Great Compendium of Acupuncture and Moxibustion

Volume 1, Page 9

...theories. However, the quality of these works is mixed, with the refined and the flawed often confused. Only the work of Master Yu Yu Shi is somewhat worth reading. Ji Qiqing’s commentary is slightly more detailed; he appended a critique of the errors made by three other scholars: Yang Xuancao, Lü Guang, and Wang Zongzheng. Zhou Zhongli made considerable revisions and corrections, but his historical research was not entirely clear. Li Ziye also produced a line-by-line explanation, but it offered little new insight. In more recent times, Zhang Jiegu wrote a commentary and appended herbal prescriptions to the end, which does not truly align with the original meaning of the classics. Wang Shaoqing expanded on these theories, calling his work Double Mystery Chongxuan, but it was not enough to fully reveal the hidden depths of the works of previous scholars. Finally, Hua Boren selected the strengths and discarded the weaknesses of others, balancing them with his own insights to write the Original Meaning of the Classic of Difficulties.

The Midnight-Noon Classic original: "Ziwu Jing" is a single volume discussing the essentials of acupuncture and moxibustion, written in the form of rhyming mnemonic songs. Later generations attributed this work to Bian Que a legendary physician of the Warring States period.

The Illustrated Manual of the Bronze Man for Acupuncture original: "Tongren Zhenjiutu" consists of three volumes. Emperor Renzong of the Song dynasty commissioned Wang Weide also known as Wang Weiyi, a famous medical official to investigate and organize the methods of acupuncture. He cast a bronze figure as a model, dividing it into the internal organs and the twelve meridians. Beside these, he marked the locations where the Acupuncture Points original: "Yuxue"; the specific points on the body where needles are inserted meet, carving their names into the metal. He also created diagrams and methods for treatment, which were carved into woodblocks and circulated throughout the world. Xia Song wrote the preface. However, its...

The name Bian Que a title for the physician Qin Yueren. Master Bai says: There were originally three schools of the Inner Canon original: "Neijing", yet the title Basic Questions original: "Suwen" was not listed among them. It was only in the Bibliographical Treatise of the Sui Dynasty Sui Jingji Zhi that the name Basic Questions first appeared, identifying it as the Inner Canon. During the Tang dynasty, Wang Bing linked the nine volumes of the Nine Spirits to the numbers found in the Han dynasty records to create his commentary. He further claimed that the "Great Discourse on Yin and Yang" Yinyang Dalun had been hidden by his master, Lord Zhang, and he used it to fill in the missing portions of the text. His dedication was indeed great. However, it is a pity that the "vermilion and the ink" an idiom meaning the original text and the commentary were confused, and "jade and common stone" were mixed together. His linguistic explanations were sometimes pedantic and imprecise, and his references were occasionally irrelevant. In the Song dynasty, Lin Yi, Gao Ruone, and others corrected these textual errors and restored the missing meanings, performing a great service compared to Wang Bing's work.

The Classic of Difficulties original: "Nanjing" consists of thirteen volumes. In it, Qin Yueren the physician known as Bian Que follows the tradition of the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Canon, presenting the material in the form of questions and answers to instruct students. The canonical sayings he cites are mostly not from the current versions of the Basic Questions or the Spiritual Pivot Lingshu. This suggests that there were ancient versions of these books that are now lost. During the Sui dynasty, there was a commentary by Lü Bowang that is no longer extant. During the Song dynasty, Wang Weiyi collected five commentaries...

然 Catchword: "However"