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A Sogdian Medical Text from Turfan
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 February 2021
Abstract
This article deals with a Sogdian medical text in the German Turfan collection obtained from Toyoq. The recto of the document appears to contain two prescriptions for treating irregular fever and a disease involving the urinary bladder. The names of both diseases, and several ingredients used, suggest the text is closely linked to Indian medicine, especially Āyurveda. In contrast, the verso is a translation of a passage discussing dropsy in a seventh-century Chinese medical work, the first so far identified Sogdian text translated from a Chinese classical text. Despite its short content, this Sogdian medical text offers intriguing insight into the multi-cultural background of Sogdian medicine in Turfan.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Royal Asiatic Society
Footnotes
*
I am particularly grateful to Professor Nicholas Sims-Williams for his valuable advice and kind help with this article. I would also like to thank Professor Yutaka Yoshida for his helpful suggestions. This research was supported by the National Social Science Fund of China (No 17BZs143).
References
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2 The Khotanese version was edited by Konow, S., A Medical Text in Khotanese, Ch.ii 003 of India Office Library, with Translation and Vocabulary (Oslo, 1941)Google Scholar. Chen Ming 陳明 has translated the Sanskrit version into Chinese: Dunhuang chutu huyu yidian ‘Qipo shu’ yanjiu 敦煌出土胡語醫典《耆婆書》研究 (A Study on Sanskrit Text of Jīvaka-pustaka from Dunhuang) [hereafter ‘Qipo shu’ yanjiu] (Taipei, 2005). On the brief introduction and main research on this work, see M. Maggi, “Jīvakapustaka”, in Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/jivakapustaka.
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14 Cf. Wang Xingyi 王興伊 and Duan Yishan 段逸山 (eds.), Xinjiang chutu sheyi wenshu jijiao 新疆出土涉醫文獻輯校 (Collection and Collation of Medical Texts excavated from Xinjiang) (Shanghai, 2016), p. 235.
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20 Professor Yoshida suggested it might be connected with Skt. padma-cāriṇī “a small tree, Hibiscus Mutabilis”, cf. Monier-Williams, M., A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford, 1872), p. 531Google Scholar.
21 Si.5.41, 62, Emmerick, The Siddhasāra of Ravigupta. II, pp. 95, 99; Chen, “Yili jinghua” yanjiu, pp. 209–210. For the use of various types and parts of lotus in treatment to remove bodily heat, see Zysk, K. G., Asceticism and Healing in Ancient India: Medicine in the Buddhist Monastery. Corrected edition (Delhi, 1998), pp. 113–114Google Scholar.
22 The verb nxw'y “to pound (drugs in a mortar)” was first correctly interpreted by Henning, ‘The Sogdian Texts of Paris’, p. 728.
23 A. Benkato, ‘A Manichaean Remedy for Headaches’, forthcoming. I am grateful to Dr Benkato for allowing me to cite his unpublished article.
24 Henning, ‘The Sogdian Texts of Paris’, pp. 719–720. The word appears twice in the Sogdian Buddhist text “Sūtra of the causes and effects of actions”, written zwt'k. MacKenzie translated it as “*beer, liquor”, cf. The “Sūtra of the causes and effects of actions” in Sogdian, pp. 15, 77. In this text the Sogdian translator used zwtʾk to translate Chinese jiu 酒.
25 Sims-Willliams, N., ‘The Sogdian Ancient Letter No. 4 and the personal name Manavaghichk’, Estudios Iranios y Turanios 3, (2017), pp. 172–173Google Scholar.
26 Sims-Willliams, N., Biblical and Other Christian Sogdian Texts from the Turfan Collection (Turnhout, 2014), p. 102Google Scholar.
