Mài Jué 脈訣
Pulse Songs by 崔嘉彥 (Cuī Jiāyàn, zì Zǐxū 紫虛, hào Xīyuán Lǎorén 西原老人, 1108–1190, 南宋)
About the work
The original Sì yán jǔ yào 四言舉要 / Cuī shì mài jué 崔氏脈訣 / Zǐxū mài jué 紫虛脈訣 — Cuī Jiāyàn’s four-character mnemonic on pulse theory, one of the most widely transmitted Southern-Sòng pulse texts. The jicheng.tw corpus preserves it here under the bare title Mài jué and as a single juan of mnemonic verse. The text is structured as a continuous four-character per line composition covering: (a) the foundational doctrine that the pulse is the suìdào 隧道 (passage-way) of yíngwèi 營衛 circulation; (b) the cùnguānchǐ topology; (c) the seven pulse-rubrics (浮沉遲數滑澀虛實); (d) the twenty-four pulse-types proper, with terse two- or four-line treatments of each; and (e) the prognostic and pattern-recognition material that integrates pulses with diseases. As a mnemonic, it is designed to be committed to memory and recited; the literary medium is its principal asset.
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw _000.txt carries the verse-text directly without a separate preface. The work was composed in the late Southern Sòng under Cuī Jiāyàn’s authorship and circulated in independent recension; later derivative versions include Pān Jí’s KR3eb001 Yī dēng xù yàn (1652), the Mài jué lèi biān KR3eb033, and the integrated Cuī Jiāyàn material in Lǐ Shízhēn’s KR3eb014 Bīnhú mài xué (as the Sì yán jǔ yào appendix).
Abstract
Cuī Jiāyàn 崔嘉彥 (1108–1190) was a Southern-Sòng physician-Daoist of the Lú Shān 廬山 region; zì Zǐxū 紫虛, hào Xīyuán Lǎorén 西原老人. His four-character mnemonic became the principal vehicle for teaching pulse theory in Southern Sòng, Yuán, and Ming medical pedagogy, supplanting earlier Sòng pulse mnemonics and eventually being itself supplanted (in part) by Lǐ Shízhēn’s verse compositions. The exact date of composition is not securely fixed; the conventional bracket 1150–1190 places it in Cuī’s mature productive period. The mnemonic has been transmitted both as an independent work and as a component of larger compendia; the present jicheng.tw file preserves the bare-text recension.
The cataloguing dynasty 宋 reflects the conventional placement; the received recension as edited in the late Sòng / early Yuán is what this text witnesses.
Translations and research
- No Western-language translation exists.
- The Cuī Jiāyàn mnemonic is the principal subject of the prefaces and editorial-conventions sections of every major late-Ming and Qing pulse manual; see KR3eb001, KR3eb014, KR3eb018, KR3eb033.
- Catherine Despeux, “The Mai jing and the Tradition of Pulse Diagnosis,” Asian Medicine 7 (2012), surveys the Cuī tradition.
Other points of interest
The Sì yán jǔ yào is the longest-lived of all post-Sòng pulse-mnemonic forms. From its composition in the late 12th century through the abolition of imperial-medical examinations in the early 20th, it was committed to memory by an unknown but very large number of Chinese medical students.
Links
- Wikidata: not assigned.
- Derivative / expansion: KR3eb001 Yī dēng xù yàn, KR3eb033 Mài xué lèi biān.
- Integrated quotation: KR3eb014 Bīnhú mài xué (closing Sì yán jǔ yào section).
- 脈訣 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB