Translating and Interpreting the Fu-Ch’i Ching-i Lun: Experiences Gained from Editing a T' ang Dynasty Taoist Medical Treatise

Abstract

The Fu-ch’i Ching-i Lun 服氣精義論Thesis on the Essential Meaning of Absorbing Ch’i) is not actually a classical text on traditional Chinese medicine, but a Taoist text relating to medical treatments. Up to now, there have been only a few investigations undertaken into the broad field of mutual relation between Taoism and traditional Chinese medicine. Besides Taoist ritual healing and its relation to popular medicine — in which the first steps in research have been taken by Michel Strickmann and Nathan Sivin — the techniques of nourishing life have been of special scholarly interest. During the early beginnings of what we could call Chinese medicine, perhaps even before the development of acupuncture, these techniques of nourishing life must have been of almost equal importance as moxibustion and drug therapy.