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The Channels: A Preliminary Examination of a Lacquered Figurine from the Western Han Period

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2015

He Zhiguo  and
Vivienne Lo
Translated by
何志國  and
羅維前
He Zhiguo
Affiliation:
Mianyang Bowuguan, Mianyang 621000, Sichuan, ER., China
Vivienne Lo
Affiliation:
77 Roupell Street, Flat C, London SE1 8SS, U.K.
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Extract

Excavations of a Western Han tomb at Shuangbaoshan in the vicinity of Mianyang, Sichuan, in 1993 have uncovered a black lacquered wooden carving of the human body. Naked, hairless, and roughly anatomical in character, the figurine is understood to be the earliest extant three-dimensional medical model in Chinese culture.

Ten red lines are drawn on the figurine. This article undertakes a preliminary examination of the figurine and offers an interpretation of the lines from two different perspectives. Firstly, the authors compare and contrast the lines with the eleven anatomical pathways of the mai “channels” as described in the medical manuscripts excavated at Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan. From this point of view the figurine adds to the sources that bear upon the early development of theories of pathological physiology which were first formulated in Han times and eventually became central to classical acumoxa theory. Secondly, the lines on the figurine are considered in their relationship to yangsheng “nurturing life” practices popular in elite society of this period. Certain features of the figurine that set it apart from ideas of pathological physiology seem better clarified by reference to contemporary texts, also excavated from the Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan tombs, that treat of yangsheng practices such as massage, therapeutic gymnastics, and breath cultivation.

一九九三年對四川綿陽附近之雙包山的一座西漢墓葬進行考古發掘時發現了一樽黑漆木雕人像.由於此雕像通體裸露,無毫無髮,且具有粗略的解剖學特徵,因此被學界譽爲中國文化中已知的最早之三維醫學模型.

這樽雕像上畫有十條紅線.本文對此雕像作了初歩考察並從兩個不同方面對紅線作出解釋.首先,作者將紅線與出土於馬王堆與張家山兩座西漢墓中醫書裏所提到的十一條體脈進行了比較.作者認爲,病理生理學早期理論的形成始於漢朝,其後逐漸演變發展成爲古典針灸理論之核心,而這一雕像的發現,更爲我們的硏究提供了新的線索.

其次,作者對雕像上的紅線與西漢時期流行於上層社會的養生術之間的關係進行了探討.雕像的某些特徵與病理生理學的理念不合,而流行於西漢時期的專講養生之學,諸如馬王堆,張家山醫書所記載的按摩,導弓I,呼吸之術似乎更能加深我們對這些特徵的認識.

Type
Articles
Information
Early China , Volume 21 , 1996 , pp. 81 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Study of Early China 1996

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References

1. See Zhiguo, He 何志國, “Woguo zuizao de renti jingmai qidiao” 我國最早的人體經脈漆雕， Zhongguo wenwubao 中國文物報 1994, no. 15 (04 17), 4Google Scholar, for the first description of the discovery. A detailed discussion of the figurine can be found in Zhiguo, He, “Xi Han renti jingmai qidiao kao’ ׳西漢人體經脈漆雕考， Daziran tansuo 大自然探索 1995.3, 116–20Google Scholar. The word mai is difficult to translate. Harper translates “vessel,” which draws out the early association with the arteriovenous system. See Harper, Donald, Early Chinese Medical Literature: The Mawangdui Medical Manuscripts (London: Kegan Paul, forthcoming), 82–83Google Scholar. We prefer to follow the contemporary analogy with du 瀆 “channel” or “canal” found in the Maishu 脈書 (Channel document). See xiaozu, Jiangling Zhangjiashan Hanjian zhengli, “Jiangling Zhangjiashan Hanjian Maishu shiwen” 江陵張家山漢簡脈書釋文（hereafter, “Maishu shiwen”), Wenwu 文物 1989. 7, 74 (translated below, p. 000)Google Scholar. The translation “channel” also serves to emphasize the relationship of the mai to the superficial anatomical channels as defined by muscle and bone, as they were understood before the more elaborate theories of the jingluo 經絡 and jingmai 經脈 found in the Huangdi neijing 黃帝內經 (Yellow Empero's inner canon; see nn. 5 and 25 below). Jingluo or jingmai has been variously translated as “conduit,’ “meridian,” “circulation tract,’ etc. As the focus of this paper is the figurine, which is representative of an earlier period, it is not necessary to commit to a definitive translation of the terms at present. See Sivin, Nathan, Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China (Ann Arbor: Center for Chinese Studies, The University of Michigan, 1987), 34, 122 n. 11CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Unschuld, Paul, Medicine in China: A History of Ideas (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 75, 81–83Google Scholar.

2. From a passage in the Hou Hanshu 後、漢書 it appears that by the end of the Han period this region of modern Sichuan was well known for its innovative medical tradition:

At first there was an old man, from who knows where, who fished in the waters of the Fu, so he was called the Old Man of Fu. When he begged food from others, if he saw someone who was ill he would apply needle and stone at that moment and at all times it was immediately effective. And so in ancient times the Zhenjing 針經 (Needle canon) and the Zhen maifa 診脈法 (Model for examining the chan-neis) were passed down through the generations. (Hou Hanshu [Beijing: Zhonghua, 1965], 82.2735Google Scholar.)

The Old Man of Fu is not dated in the text, but from the list of his disciples he can be given a putative dating of between Western and Eastern Han. The Zhenjing is a work in nine juan 卷 referred to in connection with the nine juan Lingshu 靈樞 by Huangfu Mi 皇甫諭 in his preface to the third century Zhenjiu jiayi jing 針灸甲乙經 (ABC of acupuncture; Tokyo: Seibundö, 1950)Google ScholarPubMed. Together he identifies them as the eighteen juan Huangdi neijing. See Sivin, Nathan, “Huang ti nei ching,” in Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide’ ed. Loewe, Michael (Berkeley: SSEC and IEAS, University of California, 1993), 197Google Scholar.

3. See bowuguan, Hunansheng and yanjiusuo, Zhongguo kexueyuan kaogu, “Changsha Mawangdui er, sanhao Hanmu fajue jianbao” 長沙馬王堆二,三號漢墓發掘簡報, Wenwu 1974.7, 45Google Scholar, for a description of the tomb figures found at Mawangdui. There are many beautiful photographs in Juyou, Fu 傅舉有 and Songchang, Chen 陳松長, Mawangdui Hanmu wenwu 馬王堆漢墓文物（ Changsha: Hunan, 1992), 44–47Google Scholar.

4. The Mawangdui burial mound is located in the northeastern section of Changsha 長沙, Hunan, formerly the Western Han Kingdom of Changsha, and was excavated in the early 1970s. It contains three tombs. Tombs no. 1 and no. 2 belonged to the Marquis of Dai 軟, Li Cang 禾蒼, and his wife (who was buried in tomb no. 1). Tomb no. 3, from which the manuscripts were excavated, was occupied by their son, who died in 168 B.C. at the age of about thirty. For the excavation report see bowuguan, Hunansheng and yanjiusuo, Zhongguo kexueyuan kaogu, “Changsha Mawangdui er, sanhao Hanmu fajue jianbao’ 39–48Google Scholar. On the dating of the Zhangjiashan tomb in Hubei and the identity of its occupant, see Dalun, Gao 高大倫, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu 張家山漢簡弓∣書研究 (Chengdu: Bashu, 1995), 5Google Scholar, and Yunzi, Shi 石雲子; ‘Jiekai Zhangjiashan Han mu muzhu zhi mi” 揭開張家山漢墓墓主之迷, Zhongguo wenwubao 1994, no. 14 (04 10), 3Google Scholar.

5. “Acumoxa” refers to zhenjiu 針灸 ‘acupuncture and moxibustion.” Moxibustion entails burning artemesia vulgaris (mugwort) over the body. Early references to cautery cannot be definitively linked to the use of the same herb. Therefore, in translating from the excavated texts we will simply render jiu as “cautery” or “cauterization.” Classical acumoxa theories are set out in the Huangdi neijing, a corpus now extant in three recensions. Each of these is a compilation of small texts dealing with separate topics which may reflect the thinking in a distinct medical lineage. The oldest texts are thought to have been set down at different times during the first or second centuries B.C. Collectively they represent the kind of debate throught which classical medical concepts matured. See Sivin, , “Huang ti nei ching’, 196–215Google Scholar; and Keiji, Yamada, “The Formation of the Huang-ti Nei-ching,’ Acta Asiatica 36 (1979), 67–89Google Scholar. The canons of acupuncture must also include Huangfu Mi’s Zhenjiu jiayijing and the Nanjing 難經 (Canon of difficulties; first or second century A.D.), translated in Unschuld, Paul, Nan-Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986)Google Scholar.

6. Cf. Jixing, Ma 馬繼興, “Shuangbaoshan Hanmu chutu de zhenjiu jingmai qimu renxing” 雙包山漢墓出土的針灸經脈漆木人形, Wenwu 1996. 4, 55–65Google Scholar, who chooses to attribute the designations of the excavated texts and the Huangdi neijing directly to the lines on the figurine. He also assumes the priority of the textual sources and understands differences between the written accounts and the lines to be variations of detail.

7. Several Yin channels recorded in the newly excavated Western Han texts are connected to the zang 臟 “internal organs,’ but the organs are not integral to the classi¬fication system of the channels, nor do we know much about how they were conceived. By the time of Huangdi neijing lingshu 黃帝內經靈樞 the organs form part of the name of each channel. See Huangdi neijing lingshu jing 黃帝內經靈樞經 (Shanghai: Shanghai guji, 1991Google Scholar; hereafter Lingshu), 10 (“Jingmai”), 3.340-47. Nominal Western correlates would be xin 心 “heart,’ pi脾 “spleen/pancreas,’ fei 肺 “lungs,’ shen 賢 “kidneys,” and gan 肝 “liver.” For a more detailed discussion of the concept and translation of zang see Unschuld, , Medicine in China: A History of Ideas, 77–83Google Scholar; and Sivin, , Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China 121–33Google Scholar.

8. For an extended discussion of the development of medical theories in China based on a clarification of the formation of the Huangdi neijing see Yamada, “The Formation of the Huang-ti Nei-ching”; see Unschuld, , Medicine in China: A History of Ideas, 93–99Google Scholar, for a reassessment of the origins of acupuncture. The Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan manuscripts have changed our understanding of the origins of acumoxa therapy. Some modern histories may still cite cryptic passages in the Zuo zhuan or references to needles to justify the assertion that acumoxa therapy was already practiced during the middle Zhou period (ca. 600 B.C.). Since the discovery of the manuscripts, however, most medical historians now agree that an essential fusion of the technical and theoretical elements at the foundation of acumoxa therapy could not have happened much before the first two centuries B.C. See Unschuld, , Medicine in China; A History of Ideas, 92–99Google Scholar; and Sivin, , “Huang ti nei ching,’ 197Google Scholar.

9. The two contrasting views of illness have been called ontological and physiologicai or functional respectively. For further discussion see Hudson, Robert P, “Concepts of Disease in the West,” in The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, ed. Kipie, Kenneth E (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993) 45–52Google Scholar; and Unschuld, Paul U., “History of Chinese Medicine,’ in The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, 20–27Google Scholar.

10. Yin is understood in its most basic sense of the softer, dark, inner, and lower aspects of the body (anterior, under the arms and legs) as opposed to the harder, light, and upper parts (posterior, superior, and visible) which are Yang.

11. Lingshu, 10, 3.340-47.

12. The first description of the contents of the Zhangjiashan bamboo texts appeared in xiaozu, Zhangjiashan Hanmu zhujian zhengli, “Jiangling Zhangjiashan Hanjian gaishu” 江陵張家山漢簡概述, Wenwu 1985.1, 9–15Google Scholar. A transcription of the Yinshu can be found in zu, Zhangjiashan Hanjian zhengli, “Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu shiwen” 張家山漢簡引書釋文, Wenwu 1990.10, 82–86Google Scholar (hereafter, “Yinshu shiwen”), accompanied by a detailed analysis by Hao, Peng 彭浩, “Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu chutan” 張家漢簡引書初探, Wenwu 1990.10, 87–91Google Scholar. An annotated text is also available; see Gao Dalun, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu. A photographic reproduction and transcription of the extant captions on the Daoyin tu can be found in xiaozu, Mawangdui Hanmu boshu zhengli, ed., Mawangdui Hanmu boshu 馬王堆漢墓帛書, vol. 4. (Beijing: Wenwu, 1985)Google Scholar. Jixing, Ma 馬繼興, Mawangdui guyishu kaoshi 馬王堆古醫書考釋 (Hunan: Hunan kexue jishu, 1992), 849–66, provides explanatory notesGoogle Scholar.

13. Graham, Angus, Chuang-tzu: The Seven Inner Chapters (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1981), 63–64Google Scholar.

14. See the discussion of the development of channel theory in Zhengsheng, Du 杜正勝, “Shilun chuantong jingmai tixi zhi xingcheng: jian lun Mawangdui maishu de lishidiwei” 試論傳統經脈體系之形成兼論馬王堆脈書的歷史地位, in Mawangdui Hanmu yanjiu wenji 馬王堆漢墓研究文集, ed. bowuguan, Hunan sheng (Changsha: Hunan, 1994), 99–106Google Scholar.

15. Shiji 史記 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1972), 105. 2788Google ScholarPubMed.

16. Unschuld, , Nan-Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues, 283Google Scholar.

17. Guan zi 管子 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1979), 39 (“Shuidi” 水地)Google Scholar, 2. 74. Yamada, , “The Formation of the Huang-ti Nei-ching,’ 80Google Scholar, also suggests that early theories about the channels are related to those about muscles.

18. These were first cast by Wang Weiyi 王惟一.the Director of the Imperial Medical Service, in 1027 A.D. with an explanatory text entitled Tongren shuxue zhenjiu tujing 銅人腧穴針灸圖經 (Illustrated canon of acumoxa for the bronze man transporting points). See Gwei-djen, Lu and Needham, Joseph, Celestial Lancets (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 131Google Scholar. The model kept in Japan's Tokyo National Museum is most likely to be one of the originals.

19. See Lu, and Needham, , Celestial Lancets, 131Google Scholar.

20. Leonardo Da Vinci also indicates the same ratio of 1:7. See Goldscheider, Ludwig, Leonardo Da Vinci: The Artist (London: Phaidon Press, 1943), plate 48Google Scholar.

21. Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, contains the official transcription of the Mawangdui medical manuscripts as well as photographs of the originals. Ma Jixing, Mawangdui guyishu kaoshi, also provides a transcription and full commentary for all of the medical texts (for many of the texts a modern Chinese rendering is also supplied). Analysis of the specific texts under examination in this article has also been carried out in Yimou, Zhou 周一謀,ed., Mawangduiyixue wenhua 馬王堆醫學文化 (Shanghai: Wenhui, 1994)Google Scholar. Also see Harper, Early Chinese Medical Literature, for a description of all of the Mawangdui medical texts and a complete annotated translation. The Zhangjiashan medical manuscripts are transcribed in “Maishu shiwen” and “Yinshu shiwen.” For another transcription with annotation and a rendering in modern Chinese see Dalun, Gao 高大論, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Maishu jiaoshi 張家山漢簡脈書校釋 (Chengdu: Chengdu, 1992)Google Scholar; and Gao Dalun, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu.

22. See Harper, , Early Chinese Medical Literature, 4Google Scholar, regarding the wooden tablet in Mawangdui tomb no. 3 that records the burial date. For the date of the Zhangjiashan tomb, see Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 3Google Scholar.

23. At this point we should belatedly explain our use of the terms “manuscript,” “text,’ and “document.” The latter term we use in the most general sense to refer to written material, while “manuscript” refers to the physical object containing written material. Thus a single sheet of silk with writing constitutes one manuscript, as do bamboo slips tied together to form one unit. Any one manuscript may contain a number of texts. The Chinese editors of the manuscripts tend to identify discrete texts by the unique expression of an idea, often characterized by a particular form, language, and grammatical structure. As with the texts under examination, the identification of a discrete text may be facilitated by editions of the same text appearing on different manuscripts. See the discussions in Roth, Harold, “Text and Edition in Early Chinese Philosophical Literature,’ Journal of the American Oriental Society 113 (1993), 227CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Harper, , Early Chinese Medical Literature, 3n.2, 17–18Google Scholar.

24. It should be noted that only Zubi jiujing consistently specifies cautery as the mode of medical intervention. We should not automatically assume that Yin Yang jiujing was orignally conceived as a cauterization manual.

25. Yamada, , “The Formation of the Huang-ti Nei-ching,’ 67–89Google Scholar, compares the s true-ture and content of the Yinyang jiujing and the Zubi jiujing with the “Jingmai” treatise of the Huangdi neijing taisu 黃帝內經太素, the version of the text which he considers the closest to the original Huangdi neijing. He also discusses the various schools of thought represented in the treatises of the Huangdi neijing. Keegan, David, “The ‘Huang-ti Nei-ching’: The Structure of the Compilations; The Significance of the Structure” (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1988), 67–157, 265–323Google Scholar, compares the Mawangdui editions of Yinyang jiujing and Zubi jiujing to Lingshu, 10. Citing Shiji, 105, the biography of the physician Chunyu Yi淳于意, as well as the Huangdi neijing, Keegan also examines the ritual transmission of medical texts and describes how the circumstances of transmission explain the multiple descendants of a single ancestral text as well as multiple ancestors of a single text. Each student may have chosen to copy and conflate texts in an order that reflected different hierarchies including the authority of a particular lineage, his succession of teachers, or perhaps the degree of his preoccupation with consistency (“The ‘Huang-ti Nei-Ching,” 219-38).

26. The combined treatises of the Huangdi neijing lingshu 黃帝內經靈樞 and Huangdi neijingsuwen 黃帝內經素問3化 generally considered to contain the core theory of traditional Chinese medicine, but to what extent they reflect medical orthodoxy of the Han dynasty is questioned by Akahori Akira who compares the Huangdi neijing material with medical ideas in the work of the contemporary author Wang Chong 王充. See Akira, Akahori, “Go-Kan shoki no igaku no ichi danmen” 後漢初期醫學の一斷面, in Tōyō no kagaku to gijutsu 東洋の科學技術(Kyoto: Dohosha, 1982), 171–89Google Scholar.

27. Anatomical terminology is not standardized in the tomb texts, although there is clearly an attempt to be systematic. Graphic loans and scribal error also contribute to the variations between different texts. It is also not possible to superimpose Western anatomical position and terminology onto these descriptions.

28. Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 3–6Google Scholar. Jixing, Ma, Mawangdui guyishu kaoshi, 9–10Google Scholar, notes that because Zubi jiujing and the other texts on the same manuscript are written in a script that is in between seal and clerical script, they are more accurately dated to the Qin period.

29. “Maishu shiwen,’ 72-73; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Maishu, 35–88Google Scholar. See also, Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 9–13Google Scholar.

30. Lingshu, 10, 3.340-47.

31. Ma Jixing separates the course of D4 and D5, taking the branch that continues over the head to be the Ceasing Yin Channel and the short branch that goes from the jaw to the mouth as a continuation of the Great Yin Channel. See Jixing, Ma, “Shuangbaoshan Hanmu chutu de zhenjiu jingmai qimu renxing,’ 56Google Scholar.

32. Ma Jixing takes D8 as the main channel and the line that joins it at the eyebrow as a branch of the Hand Lesser Yang Channel (which he draws somewhat differently to our diagram). See Jixing, Ma, “Shuangbaoshan Hanmu chutu de zhenjiu jingmai qimu renxing,’ 56Google Scholar.

33. See Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 145–52Google Scholar, for the transcription of Shiwen.

34. Lingshu, 10, 3.343.

35. Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 12Google Scholar; “Maishu shiwen,’ 73; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Maishu, 81–84Google Scholar.

36. In fact the description begins in the lungs and goes to the thumb.

37. Huangdi neijing suwen (Beijing: Renmin weisheng, 1994Google ScholarPubMed; hereafter, Suwen), 60, 16.320-21.

38. Nanjing ji zhu 難經集注 (Shanghai: Shangwu, 1955), 28, 3. 85–86Google Scholar.

39. An acupoint identified as being one cun above the hairline. See the discussion in Unschuld, , Nan Ching: The Classic of Difficult Issues, 328Google Scholar.

40. Zhenjiu jiayi jing, 3, 56–67Google Scholar.

41. Xinnong, Cheng, Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1990), 77Google Scholar.

42. Jixing, Ma, Mawangdui guyishu kaoshi, 103–4Google Scholar, speculates that the Ceasing Yin Channel of the arm and other channels named in the Huangdi neijing (including the dumai) were described after the eleven channel system of the excavated texts.

43. Zuo zhuan (Sibu beiyao ed. of Shisanjing zhushu 十三經注疏), Xi 15,14.3a (tr. Harper, , Early Chinese Medical Literature, 82)Google Scholar.

44. The first text in Maishu is a lexicon of illnesses, which in some cases gives definitions of variations on one symptom. In the section on illnesses of the bowel it states: “when the illness is … in the bowel–when there is pus and blood, and pain in the perineum, the spleen, the buttocks and lower abdomen, this is bowel flushing. When on eating it immediately comes out, this is diarrhoea. When blood comes out everywhere first, this is mai 脈.” Mai in this context is a technical name for an illness which is characterized by bleeding from the bowel. Irv the Wushier bingfang 五十二病方, one of the Mawangdui medical texts, maizhe refers to a type of haemorrhoid (Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 53)Google Scholar. Given the common symptoms accompanying such haemorrhoids, the maizhe may also refer to a small blood vessel protruding from the anus, which will inevitably tend to bleed. Both these early illness names may then be understood to connect mai 脈 with blood or with blood vessels. For a discussion of maizhe, see Harper, , Early Chinese Medical Literature, 269Google Scholar.

45. “Maishu shiwen,” 74; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Maishu, 96–102Google Scholar.

46. Shuowen (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1996), 11A.232Google Scholar.

47. The excavated texts have very little to say about the relationship of qi to the chan-neis. The closest association is made in the most innovative part of the Maishu, which is an edition of the Mawangdui text Maifa 脈法 (Model of the channels). See Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 17Google Scholar; and ‘Maishu shiwen,” 74. Qi can be influenced by cauterizing the channels. Most references to qi in the excavated medical texts refer directly to the substance in the respiratory or alimentary systems or, under the influence of breath cultivation, describe qi as travelling downwards in the body towards the extremities.

48. See the etymological analysis in Zhonghan, Liu 劉宗漢, ‘Changsha Mawangdui chutu boshu Jingmaishu yanjiu” 長沙馬王堆出土帛書經脈書研究, Yazhou wenming 亞洲文明 1992.2, 249Google Scholar; and Harper, , Early Chinese Medical Literature, 82–83Google Scholar. Both authors discuss the etymology of the interchangeable graphs for the mat 脈 and demonstrate the possibility of an early correlation between the blood vessels and streams. The Ian-guage of water distribution is often used in describing the channels and is an essential element in the development of channel theory. The figurine does not particularly add to our understanding of this aspect, so it is inappropriate to discuss it in detail.

49. Definition from The Concise Oxford Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976), 52Google Scholar.

50. Some passages in the Huangdi neijing appear to link pulsation with the flow of blood, although the movement of qi is always the primary association and there are no references to the heart as a pump. See the discussions in Unschuld, , Medicine in China: A History of Ideas, 76Google Scholar; and Sivin, , Traditional Medicine in Contemporary China, 137–39Google Scholar. In texts excavated from Western Han tombs mat refers both to the phenomenon of pulsation palpable at the surface of the body and to a route defined on the body. The two refer-enees are not necessarily differentiated; that is, the mai 脈 may be a pulsation that occupies a space (channel) beneath the surface of the body, only surfacing at specific points. There is no parallel concept in English.

51. The model of an integrated network of channels through which qi circulates can only be attributed to a small number of treatises in the Lingshu. See Lingshu, 18,4.35657; 15, 4.354; and 16, 4.354-55.

52. See “Maishu shiwen,” 74, which also gives a new transcription for the Mawangdui edition of the text (assigned the title Maifa 脈法; see Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 15–17)Google Scholar.

53. This sentence could also mean that “the sages have cool heads and warm feet,’ and if they practice what they preach indeed they should have. However, the focus of this section appears to be on the principles of therapy and so we have translated as if it were a therapeutic situation.

54. This is a recurrent adage that in this instance seems to indicate transferring excess to other parts. This style of thought, influenced by the tradition of bu 補 “supple-meriting” and xie “draining” encountered in the Mawangdui breath cultivation texts, probably developed into the supplementing and draining techniques that are ubiquitous in the Lingshu. The theory of these techniques is set out in Lingshu, 1,1.320-22.

55. This could also read “the channel with excess.” Jixing, Ma, Mawangdui guyishu kaoshi, 208Google Scholar, cites many instances of the early use of過as a “mistake,’ “error,’ or “abnormality.” Such a reading would not fundamentally alter the meaning; a channel that has overstepped its designated route or rhythm would also be a channel with abnormality.

56. Ma Jixing translates huan 環 here as a verb “to return” (hence Ma reads the original graph as huan 還), and suggests that the sentence means that one should cauterize when qi turns around and runs in the opposite direction. He glosses dang 當 as the modern yingdang 應當 “should, must.” See Jixing, Ma, Mawangdui guyi kaoshi’ 282–83Google Scholar. It is our view that this is unnecessary. The recurrence of huan 環 in the next sentence after the preposition yu 於 suggests that huan 環 could not be a verb. Harper, , Early Chinese Medical Literature, 214Google Scholar, translates “ring” and speculates that huan refers to the waist. The “ring” might also be the articulation of the joints. The very next sentence suggests that the intervention is made at the joints, by specifying treatment at the place where the qi comes out at the elbow or knee creases. By applying cauterization around the joints one can expect to change the direction of movement of qi in the body. In this treatment, the pathology is understood to be inconsistency in the direction of the flow of qi; “when the qi rises at one moment and falls in the next” the stone lancet is used to remedy the situation. Once the points for acupuncture were standardized it is easy to see that the point distribution was concentrated around the joints. Almost every channel that passes through the elbow, knee, neck, shoulder, wrist, and hip has a point at that junction. One can imagine that a natural articulation which at the same time was a narrowing of the body could be considered a significant impediment to a movement of qi through the body. The qi might be visualized as becoming squeezed and obstructed at this point, just as water swirls backwards when it meets a lock.

57. For the word “elbow” we follow the text of the Mawangdui Maifa, which writes zhou 肘“elbow”; Maishu writes fu 跗 “instep.” Apart from the possibility of inconsistent theories, this discrepancy could easily be a scribal error. The Maifa reading is more consistent with treatments at the knee and other joints.

58. See, for example, the Yellow Emperor's conversations with Rongcheng 容成 in the Shiwen, (Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 146–47)Google Scholar.

