Yǎngshēng lèizuǎn 養生類纂
Classified Anthology on Nourishing Life compiled by 周守忠 Zhōu Shǒuzhōng (fl. Southern Sòng, Jiādìng era, c. 1208–1224); reprinted in Wànlì bǐngshēn (1596) by 胡文煥 Hú Wénhuàn.
About the work
A Southern-Sòng anthology of yǎngshēng lore, organised by topical classification (lèizuǎn) across some 22 juan, drawing on a wide range of pre-Sòng sources — medical, Daoist, philosophical, and miscellaneous-literary. The work is paired with the same author’s Yǎngshēng yuèlǎn 養生月覽 (KR3eo024), which presents the same material reorganised as a month-by-month seasonal regimen. Together the two works constitute Zhōu Shǒuzhōng’s complete yǎngshēng anthology project — one of the two principal Southern-Sòng yǎngshēng anthologies (the other being 溫革 Wēn Gé’s Suǒsuìlù 瑣碎錄 (瑣碎錄), fragments only).
Prefaces
The transmitted xù is the reprint preface by 胡文煥 Hú Wénhuàn, dated Wànlì bǐngshēn = 1596 third month, wàng (full-moon) day, signed Qiántáng Hú Wénhuàn Défù 錢塘胡文煥德父 (“Hú Wénhuàn, zì Défù, of Qiántáng”). Hú narrates: “All who have life cannot but be nourished, but to know how to nourish is something that only those of clarity-and-wisdom can do. Master Zhōu having already compiled the Yǎngshēng yuèlǎn, then produced this work as well; this too is one who knows the weight of what nourishes us. I, having seen its breadth, observed that it is of assistance to the use of persons, and so reprinted them both for those with life to draw from. — As for prizing the mind’s intent and despising the mouth-and-belly, not allowing the small to harm the large: this is in turn what the man of clarity-and-wisdom can summarily do — what I should also extract. How dare I, in my petty-minded talkativeness, instruct others? — But the classifications in this book are many, while Master Zǐyú (孟軻 Mèngzǐ)‘s two words 寡欲 (‘reduce desires’) alone are sufficient to cover them all; how can I track them down item by item? Yet I dare not omit to indicate the essentials thus.” The Hú reprint preface implicitly references the Mèngzǐ jìn xīn chapter on the cultivation of mind through the reduction of desires.
Abstract
周守忠 Zhōu Shǒuzhōng (zì Cǎnzhuàng 篟莊, fl. late Southern Sòng, c. 1208–1224, Jiādìng era) was a Hángzhōu-area literatus whose contributions to yǎngshēng lie almost entirely in the editorial-anthological domain. He produced three closely related works: the Yǎngshēng lèizuǎn (present text), the Yǎngshēng yuèlǎn (KR3eo024), and the Lèizuǎn zhūjiā yǎngshēng yàoyán 類纂諸家養生要言 (類纂諸家養生要言) (a third anthology, transmitted only fragmentarily). Together these constitute the most substantial Southern-Sòng synthesis of the yǎngshēng literature.
The Yǎngshēng lèizuǎn is the larger and more comprehensive of the three. It is organised by topical category (rising-and-resting; food-and-drink; emotion-regulation; sexual continence; medicinal fúshí; talismanic and ritual practice; seasonal-cosmological adjustment; case-stories of conspicuous longevity), each category supplied with extracts from named source-works ranging from Sùwèn, Bàopǔzǐ, the Yǎngxìng yánmìng lù 養性延命錄, the Qiānjīn fāng 千金方 (千金方), to the contemporary near-12th-c. Yǎngshēng zálǎn 養生雜覽 (養生雜覽) of 姚稱之 Yáo Chéngzhī and Sòng-era literati notebooks.
The work is preserved in the WYG Sìkù tradition (KR3e-stratum) and in the present jicheng.tw reprint of the 1596 Hú Wénhuàn Qiántáng print. The dating bracket 1208–1224 reflects the Jiādìng era within which Zhōu’s editorial activity is best attested in cross-references.
Translations and research
- Zhōng-guó yī-jí dà-cí-diǎn, s.v. 養生類纂.
- 周一謀, Yǎng-shēng wén-xiàn tōng-kǎo (Shàng-hǎi, 2008).
- Daoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang, ed. Schipper and Verellen (Chicago, 2004) — for the source-text traditions Zhōu draws on.
- Catherine Despeux, Taoïsme et corps humain (Paris, 1994).
- 馬烈光, Zhōng-yī yǎng-shēng kāng-fù xué cí-diǎn (Běijīng, 2007).
Other points of interest
Zhōu Shǒuzhōng’s twin anthology project (this work + the Yuèlǎn) is one of the few Southern-Sòng yǎngshēng compilations to survive in essentially complete form, and is consequently the principal modern source for the state of the yǎngshēng canon at the end of the 12th century — i.e., on the eve of the doctrinal innovations of the Jīn-Yuán sìdà jiā generation.
Links
- Companion: KR3eo024 養生月覽 (Zhōu’s second anthology).
- 胡文煥 DILA
- Kanseki DB
- 養生類纂