Huángtíng nèijǐng wǔzàng liùfǔ bǔxiè tú 黃庭內景五臟六腑補瀉圖
Chart on the Procedures for Filling and Emptying the Six Receptacles and Five Viscera according to the Inner Landscape of the Yellow Court by 胡愔 (hào Jiànsù zǐ 見素子), with a preface dated 848
About the work
A short illustrated Táng treatise on the Five Viscera (wǔzàng 五臟) and Six Receptacles (liùfǔ 六腑) and their corresponding qì-breaths, grounded in the Huángtíng nèijǐng (KR5b0015) body-pantheon tradition. Composed by Hú Yīn 胡愔 (hào Tàibái shān jiànsù zǐ 太白山見素子) with a preface dated 848.
Prefaces
The received text opens with an authorial preface (dated 848 in the Sòng catalogues — the date itself is omitted from the Dàozàng edition’s preface; cf. VDL 147) signed “Tàibái shān jiànsù zǐ Hú Yīn shù 太白山見素子胡愔述.” The preface introduces the physiological-cosmological framework: Heaven, being yáng, feeds humans with the Five qì; Earth, being yīn, feeds them with the Five Flavours; their interaction produces the Five Viscera, in which the shén 神 and the seven pò 魄 reside, corresponding respectively to the Five Stars above and the Five Peaks below.
Abstract
Dated to 848 by the preface (Schipper & Verellen, Taoist Canon 1: 349, DZ 432). A parallel version is found in DZ 263 Xiūzhēn shíshū 54, where it is titled Huángtíng nèijǐng wǔzàng liùfǔ tú, carries the same preface minus its date, and displays major textual divergences from the Dàozàng version: DZ 263’s 4a–b is absent here; conversely, the section at 2b–3a here is missing in DZ 263; the discussion of the heart is entirely different in the two versions. The present work is also related to DZ 1402 Shàngqīng huángtíng wǔzàng liùfǔ zhēnrén yùzhóu jīng.
The treatise combines illustrations of each viscus with descriptions of its associated deity (the shén 神 who resides there), its sense-organ, its emotion, its qì, and the methods (bǔ 補, filling; xiè 瀉, emptying) for restoring balance through qì-regulation and diet. It is one of the most important Táng documents in the long tradition linking Daoist internal-body cosmology with medical-pharmacological practice, and is routinely drawn upon by later pharmacological and nèidān writers.
Translations and research
- Despeux, Catherine. Immortelles de la Chine ancienne: Taoïsme et alchimie féminine. Puiseaux: Pardès, 1990 — on Hú Yīn as female author.
- Schipper, Kristofer, and Franciscus Verellen, eds. The Taoist Canon: A Historical Companion to the Daozang. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004, 1:349 (DZ 432).
Other points of interest
Hú Yīn 胡愔 is among the small number of women known to have produced signed Daoist texts. The Quán Táng wén preserves no further writings by her, but the preface and the text together stand as one of the most substantial Táng contributions to Daoist medical theory.