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奇經八脈考

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Text ID
KR3ee001
Date
1572–1578
Dynasty
明

Qíjīng bāmài kǎo 奇經八脈考

Examination of the Eight Extraordinary Vessels by 李時珍 Lǐ Shízhēn (撰)

About the work

A short, single-juan monograph by the Míng polymath 李時珍 Lǐ Shízhēn (1518–1593) devoted to the eight “extraordinary” channels (qíjīng bāmài 奇經八脈) — yīnwéi 陰維, yángwéi 陽維, yīnqiāo 陰蹺, yángqiāo 陽蹺, chōng 衝, rèn 任, dū 督, and dài 帶 — that lie outside the twelve regular meridians (shí’èr zhèngjīng 十二正經). For each vessel Lǐ collates classical loci on its course, its acupoint constellation, and its pathological manifestations from the Sùwèn 素問 (KR3ee005 cognate), Língshū 靈樞, Nànjīng 難經, 王叔和 Wáng Shūhé’s Màijīng 脈經, and the Jiǎyǐ jīng 甲乙經 (KR3ee005), then layers commentary from 張元素 Zhāng Jiégǔ (Zhāng Yuánsù), 王好古 Wáng Hǎizàng, 李杲 Lǐ Dōngyuán, 張仲景 Zhāng Zhòngjǐng and others, finishing each section with his own remarks (“Bīnhú yuē” 瀕湖曰). Distinctively, Lǐ also incorporates the Daoist inner-alchemical reading of the same vessels — citing 張伯端 Zhāng Zǐyáng’s Bāmài jīng 八脈經, the Tiānyuán rùyào jìng 天元入藥鏡 and the Cāntóngqì 參同契 — treating the channels simultaneously as objects of medical diagnosis and as the highway of nèidān 內丹 cultivation: “Doctors who do not know these cannot fathom the springs of disease; immortals who do not know these cannot stabilize the cauldron” (醫不知此，罔探病機；仙不知此，難安爐鼎). A concluding Qìkǒu jiǔdào mài 氣口九道脈 section, attributed to 岐伯 Qí Bó, maps all eight extraordinary vessels onto pulse positions at the wrist. The whole is brief (one juan, roughly 14,000 characters), terse, and densely sourced.

Abstract

The Qíjīng bāmài kǎo circulated together with Lǐ Shízhēn’s Bīnhú màixué 瀕湖脈學 (1564) and the lost Mài jué kǎo zhèng 脈訣考證 as a trilogy on pulse and channel doctrine — Lǐ’s contribution to acupuncture/diagnostic theory parallel to his monumental Běncǎo gāngmù 本草綱目 in materia medica. The work is undated internally; the consensus dating places it in the early 1570s, after the 1564 Màixué and before the completion of the Běncǎo in 1578, hence the bracket 1572–1578 followed here. Lǐ’s stated purpose is corrective: the eight extraordinary vessels are scattered across “many books, treated briefly and incompletely” (略而不悉), and a physician who does not master them cannot reach the root of disease. The text was first printed in the Wànlì period and entered the standard acupuncture curriculum almost immediately; it is reproduced in virtually every Qīng-dynasty acupuncture compendium, including 楊繼洲 Yáng Jìzhōu’s Zhēnjiǔ dàchéng 針灸大成 (KR3ee027) and is registered in the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào under the zǐbù yījiā 子部醫家 category. The text reproduced here is the jicheng.tw electronic edition based on the WYG (文淵閣) Sìkù recension.

Translations and research

  • Charles Chace, A Qi Gong Translation of the Qi Jing Ba Mai Kao. Brookline, MA: Paradigm Publications, 1997 (partial English translation with commentary, oriented to qigong practice rather than philology).
  • Yang Shou-zhong & Chace (trans.), The Pulse Classic: A Translation of the Mai Jing, Blue Poppy Press, 1997 — for context on Lǐ’s relationship to the Wáng Shūhé pulse tradition.
  • Volker Scheid, “Restructuring the Field of Chinese Medicine: A Study of the Menghe and Ding Scholarly Currents, 1626–2006”, East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine 22 (2004) — places Lǐ’s channel work in the longer post-Sòng synthesis of medicine and Daoist body-mapping.
  • Paul U. Unschuld, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985, ch. 5 (on the late-Míng synthetic moment to which the Qíjīng bāmài kǎo belongs).

Other points of interest

The Qíjīng bāmài kǎo is the principal classical Chinese source for the modern qigong, Daoist neidan, and Western “eight extraordinary meridians” literature; it has substantially more influence in the inner-alchemical reception than in mainstream TCM channel theory, because Lǐ’s own Bīnhú yuē glosses are often the first place where a Daoist reading of the channels is fused with the Sùwèn–Língshū clinical picture. The text is also notable for preserving citations from the lost (or fragmentary) Zhāng Zǐyáng Bāmài jīng.

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