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脈經

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Text ID
KR3eb011
Date
280–280
Dynasty
西晉

Mài Jīng 脈經

The Pulse Classic by 王叔和 (Wáng Shūhé, personal name 熙 Xī, Tàiyī lìng of Western Jìn, fl. 280, 西晉)

About the work

The foundational systematic treatise on pulse diagnosis in Chinese medicine, in ten juan and ninety-eight 篇, attributed to the Western-Jìn imperial physician Wáng Shūhé (c. 210–285) and conventionally dated to c. 280. The work co-ordinates the dispersed pulse-doctrines of the Sùwèn 素問, Língshū 靈樞, Nànjīng 難經, Shānghán lùn 傷寒論 / Jīnguì yùhán 金匱玉函, and the early Hàn-Jin medical traditions of Wáng, Ruǎn, Fù, Dài, Wú, Gě, Lǚ, and Zhāng (named in Wáng’s own preface) into a single integrated system organised around twenty-four pulse types, the cùnguānchǐ 寸關尺 topology at the wrist, and the correlation of pulse signatures with the five viscera, the six fù, and specific diseases. It is the source from which all later Chinese pulse manuals — including Cuī Jiāyàn’s 紫虛 mnemonic, Huá Shòu’s KR3eb023 Zhěn jiā shū yào, Lǐ Shízhēn’s KR3eb014 Bīnhú mài xué, and the Yī zōng jīn jiàn’s Sì zhěn xīn fǎ — descend.

Wáng Shūhé’s institutional position (Tàiyī lìng of Western Jìn) and his editorial role in transmitting Zhāng Jī’s Shānghán zábìng lùn are the principal axes of his historical importance; the Mài jīng is the original work that established him as an authoritative author in his own right. The text is the earliest extant Chinese medical work to set out the twenty-four-pulse repertoire systematically, in contrast to the smaller pulse-sets of the Nèijīng and the Nànjīng.

Prefaces

KR3eb011_000.txt carries Wáng’s own preface — one of the most important programmatic statements in Chinese medical literature. He observes that pulse types are easily distinguished in the mind but elusive under the finger (在心易了，指下難明); that mistakes (chén 沉 for fú 伏, huǎn 緩 for chí 遲) are clinically fatal; and that his project is to assemble the pulse doctrine “from Qí Bó down to Huá Tuó” (自岐伯以來，逮於華佗) into ten juan. The jicheng.tw file preserves only the Wáng Shūhé preface and the body text. The Northern-Sòng校正醫書局 collation by Lín Yì 林億 (1068) and the YuánMíng print history of the Mài jīng are the subject of the WYG-edition entry KR3e0009 Xīn kān Wáng shì Mài jīng.

Abstract

The Mài jīng has historically been criticised on two points by post-Sòng commentators, and both points have been preserved in the medical tradition along with the canonical text itself. First, Wáng Shūhé’s allocation of the large and small intestines to the cùn 寸 position of the wrist, and the kidney with the mìngmén 命門 / triple burner to the chǐ 尺 position, departs from one strand of Nèijīng doctrine and was disputed by Huá Shòu 滑壽 in the Yuán and Yú Jiāyán 喻嘉言 in the Qīng (see the polemical chapters in KR3eb003 Sì zhěn jué wēi). Second, Wáng’s splitting of rényíng 人迎 and qìkǒu 氣口 to the left and right hands respectively (in violation of the Língshū’s placement of rényíng at the neck) is rejected by most SòngYuánQīng pulse commentators while being followed in clinical practice. The Mài jīng also preserves significant amounts of Shānghán lùn / Jīnguì material that did not reach posterity through the main Shānghán transmission, making it an essential textual source for the early medieval Shānghán corpus.

Wáng Shūhé is identified in the Sānguó zhì’s “Huá Tuó zhuàn” (Péi Sōngzhī commentary, 5th c.) as a Gāopíng 高平 (Shāndōng) native and Tàiyī lìng under the Western Jìn (265–316). The conventional dating of the Mài jīng to 280 is a round-number convention; any date in the 260s–280s is defensible.

Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §41.3.1, lists this as text Maijing 脈經 (Classic of the pulse), “Wang Shuhe 王叔和 (210–285?), 280. … the first book-length treatment of the subject.” (wilkinson-history.md, line 35897.)

Translations and research

  • Yáng Shǒuzhōng (tr.) and Bob Flaws (ed.), The Pulse Classic: A Translation of the Mai Jing by Wang Shu-he (Boulder: Blue Poppy Press, 1997). Complete English translation.
  • Catherine Despeux, “The Mai jing and the Tradition of Pulse Diagnosis,” Asian Medicine 7 (2012). Synoptic discussion of the work’s structure and its place in the medical canon.
  • Elisabeth Hsu, Pulse Diagnosis in Early Chinese Medicine: The Telling Touch (Cambridge: CUP, 2010). Discusses the pre-history of the Mài jīng’s pulse repertoire in the Mǎwángduī medical manuscripts and the Shǐjì 105 (Chúnyú Yì 淳於意 biography).
  • Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興 (ed.), Mài jīng jiào zhù 脈經校注 (Beijing: Renmin weisheng, 1991). Standard Chinese critical edition.

Other points of interest

The Mài jīng is one of three HànJìn medical works (with the Sùwèn and the Shānghán lùn) whose received text shows the layered editorial intervention of the Sòng校正醫書局 (1057–1069) and whose pre-Sòng manuscript stratum can be partially recovered from quotations in lèi shū 類書 and Tang-Dūnhuáng documents. The Dūnhuáng pulse-diagnosis fragments (e.g. P.3287, S.5614) preserve material parallel to the Mài jīng’s juan 1 with significant variants from the received text.

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