Neijing Tu


The Neijing Tu is a Daoist "inner landscape" diagram of the human body illustrating Neidan, Wu Xing, Yin and Yang, and Chinese mythology.

Title

The name Neijing tu combines,, and. This title, comparable with, is generally interpreted as a "chart" or "diagram" of "inner" "meridians" or "channels" of Traditional Chinese medicine for circulating qi in neidan preventative and observational practices.
English translations of Neijing tu include:
  • "Diagram of the Internal Texture of Man"
  • "Diagram of the Inner Scripture"
  • "Chart of Inner Passageways"
  • "Diagram of Internal Pathways"
  • "Chart of the Inner Warp" or "Chart of the Inner Landscape"
has an alternate writing of, using as a variant Chinese character for.

History

While the original Neijing tu provenance is unclear, it probably dates from the 19th century. All received copies derive from an engraved stele dated 1886 in Beijing's White Cloud Temple 白雲觀 that records how based it on an old silk scroll discovered in a library on Mount Song. In addition, a Qing Dynasty colored scroll Neijing tu was painted at the library in the Forbidden City.
The Neijing Tu was the precursor for the. The earliest anatomical diagrams with Daoist Neidan symbolism are attributed to and conserved in the 1250 CE.

Contents

The Neijing tu laterally depicts a human body as a microcosm of nature – an "inner landscape" with mountains, rivers, paths, forests, and stars. Joseph Needham coins the term "microsomography" and describes the Neijing tu as "much more fanciful and poetical" than previous Daoist illustrations.
The textual descriptions include names of zangfu organs, two poems attributed to, and quotations from the.
The Neijing image of a mountain with crags on the skull and spinal column elaborates upon the "body-as-mountain" metaphor, first recorded in 1227 CE. The head shows Kunlun Mountains, upper dantian "cinnabar field", Laozi, Bodhidharma, and two circles for the eyes. The flanking poem explains.
The white-headed old man's eyebrows hang down to earth;
The blue-eyed foreign monk's arms support heaven.
If you aspire to this mysticism;
You will acquire its secret.

Chinese constellations figure prominently. The heart depicts holding the. Together with his archetypal lover, they propel qi up to the tracheal Twelve-Storied Pagoda. The liver and gall bladder are a forest, the stomach is a granary, and the intestines caption reads "the iron ox ploughs the field where coins of gold are sown" referring to the Elixir of life. At base of the spine are treadmill waterwheels being run by two children representing yin and yang.