Shénnóng Běncǎo Jīng Zàn 神農本草經贊
Praise-Verses on the Classic of the Materia Medica of Shénnóng by 葉志洗 (Yè Zhìshēn, biéhào Fēngwēng Dōngqīng 封翁東卿, fl. 1820s–1850s, 清)
About the work
The Shénnóng běncǎo jīng zàn is a distinctive mid-19th-century hybrid of pharmacology and literary zàn 贊 (praise-verse). The preface by 王楚材 Wáng Chǔcái of Yīnxiàn 鄞縣 (dated 道光三十年庚戌夏五 = the fifth lunar month of 1850, written at the Guǎngzhōu prefectural office) explains the work’s conception: Yè took the Shénnóng běncǎo jīng as reconstructed by 孫星衍 Sūn Xīngyǎn and 孫馮翼 Sūn Féngyì (= KR3ec001 in the catalog’s reconstruction lineage) and composed for each substance a four-character four-rhyme verse capturing its nature and use, with his own brief prose annotation. The model — explicit in Wáng’s preface — is 郭璞 Guō Pú’s Shānhǎi jīng tú zàn (Eastern Jìn), where each Shānhǎi jīng entry is praised in verse.
The work in 3 juǎn follows the Běnjīng’s three-grade structure (上品 120, 中品 120, 下品 125), totalling 365 substances. Each substance receives a four-character verse plus annotation. The literary register is consciously archaic — “音節之古，不可名言” in Wáng’s words (“the antiquity of its sound and rhythm cannot be put into words”). The work belongs to the late-Qīng tradition of literarizing the Běnjīng canon: at the same period the Sūn-brothers’ reconstruction of the Běnjīng and 莫文遠 Mò Wényuán’s various Běnjīng commentaries were turning the rediscovered Běnjīng into an object of antiquarian literary as well as pharmacological attention.
Prefaces
The local repository preserves the substance body. The frontmatter retains:
- 王楚材 Wáng Chǔcái’s preface (道光三十年庚戌夏五, 1850), signed 鄞王楚材謹序於廣州郡齋. The preface gives the literary-historical justification for the zàn method.
- Editorial notes situating the work as a sequel to 孫星衍 Sūn Xīngyǎn’s Běnjīng reconstruction.
Abstract
Yè Zhìshēn (葉志洗, fl. 1820s–1850s, no confident CBDB id), biéhào Fēngwēng Dōngqīng 封翁東卿 (“the venerable Mr Dōngqīng”). Native of Hànyáng 漢陽 (Húběi). Held a zhōngchéng 中丞 (lieutenant-governor) post in Guǎngdōng during the Dàoguāng reign; he retired to the Guǎngzhōu governor’s compound in old age and there composed the Zàn. The name appears in the catalog meta as 葉志洗, which is almost certainly a graphical variant for the more common form 葉志詵 (Yè Zhìshēn) of contemporary sources — both readings would be pronounced shēn.
The work’s significance is as the principal mid-19th-century literary engagement with the rediscovered Běnjīng. It is not a clinical pharmacopoeia (it is too compressed for that) but a literary-pharmacological exercise reflecting the same High-Qīng kǎojù interest in the Běnjīng canon that motivated 孫星衍 Sūn Xīngyǎn’s reconstruction and Zōu Shù 鄒澍’s Běnjīng shū zhèng (KR3ec066). It is one of the very few examples in the Chinese tradition of a pharmacopoeia in praise-verse form.
Translations and research
- Zhèng Jīnshēng 鄭金生. 2007. Yào lín wài shǐ. — discusses the Qīng Běnjīng-reconstruction tradition.
- No modern critical edition located.
- No Western-language treatment.
Links
- Wikidata: not yet assigned.
- 神農本草經贊 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB