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The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
- The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
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A page from the ORIGINAL Voynich Manuscript
Jorge_Stolfi > 06-07-2026, 09:15 AM
The following is a (black-and-white) image of page from the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. (ZHB), an important Chinese medical encyclopedia:
More precisely, this image is a scan of a a You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. made in the early 20h century of a copy of the Zenghe Bencao, block-printed sometime in the Song period (960-1279 CE). This massive encyclopedia was compiled privately in the late 1000s and then revised and published with state sponsorship in 1116 CE. At the time it listed 1748 medicinal substances with extensive commentaries by dozens of earlier authors. This image is probably from a somewhat later edition and may have a slightly different set.
Among other sources, the ZHB quoted the whole text of the Shennong Bencao Jing (SBJ, the "Classic Materia Medica of the Divine Farmer"), a list of 365 medical substances and their indicatons, written round 300 BCE and attributed to the mythical emperor and Daoist god Shennong. In the ZHB prints that would be available in 1400 CE, the entries for those medicines opened with the SBJ entry in large white-on-black characters, interspersed and followed by all the later commentaries. Some very early additions and changes to the SBJ, which had come to be viewed part of it, were incorporated in this big white-on-black text. Some slightly later additions (before 500 CE) would be printed in large characters but black-on-white. All other commentaries and additions were in smaller black-on-white or white-on-black font.
The text of the page above is about the root of the aconite plant, Aconitum carmichaelii. More specifically about the main branch of the fully developed root; the secondary branches and the young undivided root were covered in two separate entries. If I understand that image correctly, the leftmost 2/3 are the verso recto of a fold-out folio, and the rightmost 1/3 is on the recto verso of the next previous folio. (Note that in Chinese books the page reading order is opposite to that of Western books). EDIT:but maybe the left 2/3 are verso and recto of the same folio, photographically pasted side by side.
It is claimed that the Starred Parags section (SPS) of the VMS is a fairly literal transcription of the large white-on-black hanzi from a print copy of the ZHE very much like this one; minus some parts, mostly information that would not have made sense outside China (or even in China). The full large white-on-black text on this page, in traditional Chinese characters, is- 烏頭：［味］辛，溫。［主］中風，惡風，洗洗；出汗；除寒溼，痹；咳逆上氣，破積聚，寒熱。其汁煎之：［名］射罔，殺禽獸。［一名］奚毒。［一名］即子。［一名］烏喙。
The same text in Simplified Characters (which I am using), is- 乌头：［味］辛，温。［主］中风，恶风，洗洗；出汗；除寒湿，痹；咳逆上气，破积聚，寒热。其汁煎之：［名］射罔，杀禽兽。［一名］奚毒。［一名］即子。［一名］乌喙。
- Wū tóu: [wèi] xīn, wēn. [Zhǔ] zhòng fēng, wù fēng, xǐ xǐ; chū hàn; chú hán shī, bì; ké nì shàng qì, pò jī jù, hán rè. Qí zhī jiān zhī: [míng] shè wǎng, shā qín shòu. [Yyī míng] xī dú. [Yī míng] jí zǐ. [Yī míng] wū huì.
- Aconite main root: [Nature] Pungent, warm. [Main uses] Wind-strike, aversion to wind, shivering; sweating; eliminating cold-dampness, energy blockage; coughing with rebellious energy, breaking up accumulations and gatherings, chills and fever. Its juice, boiled down: [named] "Shoot Net", kills birds and beasts. [Another Name] Slave to poison. [Another Name] Attached seed. [Another Name] Crow's beak.
- The [Nature] entry (with the tag［味］literally "flavor"). It is present in most entries, and gives the classification of the drug in terms of ancient Chinese medical theory, that recognized five "flavors" and three main "thermal power", both supposedly correlated with the drug's supposed therapeutic actions. Thus the "flavor" is often not real flavor but is determined by these effects. For instance, all parts of a "red rooster", including the quills and poo, are classified as "sweet", because they are supposed to have the same general type of effect. Likewise the "warm" classification means that this drug is supposed to generally increase metabolic activity, rather than depressing it.
- The [一名] = [Another name] entries. The English terms above, like, like "Shoot Net", "Slave to poison" etc. are very literal character by character translations; the Chinese originals like 奚毒 are compound terms that would not carry those meanings (just as "typewriter" in English does not make people think of a guy whose job is to write int, float, and char* in C programs). The alias 射罔 (Mandarin reading shè wǎng, literally "shoot net"), in particular, was the name of a paste made from the juice of the root, used to poison arrows for hunting.
