Huángdì Sùwèn xuānmíng lùnfāng 黃帝素問宣明論方
Prescriptions Drawing Out the Clear Meaning of the Yellow Emperor’s Basic Questions by 劉完素 (Liú Wánsù, c. 1110 – c. 1200, 金) — author
About the work
The Xuānmíng lùnfāng (often abbreviated Xuānmíng fāng) in fifteen juan is Liú Wánsù’s 劉完素 systematic therapeutic compendium, the practical-clinical counterpart to his theoretical works Sùwèn yàozhǐ lùn (KR3ea015) and Sùwèn xuánjī yuánbìng shì 素問玄機原病式. Juan 1–11 are arranged by disease category — fevers, internal damage, qì disorders, blood disorders, bìzhèng 痺證, juénì 厥逆, paralysis, deafness and blindness, and many others — with formulae prescribed for each syndrome; juan 12–15 treat women’s, paediatric, and external medicine. The work was composed in the 1170s–1180s and is the principal vehicle through which Liú’s “cold-cooling” doctrine reached Yuán and Míng practical clinicians.
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw source carries (KR3ea045_000.txt) a Yuán-era re-cutting preface — Chóngkè Liú Shǒuzhēn xiānshēng Xuānmíng lùnfāng xù 重刻劉守真先生宣明論方序 — which presents a hagiographic biography: Liú met a “strange man” (異人) called Chén surnamed (anonymous) who gave him drink that produced a great intoxication; on waking Liú had penetrated medical technique “as if by divine transmission”. He composed the Yùnqì yàozhǐ lùn and Jīngyào xuānmíng lùn; concerned that incompetent physicians would misrepresent his views, he wrote also the Sùwèn xuánjī yuánbìng shì in 288 characters of “scriptural” verse with 20,000 characters of commentary. The preface preserves the Jīn shǐ tradition that the Zhāngzōng 章宗 emperor (1190–1208) of Jīn summoned Liú three times and that he refused, receiving the imperial honorific Gāoshàng xiānshēng 高尚先生 in absentia. The preface ends by linking Liú to 張元素 Zhāng Yuánsù (the founder of the Yìshuǐ 易水 school) as the “LiúZhāng method” (劉張法).
Abstract
Liú Wánsù’s Xuānmíng lùnfāng is the largest of his works and the principal vehicle for his doctrinal-clinical contributions. Among its most influential prescriptions: Liángge sǎn 涼膈散, Pángfēng tōngshèng sǎn 防風通聖散 (the most famous of all Liú’s formulae and a clinical standard down to the present), Tōngshèng sǎn 通聖散 (an abridgment for general clinical use), Sìshuàn yǔ 四順肉, and Bāzhèng sǎn 八正散. The text was incorporated into Liú Wánsù’s collected works in various YuánMíng editions and was admitted to the Sìkù quánshū (under the title Xuānmíng lùnfāng alone) where Liú’s authorship is endorsed.
The jicheng.tw source is independent of the WYG transmission; a YuánMíng re-cutting from the Liú Héjiān yīshū 劉河間醫書 cluster. The catalog meta dynasty 金 is correct; Liú’s productive years (1170s–1200) fall under Jīn rule of north China.
Translations and research
- Yú Yīngaó 余瀛鼇 (ed.), Liú Wánsù yīxué quánshū 劉完素醫學全書 (Renmin Weisheng, 2007) — collected critical edition.
- Asaf Goldschmidt, The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200 (Routledge, 2009) — context for the Sòng-Jīn medical transition.