Xīfāngzǐ Míngtáng jiǔ jīng 西方子明堂灸經
Master of the West’s Hall-of-Light Moxibustion Classic attributed to 西方子 Xīfāngzǐ (anonymous early Yuán)
About the work
An eight-juan Yuán moxibustion catalog transmitted under the pseudonymous attribution “Xīfāngzǐ” 西方子 (“Master of the West”); the actual author is unknown. The work catalogs acupoints face-by-face and body-region-by-body-region, with diagrams (the Zhèngrén tóumiàn tú 正人頭面圖 etc.), giving for each acupoint its location with respect to bone-landmarks, the moxa dose, the contraindications, and the indications. The text systematically extends and refines the parent Huángdì Míngtáng jiǔ jīng (KR3ee018) — adding many more clinical indications, more precise locations, and a fuller diagrammatic apparatus. As with KR3ee018, the work focuses exclusively on moxibustion, not needling.
Abstract
The “Xīfāngzǐ” attribution is one of several Yuán-Daoist pseudonyms in the moxibustion-textbook tradition; modern scholarship (黄龍祥 Huáng Lóngxiáng) treats the author as an early-Yuán figure with strong access to the Sòng Tóngrén tújīng and to the lost Míngtáng corpus. The work is registered in the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào (Zǐbù · Yījiā lèi), which praises its diagrammatic precision. The composition window 1295–1330 followed here is the consensus modern dating; the work was first printed in the Yuánzhèng 元正 reign-period and reprinted multiple times in the Míng. As a Yuán-period moxibustion catalog, it is one of three principal surviving witnesses for the lost Míngtáng tradition (the others being KR3ee018 and 皇甫謐 Huángfǔ Mì’s Jiǎyǐ jīng KR3ee005).
Translations and research
Reminder: AI generated list - beware of hallucinations. Corrections and additions welcome
- 黄龍祥 Huáng Lóngxiáng, Huángdì Míngtáng jīng jíjiào 黃帝明堂經輯校 (Beijing, 1988) — reconstruction of the Míngtáng corpus drawing on Xīfāngzǐ.
- Catherine Despeux, in Encyclopedia of Taoism, “Acupuncture” entry, 2008.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Yījiā lèi.
- 西方子明堂灸經 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB