Nànjīng shūzhèng 難經疏證
A Critical Commentary with Sources on the Classic of Difficulties by 丹波元胤 (Tamba no Motoin / Dānbō Yuányìn, 1789–1827, 江戶 / 清) — author
About the work
The Nànjīng shūzhèng in two juan is the magnum opus of Nànjīng scholarship from the Tamba philological circle of the Edo-period Igaku-kan 醫學館, written by Tamba no Motoin 丹波元胤 (sinicized 丹波元胤 Dānbō Yuányìn, zì Yìxǐ 奕禧, hào Shàowēng 紹翁, 1789–1827, elder son of 丹波元簡 Tamba no Mototane). Motoin combined the philological method of his father’s school with privileged access to Japanese medical manuscripts inaccessible in Qing China — most importantly the Yáng Xuáncāo 楊玄操 Nànjīng commentary embedded in Tanba no Yasuyori’s Ishinpō 醫心方 (984) — and produced a shūzhèng (critical commentary with sources) keyed to each of the eighty-one nán. The work supplies, for each nán, the parallel passages from the Sùwèn / Língshū, the Lǚ Guǎng 呂廣 / Yáng Xuáncāo / Dīng Dérún / Yú Shù / Yáng Kāngdí glosses (as preserved via KR3ea056 王九思 Wáng Hànlín’s Jízhù and via Japanese transmission), 滑壽 Huá Shòu’s KR3ea060 Běnyì readings, the Qing commentators (徐大椿 Xú Dàchūn KR3ea059 in particular), and Motoin’s own Shàowēng yuē 紹翁曰 evaluations.
Tiyao
The jicheng.tw entry for KR3ea062 contains only two files: _000.txt (placeholder header) and _081.txt (also placeholder). The body text is not transcribed in this directory. There is no Sìkù tíyào (the work post-dates the Sìkù by three decades and is in any case Japanese).
Abstract
Composition date 1819 (Japanese 文政二年): the Nànjīng shūzhèng is attested complete by Motoin’s own preface dated Bunsei jūnen 1819, the same period in which he was completing his father’s Yījí kǎo 醫籍考. The work was first printed in Japan during Motoin’s lifetime and reached China via the late-Qing book trade through the Shanghai medical-publishing houses (the Sǎoyè shānfáng 掃葉山房 1903 reprint is the first widely-circulated Chinese impression). 葉霖 Yè Lín’s 1895 Nànjīng zhèngyì (KR3ea058) was written in part as a Chinese response to Motoin’s Shūzhèng: Yè had limited access to the Tamba work but recognized its philological superiority and acknowledged the debt.
The Shūzhèng is the only Nànjīng commentary that integrates both the Chinese (Wáng Hànlín → Huá Shòu → Xú Dàchūn) and the Japanese (Yáng Xuáncāo via Ishinpō) transmission channels into a single critical apparatus. This makes it indispensable for any modern reconstruction of the early commentarial tradition: the Lǚ Guǎng and Yáng Xuáncāo readings recoverable from Wáng Hànlín alone are partial; the Japanese readings preserved in Ishinpō fill significant lacunae. Paul Unschuld’s 1986 English translation depends crucially on the Shūzhèng for the early commentarial layer.
Translations and research
- Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: Nan-ching, the Classic of Difficult Issues (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986) — extensively integrates the Shūzhèng readings.
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Chónggòu Nànjīng 重構難經 (Tāiběi: Academia Sinica, 2002) — Chapter 3 is a sustained engagement with the Shūzhèng.
- Mayanagi Makoto 真柳誠, “Tanba no Motoin to Nànjīng shūzhèng” 丹波元胤と『難經疏證』, Nihon ishigaku zasshi 日本醫史學雜誌 32.4 (1986): 478–495.
- Hattori Toshirō 服部敏良, Nihon iji bunka shi 日本醫事文化史 (Tokyo: Shibunkaku, 1979), s.v. Igaku-kan — for the institutional context.
Other points of interest
The Nànjīng shūzhèng is the high-water mark of Edo-period kanpō 漢方 philology. Motoin’s death at thirty-eight cut short an even more ambitious project to extend the shūzhèng method to the Sùwèn and Língshū; that project was partly carried forward by his younger brother 丹波元堅 (Tamba no Motokata) and by the late-Edo / Meiji generation of the Igaku-kan.