Nànjīng zhèngyì 難經正義
The Correct Meaning of the Classic of Difficulties by 葉霖 (Yè Lín, fl. Guāngxù era, late 清) — author
About the work
The Nànjīng zhèngyì in six juan is the most thoroughly philological of the late-Qing Nànjīng commentaries, the work of the Yángzhōu 揚州 physician Yè Lín 葉霖 (zì Zǐyǔ 子雨, hào Shílín jūshì 石林居士). The work integrates and assesses the previous commentarial tradition (Lǚ Guǎng 呂廣, Yáng Xuáncāo 楊玄操, the Sòng yīshū jú collation, 王九思 Wáng Hànlín KR3ea056, 滑壽 Huá Shòu KR3ea060, 徐大椿 Xú Dàchūn KR3ea059, 丁錦 Dīng Jǐn KR3ea055 / KR3ea057, 黃元御 Huáng Yuányù KR3ea063, and the Japanese Tamba circle KR3ea062), corrects readings on the basis of accumulated late-Qing kǎojù evidence, and arrives at a synthetic “correct meaning” (正義) for each of the eighty-one nán. The structure is per-nán commentary in the order of the canonical text, with prolonged textual notes; the doctrinal stance is moderate, neither following the late-Míng mìngmén speculation of 張介賓 Zhāng Jièbīn (KR3ea036) nor accepting Huáng Yuányù’s uncompromising rejection of the SòngYuán tradition.
Tiyao
The jicheng.tw directory for KR3ea058 carries org-mode placeholder files only; the body text is not transcribed here. There is no Sìkù tíyào (the work post-dates the Sìkù by more than a century).
Abstract
Yè Lín’s self-preface to the Nànjīng zhèngyì is dated Guāngxù yǐwèi 光緒乙未 = 1895; the work was first published in 1903 by the Shànghǎi Sǎoyè shānfáng 掃葉山房 press and reprinted multiple times in the early Republican era. It is now most accessible in the standard Beijing Rénmín wèishēng Zhōngyī shídà jīngdiǎn 中醫十大經典 series (1956, 1986). Yè Lín’s biographical record is partly preserved in local fāngzhì 方志 of Yángzhōu fǔ but his lifedates are not securely recorded; he is fl. mid-to-late Guāngxù era. CBDB has three entries for 葉霖 (49800, 460333, 694536) all without dates; the medical Yè Lín cannot be confidently matched to any of them.
The Zhèngyì is the most-cited Qing-period Nànjīng commentary in modern Chinese-medical textbooks and is the textual basis for several twentieth-century Nànjīng translations and abridgments, including the Renmin Weisheng critical edition. Yè Lín’s textual-critical method is exemplary of late-Qing medical kǎojù scholarship: he gives every nán a brief 經文校 (textual collation), a 註釋 (commentary), and a 議曰 (his own evaluation), making the work usable as both a critical edition and a doctrinal handbook.
Translations and research
- Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: Nan-ching, the Classic of Difficult Issues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) — uses Yè Lín’s Zhèngyì as one of its principal Qing-period reference texts.
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Chónggòu Nànjīng 重構難經 (Tāiběi: Academia Sinica, 2002) — extensively engages Yè’s collations.
- No substantial English-language translation of Yè’s commentary located.