本经逢原

The physician's possession of the Benjing is like the carpenter's possession of the ink-line. Only with the ink-line are there compass and square; only with compass and square can there be flexibility and adaptation. Flexibility and adaptation arise from wisdom and skill, yet they must still be rooted in the ink-line. Originally, the Yan Emperor's Benjing was the founding of the ink-line. The Daguan and Zhenglei were the established rules of the compass and square. Binhu's Gangmu was the great synthesis within the established rules, yet it could not reach flexibility and adaptation. It is like the great carpenter who can give others compass and square but cannot give them wisdom and skill. The one who could impart wisdom and skill to others and reach the way of flexibility and adaptation is the text of Huangdi's Ling and Su. The one who could apply the way of Yan and Huang according to circumstances and not be bound by the ink-line is the single figure of Changsha of the Han. Changsha, with heaven-endowed ability, inherited in one continuous line the way of Yan and Huang, and whatever his hand touched was the ink-line. I have never heard that outside of Yan and Huang there was another ink-line. I have often thought that in the medical forest's scholarship, it is not that there were no famous figures in each generation, but seeking one who would rectify the root and clarify the source, taking as his ancestor the Benjing's governing treatments—apart from the Yuhan and Jingui, I have not heard of one. After Changsha passed, the Tang recluse's Qianjin Fang alone obtained its marrow; its formulas were so steep that some surpassed Changsha, yet later generations could not take it as their ancestor. For this reason, those who compiled materia medica all set aside the ancient uses of reverse,顺从, opposing, and provoking, and did not record them, devoting themselves solely to the plain and easy, to suit the times. Among these, the trivial details are of course not worth discussing. Even Binhu, broad and well-versed in past and present, still abandoned the root and pursued the branch, merely placing the Benjing's governing treatments at the head of each entry, as a token of preserving the sheep. Only Miao Zichun of Zhongchun opened up the meaning of the classics, standing far above the various formulas, yet where things were subtle and hard to clarify, he drew in the Bielu and other accounts, treating them as classic sayings—the confusion of vermilion and purple, how could it not be contrary? Formerly, Qiao Zi of Sanyu had a volume of Benjing Zhushu; thirty-five years ago I once glanced at it at Mr. Nian'e's study. What a pity that it was never published and cannot be seen again. Therefore, not measuring myself, I venture to set forth my humble views, briefly commenting on the great meaning of the Benjing, and appending the treatment methods of the various schools, so that students may find the source on every hand and not overstep the ink-line of Yan and Huang, and thus be sufficient to be superior physicians. The superior physician cures six out of ten; he cannot raise all white bones to life. I wish that physicians throughout the world would be careful not to recklessly rely on their own strengths, hoping for undeserved profit, and that the common people of the world would firmly observe the warning that having illness and not treating it often obtains a middling physician, and leap out of the snares of the physicians of the time—what ink-line could then limit them? Written by Wang Shiwang Zhang Lu at Jianyong Tang in the spring of the Yihai year of Kangxi, at the age of seventy-nine.