Chūnjiǎo Jí 春腳集
Collection of the Spring-Foot by 孟文瑞 (Mèng Wénruì, fl. mid-Qīng), at the urging of 謝玉堂 (Xiè Yùtáng) of Lùhé 潞河, 1845
About the work
A mid-Qīng popular-clinical formulary in 4 juǎn, compiled by Mèng Wénruì from his thirty years of personally-tested prescriptions at the suggestion of his friend Xiè Yùtáng — a Lùhé charitable-publisher who annually printed and distributed several hundred shànshū (morality books). The title is an allusion to the Táng-period statesman Sòng Jīng 宋璟 (663–737), who as Prefect was known by the sobriquet Yǒujiǎo yángchūn 有腳陽春 (“the one whose foot brings spring wherever he goes”): the compiler hopes his collection will bring relief to wherever it is read, as Sòng Jīng’s care brought spring to wherever his foot fell.
Prefaces
Preface by the compiler Mèng Wénruì:
“Of old, Sòng Guǎngpíng [= Sòng Jīng] was a Prefect, and was called Yǒujiǎo yángchūn (‘with-a-foot spring-warmth’). It was said that ‘his love of the people and care for things makes spring wherever he goes — the great-and-able duty of the lords and senior officials, lesser than this is difficult.’ I say: not so. Heaven takes hàoshēng (loving-life) as its virtue; man takes hàoshēng as his heart. Wanting to act on it without means — the great cannot extend their grace; acting on it with method — the lesser can spread their benefits. My beneficence is like spring — it waits for the man to be put into action, not the man to be chosen for the action.
“Mr. Xiè Yùtáng of Lùhé is a man delighting in good. Each year he prints up over one hundred fascicles of charitable books, respectfully distributing them; people praise him greatly. Mr. Xiè wished to set right people’s nature-and-feelings, and even more wished to rescue people’s suffering. In the spring of yǐsì [= 1845] he held in hand several copies each of the Huíshēng jí KR3ed120 and the Jīngyàn jí, and asked me to select their essence and bind it into one volume — wishing to commit it to the woodblock-cutters for distribution in the world.
“I responded with delight: ‘This is truly the springtime-united with self and others, wishing to be practised wherever ground is found.’ From the time I entered school I was fond of the art of QíHuáng — every recipe that hit-the-target I would record secretly. Some I had from the family transmission; some I gathered widely from books; some from the cherished collections of famous-and-great houses. The doses are not uniform, the proportions of weight are not constant — but always each test was an effect, and the marvel is endless. — In this it has been thirty years now, and I have collected formulas in great numbers, never daring to claim a single beauty as my own…”
The preface is dated yǐsì spring = 1845 spring.
Abstract
A precisely-dated 1845 spring popular formulary by Mèng Wénruì, brought to publication at the urging of the charitable-publisher Xiè Yùtáng of Lùhé 潞河 (the old name of the Yùnhé canal junction near Beijing, modern Tōngzhōu). The work is a carefully-curated selection from Mèng’s thirty-year accumulation of jīngyàn (tested) prescriptions, augmented by the inclusion of selected formulas from the KR3ed120 Huíshēng jí (1789) and from an unidentified Jīngyàn jí. The compilation’s editorial principle is jīng (essence): only formulas that have repeatedly succeeded under varied conditions are included.
The work’s title-image — Chūnjiǎo (Spring-Foot) — is a refined Confucian-classical allusion (Sòng Jīng of the Táng) signaling the compiler’s literati self-conception. The work is therefore a representative of the literati-charity-publishing tradition of the mid-19th-century North China Plain, with the Lùhé canal-junction location placing it in the supply-chain of Beijing’s charitable distribution networks.
The work was reprinted multiple times in the late Qīng; modern annotated editions are in the Zhōngyī gǔjí míngzhù cóngshū.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located. The work is briefly catalogued in the Zhōngguó zhōngyī gǔjí zǒngmù (2007).
Links
- See 孟文瑞 (compiler) and 謝玉堂 (publisher).
- Cited cognate works: KR3ed120 Huíshēng jí.
- 春腳集 (jicheng.tw)
- Kanseki DB