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Rashid Ad-Din As a Transmitter of Chinese Medicine to the West

Rashid Ad-Din As a Transmitter of Chinese Medicine to the West

RASHID AD-DIN AS A TRANSMITTER OF CHINESE MEDICINE TO THE WEST

Rashid ad-Din Fa∂lullah al-Hamadhani (1247-1318) was one of the greatest Persian historians of medieval . His numerous works, how- ever, that deal with almost the whole of sciences are much less known. Being a physician like his father, Rashid ad-Din showed much interest in Chinese medicine. It is virtually unknown that he became the first who transmitted Chinese medicine to the . In this paper we want to stress Rashid ad-Din's unique engagement in Chinese medical literature.

I. Rashid ad-Din the Physician

As we can conclude from his vast scientific works, still hardly known, Rashid ad-Din's medical education was that of the Græco- Islamic medical tradition. Since antiquity this tradition prevailed in the Hellenistic world and was adopted later also by the Muslim doctors. It continued to survive when in the the conquered the eastern parts of the Islamic . The acquisition of these coun- tries by the Mongols brought into contact two differnt cultures, i.e. the Græco-Islamic and the Chinese civilizations. Rashid ad-Din was most active in bringing into contact these two cultures: he planned to realize and activate this contact and to introduce and disseminate Chinese med- icine into the Western world. As visier of the Mongol of the Ilkhans, Rashid ad-Din had the power and the authority to realize this plan. Rashid ad-Din tried to integrate the Chinese and the Græco-Islamic medicine at a time when the Mongols had invaded and occupied . Under these circumstances it was unpopular for a visier at the Mongol court of the Ilkhans to disseminate and civilization. The Chinese for their part regarded the Mongols as barbarians, because they had a higher civilization than their Mongol rulers. With view to the ten- sions that prevailed between both nations, i.e. the Mongols and the Chi- nese, Rashid ad-Din's attempt to bridge the gap must be called extraor- dinary, as this becomes clear from a short survey of the political situation of the time we are dealing with. 396 F. KLEIN-FRANKE AND M.

II. The Political Situation of Rashid ad-Din's Time

The period we are dealing with coincides with the first half of the period of the Dynasty in China. It was a period of expansionist policy and frequent attacks by the Mongols. The Grandkhan Khubilai (reigned from 1260 to 1295), one of Chinghiz Khan's grandsons, con- quered China and wiped out the Dynasty in the south. The Mon- gols in Persia, i.e. the Ilkhans, expanded to the west as far as the Mid- dle East. In an attack that began in 1251, the Mongols conquered the countries west of their empire and uprooted their peoples and dynas- ties, above all the {Abbasid dynasty of the central Muslim empire with Baghdad as its capital. In 1271, Khubilai called his dynasty by the name Yuan which means “original, primary". Thus for the first time in China's history a dynasty was not called according to the old name of a certain clan or the place of its habitation. The Mongols split into several . The rulers in Iran belonged to the Ilkhan Dynasty which was founded in 1256 by Hülägü, another grandson of Chingiz Khan. In the same year, Hülägü, ordered by his brother Möngke, conquered Iran and one year later also Iraq. During the second half of the 13th century, however, the Mon- gols of Iran began to abandon their policy of raiding western countries partly because they were absorbed by rivalries that broke out among their own clans. They withdrew from the far western territories which they previously brought under their sway and settled down in the east- ern parts of the former Muslim empire, especially in the region of what is modern Iraq. Until the end of the 13th century the Mongol rulers in the west kept loyal to the central Khanate in the capital Dadu, known also by its Turkish name , north-east of the old city of Peking. Partly having embraced the Christian faith or adhering to , the Mongol rulers later converted to Islam, the of most of their subjects in the west. On June 16, 1295, the day of his accession to the throne, Ghazan, a grandnephew of Khubi- lai, converted to Islam, followed later by his brother and successor to the throne, Öldjeitü. Under these two rulers Rashid ad-Din held the position of a grandvisier or chancellor at the Ilkhan court. Although, in the year 1258, the Mongols deposed the caliph in Baghdad, i.e. the spiritual head of the Muslim faithful, and thus interrupted the contin- uous line of successors that went six hundred years back to Prophet MuÌammad, the Mongol rulers in Iran became . Thus the ter- ritories held by the Ilkhan Mongols could be regarded as part of the Muslim world. CHINESE MEDICINE TO THE WEST 397

III. The Book Called Tansuqnamah In 1938 A. Süheyl Ünver discovered in the Aya Sofya (St. Sofia) Library in Istanbul the Persian manuscript we are dealing with. The cat- alogue of the library refers to this manuscript which bears the Nr. 3596 simply as “book in Persian language dealing with " while its original title is “Tansuqname-i Ilkhan der fünun-i{ulum-i Khatai", i.e. Book of Precious Informations of the Ilkhan on the Various Branches of Chinese Sciences. The Persian word “tansuq", “tansukh" or “tanksuq" is of Sanskrit origin and means precious, rare etc. Thus “Tansuqnamah" may be translated as book of precious informations, book of rare trea- sures etc. The famous Muslim historian NaÒir ad-Din at ™usi (died June 26, 1274) wrote a book which he also called Tansuqnamah. The discov- ery of Rashid ad-Din's Tansuqnamah has not drawn the attention it deserved neither from sinologues nor from experts of medieval Islam. There were historians who quickly judged the book to be a Persian trans- lation of the Pulse Poem written by - without taking notice of Rashid ad-Din and comparing his Persian text with the Chinese original version. Other historians who dealt with the history of the Mon- gols in Iran and their relation to China overlooked the Tansuqnamah although they mentioned Rashid ad-Din quite often. To our opinion, the greatest difficulty in doing this research is posed by its linguistic problems and by the nature of its topic. The scholar who embarks on this research is challenged to read a Chinese poetical text written in Arabic letters (cf. IX).

IV. The Identity of the Tansuqnamah Rashid ad-Din's Tansuqnamah contains two parts: Part I is a preface written by Rashid ad-Din (pp. 1-78), whereas Part II bears the title “Book (of) Wank Shu-" (pp. 78-519). By comparing the Persian text with the Chinese literary sources, we are now able to state the identity of the Tansuqnamah. Previous attempts to identify the book went through several stages of misidentification. Although on page 202,-4 it is clearly stated that Wang-he is the name of the author and that the book bears the title Mai Jue, i.e. Pulse Poem, A. Süheyl Ünver wrongly considered Wank Shu-hu to be the title of the book. It was soon recognized, how- ever, that Wang Shu-he (we use the transliteration) refers to Wang Xi, also called Wang Shu-he (about 210-285 A.D.), the author of the “Mai Jing", i.e. “Pulse Classic", the first comprehensive book on sphygmology now extant in China. Wang Shu-he perfected and system- ized the of pulse-taking. But the remark on page 202,-4 of the manu- 398 F. KLEIN-FRANKE AND M. ZHU script is partly wrong. For the author of the Mai Jue referred to is not Wang Shu-he but a later commentator called Gao Yang-sheng. His Mai Jue, i.e. Pulse Poem, is also extant, and so later scholars have accord- ingly identified the Tansuqnamah with Gao Yang-sheng's Mai Jue. This, however, is wrong in two aspects. Firstly the Tansuqnamah is not iden- tical with Gao Yang-sheng's Mai Jue. From a thorough comparison of the Persian text of the Tansuqnamah and the Chinese text of Gao Yang- sheng's Pulse Poem we were able to conclude that both books are not identical and that the latter is its main source. Secondly the Tansuq- namah contains also great parts of other Chinese medical literature, apart from sphygmology, as we will demonstrate later.

V. The History of Compiling the Tansuqnamah

In order to disseminate Chinese medicine and to integrate it into the existing Græco-Islamic medical system wealth and power were required. Rashid ad-Din had both. As he tells us in his preface (p. 24), he sent a young student of medicine and into the service of a Chinese scholar and hired for him also a tutor who knew the so that he was able to learn to speak and to write Chinese. From this young student Rashid ad-Din obtained some knowledge of Chinese culture, e.g. of the Chinese way of writing in a pictographic system and knowledge of Chinese astrology. In order to carry out his duty of informing Rashid ad-Din about Chi- nese medicine it was presumably this young student who came back to Rashid ad-Din with a Chinese manuscript that was given to him as Wang Shu-he's Book on Pulses. Rashid ad-Din stressed that until his time there existed no translations of Chinese scientific literature and that no one ever engaged in exploring Chinese sciences, except NaÒir ad Din ™usi who during the reign of Hülägü expressed his wish to be taught Chinese by a Chinese scholar (p. 11). Rashid ad-Din engaged translators and ordered them to translate Chi- nese books on history and natural sciences. The only one that has been preserved is the Tansuqnamah which he ordered to be translated into Persian, the language spoken also at the Ilkhan court. The unique manu- script, preserved in the Istanbul library Aya Sofya, has been completed in the year 1313 A.D., i.e. five years before Rashid ad-Din's violent death. We have used a microfilm of this manuscript. Rashid ad-Din tried to integrate Chinese medicine into the Græco- Islamic medicine. As such his merits are undisputed. As a means of pre- caution to avoid a “cultural clash", Rashid ad-Din reshaped the Tansuq- CHINESE MEDICINE TO THE WEST 399 namah in the Spirit of Islam. This was indeed necessary in order to transmit to a Muslim society. Since he could not offend the Muslim reader the text had to be changed. Therefore wher- ever necessary the translator added eulogies like “Allah knows best". On page 121,3 reference has been made even to the Islamic sect of the Ash{arites. The Tansuqnamah is the first translation of Chinese med- ical literature into a foreign language. Rashid ad-Din proudly com- pared himself to the {Abbasid caliph Harun ar-Rashid (p. 7,-3) who almost five hundred years earlier ordered Greek scientific literature to be translated into Arabic and added that the achievements of the Greek would not have become known and the antique sciences would not have developed, unless Harun ar-Rashid had ordered the Greek scien- tific literature to be translated. We may conclude that Rashid ad-Din saw himself acting in the role of the caliph Harun ar-Rashid to rescue the old Chinese medical literature from oblivion and to let Chinese medicine develop.

VI. The Structure of the Tansuqnamah

The Persian manuscript is incomplete. We are told by Rashid ad-Din in his preface that the Tansuqnamah contains 4 books. Books II-IV, however, have not been found so far. Book I, the only extant out of four books, is composed of 2 parts, i.e. Rashid ad-Din's preface (Part I) and the Tansuqnamah (Part II). The second part has two lists of contents, namely a general list of the 12 chapters (pp. 79-82) and a detailed list of its sections, parts, and subdi- visions (pp. 82-104). When we compared this latter list with the con- tents of Part II, we realized that parts of it are missing. The great lacuna begins at the fifth section of the third chapter and pertains to the second section of the sixth chapter. Thus about 110 pages out of total 519 pages are missing. This gap has been filled from other sources of Chi- nese medical literature, especially from the “Su " and “Nan Jing". “Su Wen" is the “Plain Questions of Huangdi's Internal Classic", originally consisting of 9 volumes, with 81 articles. After the Wei Dynasties (3.-5. centuries A.D.), there were left only 8 volumes. In the (618-907 A.D.), when Wang made notes and com- mentaries on the book, he divided it into 24 volumes and supplemented some of the lost articles. The book includes a variety of subjects, such as human anatomy, and physiology, causes of diseases, pathology, diagno- sis, differentiation of symptoms and signs, treatment, disease prevention, 400 F. KLEIN-FRANKE AND M. ZHU health preservation, man and nature, the application of the theories of Yin and Yang and of the Five Elements in medicine, the theory of the promotion of the flow of vital energy, etc. The book is prized by physi- cians of all generations. “Nan Jing" is the “Difficult Classic" or “Classic on Medical Prob- lems", a book prepared in the 1st or 2nd century B.C. Its authorship is unknown, though tradition ascribes it to Qin Yue-. It deals with fun- damental medical theories and expounds the main points of “Nei Jing", i.e. “Internal Classic" in the form of questions and answers. The points of and moxibustion, the method of needling, the physiolog- ical and pathological conditions of the Channels and Collaterals, and the method of feeling the pulse are all discussed. Part II of the extant first book is not identical with Wang Shu-he's Book on Pulses (Mai Jing). This 2nd part comprizes a comprehensive introduction into the fundaments of Chinese medicine, taken from a compilation of different origin (chapter 1-3 of the Tansuqnamah). Chapter 4-12 is a detailed information about Chinese pulse diagnosis, which is mainly based upon the book Mai Jue (Pulse Poem), com- monly attributed to Gao Yang-sheng. The book Mai Jue was wide- spread in the period of the Song- and the Yuan-Dynasties (10th-13th centuries). Rashid ad-Din's preface (= Part I) and the subsequent Tansuq- namah (= Part II) are two independent parts of the book. The preface reveals that its author, Rashid ad-Din, had quite unsufficient knowl- edge of Chinese medicine and was led by misunderstanding and imag- ination. He probably was not aware of the fact that, for instance, by channels in Chinese medicine not the blood-vessels, but the pathways of vital energy are meant. Rashid ad-Din sticks rather to concepts of the Græco-Islamic medicine, linked with some information of his own interest in Chinese medicine, his efforts to obtain Chinese medical books and to learn the Chinese language, to introduce Chinese astrol- ogy and the Chinese calender. Rashid ad-Din's preface is no com- mentary of the Tansuqnamah. In his preface Rashid ad-Din, instead, developed his own medical thinking. His language is picturesque and full of allegories and metaphors and makes his expressions vivid and eloquent. A great part of his preface is dedicated to cauterization and its mechanism for the purpose of elaborating how blood circulation repairs the body. Although cauterization is not used in Chinese medi- cine, the preface is highly interesting, since many views expressed in his preface reflect the advanced level of medical research at his time. CHINESE MEDICINE TO THE WEST 401

