Hǎishàng Xiānfāng Hòují 海上仙方後集
The Sea-Immortal Formulas, Second Collection by 溫大明 (Wēn Dàmíng, hào Yǐnjū 隱居, late 12th c., Southern Sòng)
About the work
The companion (hòují, “after-collection”) to Wēn Dàmíng’s Hǎishàng xiānfāng (KR3ed129). Like the principal collection, the Hòují presents the clinical formulas in rhymed-verse form (七言絕句 quatrains), organised by syndrome. The KR text presents the formulas with the attribution Sūn Zhēnrén Hǎishàng xiānfāng 孫真人海上仙方 — i.e. with the rhetorical attribution to Sūn Sīmiǎo (Sūn Zhēnrén, the Perfected Man Sūn) — a standard late-Imperial popular-formulary attribution device. The substantive content is the practical SòngYuán pharmacological repertoire of Wēn’s house.
Prefaces
The KR source KR3ed136_000.txt opens directly with the verse-formulas, numbered sequentially:
- 第一證 (First Certificate): “Those with affinity and fortune obtain the transmission / Those with merit-and-virtue are before the eye / What has been transmitted for thousands of years today we meet / Should one fall ill, in a moment recovery is complete.”
- 第二證: “On the road, summer-heat sun-stroke is to be pitied — quickly take cart-wheel earth five qián, settle clear in a cup-of-water and drink it all — body light and limbs strong, free to travel.”
- 第三證: “Shānghán cough at night sleepless — finely grind míngfán (refined alum) one qián, bànxià, júpí, ginger boiled — decoct and take, transform phlegmy-mucous.”
- 第四證: “Fish-navel sore (魚臍瘡毒) is hard to cure — fire-burning flying-alum on the ground, Hánshí day flour-paste applied — produces flesh, retreats swelling, immediately well.”
And so on through dozens of further verses.
Abstract
A complement-text to KR3ed129 Hǎishàng xiānfāng of Wēn Dàmíng. The Hòují is a continuation of the verse-formula format developed in the principal collection, and the attribution to Sūn Zhēnrén (Sūn Sīmiǎo, 581–682) is the standard late-Imperial popular-pharmacy attribution device that lent Daoist-saintly authority to clinical formulas circulated through the lay print trade.
The compilation continues the same clinical-pharmacological style: each verse-formula gives a short syndrome-description followed by the prescription with substances and brief decoction instructions, in compact rhymed seven-character lines. The format is calibrated for oral memorisation — the late-Sòng / Yuán / Míng apprentice physician’s tool for carrying the standard repertoire of formulas in his head.
The work circulated alongside the principal Hǎishàng xiānfāng through the late-Sòng, Yuán, Míng, and Qīng popular print trade, often under the rhetorical attribution Sūn Zhēnrén or Hǎishàng xiānrén (Sea-Immortal). The substantive content is consistent with Wēn Dàmíng’s signed authorship of the principal collection.
Translations and research
- See KR3ed129 for the principal collection and full bibliography.
- Hǎishàng xiānfāng hòují, modern punctuated edition: in the Zhōngyī gǔjí míngzhù cóngshū.
Links
- See 溫大明 for biography.
- Principal collection: KR3ed129 Hǎishàng xiānfāng.
- 海上仙方後集 (jicheng.tw)
- Kanseki DB