Perfected Sun's Treatise on Preserving Health孙真人摄养论

Also known as

Treatise on Preserving Health

Author / transmission

Sun Simiao

Period

Tang · Attributed to Sun Simiao of the Tang, in one scroll; describes what to favor and avoid in health preservation by the twelve months, and may have been compiled by later hands under Sun's name.

Canon division

Dongshen Section, Methods (Fangfa) category

Collected in

Zhengtong Daozang, Dongshen Section, Methods Category

Category

Medicine and Nourishing Life

Fascicles

One Fascicle (Juan)

Synopsis

The Perfected Sun's Treatise on Preserving Health (Sun zhenren sheyang lun), in one scroll, lists what to do and avoid for health preservation month by month through the lunar calendar, and represents the "monthly-ordinance nourishing life" genre within the Daoist Canon. Under each month it records the characteristics of the season's climate, the organs that govern that month, foods to favor and to avoid, and activities to pursue or shun — for instance, in the first month, "the kidney qi suffers illness and the lung's qi grows faint; one should reduce salty and sour flavors and increase pungent ones, to aid the kidneys and nourish the lungs, and to settle the stomach's qi" — along with auspicious and inauspicious days for bathing, acupuncture, sexual activity, and travel. This practice of placing health preservation within the annual rhythm of time derives from the "Monthly Ordinances" (Yueling) chapter of the Book of Rites and the teaching of adjusting the spirit to the four seasons in the Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon; once absorbed by Daoism and combined with the arts of date selection and taboo, it became the direct source for the health-preservation columns of popular household encyclopedias and almanacs. The text is concise and its entries practical, and from the Song and Yuan onward it was extensively transcribed into nourishing-life texts such as the Eight Discourses on Nurturing Life and the Shoushi Baoyuan. Although attributed to Sun Simiao, its thought is indeed continuous with the "Nourishing Nature" chapter of the Qianjin Yaofang, and it may be regarded as the text in which seasonal health-preservation knowledge took its settled form during the Tang–Song transition.

Key Ideas

• Monthly-ordinance nourishing-life arranged by the twelve months
• The organs governing each month and adjustments to the five flavors
• Auspicious and inauspicious days for bathing, acupuncture, sexual activity, and travel
• Continuing the "Monthly Ordinances" of the Book of Rites and the four-season spirit adjustment of the Inner Canon
• Source of the health-preservation columns in popular almanacs

Structure

One scroll, arranged in entries by the twelve months.

Editions

• Zhengtong Daozang edition
• Zhonghua Daozang edition
• Transcribed in the Eight Discourses on Nurturing Life and other works

Full Text & Online Resources

• CTEXT Search
• Wikipedia: Sun Simiao

Related scriptures

Related figures