Sùwèn yàozhǐ lùn 素問要旨論
Treatise on the Essential Tenets of the Basic Questions by 劉完素 (Liú Wánsù, c. 1110 – c. 1200, 金) — author
About the work
The Sùwèn yàozhǐ lùn in eight juan is one of the major late-12th-century systematic expositions of the wǔyùn liùqì 五運六氣 (five circulatory phases and six seasonal influences) doctrine of the Huángdì nèijīng Sùwèn, written by Liú Wánsù 劉完素 (zì Shǒuzhēn 守真, hào Tōngxuán chùshì 通玄處士) of Héjiān 河間 (in modern Héběi), the founder of the “Cold-cooling” (寒涼) school and the first of the conventional “Four Masters of JīnYuán Medicine” (金元四大家). The work systematizes the doctrine of the Sùwèn’s seven great treatises (七篇大論, j. 19–22), extracting the rules of climatic-cycle calculation and applying them to clinical syndromology. It is the doctrinal foundation of Liú Wánsù’s other treatises and is paired with Sùwèn xuánjī yuánbìng shì 素問玄機原病式 (his polemical work on the centrality of “fire” 火 in pathology, not in Kanripo).
Prefaces
The author’s preface (KR3ea015_000.txt) opens with a Neo-Confucian-tinged cosmogony: the Dào generates yīqì 一氣, the qì separates into pure-ascending (天) and turbid-descending (地), heaven becomes the sānyīn sānyáng 三陰三陽 of the climate (寒暑燥濕風火), earth the wǔxíng 五行 (木火土金水) — together the system of the twelve climatic divisions. The preface then traces the divinatory roots of the yùnqì doctrine to Fúxī’s reading of the Hétú and Luòshū, locating the Sùwèn in this same cosmological tradition. Liú’s polemical target — left implicit here, explicit in his other writings — is the simplistic “supplement-warming” (補溫) school of the Sòng Héjì jú fāng 和劑局方.
Abstract
Liú Wánsù lived through the Jīn dynastic occupation of north China; he is conventionally dated c. 1110 – c. 1200 with active years 1170s–1190s. He refused official summons three times and practised in Héjiān. His seven extant works — Sùwèn yàozhǐ lùn, Sùwèn xuánjī yuánbìng shì 素問玄機原病式, Xuānmíng lùnfāng 宣明論方 (KR3ea045), Sānxiāo lùn 三消論, Sùwèn bìngjī qìyí bǎomìng jí 素問病機氣宜保命集 (KR3ea017), Shānghán biāoběn xīnfǎ lèicuì 傷寒標本心法類萃, and Sùwèn xuánzhū mìyǔ 素問玄珠密語 — establish him as the foundational theorist of JīnYuán medicine. His doctrinal contribution is the assertion that the great majority of clinical syndromes derive from “internal fire” (火) and “depleted yīn” (陰虛), requiring cooling rather than warming therapies — a reversal of the prevailing Sòng Júfāng practice and the source of his school name 寒涼派.
The attribution of the Yàozhǐ lùn to Liú is generally accepted, though some SòngYuán bibliographies list a near-homonymous Sùwèn yàozhǐ lùnlüè without authorial attribution. The text was admitted to the Sìkù quánshū under Liú’s name (although the version digitized here from jicheng.tw is independent of the WYG).
Translations and research
- Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 6 part 6 (Medicine) — chap. on Jīn-Yuán medicine.
- Asaf Goldschmidt, The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200 (Routledge, 2009) — context for Liú’s anti-Júfāng polemic.
- Yú Yīngaó 余瀛鼇 (ed.), Liú Wánsù yīxué quánshū 劉完素醫學全書 (Renmin Weisheng, 2007).