That miracle cures became inscribed – that is, committed to space – turned out to be a transformative development. When Tuệ Tĩnh composed Nam Dược Thần Hiệu [Miraculous Drugs of the South] in Chinese script while living in exile in China, he ended up producing a text that is a blend of a herbal handbook and a pragmatic guide (see Chapter 2). Commonly understood as Tuệ Tĩnh's effort to elucidate Vietnamese medicine to his host country, Nam Dược Thần Hiệu was the first text to systematize the use of Vietnamese medicaments within the parameters of Chinese drug theory, so that ‘Southern’ medicine could be presented to physicians at the Ming court. By way of inscription, miracle cures became subject to decontextualization. By isolating miracle cures from the broader context in which they originally appeared and attempting to abstract away principles about the miracles of the South towards a more generalized and theoretical understanding, Tuệ Tĩnh had mobilized an analytical mindset made possible by a culture of literacy which, in 14th-century Vietnam, was populated by the educated elite. The written form is abstracted from matter and in need of explication; they are residues of what has been called ‘context-free’ language (Hirsch, 1977, p 21) or ‘autonomous’ discourse (Olson, 1980, p 187). Writing has since the beginning enhanced the primary orality of language, enabling not only the organization of principles of oratory, but also giving rise to the written composition, which further cemented the importance of the analytical mindset – which is intent on pulling things apart, breaking down the dense continuum of experience, and processing information in meaningful segments (Ong, 2002).

Inscription also makes miracle cures portable, even if not contextually transferrable. Copies of ‘Nam Dược Thần Hiệu’ were sent back to Vietnam via a diplomatic mission and were kept in the Vietnamese royal libraries prior to the Ming invasion in 1407, even as they were produced for the benefit of the Ming court (see Chapter 2). The fixation of miracle cures on paper was made in assistance of military conquest and colonization; even when Tuệ Tĩnh foregrounded a physical and spiritual relationship between Vietnamese people and the land where they live (‘Vietnamese medicine for Vietnamese people’), the inscription of miracle cures was meant to assist the Ming with overcoming the ‘miasmic climate’ of Vietnam as a ‘deadly barrier’ that set limits for military garrisons and Han settlements.