Figure 46: THE RAIN-BRINGING DRAGON.
This painting is the largest surviving depiction of its kind in Korea, and since its successful use in the Los Angeles drought in 1977 it has resided in the Emileh Museum of Folk Art in Korea. Noted author Alan Covell is seen unpacking the painting at the museum’s inauguration in Songni-san.
I’ve gotten a little side-tracked in terms of the history of acupuncture, but it turns out that as I’ve just said, the wu were probably very important in this regard, possibly even being the first acupuncturists. The Shuo Wen Jie Zi, an early Chinese dictionary, identified the first doctor as a sorcerer or wu, named Pan.(50) Paul Unschuld has pointed out that the development of medical thought in China went through several stages, and that ancestor worship was succeeded by demonology in which frankly evil spirits (xie guei) were now identified as the cause of illnesses, and the shaman’s job expanded to include exorcism. For this role the wu employed spears and other sharp weapons to drive out the demons. Of course we do not know that those pointed objects were ever applied to or inserted into the patient’s body, but it is curious that the oldest Chinese character for medicine or physician, yi, depicted the wu over which are drawn a quiver of arrows on the left and a spear on the right, ( ) possibly alluding to a primitive form of
Figure 47: A CHINESE BIAN STONE NEEDLE.
This “bian” from a Shang dynasty site at Taixi is called a “stone hook.” Compare its shape to that of the appendages in Figures 48 and 49.
acupuncture.(51) It has even been asserted that fragments of the divinatory carapaces excavated along with the oracle bones were sometimes formed in the shape of needles, and were used to perform acupuncture as early as three thousand years ago.(52) Another suggestive connection is that the earliest artifacts claimed as acupuncture needles, made of stone and fishbone, were excavated in Korea where the shamanistic tradition has been most clearly documented. A final piece of evidence possibly supporting the wu as the first acupuncturists is the claim that the first acupuncture points used were the “thirteen ghost points” which are classically recommended for demonic possession, or what would now be described as mental illness of one sort or another. Although the specification of which points were to be used seems to date to the Tang dynasty, it is traditionally claimed that they were discovered or at least used by Bian Que, one of the first acupuncturists whose name we know.(53) Figure 47 shows a “hook-shaped” stone artifact excavated from a Shang dynasty tomb at Taixi (Hubei Province) in 1973. It was contained in a protective leather casket and is identified by Chinese archaeologists as a “bian” stone needle. Figure 48 shows a crown from one of the ancient shaman-kings of Silla (Korea) which interestingly also has “hook-shaped” stone (jade) attachments (kokok) (Fig.49).
Figure 48: KAYA GOLD CROWN.
This Korean shaman’s crown from around the fifth century A.D. contains numerous jade stone hook-shaped ornaments, called “kokok,” similar in form to the “bian” in Figure 47.
These are said to be representative of tiger claws and thus symbolically would impart their power as weapons(54), but noting the similarity in appearance of the “bian” stones and the “kokok” stones, I would like to suggest as a further hypothesis that these “tiger claws” might have originally been used as “bian” needles by the early shamen.
It was only in the later Zhou dynasty that the character “yi” for physician was changed, with an alcoholic extract (yu) being substituted for the dancing shamen (wu) who were slipping in social status.(55) Interestingly, in English the alcoholic beverages which replaced the shaman in the character for physician are colloquially referred to as “spirits.” The wu have left a considerable legacy in traditional acupuncture. Their spiritual power (ling) became the axis of The Canon of Acupuncture, the original title of the second half of the Nei Jing now known as the Ling Shu (Spiritual Pivot). I should also point out that there is only a hazy distinction between much of Shamanism and Daoism, especially religious Daoism, which superceeded it in China, whereas its direct offshoot in Japan, Shintoism, has maintained a strong shamanistic character(56), but I’m getting ahead of myself in this historical narrative. The main idea which I’d like to emphasize as being carried over from shamanism to traditional acupuncture is the central importance of the Spirit in all matters of health and illness. Along with it go the twin themes of purification and exorcism which, although later given less attention, were never absent from the practice of acupuncture until developments in the twentieth century. It should come as no surprise therefore, that coincident with the despiritualization of acupuncture in Communist China, was the outlawing of shamanism in North Korea in 1950.(57)
Figure 49: KOKOK.
These shamanistic symbols, used by the royalty in Korea have also been found on royal jewelry in Japan where they are called magatama. Scholars have so far been unable to agree upon the meaning of these decorations, and the author offers the hypothesis that they might be symbolic of the bian stone needles used by the shamen in their role as the originators of acupuncture.
Let us return, then, to an examination of the literary tradition in which acupuncture is first mentioned very briefly in several anecdotes about the doctors Yi Yuan and Bian Que in works compiled only towards the end of the Zhou and the beginning of the Han dynasties. Clearly these stories, which I will recount in discussing the careers of these two famous acupuncturists are not very helpful in understanding the origins of acupuncture. Therefore, I shall start by discussing the classical medical texts, beginning with the Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, or Nei Jing, as I will now refer to it, for convenience. Written sometime prior to 100 B.C., it is the earliest book that is overtly about acupuncture, but to truly understand its philosophical concepts, which underlie traditional acupuncture, we must look further back, to the Classic of Changes, or Yi Jing, whose date is likewise controversial, but probably as early as 1100 B.C.(58)
The Yi Jing is most commonly known as a book for divination, and indeed it had that ancient usage. The diagrams it contains were supposedly discovered by Emperor Fu Xi, one of China’s legendary Culture Heroes, who was said to have lived sometime prior to 3,000 B.C., and who is also said to have discovered the use of nets for hunting and fishing(59) (Fig.50). The diagrams in the Yi Jing consist of the eight trigrams and 64 hexagrams whose permutations represent the continuous process of change which we experience in every aspect of nature (Fig.51). Fu Xi was reputedly inspired to think of the original eight trigrams following a vision he had of a “dragon-horse” emerging from the Yellow River with a design on its back, called the He Tu or River Diagram (Fig.52). This diagram, and the eight trigrams it inspired, contain the essence upon which all later traditional Chinese medical thought is based. Starting from a reverence for the transcendent power of numbers themselves, these diagrams are the foundation of the two organizing principles of traditional acupuncture—the theories of Yin-Yang and the Five Elements. (60) The trigrams are made up of broken and solid lines, symbolizing Yin and Yang respectively, and like the binary code used in computer language to which they are equivalent, they can be used to represent an infinite variety of information. The Five Element theory is implicit in both the River diagram and in certain arrangements of the trigrams, and it is also applicable to all the manifestations of variety in the universe, but has no obvious analogy in modern Western thought. What is common to both Yin-Yang and Five Element theories is the assumption that reality is nothing more nor less than “matter-energy” in a continuous process of motion and change. As I have already indicated, the Chinese word for this matter-energy is Qi, which is often simply translated as energy, but strictly speaking, denotes a very subtle substance making up the human organism, Man, and also all the 10,000 things in creation. It is by influencing the Qi with needles inserted into the body, that the traditional acupuncturist attempts to restore a normal harmonious state of functioning, using either or both Yin-Yang and Five Element theories of energetics, as a guide.
Figure 50
: Fu Xi.
This legendary emperor (note the horns) was reputed to have lived prior to 3,000 B.C. He was the first of the Culture Heroes, and is shown holding the symbol of the eight trigrams, although the sequence depicted is a garbled version of the one with which he is usually associated.
Figure 51: THE 64 HEXAGRAMS.
These figures, which make up the Yi Jing or Classic of Changes, are arranged in a circular and a square formation inspired by Fu Xi and articulated by Shao Yung in the eleventh century A.D.
Figure 52: THE HE TU OR RIVER DIAGRAM.
Although no ancient records exist depicting the He Tu, its form and numerical relationships have been described as pictured above at least since the Song dynasty.
