The Divine Fartner's Materia Medica A Translation of the Shen Nong Ben Cao ling by Yang Shon-zhong BLUE POppy PRESS, INC. BOULDER, CO Publishedby: BLUEPOppyPRESS ADivisionofBlue PoppyEnterprises, In,. 5441 WesternAve., Suite 2 BOULDER, CO80301 FirstEdition, June, 1998 SecondPrinting,January, 2003 ThirdPrinting,January, 2005 FourthPrlntlng, October,2005 FifthPrinting, Marc:h, 2007 SixthPrInting, OCtober, 2007 SeventhPrinting, June, 2008 ISBN 0-936185-96-1 ISBN 978-0-936185-96-5 LC 97-77991 COPYRIGHTC BLUEPOppyPRESS, 1998.All Rights ReselVed. ALLRIGHTSRESERVED.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproduced,storedinaretrieval system,transcribed inanyformorbyanymeans, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording,oranyothermeans,ortranslated intoanylanguagewithouttheprior writtenpermissionofthepublisher. DISCLAIMER: The informationinthisbookisgiveningoodfaith. However, the authorandthepublisherscannotbeheldresponsiblefor anyerrororomission.The publisherswillnotacceptliabilitiesforanyinjuriesordamagescausedtothe reader thatmayresultfromthereader'sactinguponorusingthecontentcontainedinthis book.Thepublishersmake this informationavailabletoEnglishlanguagereaders forresearchandscholarlypurposesonly. Thepublishersdonotadvocatenorendorseself...medicationbylaypersons.Chinese medicineisaprofessionalmedicine. Laypersonsinterestedinavailingthemselvesof thetreatmentsdescribedinthisbookshouldseekoutaqualifiedprofessional practitionerofChinesemedicine. COMPDesignation: Denotativetranslationusingastandardtranslationalterminology CovercaligraphybyMichaelSullivan(Seiho) 1098 7 PrintedatFidlarDoubleday, Kalamazoo, MIonrecycledpaperwithsoyinks Publisher's Foreword TheShenNong BenCaoling(The DivineFarmer's Materia Medica Classic)is one of the 10 premodern classics of Chinese medicine selected in the People's Republic ofChina as nationwide research priorities wit~the Chinesemedicalliterature. Alsoreferred to astheShen Nong Benling, the ShenNangBenCao,theBenCaoling,andsimplytheBenling,itisoneofthe twomostimportantofthese10preeminentChinesemedicalclassics. The Huang Di Neiling(The Yellow Emperor's InnerClassic)is thelocusclassicus ofChinesemedical theoryand especiallyacupunctureandmoxibustion, whiletheShen Nong BenCaolingisthelocus classicusofso-calledChinese herbal medicine. All the rest of the Chinese medical literature, both premodern and contemporary, is built on the foundation of these two seminal texts. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why we have chosentopublishthisfirst EnglishlanguagetranslationoftheShen Nong Ben CaolingaspartofBluePoppyPress'sGreatMastersSeries. ShenNongisoneofthethreegreatestheroes ofChineseculture, theother two being the Yellow Emperor and Fu Xi, the revealer of the eight trigrams. These three legendary divine beings are credited as being the fountainhead ofChineselife-arts. ThenameShenNongcanbetranslated as Divine Farmer, Divine Peasant, Divine Agriculturist, or Divine Husbandman. Among his numerous discoveries and revelations, Shen NongiscreditedwithteachingtheChinesepeoplehow tofarm~thushis most common name. The first reference to a connection between Shen NongandChineseherbalmedicineisfound intheHuaiNan Zi(The South oftheHuaiMaster) writtenbyLiu Anwhodied in122BeE. Ancientpeopleategrassesanddrankwater. Theygathered thefruit fromtreesandatethemeatofclams. Theyfrequentlysufferedfrom diseaseandpoisoning.ThenShenNongtaughtpeoplefor thefirst time how to sowthefive grains, to observewhether the land was dry orwet, fertile orrocky, locatedinthe hills orinthelowlands. He tasted the flavors of allthe herbs and springs, [determining] TheDivineFarmer'sMateriaMedicaClassic whether theywerebitterorsweet. Thus he taughtpeoplewhatto avoid and where they could go. At that time, [Shen Nong] encountered 70 [herbs] in one day, [determininK which were] medicinesand [whichwere] poisons.1 This is the first survivin~ recorded instance in the Chinese literature creditingShenNongwithdetermininKthemedicinalpropertiesofthings bytastingthemhimself.Thisstoryhasthenbeenrepeatedandembellished upondownthroughthecenturies. SomeversionsevengiveShenNon~a see-throughstomachsohecouldwitness theeffectsofwhatheateonhis internalorgans! Thewords ben and caomeantreerootsand grassesorherbsrespectively. Therefore, as a compound term, they generically refer to the Chinese materia medica, and materia medica is the most commonly used translationofbencaousedinEngishtoday. Benand caoareused inChinese medicinetorefertomateriamedicainKeneralbecausetheoverwhelming majority of traditional Chinese medicinals are dervied from vegetable sources.However,sincetheChinesemateriamedicaalsoincludesmineral andanimalmedicinals,wehaveusedthewords, "so-calledChineseherbal medicine," above. As mentioned previously, this workis the locus classicusofthe bencaoor materia medica literatureofChinese medicine. Itis this literaturewhich describes the ingredients ofChinese medicine, their flavors and natures (i.e., temperatures), their functions, and indications. According to this book, medicinals have five basic flavors-sour, salty, sweet, bitter, and acrid-and four qi or natures--eold, hot, warm, and cool. Hot diseases shouldbetreatedwithcoldmedicinalsandcolddiseasesshouldbetreated with hot medicinals. This book also introduced the first method of classifying Chinese medicinals. Within this classic, all medicinals are classified into three grades or categories: superior medicinals corresponding to heaven which govern the maintenance of life and are without toxicity, medium medicinalscorresponding to hUlnankind which LiuAn,HuaiNan Zi, IiXiu Wu Xun,"chap. 19,p. la,anth 1 1 inZhu iIi Cheng(An AnthologyofVarious Masters), HebeiPeople'sPr '- I - Lucn B 0- qun&IouXi-yuan,Tang han, 1986. II Publisher's Foreword benefit human nature an~ have some medicinal functions, and inferior medicinals correspondingto earthwhichcure disease and definitely do have some toxicity. Further, medicinals are also categorized into sovereigns,ministers, assistants, and envoys. Hence,onecanfind allthe mostbasic and elementaltheoriesofChineseherbalmedicineinseminal forminthisclassic. Althougha booktitled the Shen NangJing (The DivineFarmer's Classic) is mentionedbyvariousChinesemedicalauthors andDaoistsinterestedin longevity practices in the Qin dynasty (221-206 BCE), this bookhas long beenlost,anditisnotatallclearthatitwas,infact, anearlyversionofthis materia medica. The first mention of the Shen Nong Ben Cao per se is found inthe writingsofthe DaoistphysicianTaoHong-jingwhomlived from 452-536 CEo According to Tao, the knowledge of Chinese materia medica transmitted orallyfrom the timeofShenNongwas first written downinthelaterHandynasty(circa200CE). AsPaulU. Unschuldsaysin hisMedicineinChina: A HistoryofPharmaceutics, "Thisopinionwasbased uponthe fact that thenames used for t~eplacesoforiginofthe drugsin thevariouspen-ts'aoworksofT'ao's timewerecommonto thelaterHan period."2 Infact,itisduetothewritingsofTaoHong-jingthatwehaveanyversion ofthe Shen Nong BenCaoJingtoday. Taois theauthoroftheBenCaoJing JiZhu(CollectedAnnotationson theMateria Medica Classic)and aShen Nong Ben Cao Jing. According to Unschuld, these are the same book and sometimestheyarereferredtojointlyas theShen Nong BenCaolingIi Zhu. TaowrotetheShenNongBenCaolingfirst inthreebooks and laterrevised this into the Ben Cao Jing Ji Zhu in seven books based on Daoist cosmologicalbeliefs involvingthenumberseven. However, thecontents ofthese twobooks areidentical. Inhispreface,Taomentions threemain sources forhis work. Theseincludeseveraldifferentversionsofthe Shen Nong Ben Cao ling, the Tong lun Cai Yao Lu (Gentleman Tong's Notes on GatheringMedicinals), and theLeiKung Yao Dui(Lei Kung'sComparison of Medicinals). HealsomentionsZhangChi(142-220?CE),HuaTuo(190-265 CE), and Hua Tuo's students,Wu Pu and LiDang-zhi, as authorsbefore Unschuld, Paul V., Medicine in China: A History ofPharmaceutics, U. of CA Pn.sR, B rk"l y,1986,p.17 iii The lJivineFarmer'sMateriaMedicaClassic him who had worked on earlier versions ofthe Shen Nong Ben Caoling. However, as Unschuld states, liltcannolongerbeproved whetherthere was, in fact, ever a specific, original work entitled Shen-nung pen-ts/ao ching, or whether various pharmaceutical collections of the Han period werewrittenwith thisorasimilartitle.,,3 Inanycase,evenTaoHong-jing's Shen Nong Ben Caolingand BenCaoling Ji Zhu werelost. Nevertheless, efforts to recreate the Shen Nong Ben Cao lingwere undertakenat leastas earlyas theSongdynasty(960-1280CE). This may sound crazy to Western readers not familiar with premodern Chinese literarypractices. Ifsomethingis lost, it's lost. However,itwas not uncommon for Chinese authors to include whole books or at least chaptersfrompreviousbooksintotheirownnewcompilations. Thiswas anacceptedliterarypracticeand carriednoopprobiumofplaKiarismas it wouldinthecontemporaryWest.Thisprocesswasmadeeasierbythefact thatTaoHong-jinghad used twodifferentcolors ofinkinhisversionof theShenNongBenCaoling.Everythingwritteninredinkwas supposed to be the words of Shen Nong. Since succeeding authors of later ben cao continued this convention, itmakes theidentificationofquotesfrom the Shen NongBen Caolingsomewhateasier. AsearlyastheTangdynasty(618-907CE),SunSi-miaohad incorporated lengthysectionsofthe Shen Nong BenCaolingintohisownQianlin Fang (Prescriptions [Worth] a Thousand [Pieces oft Gold), and this book has survived until today. Itis one oftheearliestsourcesfor recompilingthe Shen Nong Ben Caoling. ThelingShiZhengLeiBeiIi Ben Cao(A Classic& Historic [Work]: A Materia Medica for Emergencies [Based on] Pattern Categorization) compiled by Tang Shen-wei in 1108 CE is the most important surviving source for recreating the Shen Nong Ben Cao ling. However, even Li Shi-zhen's late MinK dynasty (1368-1644 CE) Ben Cao GangMu (Great Outline ofMateria Medica) hasbeenused tohelprecreate this seminal materia medica classic, since even Li maintained the conventionofusingred andblackinksinordertoidentifythesupposed wordsofthe divineShenNong. Ibid., p. 17 IV Publisher's Foreword At this point, thereadershould remember thatinancienttimes, doctors wouldcopyotherdoctor's copiesofbooksbyhand. Therefore,different copyistsoftentookthelibertyofrearrangingtextsdependingontheirown tastes and proclivities, justas moderncollege students might rearrange theirteacher'slecturenotesinordertofacilitate theirownstudy. Because ofthis,severaldifferentversionsoftheZhengLeiBenCaocurrentlyexist, and, therefore, thereareanumber ofdifferentversionsofthe Shen Nong Ben Cao available today. The maindiscrepancies between these existing versions ofthe Shen Nong Ben Cao are 1) the number ofmedicinals they include, 2) the format of their presentation, and 3) the texts on certain particularmedicinals.ItisbelievedthattheoriginalBenCaolingcontained 365 medicinals. However, all extant versions fall short of this number despitemanypreviousscholars'effortstorecovertheselostmedicinals. In terms offormat, someversions havefour books, whileothershaveonly three. Some versions simply divide all the medicinals into superior, medium, and inferior Ktades, whileothers first divide them into wood, grass, animal, and stone medicinals which are then subdivided into superior,medium, and inferior