Yīzōng jīnjiàn · Yùnqì yàojué 醫宗金鑑·運氣要訣
Yīzōng jīn-jiàn — Essentials of the Five-Cycles and Six-Qi Doctrine by 吳謙 (奉敕撰) and 劉裕鐸 (奉敕撰), under imperial commission
About the work
The Yùnqì yàojué 運氣要訣 (1 juàn) is the yùnqì — five-cycles (wǔyùn 五運) and six-qì (liùqì 六氣) — chapter of the Yīzōng jīnjiàn (KR3e0090 / KR3eu016). It distils the Northern-Sòng Sùwèn “seven great essays” (qīpiān dàlùn 七篇大論 — Tiānyuán jìdàlùn etc., transmitted in 王冰 Wáng Bīng’s mid-Táng recension) and the Sòng yùnqì commentarial tradition (Liú Wēnshū 劉溫舒’s Sùwèn rùshì yùnqì lùnào 素問入式運氣論奧, 1099) into mnemonic-verse form for imperial-academy memorisation, with cosmological diagrams and an apparatus of kǎozhèng notes.
Abstract
The Sìkù tíyào (KR3e0090) notes that “although yùnqì should not be rigidly applied, it cannot be completely abandoned — therefore placed after the diagnostic methods.” The chapter is the principal Qīng-period authorised account of yùnqì doctrine, and one of the most accessible introductions to the system: the calendrical mechanics of the five yùn (related to the Heavenly Stems) and six qì (Earthly Branches), the zhǔqì / kèqì host-and-guest qì interaction, the sītiān / zàiquán annual ruling-qì, the liùyuán / liùbù 六元六步 sequencing, and the predictive correlation of yùnqì configurations with epidemic patterns. The treatment is doctrinally cautious — the imperial editors clearly position yùnqì as a heuristic rather than a rigid predictive system — and the verse form was a major vehicle through which Qīng-era physicians learned the doctrine.
Composition window 1742–1749. For the parent see KR3e0090 / KR3eu016.
Translations and research
- Unschuld, Paul U. 2003. Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text. Berkeley: University of California Press — full treatment of the Sùwèn “seven great essays” yùn-qì corpus.
- Despeux, Catherine. 2001. “The system of the five circulatory phases and the six seasonal influences (wuyun liuqi)…” In Elisabeth Hsu, ed., Innovation in Chinese Medicine. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 121–166. — the principal Western-language study of yùn-qì.
- Hanson, Marta. 2011. Speaking of Epidemics in Chinese Medicine. London: Routledge — for yùn-qì’s role in epidemic doctrine.