Yǐnshí xūzhī 飲食須知
What One Must Know about Eating and Drinking by 賈銘 Jiǎ Míng (1269–1374, hào Huáshān lǎorén 華山老人; the longest-lived of the documented Yuán-Míng-transition physicians).
About the work
An eight-juan systematic compendium of dietary contraindications (xiāngfǎn xiāngjì 相反相忌), the principal Yuán-era treatise specifically devoted to negative dietary lore. Jiǎ Míng’s editorial principle, declared in his short xù, is one of selection by contraindication: he reviewed the Běncǎo tradition (in which each item is treated for both its benefits and its harms, “sǔn yì xiāng bàn 損益相半”) and extracted only the contraindications into a single working compendium, “so that life-respecters in their daily eating may easily check.”
The work systematically classifies dietary incompatibilities by item, providing for each foodstuff:
- The food items with which it must not be combined.
- The toxicological consequence of unauthorised combinations.
- Constitution- and condition-specific cautions.
The work draws on a wide range of pre-Yuán dietary sources — the 食療本草 Shíliáo běncǎo of 孟詵 Mèng Shēn, 孫思邈 Sūn Sīmiǎo’s Qiānjīn shízhì 千金食治 (KR3eo038), the dietary chapter of the Shèngjì zǒnglù 聖濟總錄, the 食醫心鏡 Shíyī xīnjìng of 昝殷 Zàn Yìn, and the dietary notes in major yǎngshēng compendia.
Prefaces
The transmitted xù by Jiǎ Míng himself (signed Huáshān lǎorén): “Food-and-drink serves as the means by which life is nourished; but ignorance of the contradiction and avoidance among the natures of things — should one indiscriminately pile them in together, lightly the Five Innards will disharmonise, heavily disaster arises at once — this is for the life-nourisher also to be life-harming. Surveying the various house Běncǎo with their commentaries, every item has its losses and benefits in equal measure, leaving the practitioner with no clear guide. I have here selected specifically the contraindications, gathered them into a single volume, so that the life-respecter in his daily eating and drinking may easily check them. — Huáshān lǎorén identifies.”
Abstract
Jiǎ Míng (1269–1374) is one of the most remarkable figures of the Yuán-Míng transition: born late in the Sòng (1269), he lived through the entire Yuán dynasty and into the early Míng, dying in 1374 at the canonical age of 106. The Yǐnshí xūzhī is traditionally said to have been composed during his final period and presented to the Hóngwǔ emperor (founding emperor of the Míng, r. 1368–1398) — though the textual evidence does not require this specific provenance. The compositional window is best bracketed as the late Yuán to early Míng, c. 1349–1374. CBDB records his dates as 1269–1374, with the principal reference WDY 3, p. 1631.
The work’s principal contribution is the systematisation of dietary contraindication doctrine, in a form that was widely reprinted and excerpted by Míng-Qīng compilers (胡文煥 Hú Wénhuàn’s Yǎngshēng shíjì 養生食忌 (KR3eo042) draws extensively on it). Its 8-juan compass and item-by-item organisation make it more comprehensive than any earlier dietary-contraindication compilation.
Translations and research
- 賈銘, Yǐn-shí xū-zhī, eds. 陳奇松 et al. (Běijīng: Zhōng-guó zhōng-yī-yào, 1988); also in 馬繼興 (ed.) Sòng-Yuán dietetic compendium series.
- Zhōng-guó yī-jí dà-cí-diǎn, s.v. 飲食須知.
- Eugene Anderson, Food and Environment in Early and Medieval China (Philadelphia, 2014).
- Buell and Anderson, A Soup for the Qan (London: Kegan Paul, 2000) — for the Yuán dietetic background.
- 馬烈光, Zhōng-yī yǎng-shēng kāng-fù xué cí-diǎn (Běijīng, 2007).
Other points of interest
Jiǎ Míng’s extraordinary longevity (106 years) was traditionally taken as the living advertisement for his dietary doctrine — and the Hóngwǔ emperor is reputed (in late-imperial popular tradition) to have summoned him to court specifically to ask the secret of his long life, to which Jiǎ replied that he had merely “followed the Yǐnshí xūzhī.”
Companion: Yǎngshēng shíjì 養生食忌 (KR3eo042) is Hú Wénhuàn’s Wànlì compilation drawing on Jiǎ.