Wēn Yǐnjū Hǎishàng Xiānfāng 溫隱居海上仙方
The Hidden-Recluse Wēn’s Sea-Immortal Formulas by 溫大明 (Wēn Dàmíng, hào Yǐnjū 隱居, late 12th c., Southern Sòng; Bǎoyìláng 保義郎 / Imperial Medical Officer)
About the work
A late-Southern-Sòng clinical formulary in rhymed-verse form (shī 詩), containing 77 verse-formulas for the standard clinical syndromes. The title’s Hǎishàng xiānfāng (Sea-Immortal Formulas) invokes the trope of immortal-transmitted prescriptions — the SòngYuán formulary genre that claimed Daoist-revelatory authorisation for its content, but in practice presented standard clinical material. The compiler Wēn Dàmíng identifies himself in his self-preface as Bǎoyìláng chāchōng diànqiánsī tídiǎn zhūbān yīyào fànshí jiān héjì jú jiān shōumǎi yàocái guān 保義郎差充殿前司提點諸班醫藥飯食兼和劑局監收買藥材官 — a junior military-ranked imperial medical officer with responsibility for the supervision of imperial-guard medicine, food-provisioning, and the buying of drugs at the Héjì jú (the State Pharmacy, the same office responsible for the Sòng Tàipíng huìmín héjì júfāng).
Prefaces
Self-Preface (Hǎishàng xiānfāng xù) by Wēn Dàmíng:
“My family for generations was of Nánjīng [Línān or Jīnlíng]; my great-great-grandfather, on account of an official posting, lodged at Sìmíng 四明. What is called the medical book’s profound meaning — initially obtained from the xīnchuán (mind-transmitted) marvel of the physician Wáng Chéngxuān; over three further generations, by my late father Zhìgàn — when he was attendant on the prime minister Wèichéngxiàng’s entry into the capital, [the family] was then known to the contemporaries as Rúyī (Confucian-physicians).
“I read my father’s books, and secretly received the profound meaning. From the Chúnxī improvement-of-the-reign-name [= 1174] I began to continue the family’s enterprise, and travelled widely in the capital cities. For some seven or eight years I have had access to the gates of the shìdàifū (officials), and the court-and-country has known me as a cǎomù zhījǐ (a learned-one of plants and trees). By now over forty years have passed.
“I have seen seniors and juniors, beginners and end-stages, the rise-and-fall has not been uniform. Because the drug-administration treats disease through chance at the present moment — therefore, the favour-and-evil retribution arrives on the body afterwards. — Alas, how pitiful!
“Now I am pressed by the sāngyú (mulberry-and-elm: declining-old-age) scene; my heart casts off profit and fame; I retire to seek my aspiration. — I regret that I cannot benefit people; therefore I have taken from the family-transmitted famous formulas of five generations, together with my own xíngyī yìngxiào (clinically-tested) decoctions-pills-powders, and from the ancient-and-modern saintly-and-worthy formulas, learned by inquiring from famous shì of the four quarters, the good methods of the Hǎishàng — compiled into a single fascicle of seventy-seven verses. Each of these has the effect of raising-the-dead-and-restoring-life; saving people takes the place of farming. — Were I to keep them privately, those rescued would be few. I respectfully record them for transmission; not only do those of the world with illness, opening the fascicle, recognise them — but those who obtain it can also help themselves. How could this be only a small supplement to the Way?
“Signed: Bǎoyìláng chāchōng diànqiánsī tídiǎn zhūbān yīyào fànshí jiān héjì jú jiān shōumǎi yàocái guān Wēn Dàmíng respectfully prefaced.”
Abstract
A late-Southern-Sòng (post-1174) verse-formulary in 77 rhymed prescriptions by Wēn Dàmíng 溫大明, hào Yǐnjū, a junior imperial medical-officer of the Diànqiánsī (Inner-Imperial-Guard Office) with concurrent responsibility for the Héjì jú (State Pharmacy) drug-procurement. The Wēn family was based in Sìmíng 四明 (Níngbō 寧波, Zhèjiāng) and had practised medicine over five generations: from the founding teacher Wáng Chéngxuān 王承宣 (whose xīnchuán mind-transmission was the family’s foundation), through Wēn Dàmíng’s father Zhìgàn 制干 (who had served as medical-attendant to the Sòng Prime Minister Wèichéngxiàng — possibly Wèi Liáowēng 魏了翁 or another xiànggōng of similar title).
The work is one of the principal late-Southern-Sòng specimens of the verse-formulary genre (cognate to the YuánMíng Tāngtóu gējué tradition that culminated in Wāng Áng’s 1755 work and the late-Qīng Bāihuà jiě of KR3ed085). Verse-formularies were intended for memorisation by apprentice physicians; the 77-verse compass of Wēn’s work made it well-suited to systematic clinical training. The work circulated through the SòngYuánMíngQīng under various titles and editorial recensions; the Hǎishàng xiānfāng title invokes the Daoist-revelatory authentication trope while the substantive content is standard clinical material.
The work is one of the most-cited Southern-Sòng popular-pharmacy texts in the YuánMíng formularies; it was reprinted under various titles including Wēnshì hǎishàng fāng 溫氏海上方 and Wēn Yǐnjū jīngyàn fāng 溫隱居經驗方.
Translations and research
- Hǎishàng xiānfāng, modern punctuated edition: in the Zhōngyī gǔjí míngzhù cóngshū.
- The Héjì jú (State Pharmacy) context is treated in TJ Hinrichs, Shamans and Empire in Song Dynasty China, and in Asaf Goldschmidt, The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty 960–1200.
Other points of interest
The preface is one of the better Southern-Sòng documentary records of the commoner-medical-family social trajectory from local clinical practice to imperial-medical-office service. The Wēn family’s path — from the founding xīnchuán of Wáng Chéngxuān, through clinical practice in Sìmíng, into the prime-ministerial attendance of Zhìgàn, and finally to Wēn Dàmíng’s Diànqiánsī / Héjì jú official rank — is a paradigmatic rúyī (Confucian-physician) career.
Links
- See 溫大明.
- Companion work in the corpus: KR3ed136 Hǎishàng xiānfāng hòují (Wēn Dàmíng).
- 溫隱居海上仙方 (jicheng.tw)
- Kanseki DB