Tàipíng Shènghuì Fāng 太平聖惠方
Sagely-Benevolence Recipes of the Tàipíng [reign] imperially commissioned by Sòng Tàizōng (趙炅 r. 976–997), compiled under 王懷隱 (Wáng Huáiyǐn) and 陳昭遇 (Chén Zhāoyù), 奉敕編 fèngchì biān (compiled by imperial decree)
About the work
The Tàipíng shènghuì fāng in 100 juǎn is the first major imperially-commissioned medical formulary of the Sòng dynasty, completed in 太平興國 7 (982) and printed in 淳化 3 (992). Its sheer scale — 16,834 recipes organised by ailment across 1,670 mén / sections — made it the definitive practical pharmacopoeia of the early Northern Sòng and the template for all subsequent imperial formularies down to the Shèngjì zǒnglù of 1117 (KR3ed012).
The imperial preface, written by Tàizōng himself, recounts the project’s origin: while still in the Qiānfǔ (Tàizōng’s pre-accession residence) the future emperor had personally collected and tested over a thousand effective recipes. After his accession he ordered the Hànlín Yīguānyuàn 翰林醫官院 to submit each member’s family-transmitted formulae (合萬餘道), and appointed Shàngyào Fèngyù 尚藥奉御 Wáng Huáiyǐn and three colleagues to collate them into a single classified compilation. The result is structured into chapters that move from theoretical principles (juǎn 1–2: pulse diagnosis), through systematic disease categories (skin and external; head and face; eye; ear, nose, throat; respiratory; digestive; cardiac; etc.), to gynaecology, paediatrics, traumatology, and emergency / household recipes.
Prefaces
The single preface — 御製《太平聖惠方》序 — is by Sòng Tàizōng. It frames imperial sponsorship of medical compilation as a Confucian act of governance (“the ruler imitates Heaven’s care for the people”), names Wáng Huáiyǐn and his three co-compilers, summarises the work’s clinical structure (first distinguish xūshí 虛實, then surface vs interior, then prescribe), and closes with the order that the work be cut for woodblocks and distributed throughout China and the surrounding peoples (遍施華夷).
Abstract
The compilation was a textual culmination of two centuries of recipe-book accumulation since the Sui-Tang Wài tái mì yào. Wáng Huáiyǐn, a long-serving Hanlin medical officer of Sòngzhōu 宋州 (later Yīngtiānfǔ 應天府, modern Shāngqiū), is the lead compiler; CBDB has no clear identification. Chén Zhāoyù is recorded as a senior medical officer from Lǐngnán who had served under the Southern Hàn before submitting to Sòng. The compilation took five years; the final 100-juǎn work was completed in 982, and was published as a state-printed text in 992 — among the earliest imperially-sponsored medical prints in Chinese history.
The work’s significance is several-fold: (i) it is the single most important early-Sòng medical witness to the formulary tradition inherited from the SuíTáng, preserving large numbers of recipes that would otherwise have been lost when the Wài tái mì yào itself fell out of circulation in the late Sòng; (ii) it institutionalised the biànzhèng differential-diagnosis structure (each section opens with a lùn 論 theoretical discussion before listing recipes); (iii) it served as the principal source for the lower-budget abridgement Shènghuì xuǎnfāng 聖惠選方, which functioned as a popular Sòng physician’s handbook; (iv) it is the source of many of the standard Chinese herbal formulae still in clinical use today (e.g. 二陳湯 lineage, 平胃散 lineage). The work was reprinted multiple times in the Northern Sòng and is preserved primarily through Ming reprints, which the modern hxwd recension follows.
Translations and research
- Despeux, Catherine. 2010. Médecine, religion et société dans la Chine médiévale: Étude de manuscrits chinois de Dunhuang et de Turfan. Collège de France. — uses Tàipíng shènghuì fāng for comparison.
- Goldschmidt, Asaf. 2009. The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200. Routledge. — chapter 4 on the imperial medical formularies treats the Tàipíng shènghuì fāng as the foundation of the Sòng medical bureaucratic project.
- Liào Yùqún 廖育群. 2007. Yī zhě yì yě: Zhōngguó chuántǒng yīxué de bǎijiā lùn 醫者意也. Shanghai jiaotongdaxue.
- Hé Shíxī 何時希. 1980. Tàipíng shènghuì fāng yánjiū 太平聖惠方研究. Zhōnghuá yīshǐ zázhì 10: 91–96.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §41.3.2 — lists as a Sòng landmark.
Other points of interest
The Tàipíng shènghuì fāng contains the earliest extant Chinese description of childhood smallpox vaccination (juǎn 84) and the earliest systematic chapter on paediatric jīngfēng 驚風 (convulsions). Its sections on fùrén 婦人 (gynaecology, juǎn 76–81) and 小兒 (paediatrics, juǎn 82–93) anchored these as institutionalised sub-fields of SòngYuán medicine and are the textual source from which the Sòng Tàiyī jú 太醫局 specialised tracks derived their syllabi.
Links
- Wikidata Q11086366 (太平聖惠方).
- Wikipedia (zh): 太平聖惠方.
- Bibliographic notice: Sòngshǐ 宋史 Yìwénzhì 藝文志.
- 太平聖惠方 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB