吳普本草

Wú Pǔ Běncǎo 吳普本草

Wú Pǔ’s Materia Medica by 吳普 (Wú Pǔ, fl. late Hàn–Wèi, c. 220–270, 三國·魏) — 撰

About the work

Wú Pǔ 吳普 was a direct disciple of the legendary Hàn-Wèi physician Huà Tuó 華佗 (華佗). His Wú Pǔ běncǎo is the most important of the second-century-CE expansions of the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng tradition: where the Běnjīng gives a single normative reading of each substance’s nature, Wú Pǔ records the divergent opinions of named earlier authorities — 神農, 黃帝, 岐伯, 雷公, 桐君, 醫和, 扁鵲, 李當之 — substance by substance, so that the entries read as comparative tables (e.g. “丹砂：神農甘；黃帝、岐伯苦，有毒；扁鵲苦；李氏大寒”). The work thus preserves, in fossil form, the multiple competing pharmacological traditions of the late Hàn schools. The Suí shū 隋書·經籍志 records the Wú Pǔ běncǎo in 6 juǎn; the Jiāyòu běncǎo 嘉祐本草 cites its content as covering 441 substances. The original was lost by the Sòng, and the surviving text is the recovery (輯佚) made by the Qīng evidential-research scholars from quotations in Tàipíng yùlǎn 太平御覽, Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚, Chū xué jì 初學記, Hòu Hàn shū zhù 後漢書注, Shì lèi fù 事類賦, etc.

Prefaces

The 漢學文典 transmission begins directly with the substance entries (玉石類 / 草木類 / 蟲獸類 / 米食類) without a separate preface. The reconstructive method is that of Sūn Xīngyǎn 孫星衍: each quotation is keyed to its source (“《御覽》卷九百八十五”), and the entries follow the Běnjīng’s three-grade arrangement. Where a substance also appears in the Běnjīng under a different name, an editorial note (“此藥參見本書「凝水石」條，《本經》首載此藥”) points the reader to the cross-reference.

Abstract

Wú Pǔ was a native of Guǎnglíng 廣陵 (modern Yángzhōu, Jiāngsū) according to 《後漢書·華佗傳》, which notes that Wú “studied with Huà Tuó, followed his prescriptions, and saved many lives” (《後漢書·方術傳·華佗》：吳普從佗學，依准佗療，多所全濟). The same biography records that Huà transmitted to Wú the famous Wǔqín xì 五禽戲 exercise; Wèi Míngdì 魏明帝 later required Wú to demonstrate the practice. The Chinese medical tradition therefore credits Wú with a double inheritance: the surgical-empirical lineage of Huà Tuó plus the běncǎo literature compiled before him.

The Wú Pǔ běncǎo’s significance is twofold. First, it is the earliest extant witness to substantive named-authority divergence within the Hàn pharmacological corpus, evidence that the Běnjīng itself was the product of consolidation rather than single-author composition. Second, it transmits unique entries (e.g. on 五石脂 distinguished as 青符 / 赤符 / 黃符 / 白符 / 黑符) that do not survive elsewhere, making it indispensable for any modern reconstruction of pre-Táo Hóngjǐng pharmacology. The catalog assigns the work to Wú Pǔ alone; the surviving recension is a Qīng product. Sūn Xīngyǎn’s KR3ec001 Shénnóng běncǎo jīng reconstruction explicitly draws on the Wú Pǔ material as its primary supplement to the Dàguān běncǎo tradition.

Translations and research

• Ma Jixing 馬繼興. 1990. Wú Pǔ běncǎo 吳普本草 (collated and annotated reconstruction). Rénmín wèishēng. — the standard modern critical edition.
• Yang Pengju 楊鵬舉. 2005. Wú Pǔ běncǎo jí yì 吳普本草輯佚. Bookended with Shang Zhijun’s parallel work.
• Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞. 1999. Wú Pǔ běncǎo jiào shì 吳普本草校釋. Beijing kexue jishu.
• Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §41.3.2 (mentions the Wú Pǔ běncǎo in the Sòng reception of the Běnjīng).
• No Western-language translation has been made.

Links

• Wikidata: not yet assigned.
• 吳普本草 jicheng.tw
• Kanseki DB