Huangdi Neijing


, literally the Inner Canon of the Yellow Emperor or Esoteric Scripture of the Yellow Emperor, is an ancient Chinese medical text or group of texts that has been treated as a fundamental doctrinal source for Chinese medicine for more than two millennia. The work comprises two texts—each of eighty-one chapters or treatises in a question-and-answer format between the mythical Yellow Emperor and six of his equally legendary ministers.
The first text, the, also known as Basic Questions, covers the theoretical foundation of Chinese Medicine and its diagnostic methods. The second and generally less referred-to text, the, discusses acupuncture therapy in great detail. Collectively, these two texts are known as the or. In practice, however, the title Neijing often refers only to the more influential.
Two other texts also carried the prefix in their titles: the and the, both of which have survived only partially. The book was popular among Taoists.

Overview

The earliest mention of the was in the bibliographical chapter of the , next to a that is now lost. A scholar-physician called Huangfu Mi 皇甫謐 was the first to claim that the in 18 juan 卷 that was listed in the bibliography corresponded with two different books that circulated in his own time: the and the, each in 9 juan. Since scholars believe that was one of the 's earlier titles, they agree that the Han dynasty was made of two different texts that are close in content to the works we know today as the and the.
The is the most important ancient text in Chinese medicine as well as a major book of Daoist theory and lifestyle. The text is structured as a dialogue between the Yellow Emperor and one of his ministers or physicians, most commonly, but also. One possible reason for using this device was for the authors to avoid attribution and blame.
The departs from the old shamanistic beliefs that disease was caused by "demonic influences", and qi. These systems of abstraction of natural phenomenon aid our understanding of natural processes of which human health is among. Man is a microcosm that mirrors the larger macrocosm. The principles of yin and yang, the five elements, the environmental factors of wind, damp, hot and cold and so on that are part of the macrocosm equally apply to the human microcosm. Traditional medicine is a way for man to maintain this balance.

Date of composition

Before archeological discoveries at Mawangdui, Hunan, in the 1970s, the work had been dated to between the Warring States period to as late as the Han dynasty. However, excavations found medical texts that changed this opinion. Jianmin Li, Vivienne Lo and Donald Harper agree that the systematic medical theory in the Neijing shows significant variance from Mawangdui Silk Texts, which were sealed in a royal tomb in 168 BCE. Because of this, they consider the Neijing to have been compiled after the Mawangdui texts. Historian of science Nathan Sivin concluded that the and probably date to the first century BCE, far later than most scholars would have dated it before the discoveries at Mawangdui. Those medical texts also show that it is not one book, "but a collection of diverse writings, many of which disagree and some of which comment on others. He is also of the opinion that "no available translation is reliable."
They therefore challenge earlier arguments. Celestial Lancets states that the consensus of scholarly opinion is that the Suwen belongs to the second century BCE, and cites evidence that the is earlier than the first of the pharmaceutical natural histories, the. So suggestive are parallels with third and fourth century BCE literature that doubt arises as to whether the Suwen might be better ascribed to the third century BCE, implying that certain portions may be of that date. The dominant role the theories of yin/yang and the five elements play in the physiology and pathology indicates that these medical theories are not older than about 320 BCE.
The German scholar Paul U. Unschuld says several 20th-century scholars hypothesize that the language and ideas of the were composed between 400 BCE and 260 CE, and provides evidence that only a small portion of the received text transmits concepts from before the second century BCE. The work subsequently underwent major editorial changes.
Du Fu, a fourteenth-century literary critic, was of the opinion that the was compiled by several authors over a long period. Its contents were then brought together by Confucian scholars in the Han dynasty era.

Wang Bing version

In 762 CE, Wang Bing finished his revision of the after labouring for twelve years. Wang Bing collected the various versions and fragments of the and reorganized it into the present eighty-one chapters
According to Unschuld Wang Bing's version of the was based on Quan Yuanqi's commented version of the consisting of nine and sixty-nine discourses. Wang Bing made corrections, added two "lost" discourses, added seven comprehensive discourses on the five phases and six qi, inserted over 5000 commentaries and reorganized the text into twenty-four juan and eighty-one treatises.
In his preface to his version of the, Wang Bing goes into great detail listing the changes he made.
Not much is known about Wang Bing's life but he authored several books. A note in the preface left by the later editors of the which was based on an entry in states that he was an official with the rank of and died after a long life of more than eighty years.

Authoritative version

The "authoritative version" used today,, is the product of the eleventh-century Imperial Editorial Office and was based considerably on Wang Bing's 762 CE version. Some of the leading scholars who worked on this version of the were 林億 Lin Yi, 孫奇 Sun Qi, 高保衡 Gao Baoheng and 孫兆 Sun Zhao.
For images of the printed in the Ming dynasty, see the external links section below.

English translations

;Sinological translations
  • Handbooks for Daoist Practice, translated by Louis Komjathy. Ten volume set of pamphlets, where volume three of the set is Yellow Thearch's Basic Questions. Only the first two discourses out of the total eighty-one are translated.
  • Beginning in 2003, the Sinlogists and scholars of Chinese medical history Paul Unschuld, Hermann Tessenow and their team at the Institute for the History of Medicine at Munich University published several volumes of translation and scholarly apparatus. the, including an analysis of the historical and structural layers of the.
;TCM-style translations
  • The Medical Classic of the Yellow Emperor, translated by Zhu Ming, Foreign Language Press, Beijing, China, 2001, 302 pages. . An edited version of the with the treatises reordered by topic. About a 20–25 percent of the is translated. Includes annotations and commentaries by translator.
  • Yellow Empero's Canon of Internal Medicine, translated by Nelson Liansheng Wu and Andrew Qi Wu. China Science & Technology Press, Beijing, China, 1999, 831 pages. . Complete translation of both and. Contains the text in simplified Chinese characters, along with alternate variants of text also in simplified characters. The alternate variants of the are not translated, only the main version is translated. None of the commentary by Wang Bing is translated.
;Medical history translations
  • Huang Di nei jing su wen: Nature, Knowledge, Imagery in an Ancient Chinese Medical Text, Unschuld, Paul U., 2003. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California.. Analysis and history of the. Includes significant portions of the translated into English.
  • The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, translated by Ilza Veith. University of California Press, December, 2002, 288 pages. . Translation of: Wang Bing's 762 CE preface, the c. 1053 CE Imperial Office's preface, a historical account of the from chapter 103 of the and the first thirty-four chapters of the. Includes an extensive introductory study with illustrations. The first published English translation of the.

    Modern Chinese translations and references

  • , Guo Aichun, 1999, vi, 1296 pages. Tianjin Kexue Jishu Chubanshe, Tianjin, China. . Contains text in simplified characters, variants, annotations and Modern Chinese translation. Contains comprehensive index of terms. All Chinese in simplified characters.
  • , Guo Aichun, 1991, vi, 1296 pages. Tianjin Kexue Jishu Chubanshe, Tianjin, China.. Dictionary of terms in simplified Chinese.
  • , 王冰 Wang Bing, 林億 Lin Yi, 孫奇 Sun Qi, 高保衡 Gao Boheng, 1965. Series: Sibu Beiyao. Zibu, volumes 409–410. Taibei Shi: Taiwan Zhonghua Shuju Mingguo. OCLC control number: 24985568. Contains Suwen, Wang Bing's annotations and annotations by 1053 CE Imperial Editorial Office, also in small characters. The Imperial Editorial Office annotations are proceeded by 新校正 xin jiao zheng. All characters in traditional form.