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本草衍義

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Text ID
KR3ec010
Date
1116–1119
Dynasty
北宋

Běncǎo Yǎnyì 本草衍義

Elaborated Meanings of the Materia Medica by 寇宗奭 (Kòu Zōngshí, fl. early 12th c., 北宋; Tōngzhí láng tiānchāi chōng shōumǎi yàocái suǒ biànyàn yàocái 通直郎添差充收買藥材所辨驗藥材)

About the work

The Běncǎo yǎnyì is the principal Northern Sòng pharmacological commentary on the Jiāyòu / Dàguān tradition. Where Sū Sòng’s 蘇頌 Tújīng (KR3ec006) had given habitat, illustration, and gathering notes substance by substance, Kòu Zōngshí gives reasoned argumentative discussion of difficult and disputed pharmacological cases: the difference between East-Wall earth and Reverse-Flowing water (東壁土、倒流水), the lexicographic problem of taboo-name avoidance in pharmacological terminology (山藥 < 薯蕷 to avoid Sòng Yīngzōng’s name, and Táng Dàizōng’s name 預), the question of whether 玉泉 and 石蜜 are correctly named, and so on. The work is methodologically novel in that Kòu cites his own field observations of drug-buying at the imperial pharmaceutical office (he held the position of biànyàn yàocái — “drug-authenticator at the Office of Pharmaceutical Procurement”) as evidence. The work was presented to the throne in 1116 (Zhènghé 6) but its preface is dated 政和六年丙申歲記; printing followed in 1119.

The Yǎnyì is the immediate ancestor of the integrated 1249 Jīsì xīnzēng edition of the Zhènglèi běncǎo (KR3ec009), where Zhāng Cúnhuì interleaved Kòu’s commentary inline with the main entries, and is therefore the indirect ancestor of the Běncǎo gāngmù (KR3ec025)‘s 衍義 / 衍義補遺 citations. It survives both as an independent text (with the Sòng / Yuán / Míng transmission preserved in 漢學文典) and as inline citations in the Zhènglèi.

Prefaces

Kòu Zōngshí’s autograph 序 occupies the first three juǎn (序例上中下). The preface opens with a manifesto on bǎoyǎng 保養 (nurturing the body) — three principles: yǎng shén 養神 (nurturing the spirit through letting go of emotion and intelligence), xí qì 惜氣 (treasuring the qì through quietude), dī jí 堤疾 (warding off disease through dietary regulation and observance of the eight pathogenic conditions 八邪). Kòu then situates the work as a corrective: Zhènglèi-tradition entries that he considers unclear, omitted, or distorted are systematically yǎn 衍 (elaborated, drawn out) to reveal their proper meaning. He explicitly identifies four classes of correction:

  1. ambiguous reasoning (e.g. 東壁土、倒流水、冬灰);
  2. concealed truths (e.g. 水自菊下過而水香, 鼴鼠溺精墜地而生子);
  3. textual corruptions (e.g. 玉泉, 石蜜);
  4. taboo-renamings whose original referents need to be recovered (e.g. 山藥 ← 薯蕷; Sòng-Táng taboo names).

The preface also offers a theory of qì and wèi (氣味), arguing that qì 氣 properly means “aroma” (香臭) not “thermal nature” (寒熱溫涼), and that the Běnjīng-tradition’s use of qì for thermal nature is a textual corruption needing correction to xìng 性. This linguistic argument was influential on later Yuán-Míng pharmacology.

Abstract

Kòu Zōngshí (寇宗奭), fl. 1110–1119, held the office of Tōngzhí láng tiānchāi chōng shōumǎi yàocái suǒ biànyàn yàocái 通直郎添差充收買藥材所辨驗藥材 — an officer of the Sòng imperial pharmaceutical procurement office who specifically authenticated drug specimens before purchase. The biographical detail is significant because the Yǎnyì’s authority rests on Kòu’s direct knowledge of contemporary drug commerce. The work cites quasi-anecdotal evidence (e.g. the Táng Zhèn Lìyán 甄立言 — Tàicháng chéng — case of treating a Daoist’s parasitic infestation with realgar, ending in the patient vomiting a hairy serpent) and direct observational data (“I have seen Sichuan-grown 細辛 sold in the capital as 華陰 細辛”). Kòu Zōngshí appears in CBDB as id 697261 without confident dates; the conventional 1110–1119 floruit is set by the Yǎnyì’s presentation and printing dates.

The Yǎnyì’s long-term influence is twofold. (1) It established the genre of běncǎo yǎnyì — argumentative commentary on the zhènglèi corpus — that culminated in Lǐ Shízhēn’s 李時珍 biàn yí 辨疑 and zhèng wù 正誤 sections of the Běncǎo gāngmù. (2) Its linguistic-philosophical argument about qì vs xìng fed directly into Yuán-Míng debates over the meta-categories of pharmacology, especially in Wáng Hàogǔ’s 王好古 Tāngyè běncǎo (KR3ec011) and the Lǐ Gǎo / Zhū Zhènhēng school. Lǐ Shízhēn praises the Yǎnyì repeatedly in the Gāngmù.

Translations and research

  • Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞 (coll.). 1990. Běncǎo yǎnyì 本草衍義 (校注本). Renmin weisheng.
  • Liào Yùqún 廖育群. 2003. “Kòu Zōngshí Běncǎo yǎnyì zhī yányǔ-zhéxué tèsè.” Zhōngguó kējì shǐ zázhì 24.1.
  • Goldschmidt, Asaf. 2009. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Northern Song Dynasty, 960–1200. Routledge. — chapter on the Yǎnyì in the context of state pharmaceutical procurement.
  • Despeux, Catherine, in EMCT.
  • No Western-language translation.

Other points of interest

Kòu’s preface includes one of the earliest sustained pieces of Chinese pharmaceutical philosophy of language — the argument that the Běnjīng-tradition’s qì 氣 should be replaced by xìng 性 in pharmacological description. This is a methodological move toward isolating intrinsic nature from sensory property, anticipating the abstract metaphysics of the Yuán-Míng fā xiàng 法象 school.

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