Hǎiyào Běncǎo 海藥本草
Materia Medica of Drugs from Over the Seas by 李珣 (Lǐ Xún, zì Déguǎn 德潤, fl. late 9th – early 10th c., Five Dynasties 前蜀 / Former Shǔ; of Sogdian-Persian descent)
About the work
The Hǎiyào běncǎo is the principal medieval Chinese pharmacopoeia devoted specifically to exotic, imported drugs — primarily those arriving via the maritime trade routes from South-East Asia, the Indian Ocean, and the Indo-Persian world. Compiled in the late Táng or early Wǔdài by Lǐ Xún, a poet and bencao writer of Sogdian-Persian descent active in Shǔ 蜀, the work supplements the Xīnxiū běncǎo (KR3ec004) tradition with detailed accounts of drugs not native to China: 玉屑 (Khotanese / Persian jades), 車渠 (tridacna shell, Sanskrit musāragalva), 金線礬 (Persian alum), 波斯白礬 (Roman / Daqín alum), 石流黃 (Kunlun-sourced sulfur), 紫礦 (lac resin), 騏驎竭 (“dragon’s blood” — Daemonorops draco resin), 胡桐淚 (Persian salt-tamarisk gum), 安息香 (Sogdian benzoin), 阿魏 (asafetida), 蘇合香 (storax), 沉香 (aloeswood), 龍腦 (Borneol camphor), 沒藥 (myrrh), etc. The original was in 6 juǎn; what survives is a Qīng reconstruction (mainly by Shang Zhijun and others in the modern period) compiled from quotations in the Zhènglèi běncǎo (KR3ec009) and Běncǎo gāngmù (KR3ec025).
Prefaces
No preface survives in the reconstructed text; the transmitted entries open directly into the 玉石部 (1–13), continuing through 草部, 木部, 蟲魚部, 果部, and 米食部. Each entry follows a consistent template: a header citing a geographical-ethnographic source (《異物志》, Huáinánzǐ, 《廣州志》, 《廣州記》, 《嶺表錄異》, Nán Yuè zhì 《南越志》, 《古今錄》, Xī yù jì 《西域記》), followed by qìwèi 氣味, drug action (主), preparation method, and a closing citation to the substance’s location in Dàguān / Zhènghé / Gāngmù. This shows the Hǎiyào as the principal channel through which late-Táng / Five-Dynasties knowledge of Indian Ocean drugs was systematised for the Chinese pharmacological canon.
Abstract
Lǐ Xún (李珣) was the son or grandson of a Persian or Sogdian merchant family settled in Zǐzhōu 梓州 (modern Shēhōng 射洪, Sìchuān) at least by the High Táng. The 北夢瑣言 of Sūn Guāngxiàn 孫光憲 (10th c.) describes him: “Lǐ Xún was of Persian origin (波斯人也). His sister, Lǐ Shùnxián 李舜弦, was selected as a concubine for the Former Shǔ ruler Wáng Yǎn 王衍, and Xún himself was a jìnshì under the Former Shǔ. He composed cí lyrics in great quantity, mostly in the South Sea / Southern Country style.” His cí are anthologised in the Huājiān jí 花間集 (940). Modern scholarship (Schafer 1963, Wilkinson 2022) places his floruit in the years 907–940, with his death possibly around 945 in Shǔ after the conquest of the state by the Later Táng (934).
The text’s catalogue meta gives “李珣 · 五代” with no further detail; this matches the Qīng Sìkù attribution. CBDB has many Lǐ Xún records (no fewer than fourteen in the database), of which 174697 (fl. 791) is too early, 188995 (fl. 775) is too early, and 156756, 213084, 214238, 238770, 327690, 337087, 495830, 505176, 688712 are without dates; none securely matches the Sogdian-Persian Shǔ poet, who is not in CBDB under any of those records. The composition window 907–945 reflects Lǐ Xún’s working career; the work’s terminus ad quem is the time of its citation by the Sòng Kāibǎo běncǎo in 974.
The Hǎiyào is medically and historically significant. It is the principal Chinese-language witness to the Indian Ocean pharmaceutical economy of the late Táng / Five Dynasties period, recording trade in storax, frankincense, myrrh, asafetida, costus, putchuck, kafur (camphor), lac, dragon’s blood, ambergris, and Persian alum. Edward Schafer used the Hǎiyào extensively in The Golden Peaches of Samarkand (1963) and The Vermilion Bird (1967) to reconstruct the medieval Sino-foreign drug trade. For Lǐ Xún’s poetic and ethnic identity, see Schafer (1963), pp. 25, 178–183; for the bencao itself, see Shang Zhijun’s modern reconstruction.
Translations and research
- Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞 (coll.). 1997. Hǎiyào běncǎo (jí jiào běn) 海藥本草 (輯校本). Renmin weisheng. — the standard modern critical edition.
- Schafer, Edward H. 1963. The Golden Peaches of Samarkand: A Study of T’ang Exotics. UCP. — uses Hǎiyào extensively; see esp. ch. 9, 11, 12.
- Schafer, Edward H. 1967. The Vermilion Bird: T’ang Images of the South. UCP.
- Laufer, Berthold. 1919. Sino-Iranica: Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran. Field Museum. — cites Hǎiyào throughout for Iranian drugs.
- Wáng Yùchí 王玉池. 1991. Hǎiyào běncǎo yánjiū 海藥本草研究. Beijing kexue jishu.
- No complete Western-language translation.
Other points of interest
The Hǎiyào is one of the earliest sources to record the medicinal use of gōngbó 龍腦 (Borneol camphor, Dryobalanops aromatica) from Sumatra and Java, and of sūhé xiāng 蘇合香 (Liquidambar storax) from the Eastern Roman / Byzantine sphere. The work’s authentication of foreign drugs through cross-citation of contemporaneous geographical works (e.g. 《嶺表錄異》, 《南越志》) makes it a witness not only to pharmacology but to medieval Chinese trade ethnography.
Links
- Wikidata: Q15911144 (Hǎiyào běncǎo).
- Online text: ctext.org and CTP-derived reconstructions; Shang Zhijun’s edition is the philological standard.
- 海藥本草 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB