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脈訣彙辨

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Text ID
KR3eb018
Date
1664–1666
Dynasty
清

Mài Jué Huì Biàn 脈訣彙辨

Compendium of Discriminations on the Pulse Songs by 李延罡 (Lǐ Yángāng, also written 李延昰, zì Qíshū 期叔, zì Chénshān 辰山, hào Yúcūn 漁村, fl. 1640s–1680s, 清)

About the work

A ten-juan early-Qīng pulse compendium by Lǐ Yángāng, zì Qíshū (or Chénshān), a grand-nephew (cóngsūn 從孫) and editorial successor of the famous late-Ming Sōngjiāng physician Lǐ Zhōngzǐ 李中梓 (字士材, see KR3eb020 Zhěn jiā zhèng yǎn). The book has a double agenda: (a) demolition of the Sòng pseudo-Wáng-Shūhé Mài jué of Gāo Yángshēng — explicit in the author’s preface and pursued through ten juan of phrase-by-phrase refutation — and (b) reconstruction and amplification of Lǐ Zhōngzǐ’s Zhěn jiā zhèng yǎn twenty-eight-pulse exposition. The result is one of the most thorough Qing pulse manuals, covering the standard twenty-eight pulses, the disputes over pulse-position allocation, the special pulse-types (“奇經八脈” extra-channel pulses), and a substantial section on women’s, paediatric, and prognostic pulses.

Prefaces

KR3eb018_000.txt carries: (1) the Liú xù 劉敘 by Liú Guāngxià 劉光夏 of Wǔyuán 武原 (Hǎiyán), dated Kāngxī bǐngwǔ zhúzuì rì 康熙丙午竹醉日 = 1666, identifying Lǐ Qíshū as the principal author and explaining the book’s protracted gestation (Liú says his late father had been urging Lǐ to publish for years, and Lǐ finally agreed on his 1666 return south); (2) Lǐ’s own preface dated jiǎchén qiū rì 甲辰秋日 = autumn 1664, framing the work as a corrective to the Sòng forgery; (3) a Fán lì 凡例 listing the editorial conventions — including the explicit acknowledgement that the twenty-eight-pulse exposition is “一遵《正眼》” (entirely following KR3eb020 Zhěn jiā zhèng yǎn) and that the Sì yán mài jué 四言脈訣 framework of Cuī Jiāyàn 紫虛 is used as the organising mnemonic.

Abstract

Name discrepancy: the catalog meta gives the author as 李延是 (Lǐ Yánshì). The correct received form of the name is 李延罡 (Lǐ Yángāng) / 李延昰 (Lǐ Yánshì-as-graphic-variant). 是 is here a graphic variant of 昰 (= shì, “right” / “is”), itself a Tang-period variant of 罡 (Northern Dipper). The reading 罡 (gāng) is the conventionally cited form. The text itself signs Qíshūshì zhì yú Xiāngjiāng zhī lǚpō ān 期叔氏識於湘江之旅泊庵 — “Qíshū, written at the travel-mooring hermitage on the Xiāng River” — confirming the zì.

Lǐ Yángāng was a relative-and-disciple of Lǐ Zhōngzǐ; the Huì biàn is the principal vehicle through which Lǐ Zhōngzǐ’s Zhěn jiā zhèng yǎn twenty-eight-pulse exposition entered the Qing curriculum (Lǐ Yángāng remarks in his fán lì that his uncle’s text had been published in a poor edition with many errors and that he has “doubled the kǎn juan” in correcting and expanding it). The book is unique among early-Qing pulse texts in that it preserves the unpublished “late teachings” (晚年未盡之秘) of Lǐ Zhōngzǐ, recorded in Lǐ Yángāng’s youth and never otherwise printed.

Translations and research

  • No Western-language translation exists.
  • Bāo Lái-fā 包來發 (ed.), Mài jué huì biàn jiào zhù 脈訣彙辨校注 (Shanghai: Shàng-hǎi kēxué jìshù, 1990), is the standard Chinese annotated critical edition.
  • The work is discussed at length in Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Seattle: Eastland Press, 2007), as a key witness to the persistence of late-Ming Sōngjiāng medical scholarship into the early Qīng.

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