Shānbǔ yíshēng wēilùn 刪補頤生微論
Discourses on the Subtleties of Nurturing Life, Selected and Supplemented by 李中梓 Lǐ Zhōngzǐ (zì Shìcái 士材, hào Niàné 念莪, 1588–1655, Sōngjiāng 松江 / Shànghǎi).
About the work
A four-juǎn late-Míng doctrinal-clinical compendium by Lǐ Zhōngzǐ — the principal yǎngshēng 養生 (nurturing-life) treatise of the Lǐ Shìcái corpus, supplementing his comprehensive Yīzōng bìdú 醫宗必讀 (KR3er083, 1637) with a more theoretical and self-cultivational engagement with the yǎngshēng tradition. The work is structured as a sequence of wēilùn 微論 (subtle-discourses) on the foundational topics of medicine and self-cultivation: yīnyáng, the relationships of the zàngfǔ, the doctrine of xiāntiān / hòutiān gēnběn 先天後天根本 (the pre-natal and post-natal root of life — Lǐ’s signature theoretical position), the proper conduct of yǎngshēng practice, and the integration of jīngluò-channel theory with the standard internal-medicine clinical repertoire.
The Shānbǔ 刪補 (selected-and-supplemented) edition prefaced by Xiàng Yù in 1642 represents Lǐ’s substantively revised second edition. The signature doctrines of the Lǐ Shìcái school — píshèn shuāngbǔ 脾腎雙補 (dual supplementation of spleen and kidney) and the xiāntiān / hòutiān gēnběn lùn — find their fullest theoretical expression here.
Prefaces
The hxwd _000.txt carries (i) the Chéng xù 程序 — preface of one Chéng xiān-sheng (otherwise unidentified in the truncated text), opening with a long historical argument from Jǐngtián 井田 land-tenure and Hàn-era Cáo Cān 曹參 administration to the proper relation of yǎngshēng and gōngzhì 攻治 (offensive treatment); (ii) the publication preface of 項煜 Xiàng Yù dated Chóngzhēn rénwǔ 崇禎壬午 = 1642, júyuè 菊月 (ninth month), written from his Shuòyuán 碩園 / Báixuělóu 白雪樓 residence; (iii) Lǐ Zhōngzǐ’s own self-preface (zìxù 自序), framing the work’s relation to yòngbīng jiùluàn 用兵救亂 (military strategy for rescuing chaos) by analogy with yòngyào jiùshēng 用藥救生 (drug strategy for rescuing life).
Abstract
Lǐ Zhōngzǐ’s Yíshēng wēilùn in its first edition is conventionally dated c. 1618; the Shānbǔ (revised-and-supplemented) edition securely placed by Xiàng Yù’s preface at 1642 represents Lǐ’s substantive late-career re-engagement with his earlier yǎngshēng work. We use the 1642 dating for the received recension that the hxwd preserves.
The work was widely reprinted in the Qīng and was a standard reference in the late-Imperial yǎngshēng literature. The hxwd recension descends from a Japanese reprinting.
Translations and research
No European-language translation of the Shān-bǔ yí-shēng wēi-lùn located. For Lǐ Zhōng-zǐ and the Sōng-jiāng warming-tonifying school see Charlotte Furth, A Flourishing Yin (California, 1999), ch. 6; Volker Scheid, Currents of Tradition (Eastland, 2007).