Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng 銅人鍼灸經
The Bronze-Man Acupuncture and Moxibustion Classic by 闕名 (anonymous; substantively descended from 王惟一 Wáng Wéiyī’s 1027 commission)
About the work
The seven-juan anonymous Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng preserved in the Hǎiwài huíguī Zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū series is a parallel transmission of the same Northern-Sòng acupuncture compendium that survives in the Sìkù quánshū under the same title and is fully cataloged at KR3e0017. The hxwd source files for KR3ee055 are placeholder-only — only the file header #+TITLE: 銅人鍼灸經 is preserved, with no body — so the present note draws its textual description from the parallel SKQS recension and from the standard Tóngrén scholarship.
The work is the textual companion to the famous tóngrén 銅人 — two life-sized hollow bronze acupuncture mannequins cast in 1027 (Tiānshèng 5) under 宋仁宗 Sòng Rénzōng 仁宗’s commission to the imperial physician 王惟一 Wáng Wéiyī. The bronze figures were inscribed with the zàngfǔ and twelve channels and pierced with holes at each acupoint; the surface was sealed with yellow wax, and the hollow interior filled with water — so that a medical student “treating” the figure would have to find the correct point, the wax would yield to the needle, and water would jet out. The textual companion now circulating under the title Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng sets out the channels, the acupoints, their indications, and the proper depths and angles of needling. In bibliographic catalogs the work is variously cited as a three-juan compilation (the original presented to the throne — 王應麟 Wáng Yīnglín’s Yùhǎi; 晁公武 Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Hòu zhì) or as a seven-juan editorially subdivided form (the transmitted SKQS recension and the hxwd version cataloged here).
Abstract
For the substantive textual and historical analysis of this work — Wáng Wéiyī’s role, the 1027 imperial presentation, the relationship between the Tóngrén shūxué zhēnjiǔ tújīng in three juan (presented edition) and the Tóngrén zhēnjiǔ jīng in seven juan (subdivided transmission), the bibliographic record in Cháo Gōngwǔ and Wáng Yīnglín, the 周密 Zhōu Mì Qídōng yěyǔ description of the bronze mannequin’s water-filled testing method, and the later survival of a Míng replica — see the parallel SKQS entry KR3e0017.
The KR3ee055 hxwd entry exists as a separate textid in the Kanripo corpus because the Hǎiwài huíguī Zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū repatriation series, like the Sìkù quánshū, included its own printing of this canonical text; the two should be understood as parallel modern reproductions of substantively the same Sòng-Yuán-era recension. The hxwd printing has not been collated against the SKQS in published scholarship, and a definitive critical edition awaits future work.
Translations and research
- See KR3e0017 for the full bibliography. Principal references:
- Asaf Goldschmidt, The Evolution of Chinese Medicine: Song Dynasty, 960–1200, London: Routledge, 2009, esp. ch. 3.
- Lu Gwei-Djen and Joseph Needham, Celestial Lancets: A History and Rationale of Acupuncture and Moxa, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980.
- Huáng Lóngxiáng 黃龍祥, Zhōngguó zhēnjiǔ shǐ tú-jiàn 中國針灸史圖鑒, 2 vols., Qīngdǎo: Qīngdǎo Chūbǎnshè, 2003.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Tóng-rén shū-xué zhēn-jiǔ tú-jīng kǎo 銅人腧穴鍼灸圖經考 — standard textual study.
Other points of interest
The work is the textual ancestor of KR3ee056 Tóngrén shūxué zhēnjiǔ tújīng (the three-juan original-as-presented form) and KR3ee057 Xīnkān bǔzhù Tóngrén shūxué zhēnjiǔ tújīng (the 1186 Jīn-period augmented and annotated recension). The three KR3ee entries together with KR3e0017 constitute the four principal Kanripo witnesses for the Tóngrén tradition.
Links
- See parallel entry KR3e0017 for full external link list.
- Hǎiwài huíguī Zhōngyī shànběn gǔjí cóngshū — source series of the KR3ee055 textid.
- Kanseki DB
- 銅人鍼灸經 (jicheng.tw)