Following Fu Xi was another legendary emperor, Shen Nong, who is credited with being the father of herbal medicine and agriculture, and also with the invention of the plow (Fig.53). He is reputed to have gained his knowledge by self-experimentation, in which he poisoned himself up to eighty times a day, but was able to recover by relying on his previously acquired herbal knowledge.(61) His ability to survive these experiments was also legendarily attributed to two “magical powers.” The first was the possession of a magical whisk which revealed if plants were poisonous or not, and also disclosed their nature. The second was the possession of a transparent body that allowed him to see how each herb affected the different parts inside his body. If an organ became poisoned, he could see it, and neutralize the poison merely by rubbing the affected part with the appropriate antidote.(62) Herbal medicine is considered by some to be an older component of traditional Oriental medicine than is acupuncture, though it was first mentioned on bamboo slips dating to the late Zhou dynasty. While it is based on both the Yin-Yang and Five Element theories inherent in the Yi Jing, it has had its own line of development that at times has paralleled that of acupuncture, and at other times has been quite divergent. This situation has created a good deal of controversy and confusion that has continued into modern times, and will be mentioned again and again as this story unfolds. Shen Nong is honorarily credited with writing the first book about herbs, Shen Nong’s Pharmacopeia, however, this is an obvious anachronism, as is the attribution of the Yi Jing to Fu Xi.(63) In the same manner, the Yellow Emperor, who followed Shen Nong, did not actually write the Nei Jing (Fig.54).
Fu Xi, Shen Nong and Huang Di are referred to as the Three Culture Heroes. We can see the rubric of the Three Powers operating through them in the Chinese conception of their own historical development. Fu Xi exemplifies the virtue of Heaven, being the source of norms or guidelines as seen abstractly in the formative trigrams or more concretely in the nets whose lines catch things instead of concepts. Shen Nong exemplifies the virtue of Earth by his observations on the different types of soil and how to cultivate the five types of cereal grains using the plow and other agricultural implements and by the use of plants for healing. With Huang Di, the Yellow Emperor, the virtue of Man becomes manifest, and history proper begins. He is credited with introducing writing, acupuncture and the systematic use of family names. Prior to the Yellow Emperor, what family names there were contained the radical(64) for woman, suggesting a matriarchal society, but the Yellow Emperor was himself an exception to this rule, his surname being Gongsun, or Duke’s Grandson(65), suggesting a transition to the subsequently dominant patriarchal society. The time of the Yellow Emperor’s reign historically corresponds to the transition in neolithic cultures from the earlier Yang Shao, based on matriarchal fertility rites which peaked around 3,000 B.C., to the later Lung Shan, who introduced patriarchal ancestor worship as recorded on their oracle bones and whose culture peaked around 2,000 B.C.(66) Living in an age which straddled both cultures, the Yellow Emperor was the natural choice of patron for a system of medicine which sought to keep a balance between the masculine and feminine principles (i.e.: Yang and Yin). It is also fitting that the emperors signifying the virtues of Heaven and Earth should remain legendary, while the Yellow Emperor, signifying the virtue of Man, is the proper starting point for His story (history).
Figure 53: SHEN NONG.
Another legendary (horned) emperor who came after Fu Xi and before Huang Di, Shen Nong is considered the father of herbal medicine. He is depicted tasting an herb to determine its properties.
Figure 54: HUANG DI AND SHEN NONG.
This ivory carving shows the founders of the two main branches of TOM, acupuncture and herbalism, discussing medical scripture. Once again, Shen Nong on the left (note the leaves on his clothing) has an other-wordly appearance, while Huang Di on the right has a perfectly normal human form.
As related in Chapter Three, after the epoch of the Five Premier Emperors(67) ushered in by Huang Di, came that of the Sage Kings, Yao, Shun and Yu, and their struggles with the great flood. Like Fu Xi before him, Yu was also aided by a vision of a miraculous animal. In his case, it was a “divine” tortoise, who emerged from the Luo River with a numerical design on its back which came to be known as the Luo Shu or Luo scroll (Fig.55). This design is a pictorial model of the numerological curiosity called the magic square, which adds up to 15 in all directions. It is considered to be the graphic form of the “Great Plan” described in the Classic of History which includes perhaps the earliest reference in Chinese literature to the Five Elements and their associated numbers. The tortoise itself is a highly symbolic animal, whose back is round like Heaven and whose bottom is square and flat like Earth–it’s a representation of the microcosm. Thus it is not surprising that its shell was used for divination, producing some of the “oracle bones” mentioned previously.
