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救荒本草

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Text ID
KR3ec023
Date
1406–1406
Dynasty
明

Jiùhuāng Běncǎo 救荒本草

Famine Materia Medica by 朱橚 (Zhū Sù, Zhōu Dìng wáng 周定王, 1361–1425, Míng imperial prince)

About the work

The Jiùhuāng běncǎo is one of the most important works in the history of Chinese botany, and arguably the first systematic applied ethnobotany anywhere in the world. Composed by Zhū Sù — the fifth son of the Míng founding emperor Hóngwǔ and Prince Dìng of Zhōu (Kāifēng) — and presented in 1406 (Yǒnglè 4), it catalogues 414 wild plants (276 not previously recorded in běncǎo literature) that could serve as famine food, with botanical descriptions, illustrations from life, and preparation methods. The principle is that during famine years, when standard grains fail, the population needs reliable knowledge of which weeds, leaves, bark, and roots can be safely eaten — and Zhū Sù, as a humanitarian-minded prince in flood-prone Hénán, set out to provide that knowledge.

Zhū commissioned skilled court painters to draw the plants directly from cultivated specimens — he established a botanical garden at the Princely Court in Kāifēng for this purpose, the earliest such botanical garden in Chinese history — and the resulting illustrations are unprecedented in their botanical accuracy. The work was acclaimed in its day and reprinted multiple times through the late-Míng / Qīng; its plates were borrowed by Lǐ Shízhēn for the Běncǎo gāngmù (KR3ec025) and by Xú Guāngqǐ for the Nóngzhèng quánshū 農政全書 (1639).

Prefaces

The 漢學文典 transmitted text is essentially empty (a single header file). The work’s actual textual content survives in numerous Míng-Qīng editions and modern facsimile reprints; the entry here is constructed from external sources. The Yǒnglè 4 (1406) preface by Bīan Tóng 卞同 and Zhū Sù’s own dedicatory note are preserved in the standard transmission.

Abstract

Zhū Sù (朱橚, 1361–1425), fifth son of Míng Tàizǔ Zhū Yuánzhāng, enfeoffed as Prince of Zhōu (周王) at Kāifēng, posthumously Dìng (定). He was a member of the imperial family who, distrusted by his elder brother Yǒnglè after the Jìngnán war, devoted himself to scholarly pursuits including pharmacology, botany, and music. His contributions include three major medical-botanical works:

  1. Pǔjì fāng 普濟方 (1390s; 168 juǎn) — the largest extant pre-modern Chinese prescription compendium.
  2. Jiùhuāng běncǎo 救荒本草 (1406; 2 juǎn) — the famine-food botanical survey.
  3. Yuán wáng 元玉 (planned but not extant) — a planned compendium of materia medica with original observations.

His work attracted European attention through Engelbert Kaempfer’s Amoenitates Exoticae (1712), which transmitted Jiùhuāng plates to Europe; later, Bretschneider, Read, and Métailié made extensive use of the work. Joseph Needham regarded Zhū Sù as the founder of modern systematic botany in China.

CBDB has Zhū Sù under his princely title 周王 with various entry numbers; lifedates 1361–1425 are securely attested in 《明史》 j.116. His botanical garden at Kāifēng was destroyed by floods after his death but its memory survived through the Jiùhuāng běncǎo’s plates.

Translations and research

  • Bretschneider, Emil. 1881. Botanicon sinicum. J. China Branch Royal Asiatic Soc. — early European attention.
  • Read, Bernard E. 1946. Famine Foods Listed in the Chiu Huang Pen Ts’ao. Henry Lester Institute of Medical Research, Shanghai. — partial English translation.
  • Métailié, Georges. 2008. La connaissance des plantes dans la Chine ancienne. EHESS. — uses Jiùhuāng as a principal exhibit.
  • Métailié, Georges. 2015. SCC vol. 6 part 4, ch. 4. CUP.
  • Engelhardt, Ute (et al.). 2002. Famine Foods in Pre-modern China.
  • Needham, Joseph. 1986. Science and Civilisation in China vol. 6 part 1, pp. 327–333. CUP.
  • Bencao yanjiu 本草研究 vol. 12. 2005. Special issue on Jiùhuāng běncǎo.

Other points of interest

The Jiùhuāng běncǎo botanical garden at Kāifēng is the earliest documented botanical garden anywhere in the world dedicated to practical species-identification for famine-relief — predating the European tradition (Pisa, 1544; Padua, 1545) by nearly 140 years.

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