The Gate of Life Before Heaven and Curative Medicine in Zhao Xianke’s Yiguan

373 Pages·2012·10.598 MB·English

by  Leslie de Vries

Promotor Prof. dr. Bart Dessein
Vakgroep Talen en Culturen
Decaan Prof. dr. Freddy Mortier
Rector Prof. dr. Paul Van Cauwenberge
Kaftinformatie: Zhao Xianke’s vision of the body. (YG 1.12b)
ISBN: 9789070830854
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Faculteit Letteren & Wijsbegeerte
Leslie de Vries
The Gate of Life
Before Heaven and Curative Medicine
in Zhao Xianke’s Yiguan
Proefschrift voorgedragen tot het behalen van de graad van
Doctor in de Oosterse Talen en Culturen
2012
Contents
Illustrations xi
Abbreviations xiii
Acknowledgements xv
Introduction 1
Song-Ming medical learning 6
The Supreme Ultimate 14
A study of Before Heaven 25
Outline of chapters 35
I. Text and Context 39
1. Zhao Xianke’s Yiguan
Introduction 41
A wenbu physician 43
Ningbo, and beyond 54
Editions of Yiguan 64
Structure and contents 70
II. Theoretic Foundations 77
2. A new vision of the body
Introduction 79
“If the Ruler is not Bright the Twelve Officials are in Danger” (but which ruler?) 82
The bodily landscape of forms 91
The gate of life 100
Imagining the formless 109
Conclusion: The genuine ruler of the body 116
3. Yinyang and the five agents
Introduction 119
The creative power of yang 122
Root yin and root yang 133
Five, six, or twenty-five agents? 140
Turning relationships upside down 155
Conclusion: Formless water and fire 165
III. Therapeutic Strategies 167
4. Two Pills
Introduction 169
The Wang Bing principles 173
Six or eight ingredients? 183
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Variations on a theme 196
Conclusion: recipes and the formless ruler 203
5. Kidney yin depletion
Introduction 205
Kidneys and lungs 207
Phlegm and blood-fluid 214
Yin essence and the apertures of the body 219
The digestive system 230
Conclusion: A variety of pathological manifestations 241
6. Other strategies
Introduction 243
Host and guests 245
‘Depressed’ fire 256
Before Heaven inside After Heaven 269
Spleen or kidneys? 277
Conclusion: Various methods for supporting the “one that pervades everything” 285
Discussions 287
Three Teachings 288
The Diagram of After Heaven 299
Medical tradition 309
Conclusion 317
Appendix 1: Preventive medicine 323
Appendix 2: Materia medica and recipes 329
Reference material 337
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Illustrations
Figures
1. Diagram of the Supreme Ultimate 15
2. Sun Yikui’s Diagram of Supreme Ultimate 21
3. Zhang Jiebin’s Diagram of Supreme Emptiness 23
4. Diagram of Before Heaven 26
5. Diagram of After Heaven 26
6. Yin County and Yiwulü 49
7. The gate of life between the 7th and the 14th vertebra 88
8. Zhang Jiebin’s Diagram of the Inner Landscape 98
9. Pacing-horse lamps 106
10. Zhao Xianke’s Diagram of Supreme Ultimate 109
11. Close-up of the kidney region 112
12. (cid:20) in the body 114
13. Zhao Xianke’s vision of the body 114
14. Productive and controlling relationships 121
15. From pi to tai 126
16. Waxing and waning 127
17. From tai to jing 153
18. Two methods of supplementing earth 161
19. From qian to zhen 190
20. The kidney conduit 208
21. Qian and kun water 302
22. Before Heavenly and After Heavenly productive relations 303
23. Zhen versus dui 305
Tables
1. Without Ultimate and Supreme Ultimate 112
2. The five agents and their corresponding zang-viscera 120
3. Birth and death of the five agents 141
4. Water and fire inside the other agents 143
5. Reversed relationships 156
6. The productive relationship between fire and earth 161
7. Heat effusion: causes and treatment strategies 171
8. Wasting thirst 231
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Abbreviations1
CYP YG Chen Yongping’s modern edition of Yiguan
DDJ Daode jing
DZ Daozang
GJS YG Guo Junshuang’s modern edition of Yiguan
GR Grand dictionnaire Ricci de la langue chinoise
HYDCD Hanyu dacidian
Li ZYDCD Zhongyi dacidian, edited by Li Jingwei et al.