grades. Someversionscontaina tableof contents at their beginning and others do not. Still others give a list of medicinals tobediscussedbeforeeachsectionofeachbook. Inaddition, there areminordiscrepanciesinthetextitselfundereachmedicinal. For instance,someversionsdiscussthegeographicoriginsofthemedicinals, whileothers donot. Thislastdiscrepancyisbasedontheassumptionby certaineditors thatthis informationwasa lateradditionand notpartof theoriginaltext. ThepresenttranslationisbasedontheBenCaoling(Materia Medica Classic) edited by Cao Yuan-yu and published by the Shanghai Science & TechnologyPressinShanghaiin1987.ItisYangShou-zhong'sopinionthat this version is the most carefully collated and edited of the various versionsavailableinthePeople'sRepublicofChinaandisprobablycloser to the original thananyother. The mostpopular currentversion ofthis seminalmedicinalclassicistheShenNongBenCaoJing (The DivineFarmer's Materia Medica Classic) published by the Chinese Medical Classics Publishing House in Beijingin 1982. Readers familiar with that version should note thatthese twoarenot thesame. Thepresentversiondiffers from the Ben Cao ling version in that it includes a Book Four. This is comprised of those passages which are absent from oursource textbut v TheDivineFarmer'sMateriaMedicaClassic whicharecommontomanyotherversions.Specifically, thesearesegments includedasappendicesattheendofthe Shen Nong BenCaolingeditedby HuangShi.HuangShiwasahigh-rankingofficial duringthereignsofJia Qing (1796-1820CE) and DaoGuang(1821-1850CE). Inaddition, wehave created a new Table of Contents to make this book easier to use for modern readers and wehave deleted the listingofmedicinalsdiscussed in eachchapteras superfluous given the TableofContents and indexof medicinalsattheback. Insertionswithinbracketshavebeenaddedbythe translator in order to bringout the meaningofthe text and render it in betterEnglishwhileallowingreaders toidentifythewordswhichactually are inthesourcetext. The terminology and methodology used in this translation is based on Nigel Wiseman and Ken Boss's Glossary of Chinese Medical Terms and Acupuncture Points, Paradigm Publications, Brookline, MA, 1990, with updates and revisions as contained in Nigel Wiseman's English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary of Chinese Medicine, Hunan Science & TechnologyPress,Changsha, 1995. Themedicinalsareidentifiedbytheir Chinese names written in Pinyin followed by their Latinate pharmacologicalnomenclatureinparentheses. Sourcesfor theseLatinate identifications are Benskyand Gamble'sChineseHerbalMedicine: Materia Medica, Revised Edition, Eastland Press, Seattle, 1993; Hong-yen Hsu's OrientalMateria Medica: A Concise Guide, OrientalHealingArts Institute, LongBeach,CA,1986;StuartandRead'sChineseMateria Medica, Southern Materials Center, Taipei, 1979; Paul U. Unschuld's Medicine in China: A HistoryofPhannaceutics,U.ofCAPress,Berkeley,1986;A Barefoot Doctor's Manual, Revised & Enlarged Edition, Cloudburst Press, Mayne Isle, WA, 1977;andtheZhongYao DaCiDian(LArge DictionaryofChineseMedicinals), ShanghaiScience& TechnologyPress,Shanghai, 1991. Inparticular,Stuart &Read'sChineseMateriaMedicaisagood resourceforfinding theChinese characters for the medicinals in this text as well as discussions of their botanicalidentificationsand common Englishnames. Whena medicinal is subsequentlydiscussed ina footnote, wehavesimplyreferred toitby its capitalizedcommonEnglishname or a simplified versionofits Latin botanicalnameinnominativecase. Regrettably,thetranslatorwas unable to find Latin (or English) identifications for a very small handful of medicinals. Hopefully, as scholars in China continue to fes{'(lrch this classic, thesewillbeadded to future editionsofthis work. VI