VII. Gao Yang-sheng's “Pulse Poem", the main source of the Tansuq- namah

As mentioned in Part II (page 202,-4), the Tansuqnamah is called Wang Shu-hé's Mai Jue: The Chinese character “Mai" means pulse, while “Jue" means poem. This book is written in the style of classical poetry, i.e. each sentence consists of 7 (Qi ). Since poetry can easily be memorized, the Mai Jue became wide-spread during the period of the Song- and the Yuan-Dynasties (10th-14th - turies). The discussion on the Mai Jue began at the time of the Song- and the Yuan-Dynasties and lasted in China for about three to four hundred years until the dynasty (16th century). Among the topics under discussion was the question who was the author of the Mai Jue. Many scholars and physicians during the Song- and the Yuan-Dynasties con- sidered Gao Yang-sheng to be the author of the Tansuqnamah. No his- torical records exist to inform us about the dates of his life. Gao Yang- sheng lived presumably in the 6th or 7th century. Others preferred the famous name of Wang Shu-he in order to make the book more popular. Gao Yang-sheng's Mai Jue has a peculiar pulse classification, namely 7 Exterior Pulses (Qi Biao), 8 Interior Pulses (Ba ) and 9 Sorts of Pulses (Jiu Dao). This classification makes the Mai Jue distinct from other books of Chinese pulse diagnosis, but also arose great arguments by many scholars and physicians. For instance, one of them was Dai Qi- zong in the who wrote the book Mai Jue Kan Wu (i.e. The Correction of the Errors in Mai Jue); another example was the great physician Li Shi-zhen (1518-1593 A.D. in the ), the author of the famous book on pulses called Pin Hu Mai Xue. They all contradicted this kind of classification and held that many definitions of pulses in Mai Jue are inaccurate and confused. There are striking similarities between the Tansuqnamah and Gao Yang-sheng's Mai Jue. The text of the Tansuqnamah which refers to the pulses is, too, written in verses each of which has 7 characters, the same as in Mai Jue. Another similarity between the two books can be drawn from the unique classification of Mai Jue which is the same also in the Tansuqnamah, i.e. the group of 7 Exterior Yang Pulses (Qi Biao), the group of 8 Interior Yin Pulses (Ba Li) and the group of 9 Sorts of Pulses (Jiu Dao). The pulses in both books are identical, although their order is somewhat differnt. By comparing the Persian text of the Tansuqnamah with the Chinese text of the Mai Jue, we conclude with certainty that the primary source 402 F. KLEIN-FRANKE AND M. ZHU of Part II, inasmuch as the pulses are concerned, is Gao Yang-sheng's Mai Jue. This conclusion is supported by many other clues, e.g. by the similar structure of both books.