Figure 55: THE LUO SHU OR LUO SCROLL.
Like the He Tu, the form of the Luo Shu was apparently specified only in the Song dynasty, as no ancient depictions exist. It is often shown simply as a “magic square” adding up to 15 in all directions.
Following the Sage Kings were the Three Dynasties: Xia, Shang and Zhou. I’ve presented the more that 2500 year time-span up to this point with an emphasis on its homogeneity as a way of highlighting the context within which traditional Oriental medical thought arose, but actually, the birth of the classical texts on acupuncture and herbal medicine came towards the end of, or shortly after, the most contentious phase of Chinese history, in the latter days of the Zhou dynasty, known as both the Warring States period (403-221 B.C.) and as that of the “Hundred Schools of Thought” (551-233 B.C.). These schools all influenced to one degree or another, the development of the framework for traditional acupuncture, and are thus important to mention.
Foremost, of course, is Daoism, which like its offshoot Oriental medicine proper, took the Yellow Emperor for its patron, while its canon was the Way and Its Virtue by Lao Zi, whose ideas were further developed by Zhuang Zi and others(68) (Figs.56, 57). The Dao or Way, its central concept, can be thought of as the ineffable unity of nature that we can experience, but can never adequately describe. Daoists are of two sorts, the philosophical school, or Dao Jia(69), whose members, starting with Lao Zi, contributed to the fundamental assumptions underlying traditional acupuncture, and the religious group, or Dao Jiao,(70) which emerged later and had a stronger influence on the development of herbal medicine, based on their experiences in searching for elixirs of longevity and immortality. Daoist temples are called “guan,” whose original meaning was “to look, especially to observe natural phenomena in order to divine the future”(71). It seems to me that the Daoists of both groups were unique in their ability to harmoniously combine the roles of scientist and mystic, a combination at once powerful and yet charming. They were equally at home with philosophical conceptualizations such as Yin-Yang and the Five Elements as with physiological conceptualizations such as essence (Jing), vital energy (Qi) and spirit (Shen), the Three Treasures that form the basis for the sexual, gymnastic and respiratory yogas that they devised for the return to the oneness of the Dao. They stressed non-interference with nature (wu wei) and the principle of learning by experience, not by authority(72)—both important t
eachings in traditional acupuncture.
Figure 56: LAO ZI.
The founder of Daoism and author of The Way and its Virtue (Dao De Jing), Lao Zi is often depicted riding a water buffalo on his departure from China towards an unknown destination in the West.
While the Daoists were noted for their avoidance of court-life, the Naturalists, who in many other ways resembled them, were anxious to serve as court advisors. They were, in large part, responsible for the development of the major theoretical concepts of Oriental medicine, the Yin-Yang and Five Element theories, which they originally used in a political context. Yin-Yang theory provided a basis for the court diviners to interpret the oracles of the Yi Jing while Zou Yen(73) (c. 350-270 B.C.) used the theory of the Five Elements to interpret the pattern of succession of ruling dynasties, a subject of great interest to those in positions of power. Zou Yen’s followers, the Naturalists, called themselves the Yin-Yang Jia, or School of Yin-Yang, reflecting the close connection between Yin-Yang and Five Element theories in the formative period of traditional acupuncture, a lesson to be kept in mind when contemplating the rift between partisans of these two paradigms which emerged in the twentieth century. Both Yin-Yang and Five Element theories are expressions of correlative thinking, a way of looking at the universe in which “conceptions are not subsumed under one another, but placed side by side in a pattern and in which things influence one another not by acts of mechanical causation but by a kind of inductance.”(74) Learning to think inductively, to look for patterns rather than causal agents, is one of the major tasks in mastering traditional acupuncture, and involves a kind of cognitive shift that can be difficult for those growing up in the Western scientific culture. This inductive mode of thought is no less scientific than the deductive mode we are used to, and as Joseph Needham observed, “Chinese coordinative thinking was not primitive thinking in the sense that it was an alogical or pre-logical chaos in which anything could be the cause of anything else . . . It was a picture of an extremely and precisely ordered universe in which things “fitted” so exactly that you could not insert a hair between them.”(75)
In the Footsteps of the Yellow Emperor Page 6