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Abstract
The oldest surviving Chinese materia medica, the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (Divine Farmer's Classic of Materia Medica), categorised 365 herbs according to three categories: 120 'upper' (_h shang) herbs, 120 'middle' (zhong) herbs: and 125 'lower' (T xia) herbs. This article discusses the clinical implications of this tripartite organisation, which goes far beyond being a mere indicator of the level of toxicity of the herbs documented. It also includes a discussion of the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing's categories of jun, chen, zuo or shi (chief, assistant, envoy and messenger), the meaning of which differs significantly from the typical current interpretation of these terms.
Keywords: Shen I Nong Ben Cao : Jing, Chinese! medicine,! Chinese herbal j medicine, materia ; medica, upper | herbs, middle herbs, lower j herbs, chief, j assistant, envoy, | messenger. |
(ProQuest: ... denotes formulae omitted.)
Introduction
Similar to the Nei Jing (Inner Classic), the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing did not have a single author or represent one person's perspective or experience, but was rather put together by an unknown number of authors over a period of time, and credited to Shen Nong. According to Chinese folklore, the mythical 'Divine Farmer' Shen Nong is credited with inventing tools and agriculture, and is said to have categorised plants into vegetables, grains, medicines and poisons for the benefit of the people. The most commonly quoted statement about Shen Nong is that in the course of one day he tasted 100 plants and identified 70 poisons. While such statements more likely refer to legend rather than reality, the legacy of the Divine Farmer remains with us today, and honours the very first Chinese materia medica with his name.
Organisation of the text
The first significant aspect of the Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing to note is that the book is not simply a compendium of all the herbs that were in use during the Eastern Han Dynasty, but rather constitutes a careful selection of only 365 herbs. The choice of this specific number - correlating with the number of days in a year - reflects the naturalist perspective of the authors, for whom the choice of a number correlating with a natural cycle was clearly more important than...