Běncǎo Chóngyuán 本草崇原
Revering the Origin in the Materia Medica begun by 張志聰 (Zhāng Zhìcōng, zì Yǐn’ān 隱菴, c. 1610 – c. 1695, 清); completed posthumously by his disciple 高世栻 (Gāo Shìshì, zì Shìyù 士御, fl. late 17th c., 清)
About the work
The Běncǎo chóngyuán is the major pharmacological work of the late-17th-century Hángzhōu Lúshān 侶山 medical academy founded by Zhāng Zhìcōng — one of the principal centres of late-Míng / early-Qīng Sùwèn-Língshū-grounded clinical theory. Zhāng began the work but died before completing it; his leading disciple Gāo Shìshì took up the manuscript and brought it to completion in the late 17th century. The catalog meta correctly captures this: 著者 張志聰 歿而書未成，後由弟子 高世栻 續成 (“the author Zhāng Zhìcōng died before the work was finished, and it was subsequently completed by his disciple Gāo Shìshì”).
The work in 3 juǎn organises substances by the Běnjīng’s original three-grade structure (上中下品) — chóng yuán 崇原 (“revering the origin”) explicitly returns to the Běnjīng’s authority against the Gāngmù’s reorganisation. Each substance entry combines the Běnjīng core text with Zhāng’s exegetical commentary grounded in zàngfǔ doctrine and Hangzhou-school theoretical principles.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance body. Standard editions preserve Gāo Shìshì’s preface describing how he took up the master’s incomplete manuscript and brought it to completion.
Abstract
Zhāng Zhìcōng (張志聰, c. 1610 – c. 1695, no confident CBDB id), zì Yǐn’ān 隱菴, native of Qiántáng 錢唐 (Hángzhōu). He was the founder of the Lúshān 侶山 medical academy in Hángzhōu — one of the most intellectually serious early-Qīng medical teaching institutions. His students included Gāo Shìshì, Zhāng Lìfēng 張理風, Yè Zhēn 葉震, and a generation of Jiāngnán physicians.
Gāo Shìshì (高世栻, CBDB 438036 — no confident dates), zì Shìyù 士御, was Zhāng Zhìcōng’s leading disciple and the principal Qīng exponent of the Lúshān doctrines. After Zhāng’s death he completed multiple of his teacher’s unfinished works, including the Běncǎo chóngyuán and the Sùwèn jí zhù 素問集注.
The work’s significance is as the principal Lúshān pharmacological text. The Lúshān school’s distinctive contribution to Qīng medicine is the integration of Sùwèn-Língshū theory with clinical practice via close substance-by-substance pharmacological exegesis. The Chóngyuán embodies this approach.
Translations and research
- Liào Yùqún. 2007. Yī fá liáo zhì jiào — discusses the Lú-shān school.
- Hanson, Marta. 2011. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. Routledge. — Hangzhou medical traditions.
- Furth, Charlotte. 1999. A Flourishing Yin. UCP.
- Zhāng Zhìbīn 張志斌. 2005. Zhāng Zhìcōng yīxué quánshū 張志聰醫學全書. Renmin weisheng.
- No Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 本草崇原 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB