Sì shèng xīn yuán 四聖心源
The Heart-Source of the Four Sages by 黃元御 Huáng Yuányù (zì Yuányù 元御 / míng Yúrén 玉楸, 1705–1758).
About the work
A ten-juǎn systematic medical treatise — the foundational doctrinal statement of Huáng Yuányù’s distinctive late-Qīng medical synthesis. The title — Sì shèng xīn yuán “the heart-source of the four sages” — names the four canonical authorities that Huáng takes as the authentic transmitters of the medical Way: Huángdì 黃帝, Qíbó 岐伯, Yuèrén 越人 (Biǎnquè), and Zhāng Zhòngjǐng 張仲景. Against this canonical tetrad Huáng polemicises consistently against the JīnYuán four masters (Liú Wánsù, Lǐ Dōngyuán, Zhū Dānxī, Zhāng Cóngzhèng), all of whom Huáng treats as deviationists who corrupted the canonical doctrine. The clinical programme that emerges is distinctive: a strong commitment to warming-tonifying therapeutics centred on the zuǒshēng 左升 / yòujiàng 右降 (left-rising / right-descending) framework of yīnyáng circulation, with characteristic formulae built around huángqí 黃耆, fùzǐ 附子, gānjiāng 乾薑, and guìzhī 桂枝. Huáng’s medical thought has remained influential in modern Chinese medicine as an alternative-canonical tradition; the late-Qīng / Republican-era physicians Péng Zǐyì 彭子益 (compiler of KR3er116 Yuányùndòng de gǔzhōngyīxué) and Yáng Xīmín 楊希閔 explicitly affiliated themselves with the Huángshì yīshū 黃氏醫書 corpus.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt preserves the Huáng xiānshēng yīshū bāzhǒng hòubá 黃先生醫書八種後跋 of Yáng Xīmín 楊希閔 (zì Tiěbèi 鐵備), narrating the publication history of Huáng’s eight-work corpus. Yáng reports that only four works had been printed in the previous century (in the Wǎnlín cóngshū 宛鄰叢書 of Zhāng Cíyǐn 張慈尹 in Chángzhōu), with the other four works circulating only in manuscript. In Dàoguāng wùxū (1838), Yáng obtained the manuscript via Bāo Shènbó 包慎伯 (the famous calligrapher-and-bibliophile Bāo Shìchén 包世臣) and arranged for the eight-work corpus to be jointly printed under the patronage of the Mǐnfǔ educational commissioner Xú Hóulǐng 徐侍郎. The textual editor was Huáng Yuánkūn 黃元坤, who carried out a thorough collation of the previous four-work printing against the manuscript.
Abstract
Huáng Yuányù (hào Yúrén 玉楸, 1705–1758) was a jǔrén of Yōngzhèng era who lost his official career due to loss of one eye and turned to medicine in mid-life. His medical practice was based in Píngyáng 平陽 (Shāndōng); his clinical doctrine drew on a careful re-reading of the Nèijīng and the Shānghán lùn with a strong polemical orientation against the dominant JīnYuán synthesis. His eight medical works form a doctrinally unified corpus: Sìshèng xīnyuán (1754, the principal doctrinal statement), Sìshèng xuánshū 四聖懸樞, Sùlíng wēi yùn 素靈微蘊, Shānghán xuán jiě 傷寒懸解, Jīnguì xuán jiě 金匱懸解, Chángshā yào jiě 長沙藥解, Yúqiū yào jiě 玉楸藥解, and Shānghánshuō yì 傷寒說意. Huáng’s lifedates (1705–1758) are securely datable. The Dàoguāng 1838 collected-printing organised by Xú Hóulǐng and Yáng Xīmín is the foundation of the modern transmission.
Translations and research
For Huáng Yuán-yù and the late-Qīng Sì-shèng tradition see Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition in Chinese Medicine 1626–2006 (Eastland, 2007); for the Péng Zǐ-yì revival of Huáng-shì doctrine in the Republican era see Bridie Andrews, The Making of Modern Chinese Medicine 1850–1960 (UBC, 2014). The first scholarly attention in English is in Manfred Porkert, The Theoretical Foundations of Chinese Medicine (MIT, 1974), in passing. Chinese-language critical edition: Huáng Yuán-yù yī-xué quán-shū 黃元御醫學全書 (Zhōng-guó zhōng-yī-yào, 2006).
Links
- Huáng Yuányù (zh.wikipedia)
- Person notes 黃元御, 楊希閔 (1838 publisher).
- Cf. KR3er116 Yuányùndòng de gǔzhōngyīxué of 彭子益 Péng Zǐyì, the Republican-era Huángshì revival.
Note: the catalog meta records the author as 黃玉璐 (Huáng Yùlù) but this appears to be a scribal variant of 黃元御 / 玉楸 — the modern Chinese-medicine consensus identifies the Sìshèng xīnyuán squarely with Huáng Yuányù (Yúrén), and the prefatory paratext (Yáng Xīmín 1838) confirms the identification. The catalog form has been preserved in persons frontmatter only via the canonical wiki-link 黃元御.