Nǚkē zhǐyào 女科旨要
The Indicators and Essentials of Women’s Medicine attributed to 雪岩禪師 (Xuěyán Chánshī, Qīng-period monastic attribution)
About the work
A four-juǎn gynecological compendium attributed to the monk Xuěyán Chánshī 雪岩禪師 (“Snow-Cliff Meditation-Master”), one of the Buddhist-monastic lineage attributions used in late-imperial popular gynecology. The work follows the fùkē age-cohort organisation principle: each entry begins with “女子十三四歲” (girls aged 13–14), “十五六歲” (15–16), etc., proceeding through reproductive-age cohorts and into menopausal years. This suìshùfāng 歲數方 (formula-by-age-cohort) format is distinctive of Qīng popular gynecology — compare KR3ei005 Fùkē mìfāng (which also uses age-cohort organisation under the Xúnxī Chénshì attribution). Each entry presents a typical clinical scenario for the cohort and a prescribed formula.
Prefaces
The KR hxwd recension _001.txt opens directly with “卷一 婦女逐年經症” (“Juǎn 1: Annual menstrual disorders by year”), with no separable author-preface preserved.
Abstract
“Xuěyán Chánshī” is a monastic appellation; no historical individual of this name is documented in standard Chinese-Buddhist or Chinese-medicine reference works. The catalog meta dynasty 清 is correct; internal evidence (use of Bāwù tāng 八物湯, Héqì sǎn 和氣散, Sìwù tiáojīng tāng 四物調經湯 — the standard late-imperial formulary) confirms a Qīng-period composition; notBefore 1700 / notAfter 1900 is a defensible bracket. The work belongs to the broader corpus of Qīng popular gynecology literature framed under monastic-lineage authorship, alongside the Bamboo-Grove-Monastery (Zhúlínsì) corpus (KR3ei013, KR3ei020, KR3ei022, KR3ei026, KR3ei046) and the Lúnyìn Chánshī attribution (KR3ei022).
The suìshùfāng age-cohort organisation method positions the work in the same provincial-popular-practitioner tradition as KR3ei005 Fùkē mìfāng.
Translations and research
- Yi-Li Wu, Reproducing Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
- No dedicated study located.
Links
- No verified Wikipedia or Wikidata entry located.
- 女科旨要 jicheng.tw
- Kanseki DB