- The [Provenance] entry. This item, introduced by the keyword [生] (not to be confused with [主]) is present at the very end of most SBJ entries; but exceptionally not here, because this is only the first 1/3 of the original SBJ entry. It is very generic and mostly traditional and useless. For the three kinds of "aconite root", it was [生]山谷 [Shēng] shān gǔ. ("[Grows in] mountain valleys.")
It is possible that the author omitted the entire sub-entry 其汁煎之：［名］射罔，杀禽兽 which is about use in hunting, not in medicine. I should have tried this alternative too.
I also should have tried to identify the drawings that appear on that image. The labels all use the 烏 "root" character, so character that literally means "crow", also used in the name of this SBJ entry (烏頭 literally "crow's head") They may include the other two types of aconite root, and/or other roots listed in the SBJ, and/or other roots added by the ZHB compiler. But the lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne...
All the best, --stolfi - 烏頭：［味］辛，溫。［主］中風，惡風，洗洗；出汗；除寒溼，痹；咳逆上氣，破積聚，寒熱。其汁煎之：［名］射罔，殺禽獸。［一名］奚毒。［一名］即子。［一名］烏喙。
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RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 06-07-2026, 09:39 AM
(06-07-2026, 05:14 AM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Just, absolutely no recognition I showed that we can recover the actual word
You did not show that. What were the actual words that Sun Tzu would have uttered if he had been asked to read his own book aloud? (Hint: the correct answer is "nobody knows".)
Quote:I cannot account for [the other two questions] because I don't know how an LLM produced it and you don't either.
So you won't answer those questions because you cannot tell whether the first line is indeed a valid one-hanzi-for-one-syllable reading of that recipe in modern Cantonese, nor whether the second line is grammatically correct modern Cantonese? Okay. -
RE: A page from the ORIGINAL Voynich Manuscript
Jorge_Stolfi > 06-07-2026, 10:45 AM
(06-07-2026, 09:15 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I also should have tried to identify the drawings that appear on that image.
Actually it was easier than expected, thanks to Google AI. Each label should be read right-to-left, and it is the name of a province (州 zhou) followed by the name of the SBJ entry (烏頭 = "crow's head" = "aconite's main root"). Like ←頭烏州成← = →成州烏頭→ = "aconite main root from Jinzhou".
So they seem to be all varieties or subspecies of Aconitum carmichaelii.
All the best, --stolfi; -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
tavie > 06-07-2026, 01:09 PM
I'm kind of minded to say that given the stables of slop we have had on the board (and plenty freshly delivered this week that you guys don't get to see), there shouldn't be expectations on anyone to give a view on LLM produced material unless it has been verified by humans... -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
rikforto > 07-07-2026, 03:21 AM
(06-07-2026, 09:39 AM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.So you won't answer those questions because you cannot tell whether the first line is indeed a valid one-hanzi-for-one-syllable reading of that recipe in modern Cantonese, nor whether the second line is grammatically correct modern Cantonese? Okay.
It is not a one-for-one syllable reading of that recipe in modern Cantonese and the second line is not grammatically correct modern Cantonese.
Genuine question here: Does that help? Does that advance the conservation? -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
Jorge_Stolfi > 07-07-2026, 04:36 AM
(07-07-2026, 03:21 AM)rikforto Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.[The first line] is not a one-for-one syllable reading of that recipe in modern Cantonese and the second line is not grammatically correct modern Cantonese.
Can you be more specific? Point out some of the errors?
Quote:Does that help? Does that advance the conversation?
The question is whether the proposed Dictation Scenario is plausible or not. Specifically, whether the Author would have believed that his phonetic recording of whatever the Dictator read out loud would be of any use when he got back to Europe. Do you think he would have realized that this idea would not work, and thus he would have given up on it? Why? -
RE: Why and how the text could be Bavarian
Jorge_Stolfi > 11-07-2026, 10:54 PM
(11-07-2026, 05:32 PM)oshfdk Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.how I see your theory and Stolfi's Chinese theory. The more effort you put into defending your theories the less convincing they look to me. I've tried to understand why, and now I realize it's quite simple. It's absolutely clear that both you and Prof. Stolfi are very convinced in the merits of your respective theories and both of you are highly motivated to look for evidence supporting the respective theories. So with every new post that doesn't actually contain any good direct evidence, it seems more and more likely to me that no definitive evidence can be found at all.
