Běncǎo Yìdú 本草易讀
Easy-to-Read Materia Medica attributed to either 汪昂 (Wāng Áng, 1615–1694, 清) or 荊中允 (Jīng Zhōngyǔn, fl. late 17th c., 清)
About the work
The Běncǎo yìdú is an early-Qīng pharmacological textbook designed, as its title suggests, for ease of student use. The catalog meta gives a dual attribution: “汪昂（一說荊中允）”, reflecting a long-standing scholarly dispute about authorship. The text is often associated with Wāng Áng (汪昂, 1615–1694), the prolific late-17th-century medical popularizer of Xiūníng 休寧 in Húīzhōu — the same author as the Běncǎo bèiyào (KR3ec038), Yīfāng jíjiě 醫方集解, and Sùwèn língshū lèizuǎn yuē zhù 素問靈樞類纂約注 — but an alternative attribution to Jīng Zhōngyǔn 荊中允 (otherwise obscure) has also been transmitted. The two attributions may reflect a Húīzhōu publishing-network where Wāng Áng’s brand was applied to a text actually authored by a less-known associate.
The text is in 8 juǎn and follows the Gāngmù-derived organisation but with abbreviated entries oriented to the clinical learner.
Prefaces
The 漢學文典 transmitted text preserves the principal preface, internal to the work, which is consistent with the Wāng Áng publishing style of brief, classical-Confucian self-presentation. The preface argues that the Gāngmù is too massive for routine clinical use and that a “easy-to-read” digest is needed.
Abstract
The dating in frontmatter (1664–1694) reflects the plausible composition window: Wāng Áng’s first major medical work, the Yīfāng jíjiě, was published in 1682, and the Běncǎo bèiyào in 1694; the Yìdú fits in this same productive period of Wāng’s late-life prolific medical popularisation. If the alternative attribution to Jīng Zhōngyǔn is correct, the dating range still likely holds.
The work’s significance is principally pedagogical and bibliographic: it represents the early-Qīng turn toward simplified pharmacological textbooks, replacing the encyclopaedic Zhènglèi/Gāngmù tradition with student-oriented digests. This was one of the major editorial trends of late-17th-century Húīzhōu medical publishing — the merchant-financed mass-publication of accessible medical texts for the burgeoning early-Qīng physician class.
Translations and research
- Wāng Áng’s textbook publishing is discussed in Bian (2020), Know Your Remedies, ch. 4.
- The Wāng Áng / Jīng Zhōngyǔn attribution problem is examined in Zhèng Jīnshēng, Yào lín wài shǐ 藥林外史 (2005).
- No Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 本草易讀 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB