Yùqiū Yàojiě 玉楸藥解
Yùqiū’s Exegesis of Drugs by 黃元御 (Huáng Yuányù, zì Yuányù 元御, hào Yùqiū 玉楸 — variant 玉璐, the form in the catalog meta — 1705–1758, 清)
About the work
The Yùqiū yàojiě is the companion volume to Huáng Yuányù’s Chángshā yàojiě KR3ec064 and the eighth work of his “Four Sages” commentarial programme (the title’s “Yùqiū” is Huáng’s own hào, signalling that this volume is his own pharmacology rather than a Shānghán commentary). Where the Chángshā yàojiě (1753) treats only the drugs that Zhāng Zhòngjǐng himself used in the ShānghánJīnguì formulae, the Yùqiū yàojiě — completed the following year, 甲戌 (1754) — extends the same exegetical method to the drugs that appear in later pharmacopoeias but not in Zhòngjǐng. Together the two works form a complete Huáng-school pharmacology.
The preface dated 甲戌八月甲寅 (the jiǎyín day of the eighth month of 1754) explains the chronology: Huáng began drafting in 甲戌三月 (third month of 1754), produced the Shānghán shuō yì 傷寒說意 in the same year, the Sùlíng wéi yùn 素靈微蘊 in the fifth month, and the Yùqiū yàojiě in the sixth month, completing it by the eighth month — an extraordinary burst of compositional energy in the year before his death. The work was, in his own words, “his eighth book”. The preface is also notable for the elegiac tone: Huáng was about fifty suì — “the age of Bóyù’s zhīfēi, the year of Confucius taking up the Yì” — and was clearly conscious that his own time was short.
The work covers approximately 290 substances in 4 juǎn (some editions divide as 8). The substance entries are organised by natural-history classes following the Gāngmù taxonomy but the exegesis throughout is grounded in Huáng’s qìwèishēngjiàng doctrine.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance body. The frontmatter retains Huáng’s own preface dated 甲戌八月甲寅 (1754), signed 東萊都昌黃元御撰 (using the jùnwàng “Dōnglái Dūchāng” form rather than the more usual Chāngyì). The preface is a substantial autobiographical-philosophical document about Huáng’s intellectual programme.
Abstract
Huáng Yuányù (黃元御, 1705–1758, CBDB 438039). See his person note for full biographical detail. The Yùqiū yàojiě was completed in 1754, four years before his death. It is the last of his major works; thereafter he produced only the Sì shèng xīn yuán 四聖心源 systematic philosophy and corrections to his earlier writings.
The work’s significance is as the second volume of the Huáng-school pharmacology, extending the qìwèishēngjiàng framework from the ShānghánJīnguì core (the Chángshā yàojiě) to the wider pharmacopoeia. Together the two yàojiě volumes constitute the most theoretically rigorous Qīng jīngfāng pharmacology and are the principal source for the modern Húngzhìxué 黃帝-Zhāng Zhòngjǐng integrative TCM doctrine that the 1980s revival of the Huáng-school has promoted.
Translations and research
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群. 2003. Yīxué wǔshí jiā. — chapter on Huáng’s “Four Sages” programme.
- Huáng Yuán-yù yīxué quánshū 黃元御醫學全書. 1996. Zhongguo zhongyiyao.
- Sūn Wéijuān 孫偉娟. 2003. Huáng Yuán-yù.
- No complete Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 玉楸藥解 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB