Yī Dēng Xù Yàn 醫燈續焰
The Medical Lamp Continued in Flame by 潘楫 (Pān Jí, 字碩甫, 號慎庵, fl. mid-17th c., 明末清初) — author and expander; building on the Sì yán jǔ yào 四言舉要 of 崔嘉彥 (Cuī Jiāyàn, 字紫虛, 1108–1190, 南宋)
About the work
A twenty-one-juan pulse-diagnosis manual in which Pān Jí takes Cuī Jiāyàn’s (紫虛) Southern-Sòng Sì yán jǔ yào 四言舉要 (a 168-line four-character mnemonic on pulse theory and pathology) as a structural skeleton and supplements each clause with extended prose commentary, drug formulae, and case-style explanations. The postface (by Pān’s disciple 蔣式金, dated rénchén 壬辰 = 1652, the Buddha’s-birthday eighth-of-fourth) frames the work as an “extension of the lamp lit by 紫虛”: where Cuī’s mnemonic was concise but elliptical (意括未該), Pān draws out the implications by linking pulse type → presenting pattern (證) → recommended prescription (方). The book begins with foundational chapters on pulse-and-vessel anatomy (血脈隧道), the “law of earth and the cardiac homologue” (法地合心), the genesis of yíngwèi circulation, and the chronometry of pulse measurement at the cùnkǒu 寸口, then proceeds through the standard 28-pulse repertoire and a long series of disease categories. The work was widely reprinted in the late Qing as a teaching text.
Prefaces
The file KR3eb001_000.txt contains only the postface (跋) by Pān’s “disciple of the Yǒngdōng [Níngbō] gate” Jiǎng Shìjīn 蔣式金, dated 壬辰 yùfó rì 浴佛日 (= the fourth-month eighth day of rénchén = 1652). Jiǎng compares Pān’s project to Guō Xiàng’s commentary on the Zhuāngzǐ and Zhāng Zhàn’s commentary on the Lièzǐ — that is, an exegetical performance that explicates a terse original. The text identifies Pān’s master (“吾師”) as the author and Jiǎng himself as one of the proofreaders (“分校及門”).
Abstract
Pān Jí, zì Shuòfǔ 碩甫, hào Shèn’ān 慎庵, was a Hángzhōu physician active in the late Míng and early Qīng. (He is not in CBDB; he is identified by 林之瀚 in KR3eb003 Sì zhěn jué wēi simply as “潘碩甫” and quoted approvingly on the doctrine that xuè 血 and mài 脈 are conceptually distinguishable but ontologically one.) The Yī dēng xù yàn is the only major work attributed to him, completed by 1652. The textual base is the Sì yán jǔ yào of Cuī Jiāyàn 崔嘉彥 (1108–1190, 南宋), a Daoist-physician of the Lú Shān 廬山 lineage whose pulse mnemonic — sometimes called Zǐxū mài jué 紫虛脈訣 — circulated independently and was integrated into many later compilations. Pān’s procedure is to quote Cuī phrase by phrase and then expand: each Cuī line generates an essay drawing on the Sùwèn 素問, Língshū 靈樞, Nànjīng 難經, Wáng Shūhé’s KR3eb011 Mài jīng 脈經, Zhū Zhènhēng’s pulse writings, and the editor’s own clinical observation. The work was reprinted in the Sìkù wèishōu shū jíkān and is the textual ancestor of the so-called Cuī shì mài jué 崔氏脈訣 tradition as transmitted in late-Qīng pulse manuals.
Translations and research
- Cuī Jiāyàn’s Sì yán jǔ yào and its derivatives (including the Yī dēng xù yàn) are surveyed in Catherine Despeux, “The Six Healing Breaths,” and in Elisabeth Hsu, Pulse Diagnosis in Early Chinese Medicine: The Telling Touch (Cambridge: CUP, 2010), esp. ch. 1 on the mnemonic tradition.
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Qí Huáng yī xué 岐黃醫學 (Beijing: Liaoning jiaoyu, 1991) discusses the Cuī → Pān lineage as a case study in the popularization of pulse theory.
- No full Western-language translation exists.
Links
- Wikidata for Sìkù wèishōu shū jíkān edition: not assigned.
- For Cuī Jiāyàn’s original mnemonic see also KR3eb025 Mài jué and KR3eb033 Mài xué lèi biān.
- 醫燈續焰 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB