黄帝蛤蟆经 Yellow Emperor’s Toad Canon

61 toad canon vivienne lo Huangdi Hama jing (Yellow Emperor’s Toad Canon) Just below an image of a three-legged bird-in-the-sun in the preface to the first section of the extant Huangdi hama jing ႓০ᓚᝂᆖ (Toad f Canon), we read:1 If, as the day closes, [the sun’s] hue is fire-red yet lacks lustre, the yang qi will be in great chaos. On such days it is not fitting to cauterize or pierce. It will damage a person’s various yang tracts, and ultimately make them crazy. (See figure 1.) Of yin and yang, the opposing yet necessarily co-existing aspects of all being, yang corresponds with fire, heat and the sun; thus any treatment while the sun is setting will damage the yang parts of the body. The thirty images of the human body that fol- low, in fact, map the course of “human qi Գ௛” as it moves according to the lunar cycle around the body. We might think of the movements of this entity around the human body as analogous to a sort of imperial progress, such as the puta- tive seasonal movement of the emperor around the ritual chambers named Ming On many occasions I have lamented not being able to discuss this paper with Michael Loewe, my first teacher of classical Chinese and principal adviser on the Han period. Fortunately, other scholars been very generous with their time and I have to thank, in particular, Penelo- pe Barrett, Timothy Barrett, Christopher Cullen, Donald Harper, Keiko Daidoji, Li Jianmin, Ma Kanwen, Roel Sterckx, Hermann Tessenow, Volker Scheid, Paul Thompson and Sumiyo Umekawa. I am also grateful to the editors and anonymous referees of this festschrift for their invaluable suggestions. All errors, naturally, are entirely my own responsibility. 1 Huangdi hama jing, sect. 1, “Huangdi hama tu sui yue shenghui bi jiupan fa” ႓০ᓚ ᝂቹᙟִسᄤᝩ߁ܒऄ (“Yellow Emperor’s Toad Chart: Method for Avoiding Cautery and Figure 1: Huangdi hama jing, Section 1 After Huangdi hama jing (Beijing: Zhong yi guji, 1984). 62 vivienne lo tang ࣔഘ (Numinous Hall), or of Tai Yi ֜ԫ, supreme deity and bright- est star in the Han (202 bc–220 ad) sky, around the Nine Palaces of the Heavens.2 Here, it seems, we have an embodiment of celestial move- ments, the Han preoccupation with correlating the sky with human society made flesh and blood. The place where human qi lodges each day becomes prohibited for cautery and piercing for that day. Each entry carries the warning that transgression will result in symptoms of varying degrees of ferocity — from numbness of the toes to withering of the genitals. The Toad Canon has survived to modern times only by way of a single Japanese book (the structure and dates of which are discussed in detail, below). Although it is generally accessible elsewhere, the most eminent modern historians of Chinese medicine have left it in obscurity because of its “superstitious” nature. 3 Yet in China, correlative thinking, exemplified in yin-yang and Five Agent cosmology, extends easily into what, in other contexts, might be thought of as sympathetic magic. Thus yin-yang divisions of the body, astronomy, astrology and the planetary gods and spirits exist on a continuum, and are all embraced within the same natural order. The received compilation of Hama jing in nine sections presents a variety of ideas about circulation, aimed at protecting elements of the inner body through keying them to cosmic regularities. A physician could then diagnose normal and pathological physiology. This was a medical manifestation of the macro-culture of shushu ᑇ๬, or the arts of determining regularities, which were pervasive in Han thought, com- mon to techniques of divination and to the computation and description of “celestial patterns” at the very foundation of the astro-calendrical traditions. 4 As a significant body of acupuncture and moxibustion writ- pan according to the Waxing and Waning of the Moon”) (Beijing: Zhongyi guji, 1984), p. 2. Pan is discussed in detail below, under “Techniques” and at n. 6. 