27 Sims-Williams, N., ‘The Sogdian Fragments of Leningrad’, BSOAS 44/2 (1981), p. 235CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
28 Hao Wanshan 郝萬山, “Jingfang zhong de baijiu yu qingjiu 經方中的白酒與清酒” (The baijiu and qingjiu in the Canonical recipes), Zhongyi zazhi 中醫雜誌 (Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine), 5 (1991), p. 59. According to the state-sponsored Xinxiu bencao 新修本草 (Newly Revised Materia Medica, 659) of Tang period, only rice wine (mijiu 米酒) can be used medicinally, cf. Shang Zhijun 尚志鈞 (ed.), Xinxiu bencao, 2nd edition (Hefei, 2004), p. 283.
29 Nutton, V., Ancient Medicines. 2nd edition (Routledge, 2013), p. 32Google Scholar.
30 Emmerick, The Siddhasāra of Ravigupta. II, p. 85.
31 Si.5.81, Emmerick, The Siddhasāra of Ravigupta. II, pp. 105–107.
32 Ibid., pp. 117–119.
33 For example, JP No. 4, 10, 12, 16, 23, 40, 42, 79, cf. Konow, A Medical Text in Khotanese, pp. 17, 23, 27, 29, 35, 49, 51, 79; Chen, ‘Qipo shu’ yanjiu, pp. 280–284, 302–305, 308–312, 317–318, 358–360, 365–366, 429–431.
34 N. Sims-Williams, ‘‘Stater’ and ‘drachm’ in Sogdian and Bactrian weight inscriptions’, Academia Turfanica 吐魯番學研究院 (ed.), Tulufan yu sichouzhilu jingji dai gaofeng luntan ji diwu jie tulufan xue guoji xueshu yantaohui lunwen ji 吐魯番與絲綢之路經濟帶高峰論壇暨第五屆吐魯番學國際學術研討會論文集 (Essays on Turfan and Silk Road Economic Belt Forum: Selected Papers, the Fifth International Conference on Turfan Studies) (Shanghai, 2016), pp. 106–107.
35 N. Sims-Williams, From Liturgy to Pharmacology: Christian Sogdian Texts from the Turfan Collection (BTT XLV). (Turnhout, 2019), p. 92.
36 Skjærvø, P. O., Khotanese Manuscripts from Chinese Turkestan in the British Library. A complete catalogue with Texts and Translations, with contributions by Sims-Williams, U. (London, 2002), p. 488Google Scholar.
37 Shennong bencao jing jizhu, pp. 248–249; Xinxiu bencao, p. 104; Laufer, B., Sino-Iranica. Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran (Chicago, 1919), pp. 546–547Google Scholar.
38 See the two price lists from the 2nd year of the Tianbao 天寶 era (743) for the Turfan markets, cf. Ikeda On 池田溫, Chūgoku kodai sekichō kenkyū 中國古代籍帳研究 (Studies in Ancient Chinese Household Registers) (Tokyo, 1979), pp. 447–462. This group of fragments have been studied by many scholars. For the medicinal items within see É. Trombert, ‘Produits médicaux, aromates et teintures à Turfan en 743’, in Médecine, religion et société dans la Chine médiévale. Étude de manuscrits chinois de Dunhuang et de Turfan, (ed.) C. Despeux (Paris, 2010), pp. 711–768; Eric Trombert et É. de La Vaissière, ‘Le prix des denrées sur le marché de Turfan en 743’, Jean-Pierre Drège (éd.), Études de Dunhuang et Turfan (Genève, 2007), pp. 1–52.
39 Pulleyblank, Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese…, pp. 255, 161. Prof. Yoshida kindly pointed out to me that one might expect both syllables to begin with the same consonant, ts or c, but that c…c… may have developed into c…š… by dissimilation.
40 For qingjiu see Hao, ‘Jingfang zhong de baijiu yu qingjiu’, p. 59.
41 Nutton, Ancient Medicines, p. 30. On the bladder stone, see Kiple, K. (ed.), The Cambridge World History of Human Disease (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 1088–1092CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Kiple, K. (ed.), The Cambridge Historical Dictionary of Disease (Cambridge, 2003), p. 358Google Scholar.
42 Emmerick, The Siddhasāra of Ravigupta. II, pp. 283–287; Chen, “Yili jinghua” yanjiu, pp. 298–299.
43 JP No. 4, 5, 10, 12, 23, 40, 79, see Konow, A Medical Text in Khotanese, pp. 17, 23, 27, 29, 35, 49, 51, 79; Chen, ‘Qipo shu’ yanjiu, pp. 283, 287, 304–305, 311, 331, 359-–360, 430.
44 Structurally unlike the disease-oriented Siddhasāra, the Jīvaka-pustaka is prescription-oriented, which means that an individual prescription is always a remedy for several sorts of diseases, cf. Chen, ‘Qipo shu’ yanjiu, p. 194.
45 In some publications, “dropsy” is referred to by its synonym “edema”. Nevertheless, as medical experts have noted, the latter now has additional connotations, so the present article adopts “dropsy”, cf. Kiple (ed.), The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, p. 689.
46 Ding Guangdi 丁光迪 (ed.), Zhubing yuanhou lun jiaozhu 諸病源候論校注 (Collation and Annotation of Zhubing yuanhou lun) (Beijing, 2013), p. 424.
47 Sims-Williams, N., The Life of Serapion and Other Christian Sogdian Texts from the Manuscripts E25 and E26 (Turnhout, 2015), p. 101Google Scholar.
48 Gershevitch, I., A Grammar of Manichean Sogdian (Oxford, 1954), § 138, 182Google Scholar.
49 It is a bit difficult to translate qing 青 into English, since it usually means “blue” or “green” in the majority of its Chinese medical contexts and in some cases even “black”, “grey” or other colours. Therefore, some scholars suggest to use the English word “cyan” because it conveys the idea of blue and green, cf. N. Wiseman and P. Zmiewski, ‘Rectifying the Names: Suggestions for Standardizing Chinese Medical Terminology’, in Approaches to Traditional Chinese Medical Literature. Proceedings of an International Symposium on Translation Methodologies and Terminologies, (ed.) P. Unschuld (Dordrecht / Boston / London, 1989), p. 56. Here I choose the commonly used “blue” to translate qing.
50 Professor Yoshida has kindly pointed out to me that in the Sogdian Sūtra of the causes and effects of actions, ’xs'yn’k is used to translate qing 青, cf. ’xs'yn’k syc'kk (line 353) translating qingque 青雀 “green sparrow” in the Chinese text (cf. MacKenzie, The “Sūtra of the causes and effects of actions” in Sogdian, pp. 20–21). Strangely, in the same text, ’xs'yn’k is also used to translate huang 黃 “yellow”, cf. ʾxsʾyn wrsʾk (line 88), the equivalent of huangfa 黃髮 “lit. yellow hair” (i.e. the old) in the Chinese text (ibid., pp. 6–7). This seems to be a mistake.
51 Pulleyblank, Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese…, p. 255.
52 Gao Wenzhu 高文柱 (ed.), Yixin fang 醫心方 (Formulas of the Heart of Medicines) (Beijing, 2011) p. 227.
53 Gao Wenzhu 高文鑄 (ed.), Waitai miyao fang (Beijing, 1993), p. 375. Gujin lu yanfang is known to have been compiled in the Sui-Tang eras by Zhen Quan 甄權. Though the book is lost, part of its text survives in the works such as Waitai miyao and Ishimpō.
54 Recently another Sogdian fragment (Ch/U 7187 = T III 1078) referring to “ten kinds of water disease” has been identified, cf. Reck and Benkato, ‘‘Like a Virgin’’, p. 85.
55 Cf. Yoshida, Y., “Buddhist Literature in Sogdian,” in Emmerick, R. E. and Macuch, M. (eds.), The Literature of Pre-Islamic Iran Persian Literature (New York, 2009), pp. 288–329Google Scholar; idem, “Sogdian literature i. Buddhist”, Encyclopædia Iranica, online edition, 2015: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/sogdian-literature-01-buddhist.
56 Ma Boying 馬伯英 et al., Zhongwai yixue wenhua jiaoliu shi 中外醫學文化交流史 (History of Medical Culture and Exchange between China and Abroad), (Shanghai, 1993), p. 24.
57 Li Jingwei 李經緯 et al. (eds.), Zhongwai yixue jiaoliu shi 中外醫學交流史 (History of Medical Interchange between China and Abroad) (Changsha, 1998), p. 72.
58 Gao (ed.), Yixin fang, p. 659.
59 Maijue is a composite work dating from the Song or Yuan eras, cf. Allsen, T., Culture and Conquest in Mongol Eurasia (Cambridge, 2000), p. 145Google Scholar; Lo, V. and Yidan, Wang, ‘Chasing the Vermilion Bird: Late-Medieval Alchemical Transformations in The Treasure Book of Ilkhan on Chinese Science and Techniques’, in Imagining Chinese Medicine, (ed.) Lo, V. and Barrett, P. (Leiden and Boston, 2018), p. 293CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
60 Shi Guang 時光, Yili han zhongguo keji zhenbao shu jiaozhu 《伊利汗中國科技珍寶書》校注 (Collation and Annotation of Tanksūqnāma-yi Īl-khān dar Funūn-i ‘Ulūm-i Khatā’ī), (Beijing, 2016), p. 38.
61 On the latest editing of the Chinese medical texts from Turfan, see Wang and Duan (eds.), Xinjiang chutu sheyi wenshu jijiao; Shen Shunong 沈澍農 (ed.), Dunhuang Tulufan yiyao wenxian xin jijiao 敦煌吐魯番醫藥文獻新輯校 (New Collection and Collation of Medical Texts from Turfan, Xinjiang) (Beijing, 2016).
62 Wang Shumin, “A general survey of medical works contained in the Dunhuang medical manuscripts”, (translated by V. Lo), in Medieval Chinese Medicine. The Dunhuang Medical Manuscripts, (ed.) V. Lo and Ch. Cullen (London and New York, 2005), pp. 45–58.
63 For example, in the collation notes to this passage, the text of Zhong cangjing 中藏經 (Canon Kept in the Palace Repsitory) is quoted to suggest it is xiong, cf. Ding (ed.), Zhubing yuanhou lun jiaozhu, p. 425. Zhong cangjing is attributed to the renowned physician Hua Tuo 華佗 (?–208?), but it is generally accepted that the author is an anonymous compiler. On this passage about dropsy, see Zhong cangjing, (ed.) Gao Wenzhu (Beijing, 1995), pp. 69–70.
64 Kiple (ed.), The Cambridge World History of Human Disease, p. 689.
65 Yu Gengzhe 于賡哲, Tangdai jibing yiliao shi chutan 唐代疾病、醫療史初探 (Disease and Healing in T'ang China) (Beijing, 2011), pp. 11–20.
66 Lo and Cullen (eds.), Medieval Chinese Medicine, p. 430.
67 Yu, Tangdai jibing yiliao shi chutan, pp. 15–16.
68 The survival of at least two Sogdian texts concerning dropsy and the occurrence of some common drugs against dropsy (e.g. the above-mentioned daji and tingli zi) in the Chinese medical texts from Dunhuang and Turfan seem to be in strong support of this.
69 Sims-Williams, N., ‘Early New Persian in Syriac script: Two texts from Turfan’, BSOAS 74/3 (2011), p. 366CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
70 Yu, Tangdai jibing yiliao shi chutan, pp. 15–16.
71 The so far known Sogdian medical texts from Dunhuang and Turfan are twenty in number, according to the list made by Reck and Benkato, ‘‘Like a Virgin’’, pp. 83–86.
72 Cf. D. Maue, Alttürkische Handschriften, Teil 1: Documente in Brāhmī und tibetischer Schrift (Stuttgart, 1996); Zieme, P., ‘Notes on Uighur Medicine, Especially on the Uighur Siddhasāra Tradition’, Asian Medicine 3 (2007), pp. 308–322CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chen, Shufang yiyao, pp. 19–43.
