Illustrated Canon of Herbal Medicine 图经衍义本草

Compiled by Tang Shenwei, Kou Zongshi and others in the Northern Song Dynasty.

The book Materia Medica has a long circulation history since the Han Dynasty, with supplements and annotations added in successive dynasties. During the Jiayou reign period of the Northern Song Dynasty (1056-1063), Lin Yi, Su Song and others compiled two books—Supplementary Annotations on Materia Medica and Illustrated Materia Medica—by imperial order.

In the Yuanyou reign period of Emperor Zhezong (1086-1093), Tang Shenwei, a native of Shu, combined these two books into one, supplemented it with additional content, and compiled it into Comprehensive Materia Medica with Textual and Historical Evidence for Emergencies in thirty-two volumes. By the sixth year of Zhenghe reign (1116), Cao Xiaozhong, an imperial physician, revised Tang’s book by imperial order and renamed it Zhenghe Materia Medica. Meanwhile, Kou Zongshi, also an imperial physician, conducted textual research and annotations on the basis of Supplementary Annotations on Materia Medica and Illustrated Materia Medica, compiling them into Commentary on Materia Medica in eleven volumes. During the transition period between the Jin and Yuan dynasties, Zhang Cunhui of Pingyang commissioned craftsmen to engrave Zhenghe Materia Medica, and for the first time combined Kou’s Commentary on Materia Medica with Tang’s book. Ming Dynasty editions followed this compilation without changes. The current version of Illustrated Commentary on Materia Medica in The Daozang follows the Ming Dynasty edition of Zhenghe Comprehensive Materia Medica with Evidence, with slight adjustments in division and combination, and is arranged into forty-seven volumes, included in the Lingtu Category of the Dongshen Section.

The first five volumes of this book are prefaces and general principles, while the subsequent forty-two volumes are the main text. The main text records a total of 1,042 kinds of medicines, divided into ten categories. For each medicine, its place of origin, morphology, and medicinal properties are specified. It also extensively quotes more than one hundred medical works such as Illustrated Materia Medica, Tang Materia Medica, Secret Essential Prescriptions Worth a Thousand Gold, Effective Prescriptions, Essential Prescriptions for Emergencies, Qimin Yaoshu and Treatise on the Nature of Medicinal Properties, as well as annotations by ten scholars including Tao Yinju, Sun Simiao, Qing Xiazi, Rihua Zi and Chen Zangqi. It provides annotations and textual research on the properties, efficacy, origin, collection and preparation methods, and taboos for taking each medicine. It is thus a comprehensive masterpiece of Health Preservation -related materia medica studies before the Northern Song Dynasty, which is based on the theories of Yin and Yang, Five Elements and Qi.