2 An entire cultural complex is grafted onto the sky, with the polar area of the sky correlated with the imperial palace. See Sun and Kistemaker, The Chinese Sky during the Han (Leiden: Brill, 1997), pp. 96–97. Kuriyama emphasizes the relationship between the concept of circu- lating of winds and the migration of Taiyi around the palaces (eight directions and a center) in divination. He finds a reflection in medical thought in Huangdi neijing lingshu 11.77: nine palaces and eight winds” (see n. 8, below); see Shigehisa Kuriyama, The Expressiveness of the Body (New York: Zone, 1999), pp. 244–45. Many scholars since Han times have speculated on the structure and function of the Ming tang, associating it with architectural edifices of high antiquity. Lü shi chun qiu, Liji, Zhouli, among other texts, are the main sources for the rein- terpretation of the Ming tang in cosmographical terms. See John Henderson, Development and Decline of Chinese Cosmology (New York: Columbia U.P., 1984), pp. 75–82. 3 Lu Gwei-djen and Joseph Needham, Celestial Lancets (rpt.; London: Routledge Curzon, 2002), p. 141. 4 Different forms of shushu culture pervade all aspects of life in early China, and in Han 63 toad canon ings, it is fascinating that Hama jing barely acknowledges the structuring of the medical body into yin and yang tracts containing circulating qi that was familiar from Han times. Given its many variant calendrical and divinatory schemes, it is easy to conclude that this was an over-determined field lacking coher- ent threads of interpretation. Yet, taken as a whole, the compilation acquaints us with a plurality of agencies involved in early and medieval medical practice; some of the skills, instruments, ritual, images, beliefs and knowledge systems that aligned in and constituted medical doctrine and practice over an unknown period of time.5 There is no authorial voice, no explicit social context, no description of individual moments of practice, and no verifiable date. But compared to other sources in the received medical literature, the combined treatises of Hama jing offer a vivid and complex account of medieval practice related to cautery and acupuncture, as well as the vestiges of much earlier practices. T E C H N I Q U E S In the history of acupuncture and related techniques there have been many methods of piercing the body, and what exactly is meant by pan ܒ is uncertain. It is most likely that it is a printed variant of the graph 䞝 seen in the Japanese medical compilation Ishimp± ᠔֨ ֱ (Remedies at the Heart of Medicine; ca. 912–95 ad), a scribal variation of the more common acupuncture term ci ࠨ (to pierce).6 In juan 1 of Huangdi neijing lingshu ႓০㡕ᆖᨋᑐ (“Jiuzhen shier yuan” ԰ಾԼԲ଺, times embrace types of divination using yin-yang ອၺ and the wuxing ն۩ (five phases), “turtle and milfoil,” physiognomy, determination of auspicious times and places, as well as exorcisms, omenology, etc.; see Li Jianmin, Sisheng zhi yu ڽسհ഑ (Taibei: Academia Sinica, 2000; revised in 2001). See my review in Medical History 47.2 (2003), pp. 250–58. See also Michael Loewe, Divination, Mythology and Monarchy in Han China (Cambridge: Cambridge U.P., 1994), and Marc Kalinowski, “Les Instruments astro-calendériques des Han et la meth- ode liu ren,” in BEFEO 72 (1983), pp. 309–419. 5 In the studies of science and technology, Pickering’s analytical tool “the mangle of prac- tice” has proved particularly helpful in thinking about how culture is constantly emerging through and in the process of practice; Andrew Pickering, The Mangle of Practice: Time Agency, and Science (Chicago: U. Chicago P., 1995). See the useful summary in Volker Scheid, Chi- nese Medicine in Contemporary China: Plurality and Synthesis (London and Durham: Duke U.P., 2002), pp. 44–47. 