Shānghán lùn jí yì 傷寒論輯義
Collected Meanings of the Treatise on Cold Damage by 丹波元簡 (Tamba no Mototane, sinicized as Dānbō Yuánjiǎn, zì Liánfū 廉夫, hào Guìshān 桂山, 1755–1810, 江戶)
About the work
A seven-juan philological-collation commentary on the Shānghán lùn by the great Edo-period Japanese medical scholar 丹波元簡 Tamba no Mototane (1755–1810), head of the bakufu’s official medical college Igaku-kan 醫學館. Together with his sons’ continuations (Shānghán lùn shù yì 傷寒論述義 KR3ef053 by 丹波元堅 Tamba no Motokata), the work effectively defines the modern East-Asian textus receptus of the Shānghán canon. Mototane systematically collates multiple Chinese (Sòng, Yuán, Míng, Qīng) and Japanese (Edo-period) witnesses, harmonizing variant readings and providing his own critical commentary alongside selected excerpts from earlier Chinese authorities (chiefly Chéng Wúyǐ, Fāng Yǒuzhí, Yú Chāng, and Kē Qín).
Abstract
The composition window of ca. 1800–1810 is given by Mototane’s prefatorial dating and the work’s posthumous publication arrangements. The Jí yì is one of the four major works through which Mototane established Japanese medical philology as the international standard for the Chinese medical canon — the others being the Sùwèn shí 素問識 (1806), the Língshū shí 靈樞識, and the family’s Yī jí kǎo 醫籍考 (begun by Mototane, completed by his son 丹波元胤 Tamba no Motoin). Through 楊守敬 Yáng Shǒujìng’s importation from Tokyo in the 1880s, all four works became foundational references for modern Chinese medical philology.
The Jí yì circulates in the Qīng via Yáng Shǒujìng’s prints and in the modern period through the Rénmín Wèishēng critical editions.
Translations and research
- Endymion Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual, §35.7.1 notes the central place of the Tamba family’s philology.
- Mǎ Jìxīng 馬繼興, Shānghán lùn jiào zhù (1991) — extensively uses Mototane’s collation.
- Goldschmidt 2009 — for the Sòng-bureau editorial line that Mototane preserves.
- No substantial Western-language secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
The Tamba family — Mototane’s father, himself, his sons 丹波元胤 and 丹波元堅, and his grandson 丹波元琰 Tamba no Motoyoshi — produced over the late Edo period (ca. 1770s–1860s) the largest single corpus of philological scholarship on the Chinese medical canon ever produced in Japan.
Links
- See KR3ef053 (the Shù yì).
- See KR3ef082 (the parallel Jīnguì yùhán yàoluè jí yì).
- 傷寒論輯義 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB