Tao Hongjing (456-536), a famous pharmacist and Taoist during the Southern and Northern Dynasties. The character is clear, self-proclaimed Huayang Tao hermitage, Mr. Zhenbai. A native of Danyang Moling (present-day Nanjing, Jiangsu).
In terms of medicine, a total of 730 kinds of drugs in the Shennong Materia Medica and the Famous Doctors' Catalogue were compiled and annotated into the Annotations on the Materia Medica, which is an important document of ancient Chinese Materia Medica after the Shennong Materia Medica.
In terms of prescription science, he has written books such as "Effective Test Prescription" and "General Recipe for Medicine", and supplemented Ge Hong's "Elbow Reserve Emergency Formula", called "One Hundred and One Sides After Supplementing the Elbow".
In terms of guidance, there are "Health Care Extension Record", "Health Care Sutra" and so on. He expounded Taoism and founded the Maoshan Sect, which had a profound impact on the development of Taoism in later generations.
Jiang Zhaohe paints "Tao Hongjing"
1. Prime Minister Yamanaka, Senior Councilor of the State Council
Tao Hongjing was born into a Family of Southern Dynasty Scholars. His grandfather, Tao Long, was a good martial artist and knew medicinal properties. His father, Tao Zhenbao, was an all-rounder in literature and martial arts. Influenced and raised by such a family, Tao Hongjing was intelligent and studious from an early age, often using reeds as a pen at the age of four or five, learning to write in the gray sand, writing banners at the age of 6, and starting to read the "Four Books" and "Five Classics" at the age of 7. At the age of 10, he read Ge Hong's book "Biography of the Immortals" and "studied day and night", and since then he has been determined to learn medical health. He said to the people: "Look up to The clouds, see the day, and feel that it is far away." "At the age of 15, he wrote "Looking for mountains".
Tao Hongjing has a wide range of interests, knows the rhythm of music, loves to play the piano, writes well, works in cursive books, has a gentle penmanship, and has a plain and simple style. At the age of 19, he looked "beautiful and beautiful, with clear eyes and clear eyebrows", which can be described as both talents and appearances, and Emperor Qi Gao recruited him to read for the kings and read for the kings.
At this time, although Tao Hongjing was in Zhumen, he had a heart for Taoism, worshiped Sun Youyue as a teacher, learned the Taoist Rune Sutra, and then traveled near and far, traveling to Dahong Mountain, Taiping Mountain, Tiantai Mountain and other places, visiting the Tao, learning alchemy and medicine.
Emperor Qi Gao did not understand his idle cloud and wild crane-like life, and he specially composed a poem "Asking The Mountain What All The Poems Answer" (Reply to the Qi Gao Emperor's Edict): "What is in the mountains, there are many white clouds on the mountains." It can only be pleasant to yourself, and it is not enough to hold the king."
Yeah, what can be in the mountains? Only the light and ethereal white clouds, which are of high character and the ethereal spirit of the wind, can appreciate its magical charm. His interest lies in the Baiyun Qingshan Forest Spring, but unfortunately he can't make Emperor Gao understand the interest, just like the white clouds in the mountains are difficult to hold. He expressed his refusal in a euphemistic manner.
His pleasure of sending love to mountains and clouds is vividly reflected in the "Book of Thanks": "The beauty of mountains and rivers has been discussed in ancient times." The peak into the clouds, the clear stream to the bottom, the stone walls on both sides of the strait, the five colors of the light, the green forest and green bamboo, the four hours are ready, the dawn fog will rest, the apes and birds are chaotic, the sunset is decadent, the scales are racing, it is really the immortal capital of the desire world, since the recreation, there has been no one who can be strange with it. ”
Tao Hongjing's "Book of Thanks"
During the reign of Emperor Wu of Qi, Tao Hongjing was edicted at the age of 32 to be a courtesan. The request of the emperor was the intention of the chancellor Shuo to ask the emperor for orders. In ancient times, the spring pilgrimage was "asahi" and the autumn asahi was "please". In order to accommodate idle officials in the Southern Dynasty, the number of officials in the Southern Dynasty increased to more than 600 and became one of the official titles.
At that time, it was a chaotic war between the north and the south, and the government was in a state of confusion and flesh and blood. Tao Hongjing was tired of this kind of official life, and in the 10th year of Yongming (493), at the age of 37, he resolutely asked for retirement. Emperor Qiwu, feeling sincere, gave him a silk veil and ordered him to give five catties of Poria and two liters of white honey in the month to serve bait.