LLL YG Lü Liuliang’s comments on Yiguan
LS Huangdi neijing lingshu
NJ Nanjing
SKQS Siku quanshu
SW Huangdi neijing suwen
T. Taishō shinshū daizōkyō
TCM Traditional Chinese Medicine
WB YG Wang Bing’s comments on SW
Xie ZYDCD Zhongyi dacidian, edited by Xie Guan
YG Yiguan
YTT YG Yan Tingting’s modern edition of Yiguan
ZGYJTK Zhongguo yiji tongkao
ZHDJDCD Zhonghua daojiao dacidian
ZHYD Zhonghua yidian
ZWDS Zangwai daoshu
ZYTSML Quanguo zhongyi tushu lianhe mulu
ZYWXCD Zhongyi wenxian cidian

1 Bibliographic information on abbreviated titles can be found in “Reference Material,” pp. 337 ff.
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Acknowledgements
I wish to express my utmost gratitude to Bart Dessein, my doctoral supervisor. Bart
offered me the possibility to explore Zhao Xianke’s medical system. His critical
questions guided me throughout the entire research. Over the years, Bart was always
available for advice. He had the incredible patience to read, and reread the many
earlier drafts of the present text. He further provided me with the opportunities and
responsibilities necessary to gain experience, not only as a scholar but also as a
teacher.
I am most indebted to Dan Vercammen for introducing me to the research of
Chinese medicine and for initiating me in Daoist internal alchemy. Dan was the one
who drew my attention to Zhao Xianke’s Yiguan. He assumed that Yiguan contained a
treasure trove of information about the interaction between late Ming cosmology
and medicine. His assumptions proved to be right.
I especially want to thank Catherine Despeux and Ann Heirman, both members of
my DBC (doctoraatsbegeleidingscommissie). They periodically gave feedback on the
progression of my work. Catherine stimulated me by emphasising the importance of
my research, as the relation between medicine and religion/philosophy in the late
Ming dynasty had hardly been studied before. I was fortunate to gain from her
incredible insights and broad expertise in the fields of medicine and Daoism in China.
When my focus was drifting, Catherine drove it back to a research fully centred on
the analysis of the contents of Zhao Xianke’s text. Ann contributed with her critical
notes during the DBC meetings. Furthermore, as an assistant to her courses of
Classical Chinese, we closely collaborated on a day-to-day basis. I often mirrored
myself to Ann’s analytical approach to all problems related to teaching and research.
This proved to be a great help to structure my thoughts, and eventually to put them
on paper.
I am so much obliged to Tom De Rauw for scrutinising the entire final draft of my
thesis. I further owe my gratitude to Klaus Pinte and Chiu “Melody” Tzu-lung for
helping me out with Buddhist terminology. I thank Mathieu Torck for discussing
methodological issues related to the research of Chinese medical history. Silke
Geffcken was the first person around when I needed help to solve (academic)
problems. Mieke Matthyssen shared my curiosity about the meaning of premodern
philosophical concepts in contemporary China. Andreas Niehaus engaged me in his
project on Ekiken Kaibara. I learned a lot from Christian Uhl. While assisting
Christian in the methodology courses for Japanology students, he showed me what
good research should be all about. Other colleagues that inspired me while I was a
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doctoral researcher and assistant lecturer at the Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van
Zuid- en Oost-Azië at Ghent University are Ellen Van Goethem, Evelien
Vandenhautte, Gudrun Pinte, Ono Jun’ichi, Li Man, Claire Maes, Stefanie Rotsaert,
Julia Schneider, Chang Chin-Yin, and Tine Walravens. Special thanks go to Brigitte
Van Wambeke, the secretary and wise woman of the department, for showing me the
bigger picture when I got lost in the throes of it all. Gitte Callaert helped with the
adaptation of my text to the faculty stylesheet and with the cover design. I further
wish to thank the many students whose questions contributed to shape my own
ideas. Guiding the MA research of Lander Platteeuw, Ady Van den Stock and Lien
Chan Sook Wouters was really exiting.
