難經本義

Nànjīng běnyì 難經本義

The Original Meaning of the Classic of Difficulties by 滑壽 (Huá Shòu, zì Bórén 伯仁, hào Yīngníngshēng 攖寧生, fl. late 元 to early 明) — author

About the work

The Nànjīng běnyì in two juan, completed by Huá Shòu in 1361, is the canonical commentary on the Bāshíyī Nànjīng (KR3ea054) in the post-Yuán tradition. It was the Sìkù quánshū’s preferred Nànjīng witness (chosen over KR3ea056 王九思 Wáng Hànlín’s Jízhù) and the principal source-text on which subsequent Míng and Qing commentaries (徐大椿 Xú Dàchūn KR3ea059, 丁錦 Dīng Jǐn KR3ea055 / KR3ea057, 黃元御 Huáng Yuányù KR3ea063, 葉霖 Yè Lín KR3ea058) take their stand. Huá’s editorial method: he first collates the Nànjīng base text against six prior witnesses (Lǚ Guǎng 呂廣, Yáng Xuáncāo 楊玄操, Dīng Dérún 丁德用, Yú Shù 虞庶, Yáng Kāngdí 楊康迪, Jì Tiānxí 紀天錫), supplies a clean jīng text, and then expounds each nán with an extended commentary keyed to the Sùwèn / Língshū source passages, finally affixing a huìkǎo 彙考 (textual synthesis) for each.

Tiyao

KR3ea060_000.txt, _001.txt, _003.txt in the jicheng.tw directory contain only org-mode placeholder headers; the body text is not transcribed in this directory. The full Sìkù tíyào is preserved in the parallel WYG entry; in summary, the Sìkù editors praise Huá for restoring textual order (re-positioning nán 23 ahead of the channel discussion, etc.), commend the use of the six early commentators, and dismiss as chronologically impossible the popular tradition (propagated by Zhāng Zhù’s 張翥 1364 preface) that Huá received the medical learning of 李杲 Lǐ Gǎo of Dōngyuán 東垣. They also note Huá Shòu’s Yuán-loyalist self-effacement after the Míng restoration (tuō yú yī yǐ zì huì 託於醫以自晦).

Abstract

Composition firmly dated by Huá’s self-preface to Zhìzhèng xīnchǒu 至正辛丑 = 1361 (Sìkù tíyào). Zhāng Zhù’s 張翥 preface, completed three years later in 1364 (元至正甲辰), is the standard front-matter found in most transmitted impressions and contains the famous (but chronologically impossible) attribution of Huá’s teacher-lineage to Lǐ Gǎo of Dōngyuán. The text passed through the early-Míng Hóngwǔ generation in manuscript before being printed in a Sòng-Yuán-style block-cut edition, then incorporated into the imperially-commissioned Sìkù quánshū in the 1780s. The notBefore/notAfter window in this entry is set to 1361 (self-preface) – 1366 (likely range of completion of the secondary apparatus before Huá’s flight from the political turbulence of the YuánMíng transition); the 1364 Zhāng Zhù preface and the Hóngwǔ-era circulation are subsequent editorial events, not re-composition.

Huá Shòu (see 滑壽) is the most influential single Yuán-period medical commentator: in addition to the Běnyì, he wrote the Shísì jīng fāhuī 十四經發揮 (the standard Yuán treatise on acupuncture channels) and the Zhěnjiā shūyào 診家樞要. Modern reception: the Běnyì is the foundation text for Nànjīng study in PRC TCM curricula, and the Renmin Weisheng (Beijing, 1956) edition collates Huá against the Sòng yīshū jú recension and the Wáng Hànlín Jízhù.

Translations and research

• Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: Nan-ching, the Classic of Difficult Issues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) — uses Huá’s Běnyì as the primary base text for his English translation of the Nànjīng.
• Huá Shòu, Nànjīng běnyì xīnjiě 難經本義新解, ed. Lín Huīzhèn 林輝鎮 (Tāiběi: Yīqún, n.d.) — modern annotated edition, available via Scripta Sinica. Cited in Wilkinson, Chinese History, §41.3.1 #2.
• Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Chónggòu Nànjīng 重構難經 (Tāiběi: Academia Sinica, 2002) — the most detailed modern philological assessment of Huá’s editorial method.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History, §41.3.1 #2 — lists the Běnyì as the early-Míng “annotated edition” through which the Nànjīng entered the standard scholarly canon.

Other points of interest

The Sìkù tíyào explicitly debunks the Lǐ Gǎo lineage claim with which Zhāng Zhù’s 1364 preface decorates Huá’s biography. The detail is a small but historically important corrective: the lineage was widely repeated in late-Míng / early-Qing biographies of physicians, but the lifedates do not overlap and Lǐ Gǎo (1180–1251) never travelled south of the Huái river, whereas Huá’s residence in Jiāngsū / Zhèjiāng is firmly established. The Sìkù editors’ cool eye on this point is characteristic of their handling of late-Yuán / early-Míng medical hagiography.

Links

• Wikipedia 滑壽 / 難經本義 (中文).
• CTEXT 《難經本義》
• Companion entry: KR3e0004 (canonical WYG Sìkù witness of the same text).