6 When discussing this sentence with Michael Loewe some years ago, Michael suggested that pan ܒ in this context might be the result of a scribal error for ci ࠨ, the more common medi- cal phrase being jiuci ߁ࠨ (cautery and piercing), the term for moxibustion and acupuncture. This is the most likely explanation and a variation to which Professor Zheng Jinsheng ᔤ८س adds further definition: one print of a hand-written copy of Ishimp± (Beijing: Renmin weish- eng, 1993) in his possession commonly uses the graph 䞝 for ci. ܒʳand 䞝are so close in form that the former may simply be a Japanese printing idiosyncracy. Jia, the component to the left hand side of the graph 䞝 is a common simplification of .݈ When paired with the knife radi- 64 vivienne lo “Nine Needles and Nine Origins”), Huangdi, the Yellow Emperor, ex- presses dissatisfaction with crude methods associated with stone lancets. The earlier treatises that describe treating the channels do indeed use a stone instrument to move qi and equally to lance abscesses.7 Yet, de- spite emphasis on qi work, much of the therapy described in “Jiuzhen” itself involves petty surgery and massage; later discussions of the yuan zhen ୉ಾ (round needle) and pi zhen ሱಾ (splitting needle), two of the nine needles described in Lingshu, continue to refer to treatment re- spectively here for abscesses and bloodletting.8 We should therefore not discount the possibility that pan may refer to petty surgery on the locations indicated, “a cutting out” of abscesses, or bloodletting in the sense of “splitting open” blood vessels, rather than to more subtle medical interventions involved in moving qi.9 Ci ࠨ “piercing” and qu ࠷ (literally “taking”) are common technical designations in the Huangdi (Yellow Emperor) corpus.10 Both verbs are used in connection with blood- letting and moving qi, although instances of needling to move qi are the most common. Since the various primary and secondary networks of mai by this time were thought to contain both blood and qi in dif- cal (݈+䥇) this graph would form the first in a three stage graphic variation from ci ࠨʳto pan ܒ. See Hanyu da zidian ዧ፿Օڗࠢ (Sichuan: Hunan cishu, 1996), p. 223. 7 Zhangjiashan 247 hao Hanmu zhujian zhengli xiaozu, Zhangjiashan Hanmu zhujian ് ୮՞ዧችێ១ʳ(Beijing: WW, 2001), p. 244. 8 Vivienne Lo, “Spirit of Stone: Technical Considerations in the Treatment of the Jade Body” in BSOAS 65.1 (2002), pp. 99-128. 9 The word pan ܒ is a term normally associated with passing legal “judgment,” and the decisive division of right and wrong metaphorically performed with a sharp cutting edge like the “Sword of Damocles”. The primary sense given in Hanyu da zidian is “to separate” or “to split in two,” Hanyu da zidian , p. 139. Pan is not normally connected with medical cutting in the lexical tradition, except perhaps when found together with pou ଳ (dissection) in the meta- phorical term pou pan ଳܒ, which we might associate with “anatomizing” an argument or idea. Epler makes a convincing argument for the formative influence of the practice of bloodletting in the development of acupuncture therapy, a tendency that is particularly evident in Suwen; Dean Epler, Jr., “Blood-Letting in Early Chinese Medicine and Its Relation to the Origin of Acupuncture,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 54 (1980), pp. 337–67. There is no substan- tial corroboration of bloodletting techniques in the Mawangdui or Zhangjiashan texts, a fact which confirms a multiplicity of traditions of practice during Han times. 