Chǔshì yíshū 褚氏遺書
The Remaining Book of Master Chǔ attributed to 褚澄 Chǔ Chéng (zì Yàndào 彥道, fl. mid-fifth century, d. Yǒngyuán 1 = 499 according to the Nánshǐ — but more reliably d. Yǒngmíng 1 = 483 according to the Nán Qí shū and corroborating biographical sources).
About the work
A short one-juǎn (approximately 2,620 yán 字 by the count of one mid-Míng cataloguer) compendium of doctrinal essays — purporting to be the medical writings of the Southern Qí (南朝齊) imperial-relative physician Chǔ Chéng, recovered in a fifth-century tomb-excavation in the wake of 黃巢 Huáng Cháo’s rebellion (878–884 CE) of the late-Táng. The work’s themes are unusually systematic and physiologically focused for an attributed late-fifth-century work: it treats the cosmological foundations of medical practice, the qí-circulation logic of pulse-and-channel theory, the role of jīnyè 津液 (body-fluid) physiology in disease, the male-female partition of jīng 精 / xuè 血, and the proper conduct of treatment-and-prescription. The intellectual contents do not show obvious anachronisms relative to the late-Liù-cháo medical-textual tradition, but the work’s claim to Southern Qí origin via tomb-excavation transmission is a re-attribution claim that has no independent support before its fifth-century-CE through tenth-century-CE preservation history. Modern scholarship is divided: some treat the work as authentic Southern-Qí material (preserved through unusual transmission), others treat it as a late-Táng or Sòng pseudepigraphic composition under the Chǔ Chéng name. The catalog meta date 南朝齊 follows the work’s own claim; the broader date-bracket adopted here (483–935) reflects (a) Chǔ Chéng’s plausible death-date 483 as the terminus post quem and (b) the late-Táng / early-Sòng documented circulation as terminus ante quem.
Prefaces
The jicheng.tw text opens with five paratexts: (1) a preface attributed to 蕭淵 Xiāo Yuān of the late-Táng era (signed Qīngtài èrnián wǔyuè shíjiǔrì Gǔyáng Xiāo Yuān xù 清泰二年五月十九日古揚蕭淵序 = fifteenth day of the fifth month of Qīngtài 2 of the Later-Táng = 935 CE) — the foundational transmission claim, narrating the work’s recovery in the post-Huáng-Cháo tomb-excavations by Xiāo’s ancestor and the family’s preservation of the stone-engraved tablets; (2) a second preface by Sòng 釋義堪 Shì Yìkān (signed Èrnián jiézhì qián wǔrì Wèiguó Shì Yìkān shū 二年結制前五日衛國釋義堪書 — Sòng Jiànyán 2 = 1128 CE) — recording the Xiāo family’s continued preservation of the stone-tablets across thirteen generations from 935 to 1128; (3) a prefatory note by 秦民悅 Qín Mínyuè (Míng / Zhèngdé 1 = 1506) on the work’s reception as a precious suìfú 殉葬 (“buried-with-the-dead”) preserved transmission; (4) a postface by 劉繼先 Liú Jìxiān with the 丁介 Dīng Jiè colophon dating the first Sòng print to Jiātài yuánnián 嘉泰元年 = 1201 CE; (5) and a late-Míng postface by 李暹 Lǐ Xiān Déjìn (1525 = Jiājìng 4). The transmission narrative is therefore: Southern Qí → late-Táng tomb-excavation → Xiāo family preservation 935–1128 → Sòng manuscript copy by Shì Yìkān 1128 → Sòng print by Liú Jìxiān 1201 → YuánMíng prints → mid-Míng Wùwénzǐ recension 1506 → late-Míng / Qīng standard editions.
Abstract
Chǔ Chéng 褚澄 (Yàndào, d. 483), the historical figure to whom the work is attributed, was the maternal-grandson of Sòng emperor Wǔdì 武帝, the son-in-law of the Lújiāng 廬江 Princess, the brother of the great Southern-Qí official 褚淵 Chǔ Yuān (tàizǎi shìzhōng lùshàngshū gōng 太宰侍中錄尚書公), and a documented imperial-relative shàngshūlìng and fǔjūnjiāngjūn (Right Army General) of the Southern Qí. His historical biography in the Nánshǐ records his celebrated treatment of the Southern Qí emperor’s brother Yù 嶷 (Prince of Yùzhāng 豫章) for a serious illness, his treatment of the Wújùn 吳郡 commoner Lǐ Dàoniàn 李道念 for a chronic chicken-egg-consumption disease (cured by sū 蘇 / Perilla decoction), and his diagnostic acumen. The attribution of a yíshū to him is plausible in itself; the question is whether the present transmitted text represents authentic Chǔ Chéng material or a later pseudepigraphic composition under his name.
Modern Chinese medical-historiographical consensus is that the work’s terminus a quo is plausibly the Southern Qí — the doctrinal positions on pulse-and-channel logic and on male-female jīngxuè partition are consistent with late-fifth-century medical thought — but that the preservation narrative (the late-Táng tomb-stones, the Xiāo-family preservation across thirteen generations) is partly fictionalized and that the work as we have it underwent substantial late-Táng / Sòng editorial reshaping. The composition window 483–935 reflects this assessment: the latest defensible early date is Chǔ’s death-year, the earliest defensible late date is the 935 Xiāo Yuān recovery-narrative. The work is most often treated by modern scholars as a late-Táng or pre-Sòng pseudepigraphic-or-substantially-redacted compilation preserved under the Chǔ Chéng name.
Doctrinal significance: the Chǔshì yíshū preserves several methodologically interesting positions — its account of male-female fetal-formation by the order of paternal-and-maternal sexual climaxes (the yīnxuè xiān zhì, yángjīng hòu chōng sequence for male; the reverse for female), its discussion of fluid-pathophysiology, its account of pulse-position assignment for the zàngfǔ — that became important lùzhèng references in the post-Sòng tradition. Both 李時珍 Lǐ Shízhēn (in his Běncǎo gāngmù citations) and the various late-Míng yīshuō compilers cite the work as a Southern-Qí authority.
Translations and research
No substantial European-language translation of the Chǔshì yíshū located. The attribution problem is treated in Liào Yùqún 廖育群, Yīzhě yì yě: Lùzhèng yīxué de chuántǒng 醫者意也：理證醫學的傳統 (Beijing: Kēxué chūbǎnshè, 2010), and Mǎ Bóyīng 馬伯英, Zhōngguó yīxué wénhuà shǐ 中國醫學文化史 (Shànghǎi, 1994).
Links
- Chǔ Chéng (zh)
- Person note 褚澄.
- Kanseki DB
- 褚氏遺書 (jicheng.tw)