9 Reading Visual Imagery and Written Sources on Acupuncture and Moxibustion

Huang Longxiang 黃龍祥

There is a general tendency among scholars of medical his- the Tiansheng reign period of the Northern Song dynas- tory, when recovering and working with primary sources, ty), with the publication of Tongren shuxue zhenjiu tujing to focus on the written word at the expense of material 銅人腧穴針灸圖經 (Illustrated Bronze Man Canon of artefacts and visual evidence. This has, to a greater or lesser Acupuncture and Moxibustion), also known as Tiansheng degree, hindered progress across the entire field. Zhenjing 天聖針經 (Tiansheng Acupuncture Canon). This Having spent much of the past 20 years recovering classic text records 354 acu-moxa points, with methods for manuscripts, and reconstructing the illustrated scrolls finding the points, therapeutic indications, and needling that reveal the development of moxibustion, I have come and moxibustion procedures. To reach a wider audience, to feel, more and more strongly, that one picture really is it was not only published in book form, but also engraved worth the proverbial thousand words. When examining on stone steles. In 1443 (8th year of the Zhengtong reign historical data, I find myself wary if significant (or indeed period of the Ming dynasty), new engravings were made essential) visual evidence is not to hand. This article sets under the auspices of the Imperial Academy of Medicine to out to show, with the help of some representative examples, replace the time-worn Song steles. Though the Ming stone the kind of pitfalls that await medical historians when they engravings of the Illustrated Bronze Man Canon no longer neglect visual information. survive, three complete rubbings exist in China and Japan. These national standards were not just set down in writing; they were also given visible and tangible form Case 1: The ‘Tiansheng Bronze Figure’ and in the ‘Tiansheng Bronze Man’ (Tiansheng tongren 天聖 Tiansheng Acupuncture Canon 銅人), a standing human figure cast in bronze with the channels and points shown on the surface. Subsequently, no There are a few acupuncture locations recorded in re- one seems ever to have questioned whether the prevailing ceived literature from the early Han period such as Sima interpretation of this canonical text was the correct one, Qian’s 司馬遷 Shiji 史記 (Records of the Historian),1 let alone to have considered that it might have been inter- which details a treatment at the wai san yang wu hui 外 preted differently in different epochs, or even by different 三陽五會 (Outer Three Yang and Five Meetings, thought individuals living in the same epoch. But then came the to be equivalent to the well known acupoint baihui 百會, discovery of a replica of the Bronze Man, created during the One Hundred Meetings) on the crown of the head. Body Zhengtong era of the Ming (1436–49). All of a sudden, we channels are archaeologically attested in text and artefact became aware of a tremendous gulf between our present from the 2nd century bce, while the earliest extant set of understanding of the words of the Bronze Man Canon and points for needling can be found in a manuscript from c. the intentions of the authors, and we gained a sense of the 1st century ce recovered at the Wuwei 武威 tomb site in sheer variety of possible interpretations, both diachronic modern Gansu, which marks a series of locations sited and synchronic. This was particularly true of the passages along the spine, However, those points are not shown on on the acu-moxa locations of the head, the shoulders, the channels. Thus the early evidence suggests a separate abdomen and the back of the thighs. The three locations development of acupoints and channels. There are also called hanyan 頷厭, xuanlu 懸顱, and xuanli 懸厘 are a many roughly contemporary acu-moxa points scattered case in point (see Table 1).2 through the Huangdi neijing 黃帝內經 recensions, a large corpus of medical writings that were compiled in various recensions over the course of the Han dynasty. However, there was not any systematic coordination of acupoints and channels until Huangfu Mi’s 皇甫謐 (215–82) Zhenjiu jiayi jing 針灸甲乙經 (282). Thereafter, the first standardised national system of 2 Wang Wei 王惟 (Song period), Tongren shuxue zhenjiu tujing 銅 acu-moxa locations was established in 1026 (4th year of 人腧穴針灸圖經 (Illustrated Bronze Man Canon of Acupunc- ture and Moxibustion) (3-juan edn). Rubbing of the stone en- 1 Shiji 105, edn. Beijing, Zhonghua shuju, 1972, p. 2,792. graving of the Ming Zhengtong era. 162 huang longxiang 黃龍祥

Figure 9.1 Replica of the Song Bronze Man, Ming Zhengtong era Figure 9.3 Tongren shuxue zhenjiu tujing, Song (960–1279) lithograph

Figure 9.2 Tongren shuxue zhenjiu tujing 銅人腧穴針灸圖經, Ming Figure 9.4 Head of the Ming Zhengtong Bronze Man, viewed from (1368–1644) woodblock print the side showing the locations of hanyan 頷厭, xuanlu 懸 顱, and xuanli 懸厘 on the back of the head