Huángdì Míngtáng jiǔ jīng 黃帝明堂灸經
Yellow Emperor’s Hall-of-Light Moxibustion Classic (anonymous, traditionally Táng)
About the work
A short, anonymous moxibustion treatise transmitted under the Huángdì Míngtáng attribution, comprising three juan: juan 1 a head-to-foot acupoint catalog with moxibustion indications and doses; juan 2 a clinical-syndrome chapter (children’s disorders, fevers, paralyses, etc.); juan 3 an illustrated body-diagram catalog. The preface is in the cosmological-prologue style typical of Sòng-era medical works (“After the ur-chaos divided, heaven and earth were separated…”) and explicitly cites the Tàipíng shènghuì fāng 太平聖惠方 (978–992) — indicating that the present preface in any case post-dates the Sòng Shènghuì fāng compilation. The colophon “至大辛亥春月燕山活濟堂刊” (Zhìdà xīnhài, 1311) gives the date of a Yuán reprint at the Yānshān Huójìtáng 燕山活濟堂 workshop. The text itself is widely held by modern scholarship to be a Táng-Sòng synthesis of much-older Míngtáng (明堂, “Hall of Light”) acupoint manuals.
Abstract
The Huángdì Míngtáng jiǔ jīng belongs to the late phase of the Míngtáng tradition — the lost classical genre of head-to-foot acupoint-catalogs of which the Míngtáng kǒngxué zhēnjiǔ zhìyào 明堂孔穴鍼灸治要 was the most influential exemplar before 皇甫謐 Huángfǔ Mì absorbed it into the Jiǎyǐ jīng (KR3ee005). The work is one of three surviving Míngtáng texts (the others being the Xīfāngzǐ Míngtáng jiǔ jīng 西方子明堂灸經, KR3ee023, and the Huángdì sānbù zhēn jīng of which the Jiǎyǐ jīng is the witness); these three works are the principal modern evidence for the lost Míngtáng corpus. The bracket 700–1100 followed here reflects the consensus: the core Míngtáng material is likely pre-Táng but reached the present recension by the Sòng. The catalog meta dynasty 唐 is the traditional attribution. The text is registered in the Sòngshǐ Yìwén zhì and was repeatedly reprinted in the Yuán and Míng.
The work focuses exclusively on moxibustion (jiǔ 灸), not needling — making it one of only a handful of surviving premodern East-Asian works dedicated solely to the moxibustion-half of acupuncture practice.
Translations and research
- Catherine Despeux & Frédéric Obringer (eds.), La maladie dans la Chine médiévale: la toux, Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997 — for the Míngtáng tradition in early-medieval China.
- 黄龍祥 Huáng Lóngxiáng, Huángdì Míngtáng jīng jíjiào 黃帝明堂經輯校, Beijing: Zhōngguó yīyào kējì, 1988 — definitive reconstruction of the lost Míngtáng tradition.