Běncǎo Jīng Jízhù 本草經集註
Collected Notes on the Classic of Materia Medica by 陶弘景 (Táo Hóngjǐng, Zhēnbái xiānshēng 貞白先生, 456–536, 南朝·梁) — 撰注
About the work
Táo Hóngjǐng’s Běncǎo jīng jízhù is the single most consequential intervention in the textual history of Chinese pharmacopoeia. Compiled at his Máoshān 茅山 hermitage around 492–500, the work fuses two prior corpora: the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng 神農本草經 (KR3ec001) in three grades of 365 substances each (上、中、下), and the Míngyī biélù 名醫別錄 (KR3ec007) of identical structure adding 365 further substances. The combined total of 730 substances is preserved with a graphic device — the Běnjīng core in vermilion (朱) and the Biélù additions in black ink (墨), with double-column interlinear notes (“子注”) below — so that the philological status of every claim is visible to the reader. Táo also reclassified the materia by natural-history category (玉石、草、木、蟲獸、果、菜、米食、有名未用), abandoning the original three-grade-only arrangement of the Běnjīng. Almost every later běncǎo — Xīnxiū běncǎo (KR3ec004), Kāibǎo 開寶, Jiāyòu 嘉祐, Zhènglèi (KR3ec009) — descends from this edition, and the structure of the Běncǎo gāngmù (KR3ec025) is ultimately a refinement of Táo’s category system.
Prefaces
The transmitted Jízhù text begins (juǎn 1, 序錄) with Táo’s own long autobiographical preface, here partly preserved. Táo opens by setting himself “on the slopes of Máoshān, occupying my off-hours from tǔnà breathing exercises with a survey of the natures of medicinal substances.” He locates Shénnóng’s pharmacology within the triad of his founding gifts to humanity (Yìjīng, agriculture, medicine), defends the antiquity of the Běnjīng against critics, and explains his editorial method: he has combined three pre-existing recensions (of 595, 431, and 319 substances respectively) into a single 365 + 365 = 730 substance edition, marked the textual layers chromatically, regrouped them by natural kind, and added a 序錄 plus 例 to make the structure transparent.
Abstract
The original Jízhù in seven juǎn (with the 序錄 as an opening volume) was already partially mutilated by the high Táng, when the imperial Xīnxiū běncǎo (KR3ec004) sought to correct its “errors”. The integral Táng-era Jízhù was lost in China but a Táng manuscript of the 序錄 — the so-called Dūnhuáng běn 敦煌本 — was recovered from the Mògāo 莫高窟 caves in the early twentieth century (Pelliot S.4534, also Beijing 8273) and published by Lóng Bóchūn 龍伯堅 and others. A Japanese manuscript of substance-by-substance commentary (the so-called NInnaji 仁和寺本 fragment) supplied additional witnesses. The 漢學文典 transmitted text here is the modern critical reconstruction from these sources together with the chromatic citations preserved in the Zhènglèi běncǎo (KR3ec009) tradition; it should be read as a recovered, not a continuously transmitted, text.
Táo’s contribution to the Běncǎo tradition is conceptual as much as philological. He is the first to articulate the chromatic 朱墨 method for distinguishing canonical core (jīng) from named-physicians’ commentary (biélù) — a method that survived as the foundational principle of the Sòng state-sponsored Kāibǎo / Jiāyòu / Dàguān tradition until printed black-ink editions in the Yuán dynasty erased the colour distinction. He is also the first to insist that 名醫 (post-Hàn) commentary is not identical with Shénnóng’s jīng — a methodological claim that later evidential-research scholars (Sūn Xīngyǎn, Gù Guānguāng, Mǎ Jìxīng) would rely on to reconstruct the Běnjīng. For Táo’s lifedates, religious-philosophical context, and Daoist works, see his person note.
Translations and research
- Wáng Jiākuí 王家葵, Zhāng Ruìxián 張瑞賢. 1998. Běncǎo jīng jízhù yánjiū 本草經集註研究. Beijing kexue jishu. — modern monograph with critical text.
- Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞 (coll.). 1985. Táo Hóngjǐng běncǎo jīng jízhù jí jiào běn 陶弘景本草經集註輯校本. Renmin weisheng.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興 et al. 1995. Dūnhuáng yīyào wénxiàn jí jiào 敦煌醫藥文獻輯校. Jiangsu guji. — publishes the Dūnhuáng 序錄 manuscript.
- Strickmann, Michel. 1979. “On the Alchemy of T’ao Hung-ching.” In Welch & Seidel eds., Facets of Taoism. Yale UP. — for Táo’s pharmacological-alchemical context.
- Unschuld, Paul U. 1986. Medicine in China: A History of Pharmaceutics. UCP. — chapter on the Six Dynasties.
- No complete Western-language translation; partial translation of the 序錄 in Unschuld (1986).
Other points of interest
The chromatic transmission method was so successful that, when the Kāibǎo běncǎo 開寶本草 was printed in 973–974, the editors specifically preserved Táo’s red-and-black distinction in their official woodblock; this is the technical origin of the Sòng term “白字” (= Běnjīng) vs “黑字” (= Biélù) used throughout the Zhènglèi běncǎo literature.
Links
- Wikidata: Q11103641 (本草經集註).
- Mògāo Pelliot 4534 fragment text: digitised at gallica.bnf.fr (BNF).
- 本草經集註 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB