Huangdi Neijing: A Synopsis with Commentaries

Appendices

Appendix 1 The Scope of Neijing Neijing has 144,000 characters, Lingshu 138,000. Neijing is divided into 81 chapters (pian 篇) (of which two are missing), distributed among 24 volumes (juan 卷). Lingshu also has 81 chapters, but only 12 volumes. If 282,000 characters are divided between 160 subjects it gives us an average of 1,800 words for each subject. This is indeed a very concise treatise on any serious subject in matters of academic or medical import. This highlights the importance of the chapter titles that allow us to recognise the differences between them. In ancient China, the title of a classic work was often borrowed from the first few words of the text, as ancient authors did not have the habit to entitle a certain piece. An example is the poem in Shijing: Qinfeng, Jianjia 詩經：秦 風．兼葭 (Odes from the Land of Qin: The Reeds). Here, the reeds (jianjia) of the title are just a metaphor that serves to set the stage for a besotted young man pining for his love. A dense carpet of reeds in white flower at the riverbank only serves to accentuate the white frost on them, adding a tragic tone to the unattainable love on the other side of the river. This is the same way a religious chant (e.g. Agnus dei) or an operatic aria (e.g. Nessun dorma) might be named. This means that a comprehensive but meaningful translation of the 162 chapter titles, including the two missing ones, is required so that the reader might grasp an idea as to the full scope and detailed contents of Neijing, while reading only one-eighth of the entire text. A full translation of the chapter titles would necessitate many footnotes, because in some cases the key words bear no explicit relation to the chapter content. In this book, only the paraphrased titles, and their standard abbreviations , where applicable, are used. In quoting from Lingshu, the entire short Neijing.indb 467 2010/2/26 7:00:00 PM 468 Appendix 1 title in Chinese is used verbatim but its translation requires some expansion, as the key words by themselves encode a large volume of information. Very often, in the multitude of Neijing literature, the chapters are quoted simply as Su: 1 or Ling: 1. That will leave the inexperienced reader wondering what the chapter is about. The Suwen chapter titles below are paraphrased with due consideration of the interpretation of Gao Shi-zong (ref. 14), who provided a concise exegesis for each chapter title, often based on a homophonic approach, but nevertheless with meaningful arguments. Suwen Chapter Titles Volume One Chapter 1: On [how to conserve the] genuine nature [or, simply put, macrobiotics]. Chapter 2: On seasonal variation of zang-organ function. Chapter 3: On harmony between yinqi and yangqi. Chapter 4: On harmony between men and Nature. Volume Two Chapter 5: On the phenomena of yin-yang [the core of medical thinking]. Chapter 6: On the reciprocal relationship between yin and yang. Chapter 7: Further discussion on yin and yang types of disease. Volume Three Chapter 8: On visceral organ functions. Chapter 9: On the cycles of climatic changes. (This includes an addendum of 761 characters possibly by Wang Bing himself). Chapter 10: Physiological function of the five solid visceral organs (zang) and their correlations. Chapter 11: Review of the physiological function of the normal and odd (zang) organs. Volume Four Chapter 12: On environmental factors and the treatment of disease. Chapter 13: On invocations [as a form of psychotherapy]. Neijing.indb 468 2010/2/26 7:00:00 PM Appendix 1 469 Chapter 14: On the principles of medication with decoctions and tinctures. Chapter 15: Review of medical classics of the pre-Neijing period. Chapter 16: Essentials of diagnosis by pulse-taking and expiry of qi. Volume Five Chapter 17: On the finer points of diagnosis by pulse-taking. Chapter 18: On normal pulse patterns based on stomach function. Volume Six Chapter 19: On a comparison between normal pulse patterns and critical/ moribund pulse patterns. Chapter 20: On the different sites of pulse-taking. Volume Seven Chapter 21: Further discussion on conduits. Chapter 22: On seasonal changes of visceral organ functions. Chapter 23: Tabular presentation of visceral organ functions, their correlations and their pathological manifestations. Chapter 24: Discussion on the psychosomatic relationship between body and mind. Volume Eight Chapter 25: On the outward appearance of the body related to...