Although Ghent provided a stimulating intellectual environment, my research
topic posed some specific practical demands that could not be fulfilled by her alone. I
found a great number of sources in the library of the Needham Research Institute in
Cambridge. I wish to thank John Moffett for his enthusiasm, hospitality, and
meticulous librarianship. In Hangzhou, Kong Linghong, the director of the Center of
Daoist Studies at Zhejiang University, and Fang Chunyang, the editor in chief of
Zhejiang zhongyi zazhi, advised me during the initial stage of my research. The Hanban
Scholarship of the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China allowed me
to study for one month under the guidance of Zheng Jinsheng at the Research Center
for the History of Chinese Medicine and Chinese Medical Literature of the Chinese
Academy for Chinese Medical Sciences (CACMS). In Beijing, I further wish to thank
Liao Yuqun, the director of the Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Hu
Fuchen, researcher at the Academy for Social Sciences, and Els Van den Heuvel, at
that time writing an MA thesis on TCM. Els opened the door to the world of digital
Chinese medical sources. The library staff of the Shanghai Library, the Shanghai
University of TCM, the Nanjing Library, the Library of the Nanjing University of TCM,
the Zhejiang University Library, the Zhejiang Provincial Library, and the Tianyi Ge
Library were all extremely helpful.
The Socrates Teaching Staff Exchange programme offered me the opportunity to
present my research to staff members and students of the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität
of Heidelberg, the Eberhard-Karls-Universität of Tübingen, the Eötvös Loránd
University of Budapest, and the University of Bucharest. I lectured on Yiguan at the
Philosophy Department of Zhejiang University within the framework of the Bilateral
Agreement between Ghent University and Zhejiang University. Parts of my work
were presented at the “International Conference on Daoism in Mt. Tiantai and
Zhejiang” (Tiantai, 2005), “ICTAM VI: Sense and Substance in Traditional Asian
Medicine” (Austin, 2006), “VIIth Biennal Conference of the European Association of
Chinese Studies” (Ljubljana, 2006), “Daoism in Action” (Hong Kong, 2007), and the
“12th International Conference on the History of Science in East Asia” (Baltimore,
xvi
2008), “VIIIth Biennal Conference of the European Association of Chinese
Studies” (Lund, 2008), and the “XLVIIste Dagen der Belgische Oriëntalisten” (Gent,
2009). I am grateful to the many people that gave feedback on my lectures and
presentations.
I owe a special thank to Elisabeth Hsu and Volker Scheid, two leading researchers
in the field of medical anthropology. Elisabeth Hsu’s The Transmission of Chinese
Medicine was the first anthropological study on Chinese medicine I ever read.
Although I am trained in “classical” Sinology, her approach triggered me to take up
an academic project myself. I met Elisabeth in the early days of my research. She was
always very generous in sharing her ideas. I am also grateful to Elisabeth for showing
me how research eventually results in a book manuscript. I crossed Volker Scheid’s
path several times during the last couple of years. Combining academic research with
clinical practice, he embodies the ideal of the scholar physician. Volker sent me draft
versions of some of his most interesting papers. I feel honoured that he asked my
advice on the medical system of Zhao Xianke.
Two dear friends were always available. Peter Van Lierde sacrificed many hours
to conscientiously read draft versions of the six chapters of my thesis. His feedback
on structure and language often evolved into long discussions on content. Many
times Peter stimulated me to restate my arguments. With Vincent Henrotin I had
uncountable conversations about different issues related to my research. His
curiosity and inspiring thoughts challenged my own thinking about Zhao Xianke.
It took me slightly longer than expected to finish my dissertation. The last couple
of years were marked by many stops in the flow of research and writing. Important
moments were the birth of our son William and our decision to move back to China.
Though not always understanding why I had to do what I was doing, Weiwei and
William endured the many lonely hours I had to spend in front of the computer
screen. They unconditionally shared with me the joy of small things in daily life.
They deserve some extra time from me right now that my thesis has seen
completion. My parents and my sister were always available for emotional (and
financial) support. They thought my time as a student would never come to an end.
My parents-in-law made Hangzhou into such a warm second home. I wish to thank
my family and the many friends that encouraged me, especially during the final
months of writing.
Although numerous people contributed to the birth of this text, I am solely
responsible for any and all shortcomings. I welcome future readers to adjust my
mistakes.
Leslie de Vries
Antwerp, August 23, 2012
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