59. Longxiang, Huang 皇龍祥, “Cong Wushier bingfang ‘jiu qi tai Yin, tai Yang’ tanqi” 從五十二病方灸其泰陰泰陽談起, Zhongyi zazhi 中醫雜誌 1994.3, 152–53Google Scholar, argues that the names of the channels actually refer to the chief acupoint of each channel; for example, Foot Great Yin Channel designates the Foot Great Yin acupoint. Moreover, intervention to benefit the whole channel would be on this specific point. We are not persuaded by his argument, which is based chiefly on one ambiguous passage in the Mawangdui text Wushier bingfang. The idea that acupoints developed through an awareness and experience of the body in self-cultivation is examined in Vivienne Lo, “The Influence of Western Han Nurturing Life Literature on the Development of Acumoxa Therapy,’ in Chinese Medicine and the Question of Innovation. Festschrift in Commemoration of Lu Gwei-djen, ed. Elisabeth Hsu (forthcoming). Anatomical terms used in the Mawangdui texts that describe self cultivation, and in particular the literature that describes the sexual arts, are later adopted for acupoint names. For translations of the relevant sections which relate to the quepen 缺盆(Broken Bowl), an anatomical location later to be adopted as the name of the acupoint Stomach 12, and zhongji 中極 (Middle Extremity), which became the acupoint Ren 仁 3, see Harper, Donald, “The Sexual Arts of Ancient China as Described in a Manuscript of the Second Century B.C.,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47. 2 (1987), 539–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wile, Douglas, The Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics Including Women's Solo Meditation Techniques (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992), 51–73Google Scholar. For a history of the locations of these points, see The Location of Acupoints (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1990), 101 and 183Google Scholar. Wile, , The Art of the Bedchamber, 19–23Google Scholar, lists many points of similarity in the relationship between the medical texts and the sexual arts. With regard to the question of whether sexual practice should be traced as a separate history, independent of the history of mainstream medicine, Wile concludes that much is “borrowed” from medicine; that the practices have a different focus, but ultimately spring from a common matrix. Lo demonstrates that there is also “borrowing back,’ that the special focus of the sexual practices eventually contributes to medicine.

60. Suwen, 60 (“Gukong lun” 骨空論）, 16.320–21, is dedicated to intervention at the joints. The object of medical attention in the treatise is pain in the joints and the therapy of applying heat or needle directly to the site of distress. The location of acupoints is given with specific reference to the cavities between bones. Much of the treatment is focused on local treatment for pain in the joints. Many modern treatments appeal to the same simple and effective rationale. Legge, David, Close to the Bone (Woy Woy: Sidney College Publications, 1990)Google Scholar, is a modern textbook which describes how to treat musculo-skeletal disorders. While points distant from the site of pain are specified, much of the treatment is applied directly.

61. One way to interpret the instruction to apply cauterization or needle to a channel is that the treatment might be conducted all the way along the route of the channel. This practice is suggested in a rubbing of an Eastern Han stone relief, reproduced in Youxin, Ye 葉又新, ‘Shishi Dong Han huaxiangshi shang kehua de yizhen” 試釋東漢畫象石上刻劃的醫針, Shangdongzhongyi xueyuan xuebao 山東中醫學院學報 1981.3, 60–68Google Scholar, which depicts a half-bird/half-man physician (probably Bian Que) applying needles all along a woman's arm. However, other reproductions of the stone relief do not show the same number of needles so clearly.

62. Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 21Google Scholar; “Maishu shiwen,” 73–74.

63. It would seem logical that the three Yang relate to the three Yang channels of the leg and the three Yang channels of the arm discussed in the previous section. Later literature often refers to six Yang. Nanjing, 24, 3.79-80 refers to six Yang, while in a number of other references the three Yang are, as they are here. Great Yang, Lesser Yang, and Yang Illumination. See Jixing, Ma, Mawangdui guyishu kaoshi, 305Google Scholar. The three Ym of this text must also refer to the three Yin channels, but the absence of the third Yin channel of the arm presents a difficulty in completing the correspondence.

64. The Maifa also indicates that the pulse is palpated at the ankle on the Ym channels of the leg (see “Maishu shiwen,” 74; and Jixing, Ma, Mawangdui guyishu kaoshi, 104–7)Google Scholar. The absence of these channels provides further evidence to support the view that the figurine is not in the same tradition as the excavated texts.

65. Simiao, Sun 孫思邀, Beijiqianjin yaofang 備急千金要方 (Beijing: Renmin weisheng, 1955)Google Scholar, chapter 27, is titled “Yangxing” 養性 (Nuturing nature). The chapter includes instructions on massage, adjusting the qi, breathing exercises, and the sexual arts. The most comprehensive account in English of nurturing life practice can be found in a collection of articles in Kohu, Livia, ed., Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques (Michigan: Center For Chinese Studies, University of Michigan, 1989)Google Scholar. For a summary of this and a related Japanese collection, see Pregadio, Fabrizio, “Two Recent Books on the Taoist ‘Cultivation of Life,’“ Cahiers d'Extrême Asie 5 (1989–1990), 387–404Google Scholar.

