The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against

[rikforto]

So, who is hallucinating -- Google AI, or you?

(You did not ask some lalamo to criticize my proposal, did you?)

This is both incredibly rude and extremely revealing projection. I assure you, only one of us is contaminating this conversation with "AI" garbage.

Before we get into the weeds here, a quick gut check. Does multiple recensions in a single entry seem like a good sign for your claim that this was still widely agreed upon in wide circulation? Or does it seem to comport with the evidence I already showed that prior to these intense scholarly reconstructions that there was no stable SBJ tradition? You seem to have missed it, but I found a text much closer to the assumed age of the VMS that didn't make mention of chickens but claimed to have the entries of the SBJ. This is just not what would happen if there were a bunch of easily accessible texts making the same attributions to Shennong.

But sure, we can take a look at the other SBJ recension:

20. 丹雄雞味甘微溫微寒無毒主女人崩中漏下赤白沃補虛溫中止血久傷乏瘡通神殺毒辟不祥
21. 白雄雞肉味酸㣲溫主下氣療狂邪安五藏傷中消渴　烏雄雞肉㣲溫主補中止痛　膽㣲寒主療目不明肌瘡心主五邪
22. 血主踒折骨痛及痿痺肪主耳聾腸主遺溺小便數不禁肝及左翅毛主起隂冠血主乳難肘胵裹黃皮㣲寒主洩利小便利遺溺除熱止煩
23. 尿白微寒主　消渴　傷寒寒熱破石淋及轉筋利小便止遺溺滅瘢㾗
24. 黒雌雞主風寒濕痺五緩六急安胎血無毒主中惡腹痛及踒折骨痛乳難翮羽主下血閑
25. 黃雌雞味酸甘平主傷中消渇小便數不禁腸澼洩利補益五藏續絶傷療勞益氣肋骨主小兒羸瘦食不生肌雞子主除熱火瘡癎痙可作虎魄神物卵白㣲寒療目熱赤痛除心下伏熱止煩滿欬逆小兒下洩婦人産難胞衣不出□漬之一宿療黃疸破大煩熱卵中白皮主久欬結氣得麻黃紫菀和服之立也雞白肥脂生朝鮮平澤

I think I saw a couple of mis-scans float by, but we're not dealing with a situation where correcting a couple of radicals fixes this. This time I took the time to mark the SBJ reconstruction because I do care about some of the features here. You might notice you lose a whole 主, which is admittedly fewer than if you stop at the end of line 20, but that's not the biggest problem for me.

Bearing in mind that I've already shown a few other ways the transmission had broken down, the most interesting thing to me is that there are parts of the SBJ Rooster text clearly subordinated under new entries. Line 24 is about the uses of black hen, but in the SBJ reconstruction the red text is about red rooster. Rubricating the text like that works at crossed purpose with the newer layer, as it shows the broken transmission, and undermines the authority of the later text. Taken with all the other evidence there's an easy explanation---this recontextualization is the process by which the SBJ became a lost text.

Anyway, if you don't think this edition can't be relied on, for whatever reason, there's a simple solution. Just find the extremely common source that you said was being circulated in multiple languages throughout Asia in the 1400s. I couldn't find it, which is why I settled for the much later edition, but this isn't my theory. You are used, I think, to arguing the Chinese Theory as something to keep our minds open to. Sowing doubt is enough to do that. But you are now making affirmative claims about an extant textual tradition, and the burden of proof is higher. Where are the texts? Why are you using a reconstruction from 1799?