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集驗方

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Text ID
KR3ed113
Date
552–583
Dynasty
北周

Jíyàn Fāng 集驗方

A Collection of Tested Formulas (reconstructed text) by 姚僧垣 (Yáo Sēngyuán, zì Fǎwèi 法衛, 499–583; Wúxìng 吳興 Wǔkāng 武康, Northern Zhōu court physician)

About the work

A modern reconstruction of the lost Jíyàn fāng 集驗方 (“Collection of Tested Formulas”) of Yáo Sēngyuán 姚僧垣 (499–583), the senior court physician of the Liáng, Western Wèi, and Northern Zhōu dynasties — one of the most prominent medical authorities of the sixth century. Yáo’s original Jíyàn fāng was a 12-juǎn clinical formulary that became one of the principal Táng-era reference works (alongside Sūn Sīmiǎo’s Qiānjīn yàofāng and Wáng Tāo’s Wàitái mìyào) but was lost as an independent text after the Sòng. The present KR text is a modern reconstruction built up from systematic extraction of Yáo’s quotations preserved in (i) the Wàitái mìyào 外臺秘要 (752, Wáng Tāo) of the Táng — which preserves Jíyàn fāng citations by juǎn and topic — and (ii) the Yīxīn fāng 醫心方 of Tanba no Yasuyori (982, see KR3ec076) — the Heian Japanese encyclopedic medical compendium that preserves many further Jíyàn fāng quotations not preserved in Chinese sources.

Each formula in the KR text is followed by the parenthetical source-tag (《外臺》卷N) or (《醫心方》卷N) identifying the witness from which the reconstruction is drawn. The reconstruction is therefore in the jíyì (collected-fragments) tradition pioneered by the Qīng evidential scholars and continued in modern Chinese textual scholarship.

Note on catalog attribution. The KR catalog meta entry gives the author as 洪遵 (Hóng Zūn, 1120–1174, Southern Sòng), reflecting a different Jíyàn fāng (more properly Hóngshì jíyàn fāng 洪氏集驗方) of the Sòng dynasty. The actual KR text body, however, is the Yáo Sēngyuán reconstruction — opening with the biographical excerpt of Yáo from the Zhōushū 周書 / Bei-shǐ 北史, and giving every formula with its Táng (Wàitái) or Heian (Yīxīn fāng) source-tag. The catalog attribution to Hóng Zūn is therefore an error to be corrected in the catalog meta.

Prefaces

Biographical Introduction (KR3ed113_000.txt), excerpting the Zhōushū and Bei-shǐ biographies of Yáo Sēngyuán:

“Yáo Sēngyuán, zì Fǎwèi, was a man of Wǔkāng 武康 in Wúxìng 吳興, the eighth-generation descendant of Yáo Xìn, Grand Constant of [Sūn] Wú. His great-grandfather Yīng was a yuánwài sànqí chángshì (Court-Attendant of the Outer Cavalry) under the Liú Sòng, and Marquis of Wǔchéng. His father Pútí was Magistrate of Gāopíng under the Liáng. Pútí had once been ill for many years, and so set his mind to medicine and medicaments. The Liáng Wǔdì also had a personal liking for [medicine], and would often summon Pútí to discuss formulary methods — Pútí’s words much hit the mark, and on this account [the emperor] showed him considerable courtesy. Sēngyuán in his youth was richly accomplished; in mourning he observed every ritual. At 24 he succeeded to the family profession. The Liáng Wǔdì summoned him into the palace, and tested him face-to-face. Sēngyuán answered without hesitation. The Liáng Wǔdì held him in great wonder…”

The biographical sketch continues at length through Sēngyuán’s distinguished career across three successive dynasties (Liáng → Western Wèi → Northern Zhōu), including his most famous case — the diagnosis of the Liáng Wǔdì’s fatal high fever, where Sēngyuán’s recommendation against dàhuáng (rhubarb) was ignored with fatal consequences.

The KR source carries no separate compiler’s preface for the modern reconstruction.

Abstract

The original Jíyàn fāng was composed in the second half of the sixth century, during Yáo Sēngyuán’s tenure under the Northern Zhōu (557–581) — the work is conventionally dated to ca. 580 by reference to Yáo’s life-stage as the senior court physician of the Zhōu. The work was widely circulated in the Sui and Táng, was a principal reference for both the Qiānjīn yàofāng (652) and the Wàitái mìyào (752), and continued in use into the Sòng before disappearing as an independent transmission.

The reconstructed text recovers most of the original 12-juǎn structure: juǎn 1 Shānghán shíqì wēnyì, juǎn 2 Cùsǐ shījué (sudden-death and corpse-syncope), and so on through the standard sixth-century clinical-category headings. The reconstruction’s value lies in its preservation of sixth-century formulary culture at a key transmission-juncture between the early-medieval zhìfāng (treatment-by-formula) tradition and the Táng synthesis.

A particular highlight is the extensive emergency-medicine corpus in juǎn 2 (Cùsǐ, sudden-death), which preserves the famous “Bian Que methods” (扁鵲法) of rescuing the apparently-dead — pulling sap of xiè (chives) into the nostrils, examining for blood-issue at the ears, the cautery-iron applied below the ribs, the moxibustion of yǒngquán and the zhènzhōng point. These materials are partly preserved here that were dropped from the standard Qiānjīn and Wàitái transmission.

The modern reconstruction was first issued by the Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè (1986); subsequent expansion-and-correction has continued through the early 21st century.

Translations and research

  • Jíyàn fāng, modern reconstruction edition: Beijing: Rénmín wèishēng chūbǎnshè, 1986, edited by Gāo Wénzhù 高文鑄.
  • For Yáo Sēngyuán’s biography see Zhōushū 47 and Běishǐ 90.
  • Liu Pujiang 刘浦江 et al., articles in Zhōnghuá yīshǐ zázhì on Yáo Sēngyuán and sixth-century medicine.
  • Salguero, C. Pierce, “Buddhist Medicine in Medieval China” — partial treatment of the sixth-century context.

Other points of interest

The Heian-Japanese Yīxīn fāng (982) preserves portions of the Jíyàn fāng that no Chinese source preserves — including the Wáng Wǎnjūn (王莞君) rapid-resuscitation method via fēngméng (sealing) of the cavity-orifices to prevent qì loss. This case is one of the standard examples cited in modern Chinese textual scholarship of the importance of off-shore Japanese transmission for the recovery of lost Chinese medical knowledge.

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