Zǐwǔ liúzhù zhēn jīng 子午流注針經
Midnight-Noon Flowing-Injection Needle Classic by 閻明廣 Yán Míngguǎng (撰)
About the work
A three-juan Jīn-dynasty acupuncture treatise by 閻明廣 Yán Míngguǎng of Chángshān 常山 (modern Héběi); the foundational text of the zǐwǔ liúzhù 子午流注 chronoacupuncture system. Yán’s preface — reconstructed from the Míng Pǔjì fāng (KR3ee013) — explains the work’s genesis: Yán long-practiced medicine “loving to read the Nànjīng and Sùwèn; their phrasing and reasoning are subtle, their hidden gate profoundly obscure — difficult both anciently and now.” Yán then describes the Zhǐwēi lùn 指微論 (3 juan) of “the recent Hé Gōng of Nán-Táng” (南唐何公) — likely the Five-Dynasties 何若愚 Hé Ruòyú — as the work that “exhausts the channel-and-collateral source, follows the principle of needle-stimulation, illuminates the clarity-and-turbidity of yíng and wèi, distinguishes the partitions of the acupoint-orifices” but had not circulated widely. Yán in Zhēnyuán guǐyǒu 貞元癸酉 (1153) obtained Hé Gōng’s Zhǐwēi zhēn fù 指微針賦 — a rhapsodic version of the Zhǐwēi lùn doctrine. Yán annotated and expanded Hé’s fù with hundreds of additional clinical-application chapters, then drew on the Nànjīng-Sùwèn and Jiǎshì 賈氏 jǐngyíng liùshí shǒu 井滎六十首 to compose the Liúzhù jīngluò jǐngyíng tú gējué 流注經絡井滎圖歌訣 — the systematic ten-celestial-stems / twelve-earthly-branches assignment of acupoints to clinical timing. The final result is the Zǐwǔ liúzhù zhēn jīng.
Abstract
The Zǐwǔ liúzhù zhēn jīng is the foundational text of the zǐwǔ liúzhù chronoacupuncture system that governs the assignment of specific acupoints to specific hour-of-the-day and day-of-the-celestial-stem combinations — the “Midnight-Noon flowing-injection” doctrine. The system was systematized in the Míng by 徐鳳 Xú Fèng’s Zhēnjiǔ dàquán (KR3ee002, 1439) and became foundational for all subsequent East-Asian acupuncture chronotherapy. Yán Míngguǎng’s 1153 date establishes the doctrine in the Jīn period; Hé Ruòyú’s earlier 10th-century Zhǐwēi lùn is the deeper source. The work is registered in the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào under Zǐbù · Yījiā lèi. The text survives in the SKQS recension drawn from the Pǔjì fāng reproduction.
Translations and research
- 黄龍祥 Huáng Lóngxiáng, Zǐwǔ liúzhù zhēn jīng jiào-zhù 子午流注針經校註 (Beijing: People’s Medical, 1992) — definitive modern critical edition.
- Catherine Despeux, La moelle du phénix rouge, Trédaniel, 1988 — for the zǐwǔ chronoacupuncture system.
Links
- Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào, Zǐbù · Yījiā lèi.
- Wikidata Q11107604
- 子午流注針經 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB