Mài Xué Lèi Biān 脈學類編
Pulse Studies, Classified attributed in the catalog to 崔嘉彥 (Cuī Jiāyàn, 1108–1190, 南宋); the present recension is the Sì yán jǔ yào lèi biān 四言舉要類編 by 李言聞 (Lǐ Yánwén, zì Yuèchí 月池, fl. early-to-mid 16th c., 明)
About the work
A one-juan re-organisation of Cuī Jiāyàn’s Sì yán jǔ yào KR3eb025 under taxonomic categories. The work bears Cuī Jiāyàn’s name in the catalog meta — and indeed the underlying mnemonic verse is unchanged — but the classification structure is the editorial work of Lǐ Yánwén 李言聞 (李時珍’s father, hào Yuèchí Wēng 月池翁), a Qízhōu 蘄州 physician of the early-to-mid Ming. Lǐ Yánwén’s contribution is to take Cuī’s continuous four-character verse and sort it under headings: the normal pulses of the five viscera (平脈), the seasonal pulses (時脈), the twenty-eight pulse types (體狀), the qí jīng bā mài 奇經八脈, the integrated biǎolǐ schemata. The work is described in Lǐ Shízhēn’s KR3eb014 Bīnhú mài xué preface as “the work of my father Yuèchí wēng, in eight juan, eminently subtle” — though only this surviving one-juan recension is preserved here.
Prefaces
KR3eb033_000.txt carries a Sì yán jǔ yào lèi biān zì xù 《四言舉要類編》自序, naming the source as Cuī Jiāyàn (referred to as “the zhēn rén 真人 of Lú Shān”) and the classifier as 月池翁 (Yuèchí Wēng = Lǐ Yánwén). The preface explicitly identifies the work as a development of “the Nèijīng doctrine of one pulse with ten variations” (內經一脈十變之法) and traces it via Cuī to the Sùwèn Mài yào jīng wēi lùn. No dated colophon is preserved.
Abstract
Authorship note: the catalog meta records this entry under Cuī Jiāyàn (Southern Sòng), which reflects the underlying mnemonic. The present received recension — the classified arrangement — is, on the internal evidence of its self-preface, by Lǐ Yánwén 李言聞, zì Yuèchí 月池, hào Bǐnhúshānrénfù 瀕湖山人父 (i.e., the father of Lǐ Shízhēn 李時珍). Lǐ Yánwén served as lǐmù in the Imperial Medical Academy in the Jiājìng period and was the principal pulse author of the previous generation; Lǐ Shízhēn’s Bīnhú mài xué takes his father’s work as a starting point. The dating bracket 1500–1570 reflects Lǐ Yánwén’s productive period; the underlying Cuī Jiāyàn verse is of course 1108–1190.
Endymion Wilkinson does not record this title specifically in Chinese History: A New Manual, but his §41.3.1 entry on the Mài jīng and pulse-diagnostic literature (lines 35895–35900) covers the broader Cuī Jiāyàn tradition.
Translations and research
- No Western-language translation exists.
- The Sì yán jǔ yào lèi biān is discussed in Bāo Lái-fā 包來發 (ed.), Lǐ Shízhēn yī xué quán shū 李時珍醫學全書 (Beijing: Zhōngguó zhōngyīyào, 1999), as a parental-generation pulse work.
Links
- Underlying mnemonic: KR3eb025 Mài jué (Cuī Jiāyàn).
- Son’s expansion: KR3eb014 Bīnhú mài xué (Lǐ Shízhēn).
- Pān Jí’s parallel expansion: KR3eb001 Yī dēng xù yàn.
- 脈學類編 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB