Běnjīng Shū Zhèng 本經疏證
Commentary and Verification of the Shénnóng Běncǎo Jīng by 鄒澍 (Zōu Shù, zì Rùn’ān 潤安, hào Shùzhāi 恕齋, 1790–1844, 清)
About the work
The Běnjīng shū zhèng is the most influential 19th-century Chinese pharmacology and is one of the principal works of the Chángzhōu jīngfāng 經方 (classical-formula) school. Printed in 道光十七年 (1837), it is a substance-by-substance critical exegesis of the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng (KR3ec001) read against Zhāng Zhòngjǐng’s Shānghán lùn and Jīnguì yàolüè formula corpus. The method — shū zhèng “commentary and verification” — names Zōu’s procedure: for each Běnjīng drug, he canvasses the Běnjīng core text, the major commentarial tradition (Táo Hóngjǐng 陶弘景, Sū Jìng 蘇敬, the Sòng catalogers), and then verifies (證) the substance’s properties against the way Zhòngjǐng actually used it in the jīngfāng formulae.
The work in 12 juǎn covers 173 Běnjīng substances (those that Zhòngjǐng uses in his formulae). The companion Běnjīng xù shū 本經續疏 (6 juǎn, posthumous) covers an additional 142 Běnjīng substances that Zhòngjǐng does not use, completing the Běnjīng coverage. A third volume, the Běnjīng xù shū yāo 本經序疏要 (8 juan), treats the Běnjīng’s general organisational principles. Together the three works form the most thorough Qīng jīngfāng exegesis of the Běnjīng pharmacopoeia.
The work’s distinctive contribution is methodological: Zōu treats the Běnjīng and the jīngfāng corpus as mutually-illuminating documents, where each substance’s true pharmacological identity is fixed at the intersection of the Běnjīng’s description and Zhòngjǐng’s clinical deployment. This methodology was decisive for the subsequent late-Qīng jīngfāng tradition (Zhōu Yán 周巖 KR3ec053, Zhāng Shòuyí 張壽頤 KR3ec063) and underlies the modern jīngfāng pharmacological pedagogy.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance body. Standard 1837 editions preserve Zōu’s own preface, plus prefatory pieces by his Chángzhōu literary friends. Zōu also wrote the preface (1842) to Yáng Shítài’s 楊時泰 Běncǎo shù gōuyuán (KR3ec052), which provides additional autobiographical context for the Shū zhèng project.
Abstract
Zōu Shù (鄒澍, 1790–1844, CBDB 79038), zì Rùn’ān 潤安, hào Shùzhāi 恕齋. Native of Wǔjìn 武進 (Chángzhōu prefecture, Jiāngsū). He was the central figure of the Chángzhōu jīngfāng / pharmacological circle that produced, in the first half of the 19th century, the most theoretically serious pharmacological work since Huáng Yuányù 黃元御. The circle included Yáng Shítài 楊時泰, Fèi Bóxióng 費伯雄 (a younger contemporary in nearby Wǔjìn), and 李文榮 Lǐ Wénróng. Zōu never held office and remained a private scholar-physician throughout his life.
The Shū zhèng’s significance is as the founding text of the mature Qīng jīngfāng pharmacology. Its method — Běnjīng + Shānghán mutual verification — has been continuously influential in Chinese-medicine pharmacological theory since 1837 and remains the standard jīngfāng approach in modern teaching. The work also embodies a particular form of Qīng kǎojù 考據 (evidential) scholarship applied to pharmacology, in the broad tradition of the Chángzhōu New Text school that flourished in the same prefecture in the same decades.
Translations and research
- Scheid, Volker. 2007. Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine, 1626–2006. Eastland Press. — major treatment of the Cháng-zhōu circle.
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群. 2003. Yīxué wǔshí jiā.
- Bian, He. 2020. Know Your Remedies. PUP.
- Běnjīng shū zhèng jiào zhù 本經疏證校注. 1992. Renmin weisheng.
- No complete Western-language translation.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 本經疏證 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB