan” widely suspected by Lín Yì of being borrowed from the Yīnyáng dàlùn 陰陽大論 known from Zhāng Jī’s 張機 preface to the Shānghán lùn. The Sòng校正醫書局 collation under Lín Yì (presented 1069) gave the title Chóngguǎng bǔzhù Huángdì nèijīng Sùwèn 重廣補注黃帝內經素問 and is the ancestor of all later print editions, including the present Gù Cóngdé Jiajing imprint (which preserves the Sòng layout to an exceptional degree and is the basis of the Renmin Weisheng punctuated edition).
The catalog’s notBefore/notAfter are set to 762 to mark the composition window of the received recension as Wáng Bīng knew it; the Lín Yì collation and the Gù Cóngdé recut are editorial revisions rather than re-composition. The two “missing” chapters Cì fǎ lùn 刺法論 and Běn bìng lùn 本病論, circulating in some SòngYuán editions and printed here as part of the Yí piān 遺篇 (cf. file KR3ea003_000.txt), are post-Wáng-Bīng restorations and have long been regarded as Sòng-period reconstructions rather than authentic Táng material.
Translations and research
- Paul U. Unschuld and Hermann Tessenow, Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen: An Annotated Translation of Huang Di’s Inner Classic — Basic Questions, 2 vols., Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011. The standard scholarly English translation. Companion volume: Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text (Berkeley, 2003), on textual history.
- Ma Jixing 馬繼興, Mǎwángduī gǔ yīshū kǎo shì 馬王堆古醫書考釋 (Changsha: Hunan kexue jishu, 1992) — for the Mǎwángduī material and its relation to the Sùwèn layers.
- Qian Chaochen 錢超塵, Nèijīng yǔyán yánjiū 內經語言研究 (Beijing: Renmin weisheng, 1990) — philological reconstruction of the Sùwèn lexicon.
- Catherine Despeux, “The System of the Five Circulatory Phases and the Six Seasonal Influences (wuyun liuqi)…”, in Elisabeth Hsu (ed.), Innovation in Chinese Medicine (Cambridge UP, 2001) — on the seven great treatises.
- Donald Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts (London: Kegan Paul, 1998).
Other points of interest
The 顧氏 Jiajing imprint reproduces — uniquely among extant witnesses — the Sòng-edition page layout including the bureau’s interlinear collation notes (新校正); these notes are excised in many later prints and only restored in modern critical editions, making this digitization indispensable for textual research.
Links
- Wikidata Q1408410 (Huangdi Neijing).
- CTEXT Huangdi Neijing