Jīngxué zuǎnyào 經穴纂要
Essentials of the Channel Acupoints by 小阪營升 Kosaka Genyū (撰)
About the work
A five-juan Edo-period Japanese acupoint treatise by 小阪營升 Kosaka Genyū / Hideyuki (alt. 小阪元祐), of the Kameyama 龜山 medical lineage. The preface gives a detailed pedagogical genealogy: the author’s grandfather Yùchí xiānshēng 玉池先生 received the Míngtáng learning from the Mito-domain physician 宮本春仙 Miyamoto Shunsen 宮本春仙翁; the transmission passed Miyamoto Shunsen → 中島元春 Nakajima Genshun → 藤井貞三 Fujii Teizō → 良益 Ryōeki → Kosaka Genyū, a chain of six transmissions. Kosaka’s preface presents the work as the Míngtáng (acupoint) complement to the tǐliáo (internal-medicine formulary) tradition: “the human body has the five zàng and six fǔ within; their qi emerges to the surface as the twelve channels, which contain 365 acupoints — these are where the qi of the zàngfǔ mutually echoes… Therefore internal-medicine treats with herbal decoctions, external-medicine treats with moxibustion and needling at the canyons-and-valleys where these meet.”
Abstract
The Jīngxué zuǎnyào is one of the most systematically philological Edo-period acupoint catalogs, drawing on five generations of pre-existing Japanese kanpō transmission of the Míngtáng tradition. Kosaka’s distinctive contribution is the comparative collation of acupoint-locations across the Chinese (Tóngrén KR3ee056, Yīzōng jīnjiàn KR3ee015, Zhēnjiǔ dàchéng KR3ee027) and Japanese (the various Edo-period acupoint manuals) sources, with critical apparatus for resolved versus unresolved discrepancies. 原昌克 Hara Masakatsu’s later Jīngxué huìjiě (KR3ee022, 1803) explicitly draws on the Zuǎnyào; Kosaka’s work is sometimes dated slightly earlier than Hara’s, but more probably falls in the early-19th-century overlap-period. The work circulated back into China in the late Qīng.
Translations and research
- Mathias Vigouroux, “Acupuncture in Edo-period Japan” (2010s).
Links
- Zhōngguó zhōngyī gǔjí zǒngmù, zhēnjiǔ section.
- 經穴纂要 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB