Wáng Wéiyī 王惟一 was a Yuán Daoist ritualist, author of KR5g0062 Dào fǎ xīn chuán 道法心傳 — a Thunder-Rites doctrinal transmission text.
name: 王惟一 pinyinName: Wáng Wéiyī alternateNames: [景陽子, Jǐngyáng zǐ] dynasty: 元 birthDate: deathDate: 1326 flourishedDate: 1304 cbdbId: dilaAuthorityId: created: 2026-04-25 updated: 2026-04-25
Wáng Wéiyī 王惟一 (hào Jǐngyáng zǐ 景陽子, d. 1326) — a different person from the Thunder-rites Wáng Wéiyī above — was a Yuán-period scholar-turned-Daoist of Sōngjiāng 淞江 (Sūngjiāng, in modern Shànghǎi, then in Jiāngsū). His Míngdào piān 明道篇 KR5a0285 (DZ 273) is dated by his autograph preface to Dàdé 大德 8 jiǎchén, mid-autumn (= autumn 1304); the preface signs him Sōngjiāng hòuxué Jǐngyáng zǐ Wáng Wéiyī 淞江後學景陽子王惟一. According to TC (Schipper, 2004, 2:835), he is also the author of [[KR5d1093|Dàofǎ xīnchuán]] (DZ 1253) — though the Schipper attribution may simply reflect the difficulty of distinguishing two homonymous Yuán Daoists. The preface to the Míngdào piān describes him as having begun life with a Confucian education (“shǎo yè rú 少業儒”), reading the Six Classics, before turning to the Three Teachings and at length receiving the jīndān 金丹 transmission from a “supreme adept” (zhìrén 至人). The Míngdào piān’s eighty-one alchemical poems are arranged according to the symbolic numbers of nèidān (16 + 64 + 1 + 12) and follow the late-Sòng / Yuán “Southern” tradition of Zhāng Zǐyáng 張紫陽 (Zhāng Bóduān) and Bái Yùchán. Wáng died, per the standard sources, in 1326.
name: 王惟一 pinyinName: Wáng Wéiyī alternateNames: [] dynasty: 宋 birthDate: deathDate: flourishedDate: 1023-1031 cbdbId: dilaAuthorityId: created: 2026-05-12 updated: 2026-05-12
Wáng Wéiyī 王惟一 (fl. 1023–1031, also miswritten 王惟德 in Cháo Gōngwǔ’s Dúshū hòu zhì) — distinct from both Yuán Daoists above — was a Northern-Sòng imperial physician of the Rénzōng 仁宗 court and the principal architect of the imperial 1027 standardization of acupuncture point-locations. His office is given in the Yùhǎi and the Sòng huìyào jígǎo as Shàngyào fèngyù 尚藥奉御 (Imperial Pharmacy Officer attached to the Hànlín Yīguānyuàn 醫官院). Under Rénzōng’s commission of Tiānshèng 4–5 (1026–1027), Wáng oversaw three coordinated projects: (a) the casting of two life-sized hollow bronze acupuncture mannequins (the famous tóngrén 銅人), used for centuries as the canonical pedagogical instrument of the Imperial Medical Court; (b) the compilation of the three-juan Tóngrén shūxué zhēnjiǔ tújīng 銅人腧穴鍼灸圖經 KR3ee056 / KR3e0017 / KR3ee055 (the textual companion to the mannequins, presented to the throne on the rénchén day of the 10th month of 1027); and (c) the engraving of two stone steles bearing the standardized point-text, installed in 1030 at the Dàxiàngguó Temple precinct in Kāifēng (fragments recovered in the 20th century and preserved in the Henan Provincial Museum). The 1027 standardization is the foundational moment in the post-Tang history of Chinese acupuncture and the textual ancestor of the 1186 Jīn-augmented recension KR3ee057 and every subsequent canonical printing. Wáng’s birth- and death-dates are not preserved; his career is documented only across the 1023–1031 Tiānshèng and Míngdào reign-periods through which the bronze-man commission was executed.
CBDB does not preserve a confident match for this Wáng Wéiyī under either 王惟一 or 王惟德; the entries returned (38082, 101342, 101343, etc.) all carry either Yuán-period or otherwise inconsistent dates. No CBDB id is therefore assigned. See Hinrichs and Barnes 2013 (105) and Goldschmidt 2009 (ch. 3) for the standard modern treatments.