Xinxiu Bencao

The ''Xinxiu bencao'' (), also known as the ''Tang bencao'' (), is a Chinese pharmacopoeia written in the Tang dynasty by a team of officials and physicians headed by editor-in-chief Su Jing. It borrowed heavily from—and expanded upon—an earlier monograph by Tao Hongjing. The text was first published in 659; although it is now considered lost in China, at least one copy exists in Japan, where the text had been transmitted to in 721.

Contents

Comprising fifty-three or fifty-four ''juan'' () or "chapters", the text contains both ''tujing'' () or "illustrated descriptions" and ''yaotu'' () or "drug pictures". In total, some 850 drugs are listed in the text, including thirty foreign ingredients that were imported into China via the Silk Road, such as benzoin, oak galls, and peppercorn.

Publication history

The idea of a ''bencao'' (pharmacopoeia) that would copy and expand on Tao Hongjing's was first mooted in 657 by court counsellor (), who went by the alias "Su Gong" () because of an "imperial taboo". The project was eventually greenlit by Emperor Gaozong, following which a team of some twenty-two officials and physicians, including the high-ranking (), was assembled to complete the text.

According to the '' Tang huiyao'' (; Institutional History of the Tang Dynasty), the ''Xinxiu bencao'' was completed "on the 17th day of the first lunar month of
the fourth year" of the Xianqing era (656–661). The text was first published in 659, making it the first state-sponsored pharmacopoeia in China, as well as one of the earliest known illustrated pharmaceutical texts.

The ''Xinxiu bencao'' was one of the most comprehensive works of its time. It was designated by the Tang government as the "official standard with regard to drug usage", although it is unclear how widespread its readership was, given the lack of a printing press then. By the Song dynasty, the text had become lost in China, although at least one copy still exists in Japan, where it had been transmitted to in 721, and fully translated into Japanese as ''Honzō wamyō'' in 1918 by palace doctor Fukane no Sukehito. In the modern era, fragments of the ''Xinxiu bencao'' have also been discovered from a book depository in a cave in Dunhuang, Gansu.

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{{History of medicine in China
Chinese medical texts
7th-century books