When he left the capital, the imperial court secretary of state made a feast for him at the Zhengyu Pavilion, and the banquet was grand, and the carriages and horses that sent the pedestrians blocked the road. Everyone said that since Song and Qi, they had never seen such a grand send-off scene. People in the government and the public all think it is an honor.
Stills from "Langya List"
After getting rid of the shackles of the officialdom, Tao Hongjing has been living in seclusion in Huayang Cave in Maoshan (that is, Guqu Mountain, Jiangsu), practicing Taoism and Practicing Dan, treating people's diseases, writing books and sayings, living a life of leisure and freedom, and he calls himself "Huayang Tao Hermitage".
During his seclusion, he often traveled to the mountains, searching for magic medicines and collecting prescriptions. He loved charity, gave relief to the poor, did not seek fame and fortune, and had the virtue of a good doctor. At that time, Dongyang (present-day Jinhua, Zhejiang) County, shou Shen Yue, admired his knowledge and noble discipline, "tired of books to invite him", asked him to go out of the mountains to become an official, he did not accept. Later, after Shen Yue's death, Tao Hongjing wrote a poem to mourn:
I have several lines of tears, and I have not fallen for more than ten years. Today is the end of the king, and sprinkle before the autumn wind.
In 502, Xiao Yan usurped the power of the Qi Dynasty, and Tao Hongjing sent his disciples to fengbiao to propose changing the name of the country to "Liang", and Emperor Wu accepted his advice.
Emperor Wu of Liang traveled with Tao Hongjing in his early years, and after becoming emperor, his grace and courtesy to Tao Hongjing were more generous and thoughtful, and they exchanged letters endlessly, and emissaries sent to visit Tao Hongjing continued one after another. He wanted him to become an official and assist the government.
Emperor Wu of Liang "repeatedly added courtesy", and he did not go out of the mountain. He once drew a painting as an answer: he drew two cows, one eating grass freely, and the other with a golden head and led by the nose of a man with a whip. When Emperor Wu of Liang saw it, he knew his intentions and was no longer reluctant.
Later, Emperor Wu of Liang could not do without the assistance of Tao Hongjing, and whenever he encountered an inaccurate or important state event, he often wrote letters and sent people to Guqu Mountain to consult Tao Hongjing, and Tao Hongjing wrote back to Emperor Liangwu with his views and pointed out the policy.
As a result, the imperial court and the Jurchen Mountains continued to communicate, and although Tao Hongjing was outside the world, he became a decision-making figure in the imperial court, and people at that time called him "The Prime Minister of the Mountains". The correspondence between Emperor Wu of Liang and Tao Hongjing can be seen in the Quan Liang Wen, which includes Emperor Liangwu's "Book of Answering Tao Hongjing" (four poems), "Replying to Tao Hongjing Book", "Replying to Tao Hongjing into the Zhou Clan Meditation Book", and Tao Hongjing's "Qi with Emperor Liangwu".
In the second year of Datong (536 AD), Tao Hongjing was 81 years old and died without illness. On his deathbed, he instructed his disciples to be "buried thinly", without bathing, without a coffin, but with only two layers of straw mats and old clothes for burial.
2. Poor "Yoshiko the Borer"
When Tao Hongjing was reading, he encountered things that were difficult to understand, and he always had to think repeatedly to find the correct answer.
Once, he read the Book of Poetry, and in the "Xiaoya Xiaowan" verse "The moth has a son, the moth bears the burden", saying that there is a kind of earth bee called the worm, there are males and no females, can not reproduce, it will bring the borer back to the nest to raise, the moth as a "righteous son".
The borer is a small green insect, also known as the double-banded nocturnal moth, rice green worm, rice dumpling worm, measuring scale worm. In addition to harming rice, it also harms crops such as sorghum, corn, sugarcane, and russet. The grasshopper is a parasitic bee that looks like a bee, but is smaller than a bee. The head is spherical in shape and has a thin waist, this kind of small waist and large butt earth bee nests mostly on branches, trunks, stones, on the ground and in buildings. Because the grasshoppers are gone, people call the adopted sons "borers".
Tao Hongjing was skeptical about the interpretation of the "righteous son" of the borer: the borer and the cockroach are two different kinds of insects, with very different appearances and sizes, how can different things become the same?
He consulted many books, the Han Dynasty Yangxiong's "Fa Yan Xuexing": "The son of the borer is killed and the worm is killed." The Wei and Jin poet Liu Ling's "Ode to Wine" has such a verse: "Looking down at all things, disturbing Yan, such as the duckweed of Jiang han; the side of the Erhao waiter, Yan is like a worm and a borer." "All accounts are the same as in the Book of Verses. He decided to find out.
Tao Hongjing found a nest of grasshoppers, carefully pulled the nest open with bamboo pieces, and found that there were grasshoppers, both male and female, as well as the borers and many small meat worms that it had brought. He observed what these little flesh worms were, and after looking at them for a long time, he didn't understand them.
One day, Tao Hongjing went to see this nest of grasshoppers again, and saw that the small flesh worms were biting a borer, and those bitten borers were only half of their bodies. A day later, he found that the borers in the nest had all been eaten, and the small flesh worms had become pupae. Two days later, the pupa turned into a small grasshopper and flew away from the nest.
I see! Tao Hongjing suddenly realized: the worm has offspring, it is first those small meat worms; the borer is used by the worm to feed the small meat worm, not as a "righteous son".
Originally, the cockroach pierced the body of the borer with a needle in its tail, injected it into the paralysis, and then placed it in the bee bee to feed the larvae hatched from the eggs of the grasshopper. After the eggs hatch into small larvae, they feed on borers. The ancients mistakenly believed that the borer did not produce "seeds", so they fed the borers as "sons", and even used the metaphor of "borers" to refer to the righteous son. The secret of "Yoshiko Borer" was finally exposed by Tao Hongjing.
From this short story, it can be seen that Tao Hongjing explored things very carefully, and he explored drugs with a scientific attitude, so he achieved great achievements.
III. Major contributions to pharmacology
In terms of medicine, Tao Hongjing wrote 7 volumes of "Notes on the Materia Medica Classics", 3 volumes of "One Hundred And One Sides after Filling the Elbow", 2 volumes of "General Recipe of Medicine", 3 volumes of "Tao Fang", and 5 volumes of "Effective Examination Fang". These books have long been lost, and only some fragments of the Dunhuang Stone Chamber Tibetan Scriptures and the Turpan Manuscripts of the Commentaries on the Materia Medica remain. The main contents of the Commentary on the Materia Medica have been preserved in medical books such as the "Evidence-like Materia Medica" and the "Compendium of Materia Medica".
Since the advent of the Shennong Materia Medica, there have been Materia Medica works such as Cai Yong Materia Medica, Wu Pu Materia Medica, and Li Dang's Medicine. On the basis of the Shennong Materia Medica, these works have added some new drugs and rearranged and summarized them, but their style is not systematic enough, the content is relatively simple, and there are many errors.
Beginning in 492 AD, Tao Hongjing surveyed and sorted out the Shennong Materia Medica, which was completed in 500 AD. He revised and brought into play the 365 kinds of medicines contained in the Shennong Materia Medica, and added 365 kinds of medicines by famous doctors such as Zhang Zhongjing, Hua Tuo, and Wu Pu, totaling 730 kinds, and compiled them into the "Notes on the Materia Medica".
At the time of writing, the content of the original book was copied with Zhu Pen, the materials of the famous doctors were copied with ink pens, and Tao Hongjing's annotations were copied in small characters, preserving the original appearance of the Shennong Materia Medica and enabling the original text of the Shennong Materia Medica to be handed down.
"Tao ZhenBai Collection" book shadow
Tao Hongjing's contributions to pharmacology are mainly: First, in the classification of drugs, for the first time, the "three products" classification method of drugs in the Shennong Materia Medica was changed to be classified according to the attributes in nature.
He believes that "the three products are mixed, hot and cold are wrong, grass and stones are not distinguished, insects and beasts are not distinguished, and the main treatment, mutual gains and losses, doctors can not be prepared, then the wisdom is shallow and deep", he divided the drugs into jade, grass and trees, insects and beasts, fruits, vegetables, rice, famous unused and other seven categories, in addition to the famous unused categories, the remaining six categories are divided into upper, middle and lower three categories.
He believes that medicine has the rank of jun, subject, zuo, and envoy; drugs have different properties of non-toxicity, toxicity, and multi-toxicity, and have different properties such as mutual necessity, mutual envoy, mutual fear, mutual evil, opposite, and mutual killing, so they have different therapeutic functions.
He regards the medicine as a king, the Lord nourishes the life to respond to the heavens, non-toxic, take more for a long time, take it does not hurt people, can lighten the body, do not age, such as ginseng, jujube, goji berries, licorice and so on.
Chinese medicine is regarded as a subject, and the main nourishment should be used by people, including non-toxic and poisonous, and should be used as appropriate, which can curb the disease and make up for deficiency, such as lily, kudzu, huanglian, ephedra, etc.
The next product is regarded as an envoy, the main cure is to respond to the place, more poisonous, can not be taken for a long time, can remove the cold and heat evil qi, break the accumulation of diseases, such as coriander, aconitum, appendages, wolf poison, hook kiss, etc., mostly for the poison to attack the poison of the strong drug. The drug is divided into three products, which is convenient for doctors to inquire and summarize the drug.
Second, Tao Hongjing has new expositions on the sexual taste, origin, collection, form, identification, preparation and application of drugs. For the cold and hot taste of the drug, he used Zhu and ink dots to distinguish between Zhu dots, with Zhu dots as hot, ink dots as cold, and no dots as flat.
He divided the medicinal properties into 8 kinds: cold, slight cold, great cold, flat, warm, micro-temperature, large temperature, and large heat. He believes that the origin and procurement method of drugs are closely related to the efficacy of drugs, and attaches great importance to the morphological identification of medicinal plants.
Third, Tao Hongjing also put forward the concept of "general medicine for all diseases" for the first time, combining the functional indications of drugs with the characteristics of diseases, and he listed more than 80 kinds of general drugs for diseases. For example, the general drugs for "curing wind" are windproof, self-defense, Qin Gang, Qian Qian, etc.; the general medicines for "curing jaundice" are Yin Chen, Gardenia, Comfrey, Bai Wei and so on. It not only facilitates the prescription of drugs by doctors, but also sets a precedent for classification by the main therapeutic effects of drugs. This is a major step forward in the classification of Chinese medicines.
In addition, Tao Hongjing recorded for the first time some special drugs, some of which are still in use today; he also stipulated the preparation procedures for pills, powders, ointments, decoctions, liquors, etc.; examined the weights and measures of medicinal use; in the process of studying drugs, he observed a large number of animals and plants, made a lot of accurate records, corrected some misunderstandings of predecessors, and made certain contributions in biology.
Tao Hongjing's analysis of the causes and pathologies basically adopted the Taoist and Taoist doctrine of "qi". He believes that the source of disease lies in evil qi.
He said in the Commentary on the Materia Medica: "Although there are many places where the husband is sick, it is all about evil. The cause of the evil person's unrighteousness is the common sense of the inhuman body, wind, cold, summer, wetness, hunger, fullness, labor, and anonymity, all of which are evil, and those who are not alone are evil. In people's anger, if the fish are in the water, the water is turbid, the fish is thin, and the gas is dizzy. The evil qi hurts people the most. Since the meridians are affected by this qi, they are transmitted to the Tibetan province, and the Tibetan government follows its virtual reality, cold and hot, and becomes sick, and the diseases arise from each other, so the flow becomes widespread. ”
In "The Hundred And One Sides After The Elbow Filling", he attributed the cause of the disease to evil qi, evil qi, and poisonous furuncle qi, which is a further development of the traditional six qi (wind, cold, summer, wet, dry, and fire) causing illness.
Tao Hongjing is very knowledgeable and has written many books. According to Song Jiasong's "Inner Biography of Huayang Hermitage", there are 32 kinds of works and 233 volumes, but most of them have been lost. The content involves Confucianism, Taoism, astronomy, almanac, history, geography, military science, medicine, pharmacy, literature, alchemy and other aspects.
His works on traditional Chinese medicine include seven volumes of "Notes on the Collected Works of Materia Medica", three volumes of "One Hundred and One Fangs after Supplementing the Elbow", one volume of "Dream Book", five volumes of "Prescription for Effective Examination and Application of Medicine", one volume of "Method of Taking Herbs and Wood Miscellaneous Medicines", one volume of "Secret Recipe for Breaking Valleys", one volume of "Method of Eliminating Three Feet", one volume of "Guiding Qi", two volumes of "Nourishing Life Extension", one volume of "Human Disaster Method", and one volume of "Collection of Medicine Tips". Although most of them have been lost, it can still be proved that he made a significant contribution to the development of Chinese medicine.
Tao Hongjing
【Comment】
Tao Hongjingshi was born in the Jingshi clan, received a good education since childhood, at the age of 19, Emperor Qi Gao hired him to serve the kings, at the age of 32 he was ordered to be invited by the dynasty, and after 5 years he retired, living in seclusion in Huayang Cave on Maoshan Mountain, practicing Dan, curing diseases for people, writing books and sayings, and becoming the "Prime Minister of the Mountains".
He wrote "Materia Medica" and other medical works, in terms of drug classification, for the first time, the "three products" classification method of drugs was changed to classification according to the attributes in nature, and there were new expositions on the sexual taste, place of origin, collection, form, identification, preparation and application of drugs, etc. For the first time, the concept of "universal medicine for various diseases" was put forward, the functional treatment of drugs and the characteristics of diseases were combined, and the preparation procedures of pills, powders, ointments, decoctions, liquors, etc. were stipulated, which made great contributions to the development of medicine in China.