Shényìng jīng 神應經
Classic of Divine Response by 陳會 Chén Huì (撰) and 劉瑾 Liú Jǐn (補輯)
About the work
An early-Míng acupuncture clinical-prescription manual, originally compiled by 陳會 Chén Huì (hào Hóngzhāi 宏齋) of Yúnjiān 雲間 (Sōngjiāng) in the late Hóngwǔ to early Yǒnglè years; supplemented and printed by his disciple 劉瑾 Liú Jǐn (zì Yǒngzhāi 永齋) in Hóngxī 1 (1425). The Korean preface by 韓繼禧 Hán Jìxǐ (Western-Píng Prince 西平君, dated Chénghuà shínián shíyī yuè èrshíyī rì 成化十年十一月二十一日 = 1474-12-22) records the work’s transmission to Korea: in the sixth year of King Sŏngjong’s reign, a Japanese monk named 良心 Ryangsim (Liángxīn) brought the Shényìng jīng to the Korean court along with the eight-point boil-and-abscess (癰疽八穴) needling method transmitted from the Japanese physicians 和介 Wájiè and 丹波 Dānbō; the king was so impressed with the work’s clinical efficiency (“its measured-and-supplementing-and-draining methods are all things the ancient sages had not articulated; its acupoint-selection often opens up what the ancients had not exhausted”) that he ordered the Japanese eight-point method appended to the Shényìng jīng and the whole printed and distributed.
Abstract
The Shényìng jīng is the most clinically-utilitarian of the early-Míng acupuncture texts: each entry begins with a clinical syndrome, then gives the acupoints to needle, the depth, the bǔxiè (補瀉) protocol, and the expected response. The work was a major source for 楊繼洲 Yáng Jìzhōu’s Zhēnjiǔ dàchéng (KR3ee027) and is the principal channel through which Chén Huì’s Sōngjiāng acupuncture-lineage entered the imperial Míng curriculum. The Korean reception (Sŏngjong 1474) is also significant: the appended Yōngjū bāxué fǎ 癰疽八穴法 is one of the earliest documented cases of Japanese acupuncture technique being absorbed back into the continental East-Asian medical canon via Korea. The work is registered in the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào cúnmù.
Translations and research
- Soyoung Suh, Naming the Local: Medicine, Language, and Identity in Korea since the 15th Century, Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2017 — for the Korean transmission of the Shényìng jīng.
- Mathias Vigouroux, “Acupuncture in Edo-period Japan”, EASTM (2010s).
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Yījiā lèi cúnmù.
- Wikidata Q11107607 (神應經)
- 神應經 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB