East Asian Science, Technology, and Medicine (EASTM - Universität Tübingen)
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Lucille Chia and Hilde De Weerdt (eds.), Knowledge and Text Production in an Age of Print: China, 900-1400
Get PDFAnn Heirmann and Mathieu Torck, A Pure Mind in a Clean Body. Bodily Care in the Buddhist Monasteries of Ancient India and China
Get PDFHealing and Ritual Imagination in Chinese Medicine: The Multiple Interpretations of Zhuyou
Get PDFIn the Chinese medical corpus, ritual healing largely fell under the rubric of zhuyou 祝由 to uncover and expel the unknown, imperceptible, and occult causes of illness. Often dealing with uncertain or incurable cases, zhuyou remained at the cutting-edge of contemporary medicine. For a rising medical elite after the Northern Song, zhuyou was the branch of medicine to flexibly incorporate and critique the variety of ritual therapies into orthodox practice. Zhuyou employed prayer, incantations, talismans, gestures, and drugs in a nuanced clinical encounter to reveal the hidden root of disorder ranging from a blockage of qi, spirit possession, emotional imbalance, or loss of virtue. These rituals opened an imaginative space for therapeutic play where patients and healers could use spiritual proxies and props to address difficult emotions or issues that were often the hidden cause of affliction. The development of zhuyou also reflected the changing role of ritual in the history of Chinese medicine and the exchanges among physicians, Daoist priests, and other ritual healers. The significance of ritual in Chinese medical history has largely remained unclear as most editions of medical classics republished since the early twentieth century excise relevant chapters and zhuyou manuscripts, until recently, were uncatalogued
Text and Teacher in the Transmission of Alchemical Knowledge: Wu Wu and His Works
Get PDFIn the transmission of alchemical knowledge, alchemical practi-tioners have always been perplexed by the dilemma that they have the responsibility to transmit the Way but at the same time should not divulge the Way to unworthy recipients. In this paper, I show that Wu Wu 吳悮 (c. twelfth century), different from most of his contemporaries who stress the role of the teacher in the revelation of key points or secret instructions, puts more emphasis on the texts. For him, the teacher’s function is to impart the right text. The Way of divine immortals can be achieved through the mastery of principles that can be grasped from the texts. Although ancient sages compiled the alchemical texts to make the Way known to everyone, only the virtuous can comprehend the principles of the Way underlying in the scriptures. Hence, there is no need to worry that the Way is divulged to unworthy people. Thus the transmission dilemma does not present a problem for Wu Wu