10 The combined treatises of the Huangdi neijing lingshu ႓০փᆖᨋᑐ, Huangdi neijing su- wen ႓০փᆖైം and Huangdi neijing taisu ႓০փᆖ֜ై (hereafter cited as Lingshu, Suwen, and Taisu) are generally considered to contain the core theory of traditional Chinese medicine. Yamada Keiji ՞֚ᐜࠝ, “The Formation of the Huang-ti Nei-ching,” Acta Asiatica 36 (1979), pp. 67–89, compares the structure and content of the Mawangdui texts Yin-yang jiujing and the Zubi jiujing with the “Jingmai” treatise of the Taisu, the version of the text which he con- siders the closest to a putative original Huangdi neijing. He also identifies various schools of thought represented in the treatises of the Huangdi corpus. Others are more cautious about the existence of formal schools, or even selective or closed medical teaching lineages. David Keegan, “‘Huang-ti Nei-ching’ : The Structure of the Compilation, the Significance of the Struc- ture” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1988), pp. 67–157, 265–323, compares 65 toad canon ferent quantities, bloodletting co-exists with qi therapy in varying de- grees.11 Different techniques are also expressed through bu ᇖ and xie ើ, methods to supplement or drain the body’s essences. Bloodletting is an interpretation of ci supported for Tang times, and our Hama jing verb (be it pan or ci), by the inclusion of xue ji ri ۨݲֲ (blood taboo days) in section 6, most likely refers to days when bloodletting was prohibited.12 Thus, from the time of the Huangdi corpus onward we may understand the verb ci to refer to the use of different kinds of in- cisive medical tools. In the surviving technique termed jiu ߁, what here is translated “cautery” refers to the burning of the dried and ground leaves of mug- wort (ai ۦ ; artemesia vulgaris) on or over the body to stimulate a response that is theoretically mediated via a system of primary and secondary networks (jingluo ᆖ࿮) of mai in the acupuncture body. The aim is to influence qi, to ease pain, to expel “wind” or other causes of disease.13 Mugwort is referred to in Hama jing, but what we find in the texts and images following our three-legged bird-in-the-sun is evidence of a much richer, more diverse practice, with various conditions and prohibitions set forth by hemerological calculations concerned with the movement of spirits and souls in the body. A monograph dealing specifically with the history of cautery in its own right is long overdue. Li Jianmin maintains that “mugwort had been used to ‘attract’ solar fire since at least the Warring States (475–221 bc) the Mawangdui editions of Yin-yang jiujing and Zubi jiujing to Lingshu 3.10 “Jingmai” ᆖ౧. On dating of the Huangdi corpus, see Nathan Sivin, “Huang-ti nei-ching,” in Michael Loewe, ed., Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide (Berkeley: SSEC and IEAS, University of California, 1993), pp. 199–201. 11 Suwen (SBBY edn.) 4.16, pp. 8–9, for example, states, “one should stop the therapy when blood appears.” In contrast, other treatises such as Suwen 11.41, pp. 7–11, give detailed in- structions for piercing combined with bloodletting but forbidding the letting of blood in cer- tain seasons. Suwen 17.62, p. 1, recommends bleeding the smaller vessels to level a surplus of spirit, but not for a weakness of spirit. Following the contemporary analogy with du េ “chan- nel” or “canal” found in the Maishu ౧஼, I have always translated mai, the earliest word as- sociated with pathways around the body, as “channel”; see Jiangling Zhangjiashan Hanjian zhengli xiaozu, “Jiangling Zhangjiashan Hanjian (Maishu) shiwen” ۂສ്୮՞ዧ១౧஼ᤩ֮, WW 7 (1989), p. 74. Harper translates “vessel,” which draws out the early association with the ar- teriovenous system; Donald Harper, The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts (London and New York: Keegan Paul International, 1998), pp. 82–84. More elaborate theories of jingluo ᆖ࿮ and jingmai ᆖ౧, and many subsidiary vessels and tracts are found in Huangdi neijing; Nathan Sivin, Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1987), p. 122, n. 11, and pp. 133–47. 12 Huangdi hama jing, p. 48. 13 Winds were recognized as an independent source of illness from very early times. Kuriya- ma isolates lack of regularity and sudden change in the Winds as the characteristics that qualify it to be the “origin of one hundred diseases,” disorders of time and space that can be manipu- lated by diviner and physician alike. See Kuriyama, Expressiveness of the Body, pp. 233–70. 66 vivienne lo period, and burning it became the standard method of moxibustion.”14 Yamada finds early evidence that artemesia vulgaris was also used in at- ropaic techniques to protect the household from attack by demons. Its use, or more accurately misuse, is attested in analogies made in War- ring States literature, for example, when Zhuangzi ๗՗ puts the idea of “cauterizing where there is no sickness” into Confucius’ mouth, as an analogy for useless effort; or when Mengzi ࡯՗ likens inadequate prepa- ration in government to the futility of using insufficiently mature ai ۦ to treat chronic illness.15 At that time, jiu Ն, an early graphic form for jiu ߁, features as one of the earliest known methods of treating ౧ mai, or bodily “(pulsating) channels” as they emerged in the medical texts excavated from both Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan tomb libraries.16 By Han times we also know that cautery with mugwort was a part of front- line first aid, serving to treat the sick officers and soldiers of the Dun- huang military complex who where unable to consult physicians.17 Despite early references to ai in a number of therapeutic contexts, we cannot presuppose that it was always artemesia vulgaris in the practice of premodern cautery associated with jiu, or how widely it was avail- able. Sui and Tang medical texts include examples of the use of realgar for cautery. The last text in the Hama jing contains a cautionary treatise entitled “Bian jiu huo mu fa” ᙃ߁־ֵऄ (“Technique to Differentiate Cautery Firewood”); it relates the different types of wood used to pre- pare or ignite the cautery to various degrees of iatrogenic damage. We learn of eight bushes or trees that harm blood and channels, muscles, flesh, bone and marrow: pine makes for a difficult recovery, cypress has a lot of sap, bamboo harms the sinews, orange wood harms the skin and 14 Li Jianmin, “Ai huo yu tian huo, jiu liaofa yansheng zhi mi” ۦ־ፖ֚־߁᛭ऄ࢏سհᝎ (“Moxa Fire and Celestial Fire: The Riddle of the Evolution of Cautery Treatment”), Studies in the History of Natural Sciences 21.4 (2002), pp. 321–31. 15 Yamada Keiji, The Origins of Acupuncture, Moxibustion and Decoction (Kyoto: Interna- tional Research Centre for Japanese Studies, 1998), pp. 66–78. Zhuangzi (SBBY edn.) 9 (pian 29, “Dao zhi” ࿋◠), p. 21b; Mengzi (SBBY edn.) 7 (pian “Li qi” ᠦࡠ), p. 9. 16 Mawangdui Hanmu boshu zhengli xiaozu, Mawangdui Hanmu boshu ್׆ഔዧችࢇ஼ (Beijing: Wenwu, 1985), vol. 4, contains the official transcription of the Mawangdui medical manuscripts as well as photographs of the originals. The physical manuscripts are thought to be no earlier than 3d-c. bc, although some consider that various of its texts might date to the Spring and Autumn period. See Ma Jixing, ್ᤉᘋ, Mawangdui guyishu kaoshi (Hunan: Hu- nan kexue jishu, 1992), p. 92; also Lo, “Spirit of Stone,” pp. 99–128. 17 Xie Guihua ᝔ெक़, Li Junming ޕ݁ࣔ, Zhu Guozhao ڹഏ੨ (1987), Juyan Hanjian shi- wen hexiao ࡺ࢏ዧ១ᤩ֮ٽீ, A & B (Beijing: Wenwu, 1987), p. 49.31 and p. 49.13; and Lao Gan ໎ዖ, Juyan Hanjian tuban zhibu ࡺ࢏ዧ១ ቹठհຝ (Taibei: Zhongyang yanjiuyuan lishi yuyan yanjiusuo, 1957), special issue, pp. 22–23, contains the following record: “Private sol- dier attached to Dangqu Beacon Unit, Qu Fanzi ࡹᑕ՗ (??), in the first month □ day fell ill for four days, the office did not □□□□, three days later, □, Officer in Command of Wansui Beacon Unit, applied moxa to his back □□ in two places, after □□ within several days the physician at the Commandant’s Office came, and he drank one dose of drug and disposed □□…” 67 toad canon muscles, elm causes withering of the bone, bramble makes the vessels sink, mulberry damages flesh, jujube damages bone and marrow.18 P R O B L E M O F D A T I N G The problem of dating Hama jing lies in understanding the extent to which the extant version of the text, an 1823 Japanese woodblock edition known as Weisheng huibian ᓡسნᒳ, contains the same content as various Hama titles cited in earl