Reflections on Bian Que in Religious and Medical Traditions in Early China

Abstract

Initial analysis of the contents of the Laoguanshan manuscripts shows there is an emphasis on a number of healing principles and techniques that have been associated with Bian Que: puncturing the mai-channels to heal disease; diagnosis based on examining the appearance and palpating multiple sites on the body; reverence for the mantic arts, and the superior physician who can correctly “determine whether [the patient] will live or die.” These characteristics have been ascribed to Bian Que across a number of domains: through non-medical texts that describe cases or anecdotes, passages in the received medical literature ascribed to a person or lineage with this name, and material evidence from Han dynasty mortuary art. Widespread references to Bian Que in medical and non-medical works indicate that citing the name constituted a recognizable and potent mode of establishing authority. Although we cannot completely reconstruct the medical practices of a person, clan, or mode of authority called “Bian Que,” the traces that remain substantiate claims that a set of ideas and practices associated with Bian Que was revered as efficacious healing worthy of study and transmission.