Well, I could say the same in the other direction:
Quote:It is clear that you are very convinced of your theory and you are highly motivated to look for evidence that refutes the Chinese Origin theory and the SPS≈SBJ claim. So with every new post that does not contain any good evidence against them, it seems more and more likely that no evidence can be found at all.
The evidence for SPS≈SBJ, specifically, includes the crib position matches (主 <-> daiin, 气 <-> Chedy, etc) in about 35 recipe-parag pairs (~50%) of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Considering that 4 pages are missing and a few dozen SPS parags were merged by the Scribe into mega-parags with unknown boundaries, the success rate could not be more than ~67%. Some of those 35 matches are somewhat strained or uncertain, especially when they have only one or two cribs, or the SPS keywords are "spelling variants" like kaiin or dain for daiin. Any one of these, by itself, could argued to be mere coincidence. But others just cannot be coincidences. The latter include the 7-crib match between the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ("red rooster") and the longest non-mashed-up SPS parag (f105v.32). One cannot dismiss that as coincidence, even if one carefully avoid looking at the numbers.
If I am allowed to say so, the the Chinese Origin theory is the only theory I have seen in almost 30 years of Voynich hacking that is compatible with every feature we see in the VMS -- from the original script and all statistics and structural analyses to the multiple-section organization to the 15/30 labels in the Zodiac diagrams to the ignorant Scribe to the unidentifiable plants to the number and length of the Starred parags ... and to the big red weirdos on f1r. And it is also the only theory that offers a plausible scenario for how the text was created and written down. And it is also the only theory that offers a plausible explanation for why the book was created at all...
Sorry for the rant. I will go back to my hole now. All the best, --stolfi -
RE: Why and how the text could be Bavarian
ololololo > 11-07-2026, 11:10 PM
(11-07-2026, 10:54 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And it is also the only theory that offers a plausible explanation for why the book was created at all...
A book doesn't have to come from China to make sense. If a doctor wanted to document their knowledge but didn't want to disclose it, why couldn't they write a book? -
RE: The 'Chinese' Theory: For and Against
tavie > 11-07-2026, 11:42 PM
(11-07-2026, 10:54 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.The evidence for SPS≈SBJ, specifically, includes the crib position matches (主 <-> daiin, 气 <-> Chedy, etc) in about 35 recipe-parag pairs (~50%) of You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. Considering that 4 pages are missing and a few dozen SPS parags were merged by the Scribe into mega-parags with unknown boundaries, the success rate could not be more than ~67%. Some of those 35 matches are somewhat strained or uncertain, especially when they have only one or two cribs, or the SPS keywords are "spelling variants" like kaiin or dain for daiin. Any one of these, by itself, could argued to be mere coincidence. But others just cannot be coincidences. The latter include the 7-crib match between the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. ("red rooster") and the longest non-mashed-up SPS parag (f105v.32).
One cannot dismiss that as coincidence, even if one carefully avoid looking at the numbers.
One absolutely can.
I know it seems it can't be a coincidence to you. But you haven't come anywhere near close making your case that it cannot be a coincidence.
I'm sorry about this. -
RE: Why and how the text could be Bavarian
Jorge_Stolfi > 12-07-2026, 01:07 AM
(11-07-2026, 11:10 PM)ololololo Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
That explanation stops being plausible as soon as you try to flesh it out.(11-07-2026, 10:54 PM)Jorge_Stolfi Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.And it is also the only theory that offers a plausible explanation for why the book was created at all...
A book doesn't have to come from China to make sense. If a doctor wanted to document their knowledge but didn't want to disclose it, why couldn't they write a book?
Why is there no visible connection anywhere with European medicine of the time? Why would he encrypt all the text with such a complicated method that not even the NSA spooks could make a dent at it? If the book was for his own use, why would he draw all the nymphs? If he was a medical doctor, what precious secret knowledge might he have about the stars and the Zodiac? If it was about which remedies or organs were associated with the planets, why isn't there a single detail that suggests these connections anywhere in the book -- no astronomical references in Herbal or Bio, no herbal or medical references in Astro/Cosmo/Zodiac?
And on and on... The same difficulties arise when one tries to flesh out most other "why" theories, like "secret society" or "defraud a rich guy" or "invented language"...
All the best, --stolfi