Bian Que’s Twelve Channels
Using Excavated Relics as a Way of Understanding Early Chinese Medicine
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20237263 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jianmin Li (0009-0001-8966-4203), J Y Li (0000-0003-3311-6512, Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica), D Yang (0000-0002-7719-6801, University College London), Man Gu (0000-0002-1638-3099) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 1-2 |
| Pages | 104-122 |
| Publication date | 2024-01-22 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Asian Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1573-420X • E-ISSN: 1573-4218 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/15734218-12341529 |
| OpenAlex | W4391187545 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 4 |
The name Bian Que, like that of the Yellow Emperor (Huangdi), has reverberated through the development of Chinese medicine since the time of the Warring States. The discovery of a human figurine showing channels and strategic points, together with a number of medical texts, during the excavation of the Laoguanshan Han tomb in Chengdu, Sichuan, in 2012–13 has reignited controversies about whether it is correct to speak of a specific Bian Que school, or whether, as this paper argues, these texts were written by the Han physicians who used Bian Que as a mouthpiece to record their own medical expositions. The paper begins by examining the main characteristics of the Laoguanshan human figurine and discusses what this excavated artifact reveals about the early history of Chinese medicine. It questions the existence of the so-called Bian Que school and, obliquely, the suggested relationships between the school and the figurine and between the school and medical texts found in the same tomb. The paper shows how diverse the disjointed knowledge of medicine was and that the idea of a “school” does not accurately reflect what was happening in the transmission of medical knowledge during the Warring States, Qin, and Han periods (475 BCE –220 CE )
Asian studies · China · Political science · Traditional medicine · Chinese history and philosophy · History · History of Science and Medicine · Law · Medicine
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |