Pi Wei Lun etc.

[Guest guest]

 

 

>> Then the question becomes, how can you (or others) put so much faith in

>> other texts (i.e. pi wei lun, master hua's etc.)

>> 1) they are fringe (or controversial) texts...

>

> pi wei lun is hardly fringe. It has more direct influence on modern

> TCM than the SHL and zhu dan xi's work is a clear antecedent to TCM.

> Both pi wei lun and zhu dan xi's work reflect exactly the type of

> evolution you are talking about. As for master hua, I do consider that

> fringe stuff. Using the evolutionary metaphor, it was like a mutation

> that did not prove adaptive and never widely took root in the genome.

 

A few thoughts on the discussion. Although no specialist in the area, according to my Chinese mentors, the Pi Wei Lun is often confusing and there is much debate as to exactly what the author meant by many of his ideas. While the Shang Han Lun amongst other texts, are read and studied by all students, committed to memory by many, the writings of Li Dong Yuan are not studied as much. The Pi Wei Lun is only 1 of his works, by the way. As to the influence the texts have on practice today that might be hard to assess. We do use many formulas from the SHL and JGYL, fewer from the PWL. There are large groups and associations for the the study of the SHL around China. I don't know that there is that much interest in the PWL. However, the ideas first elaborated here may have subsequently been developed and made more clinically useful than the original text is.

 

>> that is good about OHAI, however it is only useful if one can make use

>> of stroke order dictionary. While characters are not present in BP

>> translations, the terms are standardized and characters and glosses can

>> be easily referenced via wiseman's dictionary. For an english speaker,

>> I find this far more useful than OHAI's work. And when one learns the

>> definition of the wiseman terms, one then has a good sense of what the

>> chinese meant themselves.

[Guest guest]

on 11/3/00 7:17 AM, Greg Bantick at gbantick wrote:

 

 

>

> pi wei lun is hardly fringe. It has more direct influence on modern

> TCM than the SHL and zhu dan xi's work is a clear antecedent to TCM.

> Both pi wei lun and zhu dan xi's work reflect exactly the type of

> evolution you are talking about. As for master hua, I do consider that

> fringe stuff. Using the evolutionary metaphor, it was like a mutation

> that did not prove adaptive and never widely took root in the genome.

 

A few thoughts on the discussion. Although no specialist in the area, according to my Chinese mentors, the Pi Wei Lun is often confusing and there is much debate as to exactly what the author meant by many of his ideas. While the Shang Han Lun amongst other texts, are read and studied by all students, committed to memory by many, the writings of Li Dong Yuan are not studied as much. The Pi Wei Lun is only 1 of his works, by the way. As to the influence the texts have on practice today that might be hard to assess. We do use many formulas from the SHL and JGYL, fewer from the PWL. There are large groups and associations for the the study of the SHL around China. I don't know that there is that much interest in the PWL. However, the ideas first elaborated here may have subsequently been developed and made more clinically useful than the original text is.

 

Greg,

It is great to have you on board and contributing to the group.

This appears to be a momentous time in the development of Chinese medicine in the West, and perhaps in China as well. There are many voices and opinions, yeasty debates and discussions, and this is good.

It is true what you say, from what I have read, seen and heard, that the SHL is taught everywhere, debated, and commented upon, in comparison with Pi Wei Lun. However, in the Chinese journals, some of which I have, there are articles on spleen/stomach theory, and use of Dr. Li's prescriptions are discussed as well. There are not only large groups and associations, but also symposia on the SHL (recently one in Taiwan, last July).

This wonderful development of SHL study should not, however, lead us to dismiss anything in our discussions of what is valuable in the West in the 21st century. There is still a tremendous gap in translation of seminal texts between the West and China, and the gap is closing slowly. The " Complete Works of Dong-yuan " is still only in Chinese, and contains his other work as well, such as the " Orchid Chamber " . It would be very helpful to translate this, and I am going to suggest this at the upcoming COMP (Council of Oriental Medical Publishers) meeting.

I am a great fan of both works, and recently a friend brought me some SHL commentaries from Chengdu, where SHL study is very strong. The Pi Wei Lun has a section of commentary on SHL as well.

There is no argument that SHL and JGYL are the premier herbal classics. This should not deter us, however, from examining other classical authors and their works, including both PWL and " Master Hua's Classic of the Central Viscera " . While they might be debatable as to their value in mainland China, they might be of great value in our practice here in the West.

 

 

 

P.S. On my quotation from Manfred Porkert on the state of TCM of China in my last post: I also want to acknowledge that there also appears to be a renaissance of interest in the classical medicine happening in recent years in China as well, judging by the upsurge of interest in the Shang Han Lun and Nei Jing at the level of doctorate level studies. Again, the phenomena we are discussing and embracing is huge, and defies a single description. As my favorite singer, Robin Williamson once said, " the opposite of this is also true " .

[Guest guest]

, Greg Bantick <gbantick@o...>

wrote:

>

 

 

> according to my Chinese mentors, the Pi Wei Lun is often confusing and there

> is much debate as to exactly what the author meant by many of his ideas.

 

as is also true with the SHL

 

 

> While the Shang Han Lun amongst other texts, are read and studied by all

> students, committed to memory by many, the writings of Li Dong Yuan are not

studied as much....I don't know that there is that much interest in the PWL.

 

According to Bob flaws, the works of Li dong yuan, especially the PWL,

are major topics in chinese medical journals for the past few years

 

 

> We do use many formulas from the SHL and JGYL, fewer from the PWL.

 

while this is true,it is also true that li dong yuan used the SHL as a

basis for creating his formulae, including bu zhong yi qi tang, which

is one of the most widely used rx in modern clinical practice.

However, it is the theory of the stomach spleen pathology in disease

that has far more prevalence inmodern clinicalpractice thanthe six

stage theory (note: I was trained by teachers from chengdu who

utilized SHL as the basis for understanding ALL disease, yet I still

think PWL theory is more prevalent in modern practice)