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銀海精微

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Text ID
KR3em011
Date
1086–1541
Dynasty
唐

Yínhǎi jīngwēi 銀海精微

Subtle Essentials of the Silver Sea attributed pseudepigraphically to 孫思邈 Sūn Sīmiǎo (Suí–Táng physician, c. 581–682); actually a SòngYuán compilation of unknown authorship transmitted under his prestige-name.

About the work

A two-juan ophthalmological treatise founded on the doctrine of wǔlún bākuò 五輪八廓 (Five-Wheels-Eight-Ramparts) anatomical correspondence. The title derives from a Dàoist designation of the eyes as yínhǎi 銀海 (“the Silver Sea”). The work opens with a general theoretical exposition (wǔlún bākuò zǒnglùn 五輪八廓總論) and a parallel pair of wǔlún / bākuò illustrated diagrams that fix the five-organ (“wheel”) and the eight-cardinal-orientation (“rampart”) topologies of the eye, with the bākuò aligned to the eight trigrams (乾、坤、坎、離、艮、巽、震、兌) of the Yìjīng. The bulk of the text is a clinical catalogue of eighty-one named eye disorders, each treated as a zhèng 症 (symptom-syndrome) in question-and-answer form, with internal-administration prescriptions and external regimens of washing (xǐ 洗), eye-drop application (diǎn 點), needle-lancing (zhēn liè 針劆), and gold-needle couching for cataract (jīnzhēn bōyìzhàng fǎ 金針撥翳障法). The work closes with verse-mnemonics for prescriptions (yàoxìng gē 藥性歌) and a pharmacognostic essay on commonly used eye-medicine ingredients.

Prefaces

The text transmits only one preface, by 齊一經 Qí Yījīng of Běihǎi 北海 (Shāndōng), titled jìnshì dì zhōngxiàn dàfū Hénán děng chù tíxíng ànchá sī fùshǐ fèngchì bīngxún Héběi dào qián lìkē zuǒ jǐshìzhōng 賜進士第中憲大夫河南等處提刑按察司副使奉敕兵巡河北道前吏科左給事中 (“Jìnshì of the zhōngxiàn rank, Vice Surveillance Commissioner of Hénán and other circuits, military patrol commissioner for the Héběi circuit by imperial order, former Left Office Manager of the Personnel Section”). Qí Yījīng (jìnshì index year 1541) records that he himself was prone to eye disease; while serving in the Hénán censorial bureau, his colleague 李沖涵 Lǐ Chōnghán showed him the manuscript saying “perhaps this may be of use against eye-disease techniques.” Qí states explicitly: 引《銀海精微》二卷，未知何人氏所撰著 — “Of the Yínhǎi jīngwēi in two juan, it is unknown who composed it.” He further explains that the title “Silver Sea” is taken from the Dàozàng 道藏 (Daoist canon). He carried the manuscript with him through his official postings for several years and finally, on appointment as patrol commissioner of the Héběi circuit, ordered the work cut for printing — “not wishing to keep it private.” The preface itself is undated; Qí Yījīng’s CBDB index year of 1541 places this earliest known printed edition in the mid-sixteenth century.

Abstract

The Kanripo meta retains the traditional attribution to Sūn Sīmiǎo (孫思邈, Suí–Táng), which is rejected by all post-Sòng critical scholarship and is pseudepigraphic. The Sìkù 提要 for the WYG-edition parallel KR3e0014 Yínhǎi jīngwēi (cf. companion entry KR3e0014) establishes the post-Sòng dating on four converging grounds:

  1. Neither the Tángshū 唐書 Yìwénzhì 藝文志 nor the Sòngshǐ 宋史 Yìwénzhì lists the work among Sūn Sīmiǎo’s writings.
  2. The biography of Sūn Sīmiǎo in the JiùTángshū 舊唐書 and XīnTángshū 新唐書 makes no mention of an ophthalmological treatise.
  3. The Dàoist designation yínhǎi 銀海 for the eyes is first attested in the Sòng — in 蘇軾 Sū Shì’s snow-poem “the frozen jade-tower raises gooseflesh, the light shimmers as the Silver Sea blooms” (凍合玉樓寒起粟，光摇銀海生花) and in 王安石 Wáng Ānshí’s commentary citing the Dàozàng on “shoulders as Jade Tower, eyes as Silver Sea” — so the title-word cannot predate the late eleventh century.
  4. Qí Yījīng’s own preface admits the author is unknown.

The composition window for the received recension is therefore here set to c. 1086 (a defensible terminus a quo after the canonical Sū Shì attestation of yínhǎi) to 1541 (the jìnshì date of Qí Yījīng, marking the latest moment by which the printed text must exist). Modern scholarship (Mǎ Kānwēn 馬堪溫, Lǐ Jīngwěi 李經緯) tends to a Yuán-to-early-Míng dating; the four-Sìkù editors are content with “post-Sòng.” The dynasty field is kept as 唐 in deference to the catalog meta’s traditional ascription, with the pseudepigraphy explicitly noted.

The work is one of the most influential pre-modern Chinese ophthalmology compendia, codifying the wǔlún bākuò doctrine that becomes the canonical theoretical framework of the late-imperial eye-medicine corpus and providing the immediate textual basis on which 傅仁宇 Shěnshì yáohán (KR3em010), 馬化龍 Yǎnkē chǎnwēi (KR3em008), and Huáng Tíngjìng Mùjīng dàchéng (KR3em006) all build. The 81-symptom catalogue here is reorganized in Shěnshì yáohán into the canonical 108-symptom scheme of late-imperial ophthalmology. The work is also the principal pre-modern Chinese source for jīnzhēn bōzhàng 金針撥障 (couching for senile cataract).

The text survives in numerous Míng and Qīng xylographs, was admitted into the imperial Sìkùquánshū 四庫全書 (whence the WYG parallel entry KR3e0014), and is here transmitted via the jicheng.tw 漢學文典 digital corpus from a Míng print preserved in the National Library of China.

Translations and research

  • No full Western-language translation located.
  • Modern punctuated editions: Zhèng Jīnshēng 鄭金生 (ed.), Yínhǎi jīngwēi jiàozhù 銀海精微校註 (Beijing: Renmin Weisheng, 1993); also collected in Lǐ Jīngwěi 李經緯 et al. (eds.), Zhōngyī yǎnkē míngzhù jíchéng 中醫眼科名著集成 (Beijing: Huaxia, 1997).
  • For the dating-and-authenticity question see the Sìkù quánshū zǒngmù tíyào 四庫全書總目提要 entry, juan 103, and Mǎ Kānwēn 馬堪溫, Zhōngyī yǎnkē shǐ 中醫眼科史 (Beijing: Renmin Weisheng, 1991).
  • The English-language overview in the CText entry (which retains the legacy attribution to Sūn Sīmiǎo) should be read against the Sìkù editorial verdict.

Other points of interest

The Yínhǎi jīngwēi is the principal received textual carrier of the Indian-origin jīnzhēn bōyì 金針撥翳 couching-for-cataract operation in Chinese ophthalmology — a technique whose transmission stream from Indian kshatrakarman via Buddhist channels is the central narrative of pre-modern Chinese eye surgery (cf. KR3em003 Mìchuán yǎnkē Lóngmù lùn 秘傳眼科龍木論, the Lóngmù / Nāgārjuna lineage). The decision to attribute the compilation to Sūn Sīmiǎo (who in his own Qiānjīn fāng devotes only a modest section to eye disease) reflects the consolidation, by the Sòng–Yuán period, of Sūn Sīmiǎo as the prestige-name of the Chinese medical tradition.

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