Běncǎo Pǐnhuì Jīngyào 本草品彙精要
Essence of the Materia Medica, Classified by 劉文泰 (Liú Wéntài) as 總裁, with 副總裁 王槃 (Wáng Pán) and 高廷和 (Gāo Tínghé), with a 42-person committee, under imperial commission of Míng Xiàozōng
About the work
The Běncǎo pǐnhuì jīngyào is the great Hóngzhì-era Míng court pharmacopoeia. Commissioned in Hóngzhì 16 (1503) by Míng Xiàozōng with a 42-person editorial committee at the Imperial Pharmacy (御藥房), it was completed in Hóngzhì 18 (1505) under Liú Wéntài (劉文泰) as 總裁 (chief editor) and presented to the throne in lavishly illustrated 12-colour woodblock-printed form — 1,815 substances in 42 juǎn. The work was almost immediately removed from circulation due to a political scandal: Liú Wéntài and others were implicated in the death of Xiàozōng himself (allegedly from a botched imperial prescription), and the printed copies were impounded. The work did not enter general circulation; surviving copies are essentially all in court manuscript form, and the standard text is the 1937 photographic facsimile from the Palace Museum’s Wénwényuàn 文淵閣 holding.
The work is structurally innovative: each substance entry is organised under 24 standardised headings (名 / 苗 / 地 / 時 / 收 / 用 / 質 / 色 / 味 / 性 / 氣 / 臭 / 主 / 行 / 助 / 反 / 制 / 治 / 合治 / 禁 / 代 / 忌 / 解 / 贗) — making it a structured database in a way that no previous běncǎo had been. The illustrations are uniquely lavish — 1,358 colour images in court-painter style, often combining root / stem / leaf / flower / fruit views in a single composite plate.
Prefaces
The 漢學文典 transmitted text contains the Hóngzhì 18 imperial preface and Liú Wéntài’s editorial preface, both preserved in standard transmission. The imperial preface narrates the commission and editorial committee structure. Liú’s preface emphasises the work’s encyclopaedic ambition and gives the editorial protocol (24-heading structure, illustration commissioning, manuscript collation).
Abstract
Liú Wéntài (劉文泰), fl. 1480–1510, was an imperial physician (尚藥) under both Chénghuà and Hóngzhì emperors. He rose to the post of Yuànshǐ 院使 (head of the Imperial Medical Academy). His political downfall came in 1505 when Míng Xiàozōng died after taking medicine prescribed by Liú; censors brought charges against Liú and the prescription team for incompetence (and possibly murder), and Liú was demoted and imprisoned. His name was thereafter tainted, and the Pǐnhuì jīngyào — though magnificent — was suppressed.
The work’s significance is paradoxical. As a book it was the most lavishly produced Chinese pharmacopoeia ever made before the Qīng Yùdìng compilations. As a historical artefact it is principally significant because it was not widely circulated — its disappearance from general circulation cleared the way for Lǐ Shízhēn’s 李時珍 Běncǎo gāngmù (KR3ec025) to become the dominant pharmacopoeia of the following four centuries. Lǐ Shízhēn knew of the Pǐnhuì jīngyào and cites it (rarely), but the suppression meant that the Gāngmù did not have a serious competitor as the standard Míng pharmacopoeia.
The illustrations and the 24-heading structure have been the principal subjects of modern scholarship; see Bian (2020) and the colour-facsimile edition of the original imperial manuscript.
Translations and research
- Bian, He. 2020. Know Your Remedies: Pharmacy and Culture in Early Modern China. PUP. — ch. 1 on the Pǐnhuì jīngyào.
- Wáng Shùcūn 王樹村. 1985. Běncǎo pǐnhuì jīngyào (colour facsimile of the imperial copy). Beijing kexue jishu.
- Zhèng Jīnshēng 鄭金生. 2005. Yào lín wài shǐ 藥林外史. Sanlian. — chapters on the Míng court pharmacopoeia.
- Reed, Carrie. 2000. “Imperial Tribute Materia Medica.”
- No complete Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: Q11078335.
- Digital colour facsimile via the National Palace Museum (Taipei) collection.
- 本草品彙精要 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB