Sùwèn Wú zhù 素問吳注
The Basic Questions with Wú [Kūn]‘s Commentary by 吳崐 (Wú Kūn, 1551–1620, 明) — author
About the work
The Sùwèn Wú zhù in twenty-four juan is the late-Míng Huángdì nèijīng Sùwèn commentary of Wú Kūn 吳崐 (zì Shānfǔ 山甫, hào Hèguāng 鶴皋, 參黃生 Cānhuáng shēng), a physician of Shèxiàn 歙縣 in Huīzhōu (Ānhuī), the same Xīn’ān 新安 medical milieu that produced 汪機 Wāng Jī and 孫一奎 Sūn Yīkuí. It was first printed in Wànlì 22 = 1594, with the author’s preface dated to that year. Wú reorganized the eighty-one pian into the original Sòng order, retained the 林億 Lín Yì校正 apparatus, and added his own line-by-line glosses (the so-called “Wú zhù”). The work was admired in the late Míng for its clinical orientation and remains, with 馬蒔 Mǎ Shī’s Zhùzhèng fāwēi (KR3ea035) and 張志聰 Zhāng Zhìcōng’s Jízhù (KR3ea008), one of the three benchmark late-Míng–early-Qīng commentaries on the Sùwèn.
Prefaces
The author’s preface (KR3ea014_000.txt) is dated 萬曆二十二年甲午 (1594) and signed 參黃生吳昆 (i.e. with the hào 參黃生 by which Wú signed his medical works). The preface develops an extended cosmological allegory: the Nèijīng is the sun, the Língshū the moon, and all subsequent medical literature merely the stars in the firmament. He situates Nánjīng, 皇甫謐 Huángfǔ Mì’s Jiǎyǐ jīng, and 王叔和 Wáng Shūhé’s Màijīng as the “three enclosures” (三垣) of the imperial heavens, 張機 Zhāng Zhòngjǐng’s Shānghán as the dipper-stars (魁杓 搖光), and 孫思邈 Sūn Sīmiǎo, 李杲 Lǐ Gǎo, 劉完素 Liú Wánsù, 朱震亨 Zhū Zhènhēng, 滑壽 Huá Shòu as the “five planets” (五緯). 華佗 Hé Tuó and Cāng Gōng (秦越人 Biǎn Què) are the rare “auspicious-cloud” stars, glimpsed once in an age. The preface concludes with Wú’s editorial program: to restore an intelligible Sùwèn against the proliferation of unreliable late-Yuán and Míng printings.
Abstract
Wú Kūn was a polymathic Xīn’ān-school physician who composed three foundational works: the Yīfāng kǎo 醫方考 (1584, a critical examination of 700 prescriptions), the Màiyǔ 脈語 (1584, on pulse diagnostics), and this Sùwèn Wú zhù (1594). His clinical orientation is broadly Dānxī-school but with a distinctive emphasis on careful case discrimination. The Wú zhù is notable for: (i) systematic abridgment of 王冰 Wáng Bīng’s commentary where it is felt to be cosmological rather than clinical; (ii) extensive citation of Língshū parallels for every Sùwèn passage that has one, anticipating 張介賓 Zhāng Jièbīn’s KR3ea036 Lèijīng; (iii) interventionist textual conjecture, often without explicit warrant — for which 丹波元簡 Tamba no Mototane (KR3ea010) gently criticizes him.
The text was not collected in the Sìkù quánshū but circulated widely in the late Míng and Qīng; the jicheng.tw source is the 1594 print as preserved in the early-Qīng re-issues. Modern reprints in Wú Kūn yīxué quánshū 吳崐醫學全書 (Beijing: Renmin Weisheng, 2007) and in the Zhōngyī jīngdiǎn series.
Translations and research
- Hung-yu Yang, “Wu Kun (1551–1620?) and the Xin’an Medical Tradition”, in Asian Medicine (Brill).
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Zhōngyī xìngshǐ jiǎnpǔ 中醫性史簡譜 — chap. on Xīn’ān-school medicine.
- Yú Yīng 余瑛, Wú Kūn yīxué quánshū 吳崐醫學全書 (Renmin Weisheng, 2007) — collected critical edition.