73 Maue, D. and Sims-Williams, N., ‘Eine Sanskrit-Sogdische Bilingue in Brāhmī’, BSOAS 54/3 (1991), pp. 486–495CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
74 Benkato, ‘A Manichaean Remedy for Headaches’. On Sanskrit kodrava cf. Emmerick, The Siddhasāra of Ravigupta. I, p. 193. Another example is worth mentioning too. In the above mentioned New Persian medical text there is an ingredient trywšn (B8*), which can be identified as Skt. try-uṣana- (= vyoṣa) “three hot substances”, i.e. a mixture of black pepper, long pepper and dry ginger (cf. Emmerick, The Siddhasāra of Ravigupta I, p. 179). As Professor Sims-Williams has pointed out, many of the ingredients attested in this New Persian text are the same as those in the Syriac “Book of Medicines” (cf. ‘Early New Persian in Syriac script: Two texts from Turfan’, p. 363). Even though black pepper, long pepper and dry ginger are widely attested in the “Book of Medicines”, the expression “three hot substances” is not found. The use of this collective term is clearly due to Indian influence. Chen Ming has noted that, when listing the ingredients of a recipe the Sanskrit text usually followed the Āyurvedic tradition to use the collective term such as “three fruits” and “three pungent spices”, while the Khotanese text prefers to enumerate each of them (cf. Chen, ‘Qipo shu’ yanjiu, p. 32).
75 Several other Sogdian medical documents from Turfan are in pustaka format too, e.g. So10006 and So 20167 - So 20171 from Toyoq, So 10339 (T I α) from Qočo (Gaochang), cf. Reck 2016, pp. 20–21; Reck and Benkato, ‘‘Like a Virgin’’, pp. 84–85. On So 10339 see Ch. Reck, ‘Nichtbuddhistische mitteliranische Pustakablätter’, Vom Aramäischen zum Alttürkischen, (ed.) J. P. Laut und K. Röhrborn (Berlin, 2014), pp. 170–172 (I thank Professor Yoshida for drawing my attention to this article); Benkato, ‘A Manichaean Remedy for Headaches’.
76 Recently, Professor Yoshida (apud Reck and Benkato, ‘‘Like a Virgin’’, p. 73) has identified a word lym in a Sogdian gynaecological manuscript (So 10100k + So 18249 + So 18250 + So 18251) as Chinese lin 痳 (EMC *lim), which he translates as “venereal disease, gonorrhea”. However, both lin 痳 and its more common synonym lin 淋mean “urinary difficulty” rather than “venereal disease”. Several chapters in the Bingyuan lun deal with lin 淋, Chapter 38 being specifically concerned with women (cf. Zhubing yuanhou lun jiaozhu, pp. 768–769).
77 Maue and Sims-Williams, ‘Eine Sanskrit-Sogdische Bilingue in Brāhmī’, p. 493; Adams, A Dictionary of Tocharian B, p. 8.
78 Also snt'p (So 20211, line 9), I am grateful to Professor Yoshida for reminding me of this. For Toch B. sintāp see Adams, A Dictionary of Tocharian B, p. 757.
79 Sims-Williams, N., ‘Sogdian and Turkish Christians in the Turfan and Tun-huang manuscripts’, in Turfan and Tun-huang: The Texts, (ed.) Cadonna, A. (Florence, 1992), pp. 43–61Google Scholar.
80 N. Sims-Williams, ‘Medical Texts from Turfan in Syriac and New Persian’, in Yuyan beihou de lishi – xiyu gudian yuyanxue gaofeng luntan lunwen ji 語言背後的歷史——西域古典語言學高峰論壇論文集 (The History behind the Languages. Essays of Turfan Forum on Old Languages of the Silk Road), (ed.) Academia Turfanica, (Shanghai, 2012), pp. 13–19. On the Syriac medical fragment see Maróth, M., ‘Ein Fragment eines syrischen pharmazeutischen Rezeptbuches aus Turfan’, Altorientalische Forschungen 11 (1984), pp. 115–125CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
81 Sims-Williams, ‘Early New Persian in Syriac script: Two texts from Turfan’, pp. 362–363.