11-05-2026, 06:03 PM
I was checking up on something in a response of a very different character, and an oddity lead me to wonder about the transmission history of the Shennong Bencao Jing. That lead me to discover something interesting---this text didn't exist in 1420!
It's not a small detail that this was a lost text in 1420, right? Your little story about a scribe asking "what's your most important materia medica" and getting directed to the Shennong Bencao Jing runs into the not insignificant problem that there were no copies of it at the time. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. says that the first reconstruction was by a man named Miao Xiyong, and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.puts that publication in 1625. Admittedly it's got a weird status as a lost text because the contents were still in circulation, and that's going to turn out to be the detail that all this turns on, but at face your analysis could be finding the chunks that made it into the critical editions you're looking at. But even before seeing if that holds up to deeper scrutiny, this seems really important for analyzing your claims and adds to the various ways that you have not identified, let alone translated, the VMS.
The actual work, in the sense of a materia medica attributed to Shennong, vanishes sometime in the Tang dynasty, which is far enough back that positing a millennium of undocumented transmission is beyond speculative. The reason it fell out of circulation was because it had been expanded and significantly annotated in Tao You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., and that transmission formed the main line of evidence for reconstructing it---again, well after the VMS carbon dating. Descriptions lead me to think that chunks of the SBJ were pretty recognizable, but actually lining up the received texts makes me think that's not the case, at least for the Rooster entry. The SBJ is on top and the text available in 1420 on the bottom:
From what I can see in English descriptions of the history of the reconstruction, there were other, fragmentary lines of evidence collected later to help separate the two, and more recent discoveries have shed light on the transmission since. But unless you have evidence I am not finding, it seems like this was a dead tradition before 1000, and the SBJ you are using wasn't created until a much later date. At the very least, it seems completely out of the question to claim this was the go-to materia medica in the Sinosphere in the 1400s, something I had been taking at face value
It's not a small detail that this was a lost text in 1420, right? Your little story about a scribe asking "what's your most important materia medica" and getting directed to the Shennong Bencao Jing runs into the not insignificant problem that there were no copies of it at the time. You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. says that the first reconstruction was by a man named Miao Xiyong, and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.puts that publication in 1625. Admittedly it's got a weird status as a lost text because the contents were still in circulation, and that's going to turn out to be the detail that all this turns on, but at face your analysis could be finding the chunks that made it into the critical editions you're looking at. But even before seeing if that holds up to deeper scrutiny, this seems really important for analyzing your claims and adds to the various ways that you have not identified, let alone translated, the VMS.
The actual work, in the sense of a materia medica attributed to Shennong, vanishes sometime in the Tang dynasty, which is far enough back that positing a millennium of undocumented transmission is beyond speculative. The reason it fell out of circulation was because it had been expanded and significantly annotated in Tao You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., and that transmission formed the main line of evidence for reconstructing it---again, well after the VMS carbon dating. Descriptions lead me to think that chunks of the SBJ were pretty recognizable, but actually lining up the received texts makes me think that's not the case, at least for the Rooster entry. The SBJ is on top and the text available in 1420 on the bottom:
Quote:丹雄雞Note that the SBJ is traditional characters and the Tao's text are simplified, but I believe they are faithfully aligned. You probably need to copy this into a text editor without word-wrap to really see what I'm getting at here, but I did check and that does align them for me at least; apologies, I know that is a little cumbersome.
丹雄鸡
味甘 微溫。 主治女子崩中漏下，赤白沃，補虛，溫中，止血 通神，殺毒，闢不祥。頭，主殺鬼。
味甘，微温、微寒，无毒。主治女人崩中漏下。赤白沃，补虚，温中，止血。不伤之疮，通神，杀毒，辟不祥。头：主杀鬼，东门上者弥良。白雄鸡肉：味酸，微温，主下气，治狂邪，安五脏，伤中，消渴。乌雄鸡肉：微温。主补中，止痛。胆：微寒，主治目不明，肌疮。
肪，主治耳聾。 腸， 主治遺溺 肶胵裹黃皮， 主治洩利。 屎白， 主治消渴，傷寒 寒熱。
肪：主治耳聋。鸡肠：平，主治遗尿，小便数不禁。肝及左翅毛：主起阴。冠血：主治乳难。 里黄皮：微寒，主治泄痢，小便利，遗溺，除热，止烦。屎白：微寒。主 消渴，伤寒，寒热，破石淋及转筋，利小便，止遗溺，灭瘢痕。
翮羽，主下血閉。 雞子， 除熱火瘡，癇痓，可作虎魄神物。
黑雌鸡：主治风寒湿痹，五缓六急，安胎。其血：无毒，平。主治中恶腹痛，及 折骨痛，乳难。翮羽：主下血闭。黄雌鸡：味酸、甘，平。主治伤中，消渴，小便数不禁，肠 泄痢，补益五脏，续绝伤，治虚劳，益气力。肋骨：主治小儿羸瘦，食不生肌。鸡子：主除热火疮，治痫，可作虎魄神物。卵白：微寒，治目热赤痛，除心下伏热，止烦满，咳逆，小儿下泄，妇人产难，胞衣不出。醯渍之一宿，治黄胆，破大烦热。卵中白皮：主久咳结气，得麻黄、紫菀和服之立已。鸡白蠹：能肥脂。生朝鲜平泽。
(No aligning text)
鸡此例又甚多，云鸡子作虎魄者，用欲 卵黄白，混杂煮作之，亦极相似，惟不拾芥尔。
雞白蠹， 肥豬。生平澤。
又煮白合银，口含须臾，色如金。鸡子不可合葫、蒜及李子食之。乌鸡肉，不可合犬肝、肾食之。小儿食鸡肉，好生蛔虫。又鸡不可合芥叶蒸食之。朝鲜乃在玄兔乐浪，不应总是鸡所出。今云 白蠹，不知是何物，恐此别一种尔。
From what I can see in English descriptions of the history of the reconstruction, there were other, fragmentary lines of evidence collected later to help separate the two, and more recent discoveries have shed light on the transmission since. But unless you have evidence I am not finding, it seems like this was a dead tradition before 1000, and the SBJ you are using wasn't created until a much later date. At the very least, it seems completely out of the question to claim this was the go-to materia medica in the Sinosphere in the 1400s, something I had been taking at face value