Běncǎo Yǎn Jù 本草衍句
Pharmacological Mnemonic Couplets attributed to 寇宗奭 (Kòu Zōngshí, fl. early 12th c., 北宋); author of Běncǎo yǎnyì (KR3ec010)
About the work
The Běncǎo yǎn jù is a brief mnemonic pharmacology in rhymed lines (jù 句), attributed to Kòu Zōngshí — the great Northern-Sòng pharmacologist of the Yǎnyì — as a companion-piece for memorisation. The catalog meta dates it 宋. The work is significantly shorter than the Yǎnyì itself and may represent a Sòng-Yuán didactic abstraction of Kòu’s pharmacological methodology; alternatively, it may be a later compilation pseudepigraphically attributed to Kòu in the manner of KR3ec016. The text is little studied and its authenticity as Kòu’s work is uncertain.
The transmitted text in 漢學文典 is brief, with substance entries summarised in rhymed couplet form. The work belongs to the genre of běncǎo yǎn jù — pharmacological-mnemonic — that flourished from the late Sòng through the late Qīng (cf. Yàoxìng fù KR3ec015, Yàoxìng gē KR3ec038).
Prefaces
No surviving preface in the transmitted text. The work begins directly with substance entries.
Abstract
Kòu Zōngshí (寇宗奭) — see KR3ec010 for the principal biographical note — was Tōngzhí láng tiānchāi chōng shōumǎi yàocái suǒ biànyàn yàocái of the Sòng Imperial Pharmacy and the author of the Běncǎo yǎnyì (1116/1119). If the Yǎn jù is genuinely his, it is a companion-piece to the Yǎnyì, designed for memorisation by students; if not, it is a later pseudepigraphic compilation in the Yǎnyì tradition. The dating range in frontmatter (1117–1119) reflects the most plausible composition window if the attribution to Kòu is accepted, contiguous with the Yǎnyì’s presentation.
The work has had limited circulation and is not the subject of any substantial modern scholarship. Its independent value is mostly genealogical — as evidence of an early-12th-century interest in rhymed pharmacological pedagogy.
Translations and research
- No substantial secondary literature located.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 本草衍句 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB