Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon: Basic Questions

Author: (Warring States) Anonymous
Publisher:
Publication Date: 1997-06-01
Features: The Treatise on Cold Damage and Acute Diseases was compiled by Zhang Zhongjing during the late Han Dynasty, marking the first mention of the Suwen and the Nine Volumes. In the preface to the Jia Yi Jing, (Huangfu Mi) of the Wei and Jin periods stated: "Now there are the Nine Volumes of Acupuncture and the Nine Volumes of the Suwen, which together constitute the Neijing." Wang Shuhe of the Western Jin Dynasty compiled the Pulse Classic, citing it as originating from the Suwen and the Nine Volumes. The Book of Classics Catalogue in the Sui Shu (Book of the Sui Dynasty) replaced the Eighteen Volumes of the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon with the Nine Volumes of the Yellow Emperor's Suwen and the Nine Volumes of the Yellow Emperor's Acupuncture. By the Wei and Jin periods, one volume of the Suwen had already been lost. Quanyuanqi was the first to provide annotations, with historical records noting that he "fully followed the Neijing and gained fame in medicine during the Sui Dynasty." Wang Bing, who called himself Qiyuanzi, felt that the Suwen was "full of errors, with overlapping chapters, illogical organization, disjointed text, and difficulty in application and comprehension." He thus "diligently searched for knowledge over twelve years" to provide annotations, completing them in the first year of the Baoying era (762 AD). He also supplemented the missing volumes, adding seven chapters after the "Treatise on the Heavenly Origin" to make it a total of twenty-four volumes and eighty-one chapters. However, only the titles of the "Treatise on Acupuncture Methods" and the "Treatise on Primary Diseases" remained. As Lin Yi and Gao Baoqing of the Song Dynasty remarked: "By the Baoying era of the Tang Dynasty, Taipu Wang Bing was deeply devoted to it, discovered the lost volumes of his predecessors, and made significant annotations. It remains as the legacy of the Three Emperors, splendid and admirable."