VIII. Other Sources of the Tansuqnamah It is a striking fact that no sources, contemporary or of recent past, have been mentioned in the Tansuqnamah, such as the Recipes for Sav- ing Lives ( Sheng Fang, also called Yan Shi Ji Sheng Fang) which was written by Yan Yong-he in the 13th century, or the works of at least three of the four famous physicians of the Jin-Yuan Period who had great influence on the development of Chinese medicine. They were Liu -su (1120-1200 A.D.) who started the School of Cold and Cool Medicine; Zhang Zi-he (1156-1228 A.D.), also called Zhang - zheng who started the Attacking or Purgative School; and Li Gao, also called Li Dong-yuan (1180-1251 A.D.) who was considered the founder of the School of Nourishing the Earth or Strengthening the Spleen and Stomach. The following names of physicians have been found in the Persian manuscript, above all that of (? -208 A.D.; page 199,7), the most famous surgeon and master of all branches of medicine. There are, however, other names of physicians, possibly, who could not be identi- fied because of the uncertain spelling of their names. We mention them with the necessary precaution: Ji Dai-meng: 391,-2; 392,10; 393,7; 394,5; 417 ult.; 418,6; 460 ult. etc. Jin-fang: 326,10 Su Jiu-xin: 326,11 Li Men-shu: 326,11; 329,7 etc. Du Gui-dong: 326,11. Li Men-shu is quoted (page 329,7) for having said that the Ji Mai (Swift Pulse) indicates strength of Yin and Weakness of Yang. He is also quoted (p. 327 ult.) for having said that the Se Mai (Hesitant Pulse) indicates deficiency of blood and imminent abortion when it happens to a pregnant woman etc. Another dictum is quoted in Li Men-shu's name (page 296,-3) who made comments on the Mai (Floating Pulse).

IX. Linguistic Remarks The peculiarity of the Tansuqnamah – and a serious obstacle to researching into it – is its being bilingual. Certain parts of the book, i.e. all poems and direct quotations, have been rendered in a phonetic tran- scription by Arabic letters, a kind of Pinyin written in Arabic transliter- CHINESE MEDICINE TO THE WEST 403 ation. The translator of the Chinese text felt that certain sounds of the Chinese language could not be rendered adequately by Arabic letters. Therefore he preferred to use symbols for this purpose. On every page of the Tansuqnamah there are single words and even coherent sentences of prosaic or poetic Chinese texts. The translator apparently wanted the text to be as clear as possible. Therefore he circumscribed the sound of the Chinese words by equivalent Arabic letters. The Persian translation of the Chinese text, written in Arabic letters, has usually been added below each word. The way of writing, however, is often so careless, and in addition also the ink has mostly been damaged, so that it is difficult even to guess what is meant. Because of the Chinese transliterated texts the research into the Tansuqnamah is very difficult. The principles of transliterating the Chinese texts by Arabic letters can be summarized as follows (cf. also H. FRANKE, Some Sinological Remarks on Rasîd ad-Dîn's , in Oriens, 4 [1951], pp. 21-26). Key to the abbreviations: M = Mandarin, T = Tansuqnamah, P and C in brackets denote the Persian or the Chinese origin of the quota- tion: Final “n" in M appears in T often as “m", e.g. M “xin" (= heart) < T “sim" (p. 274,-4). M “san" (= three) < T “sam" (p. 365 ult.). M “yin" < T “yim" (p. 106 ult.) etc. – But M “n" is not always changed into “m", e.g. M “chun" (=spring, p. 278), M “gan" (= liver, p. 113; p. 280,2; p. 281,2) etc. Sometimes final “n" in Mandarin texts is omitted in the of the Tansuqnamah, e.g.: M “guan" (= frontier pass, name of the middle position of the radial pulse) < T gua (p. 111); M “cun (= inch, name of the upper position of the radial pulse at the wirst) < T “cu" (p. 111,3) etc. Since the translator of the Chinese text felt that certain sounds of the Chinese language could not be rendered adequately by Arabic letters, he preferred to use symbols for this purpose. He used them, however, inconsistently. Thus, e.g., Chinese “shui" (= water) is written with the regular “shin" of the Arabic alphabet (p. 409,6), but also with a symbol (p. 82,-2). To make reading the Chinese transliterated text even more complicated, this symbol has two different forms. While modern Pinyin makes no difference in transcribing the sibilant sound “s" in “san" (= three) and “si" (= four) being written with the same letter, in T “san" is written “sam" and “s" in “si" is written with a symbol (p. 269 ult.), being an emphatic “s". The glossator who added a Persian translation below each word of the Chinese text had poor knowledge of the Chinese language and of Chi- 404 F. KLEIN-FRANKE AND M. ZHU nese medicine as well. When he read the Persian transcription of M “guan" (= name of the middle position of the radial pulse), i.e. “ku" (page 111), he believed that this is M “kou" and translated it by Persian “dahan" i.e. “mouth". We hope that further research will solve the remaining problems, e.g. the identity of the physicians mentioned in the Tansuqnamah, and pro- mote our knowledge of the history of Chinese medicine to which Rashid ad-Din has contributed so much.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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The Hebrew University of Jerusalem Felix KLEIN-FRANKE Jerusalem Israel

Beijing University of Traditional ZHU Ming Chinese Medicine & Pharmacy China

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