66. Tanba, no Yasuyori, 丹波康賴, Ishinpō 醫心方 (Beijing: Huaxia, 1993), chapter 27Google Scholar. For some remarks on the sources of the nurturing life material, see Barrett, Timothy, “On the Transmission of the Shen Tzu and of the Yang-Sheng Yao-Chi” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 2 (1980), 168–76Google Scholar. The range of practices associated with the term “nurturing life” is redefined according to the norms and practices of each particular period. The five practices represented in the Mawangdui and Zhangjiashan manuscripts are breath cultivation, sexual cultivation, therapeutic gymnastics, regulated sleep, and dietetics.

67. See Lo, Vivienne, “He Yin Yang: Xi Han yangsheng wenxian dui yixue sixiang fazhan de yingxiang” 合陰陽：西漢養生文獻對醫學思想發展的影響, , Yin Yang wuxing yu Zhongguo gudai siwei moshi 陰陽五行與中國古代思維模式, ed. Allan, Sarah (forthcoming)Google Scholar.

68. “Yinshu shiwen,’ 85. See Harper, , Early Chinese Medical Literature, 85Google Scholar.

69. We follow the interpretation in Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 122, n.1Google Scholar.

70. “Yinshu Shiwen,’ 83; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 122–23Google Scholar.

71. Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 147Google Scholar.

72. In translating yin as “pull” we are following Despeux, Catherine, “Gymnastics: The Ancient Tradition,’ in Taoist Meditation and Longevity Techniques, 225–61Google Scholar. The interpretation of yin will naturally influence our analysis. On the one hand yin refers to “pulling’ the body in various kinds of physical movements. Yin followed by an ailment name refers to “pulling” the ailment, presumably “pulling” (some part of the body) to “pull” or “remove” the ailment; i.e. to treat the ailment. In American English “pull” has the sense of “eliminate, remove” which is appropriate in this context. Yin is often translated “stretch,’ but we feel that this would be too limiting given the wide range of interventions described throughout the text.

73. “Yinshu shiwen,’ 82; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 106–7Google Scholar.

74. See especially the arm position of the first figure on the right in the fourth register of the Daoyin tu, Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, “Plates”, 49Google Scholar.

75. “Yinshu shiwen,’ 85. Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 160–61Google Scholar.

76. Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 6Google Scholar.

77. The sixth exercise figure from the right in the first register of the Daoyin tu has the same caption (Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 95)Google Scholar.

78. “Yinshu shiwen,’ 82; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 104–5Google Scholar.

79. “Yinshu shiwen,’ 84; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 145Google Scholar.

80. “Yinshu shiwen,’ 83; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 112–13Google Scholar.

81. Yinshu shiwen,’ 85; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 159–60Google Scholar.

82. Shuowen, 7B.154 ‘ glosses lou 瘻 as a “swelling of the neck.” The Maishu states that “in the neck it is lou.” See “Maishu shiwen,’ 72.

83. A differentiation of the various channels that traverse the neck is made on the basis of which sinews, the Yang (outer) or Yin (inner), that they are associated with. The channel associated with Constant Yang may well refer to the pulse of the carotid artery, which is both constant and easily palpable. With the exception of Constant Yang, the other names are specifically identified as names of sinews.

84. See the comprehensive discussion of the development of physiological ideas and in particular the relation of muscles and vessels in Harper, , Early Chinese Medical Literature, 84–86Google Scholar. Harper is skeptical about whether we can extrapolate a whole body system from the naming of sinews in the Yinshu passage.

85. Mawangdui Hanmu boshu, vol. 4, 155Google Scholar. See also Harper, , “The Sexual Arts of Ancient China,” 566–79Google Scholar; and Ling, Li and McMahon, Keith, “The Contents and Terminology of the Mawangdui Texts on the Arts of the Bedchamber,” Early China 17 (1992), 167–69Google Scholar.

86. “Yinshu shiwen,” 85; Dalun, Gao, Zhangjiashan Hanjian Yinshu yanjiu, 158–59Google Scholar. The canthus is usually denoted with the word zi 眢. There are a number of instances in the Maishu and the Yinshu where the use of mai does not seem to be theoretically linked to channel theory, but reflects some regional variation. In the Maishu, the word mai is used to describe a “screen” or cataract as well as haemorroids that protrude from the anus (“Maishu shiwen,’ 72).

87. The Location of Acupoints, 125.