1 Chinese Medical Illustration: Chronologies and Categories Wang Shumin 王淑民 and Gabriel Fuentes This chapter is concerned with illustrations that were in- The Earliest Extant Illustrations in Chinese cluded in medical texts prior to the end of the Qing dynasty Medical Texts (1644–1911): it establishes two key genres of illustration for both manuscripts and block-printed texts, and points out Illustrated Manuscripts essential features and controversial issues. Many of the In 1973, a cache of manuscripts was found in Tomb 3 at the earliest texts were written on slips of bamboo or wood or Han-dynasty Mawangdui 馬王堆2 burial site in Changsha pieces of silk. After the invention of papermaking tech- (capital of Hunan province). The cache yielded some 30 niques, texts began to be written on scrolls; subsequently manuscripts containing 45 texts on a variety of subjects paper productions were bound in concertina or sūtra-fold ranging from astronomy and cosmology to ritual and phi- format (jingzhe zhuang 經摺裝), which paved the way for losophy, and including many maps, diagrams and pictures.3 various types of folded-leaf binding. The illustrations with- They were buried in the time of the Han emperor Wendi in these texts included sketches, diagrams, and coloured 漢文帝 (202–157 bce), although some appear to have been drawings. There are also manuscript genres that are pri- copied at an earlier date. Seven manuscripts, all concerned marily pictorial such as selfstanding charts.1 with healing and enhancing the body, are stored in a sep- The earliest printed books were produced using carved arate box, indicating that they were considered to belong wooden blocks, generally made of pear or date wood. to a distinct category. Among them is the earliest extant This technique allowed for a relatively fast production of set of images illustrating daoyin 導引, literally ‘leading duplicate copies. There were also a small number of lith- and guiding’, a form of therapeutic exercise discussed in ographic prints, produced with stone blocks. The images several chapters in this volume (Fig. 1).4 in these books are known in Chinese as muke banhua This kind of exercise was in some contexts referred to as 木刻版畫 (xylographic images) and shiban hua 石版畫 a form of yangsheng 養生 – a term for practices concerned (lithographic images). with the cultivation of human life in all its myriad forms, Figure 1.1 Daoyin tu 導引圖 (Guiding and Pulling Chart), Mawangdui, tomb 3 (closed 168 bce). Silk, reconstruction. © Wellcome Library, London, L0036007 2 For transcripts see Mawangdui boshu zhengli xiaozu vol. 4, 1985. 1 See Bray, Dorofeeva-Lichtmann and Métailié (eds) 2007. An im- The tomb was closed in 168 bce. portant genre that emerged later was the tupu 圖譜 (illustrated 3 Harper 1998, pp. 14–36. register), where text and image were complementary and close- 4 During the excavation process the daoyin chart sustained se- ly integrated; Bray, Dorofeeva-Lichtmann and Métailié (eds) vere damage, and the illustration in Figure 1 is a reconstruction; 2007, pp. 1, 38–40 et passim. Mawangdui Hanmu boshu zhengli xiaozu 1985, vol. 1. 30 wang shumin 王淑民 and fuentes Figure 1.2 Dunhuang Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra 金剛般若波羅密經 (Diamond Sūtra), 868. © The British Library Board Or. 8210/P.2, frontispiece and text which is still used today in reference to traditional ways bce–220 ce) to the Northern and Southern Song dynasties of nurturing the body. The polychrome chart is painted (960–1279), a large number of daoyin works circulated, but on a piece of silk measuring approximately 100 cms x 50 due to the ravages of political fragmentation during much of cms. It shows 44 figures bending, stretching and pulling this time, most of those works have been lost. Only a small their bodies into different positions. They are young and number have survived, without illustrations, and often just old, women and men, some with naked upper bodies, as citations in later works. Looking at the Mawangdui chart, others clad in long or short robes, perhaps designed to one can see clear relations between these Han-dynasty facilitate the performance of the exercises. Many of the depictions and later textual accounts of daoyin exercises, postures mimic the movements of animals and birds, and such as those described in Hua Tuo’s 華陀 Wuqin xi 五禽 they include simple chest expansions, leg and arm raises, 戲 (Five Animals Frolics), the Eight-section Brocades, and and stretching postures. Some of the adepts can be seen even the modern practice of Taiji quan.7 crossing one leg over another, twisting and contorting their torsos, jumping or swinging their limbs. Exercise aparatus Earliest Block Print Illustrations such as staffs, sandbags or balls aid a regimen that, as There is much controversy about the origin of woodblock we know from contemporary texts, aimed at resolving print illustrations, with some scholars giving very early pain and strengthening the body to enhance longevity.5 dates, but the earliest extant evidence is famously the Scholars have associated these movements with ritual Dunhuang Vajracchedikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra 金剛般若 dances dating to the Spring and Autumn (770–476 bce) 波羅密經 (Diamond Sūtra), which dates to 868 ce in the and Warring States (475–221 bce) periods,6 but by the time Xiantong 咸通 reign period of the Tang dynasty (Fig. 2). of this Mawangdui evidence, it is clear that the practice However, it is probable that the first printed Chinese had become more pervasive, at least in aristocratic circles; medical illustrations date to just before this time. In the and although contemporaneous texts describe the move- Dunhuang ‘Library Cave’8, a work was found that describes ments in relation to the cycles of Heaven and Earth, they have a distinctly secular feel to them. From the Han (202 7 Wang and Barrett 2006. 8 Mogao Grotto 17, the so-called ‘Library Cave’, was a monastic 5 Lo 2014: http://www.nri.cam.ac.uk/yinshu.pdf. repository of some kind, which was walled up in the 11th cen- 6 Sterckx 2002, pp. 128–37. tury for reasons still unknown, and not rediscovered until 1900. chinese medical illustration 31 Figure 1.3 Illuminated Hall chart showing the loci of the head and shoulders, ms. P.2675. © courtesy of Bibliothèque nationale de France methods of moxa-cautery or moxibustion:9 it is known by is written in characters that are noticeably larger than the modern title Xinji beiji jiujing 新集備急灸經 (Newly those of the acupoint terms also contained in the chart, Compiled Canon of Emergency Moxibustion Remedies).10 marking it out as a title. This is a significant discovery, Although the Dunhuang exemplar is in manuscript form, it for it is the earliest extant diagram of the human body includes a passage stating that it was printed in the eastern identified as ‘Mingtang’, a designation formerly known market of the capital by the Li family, so we know that it only through received texts. The lower half of the body is was hand-copied from a woodblock printed version. The no longer present because of damage to the manuscript. colophon attributes the copying to Fan Ziying 範子盈 and It may be conjectured that there were originally also back ‘Yin-Yang’ (Daoist adept) Fang Jingxun 汜景詢, and tells us and side views, but no trace of those remain.12 Although that they executed the manuscript in close collaboration, the illustrations are incomplete, from this evidence it may completing their work on the 25th day of the 12th month be inferred that the earliest Chinese medical woodblock in the 2nd year of the Xiantong reign period (i.e. 861 ce).11 illustrations had begun to appear by 861 ce. As well as copying the text of the Canon of Emergency Rare illustrations from Liu Jia’s 劉甲 1185 edition of Moxibustion Remedies, Fang and Fan copied illustrations, Jingshi zhenglei beiji bencao 經史證類備急本草 (Classified including an illustration showing the moxibustion locations Pharmacopoeia for Emergency Use, Based on Classics and of the upper body in frontal view (Fig. 3). Above the head, Historical Sources) present a visual narrative sequence of the word ‘Mingtang’ 明堂 (Illuminated Hall or Bright Hall) the entire process involved in collecting and preparing edible sea salt for distribution. Of two interrelated illus- It was found to contain a cache of some 50,000 manuscripts as trations (Fig. 4), the first depicts a scene of workers in an well as various sacred objects. The Library Cave is located off the inlet on the seashore, collecting ocean water. The second the northern wall of the entrance passageway of Grotto 16. sets forth an action-packed scene of subaltern workers 9 Throughout this volume the terms moxa-cautery and moxibus- boiling salt; in the middle ground a workman is bringing tion are used to refer to heat treatments applied to the surface of firewood loaded into baskets which hang on the ends of the body. The latter term mainly refers to burning ai 艾 (Artemi- a shoulder pole, while others are carrying off containers sia vulgaris) on the skin, and sometimes on acu-moxa locations. 10 Now held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, cat. no. presumably loaded with sea salt. A man sitting in the P.2675. 11 Lo in Lo and Cullen 2005, p. 233. 12 Wang Shumin in Lo and Cullen 2005, pp. 413–4. 32 wang shumin 王淑民 and fuentes offices in the background must be the salt official, while those facing the reader are clearly overseers. One of the overseers appears to be shouting and gesticulating, and we are caught up in the heightened mood of wrangling about the manufacturing process. Since the Han dynasty (202 bce–220 ce), there had been government monopolies of the mining, manufacture and sale of salt in China.