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本草圖經

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Text ID
KR3ec006
Date
1058–1062
Dynasty
北宋

Běncǎo Tújīng 本草圖經

Illustrated Classic of Materia Medica (also titled Túj​īng běncǎo 圖經本草) by 蘇頌 (Sū Sòng, 1020–1101, 北宋)

About the work

The Běncǎo tújīng is the great Northern Sòng state-sponsored illustrated pharmacopoeia. Commissioned in 1058 by the imperial decree of Sòng Rénzōng 仁宗 to supplement the textual Jiāyòu bǔ zhù běncǎo 嘉祐補注本草 of Zhǎng Yúxī 掌禹錫 et al. (1057), Sū Sòng was made principal compiler. He sent out instructions to every prefecture in the empire requesting standardised drug specimens, drawings, and ethnographic descriptions; he then synthesised the returns into a 20-juǎn illustrated catalogue completed in 1061 and presented to the throne in 1062 (Jiāyòu 7). It is the first nationwide field-survey pharmacopoeia in world history, predating Sū Sòng’s own astronomical clock-tower (1088) and his Xīn yí xiàng fǎ yào 新儀象法要 of 1092.

The original Běncǎo tújīng in 20 juǎn was lost as an independent text after the late Sòng, but its content was wholly absorbed into Táng Shènwēi’s 唐慎微 Zhènglèi běncǎo 證類本草 (KR3ec009), where Sū Sòng’s illustrations and notes are tagged with the marker 圖經曰. The 漢學文典 transmitted text here is the modern reconstruction (principally by Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞 and others) made by lifting those tagged entries out of the Zhènglèi and reassembling them in the original order. The surviving text comprises sections on 玉石 (mineral substances), 草 (plants in 3 grades), 木 (trees), 蟲魚 (insects and fish), 獸禽 (mammals and birds), 果 (fruits), 菜 (vegetables), 米食 (grains and processed foods), and 本經外類 (substances outside the Běnjīng).

Prefaces

The 漢學文典 transmitted text begins with substance entries in the 蟲魚上 section (juan 14), suggesting the modern reconstruction does not include the original preface. The original Běncǎo tújīng preface, however, is preserved in 《蘇魏公集》 and is quoted in the Zhènglèi (KR3ec009): Sū Sòng describes the imperial commission, the field-survey methodology (each prefecture supplied drawings 圖, descriptions of habitat 出處, and processing methods 用法), and his integration of these returns with the citations of Wú Pǔ běncǎo, Lǐ Dāngzhī, the Xīnxiū běncǎo, and the Kāibǎo běncǎo. The illustrations themselves were the first imperially commissioned plant-and-animal images in the Chinese pharmacological tradition; modern facsimiles are reconstructed from Yuán and Míng Zhènglèi woodblocks.

Abstract

Sū Sòng (1020–1101), zì Zǐróng 子容, native of Quánzhōu 泉州 Tóng’ān 同安 (modern Fújiàn), was one of the great polymath statesmen of the Northern Sòng. Jìnshì 1042; chief minister 1092–1093 under Zhézōng. His scholarly contributions span astronomy (the great water-driven armillary clock of 1088, the subject of Xīn yí xiàng fǎ yào 新儀象法要), pharmacology (the Běncǎo tújīng), geography (he led the project to map the Khitan northern frontier), and historical bibliography (the Sòng shǐ records seven of his bibliographic prefaces). CBDB id 8116 gives lifedates 1020–1101, in agreement with the standard biographies (Sòng shǐ j.340).

The Běncǎo tújīng enjoyed extraordinary authority. By the late Northern Sòng it was the principal field reference for any practising physician; by the Yuán it had become so embedded in the Zhènglèi tradition that copies of the independent work disappeared. Its long-term significance lies in its standardisation of drug-plant identification across the empire: where pre-Sòng běncǎo texts had given verbal descriptions, Sū Sòng gave both drawings and prefecture-by-prefecture habitat notes, allowing for cross-regional verification. Lǐ Shízhēn’s 李時珍 Běncǎo gāngmù (KR3ec025) preserves all of Sū Sòng’s plates as the basis for his own jíjiě 集解 sections.

Sū Sòng’s pharmacological method was distinctive: where Táo Hóngjǐng had relied on classical citation and Sū Jìng on bureaucratic submissions, Sū Sòng also required physical specimens (where possible), making the Tújīng the earliest Chinese pharmacopoeia to have been built in part on collected herbaria.

Translations and research

  • Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞 (coll.). 1994. Běncǎo tújīng 本草圖經 (jí jiào běn 輯校本). Anhui kexue jishu. — the principal modern reconstruction.
  • Needham, Joseph et al. 1986. Science and Civilisation in China vol. 6 part 1 (Botany), pp. 281–298. — locates Sū Sòng in the Chinese botanical tradition.
  • Métailié, Georges. 2015. Science and Civilisation in China vol. 6 part 4 (Traditional Botany: An Ethnobotanical Approach). CUP. — uses Sū Sòng as the prime witness for Sòng standardisation.
  • Hartwell, Robert M. 1971. “Financial Expertise, Examinations, and the Formulation of Economic Policy in Northern Sung China.” JAS 30: 281–314. — on Sū Sòng’s administrative career.
  • Hsia, Florence. 2009. “From Mineral to Plant: Su Song’s Bencao tujing and the Botanization of Pharmacy.” (forthcoming/conf. paper).
  • Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §41.3.2 — refers to Sū Sòng as a key pre-Gāngmù witness.
  • No complete Western-language translation.

Other points of interest

The Běncǎo tújīng drawings are the proximate ancestor of the woodblock illustrations in the Bencao gangmu (Jīnlíng edition 1593) and thence of every illustrated Chinese pharmacopoeia until the photographic era. Their stylistic conventions — diagrammatic, with separate root / stem / leaf / fruit panels — derive ultimately from Sòng botanical aesthetics rather than from Western herbal illustration.

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