Shennong Bencao Jing — Zhong Jing (The Middle Classic)
Overall Paraphrase
The Shennong Bencao Jing classifies medicinals into three grades: upper, middle, and lower. The Middle Classic (middle grade) includes one hundred and twenty medicinal substances, which occupy the position of "minister" (chen) in formula composition — assisting the sovereign drug and enhancing therapeutic effects. Their primary function is nourishing one’s nature (yangxing) — regulating life activity and supporting the body's upright qi — corresponding to the realm of the "human."
The distinctive feature of middle-grade medicinals is that they include both toxic and non-toxic substances, and when used, one must carefully weigh what is appropriate — balancing conditions of deficiency/excess, strength/weakness of constitution, and the intensity/mildness of medicinal properties. The core applications of middle-grade medicinals lie in curbing disease (e’bing) and fortifying debility (bu lei), i.e., combining attack and supplementation, addressing both branch and root.
The original text then successively lists the names of the middle-grade medicinals according to eight categories: jade/stone, herbs, wood, beasts, birds, insects/fish, fruits, and grains:
- Jade/Stone — Middle (fourteen items): Realgar, sulfur, orpiment, mercury, gypsum, magnetite, mirabilite (glauber’s salt), actinolite (yangqishi), stalactite concretions (konggongnie), stalactite (yinnie), iron filings, 理石 (lìshí, a type of gypsum), 长石 (chángshí, feldspar), 肤青 (fūqīng, a blue mineral).
- Herbs — Middle (forty-nine items): dried ginger, cocklebur fruit (cangerzi), kudzu root, trichosanthes root (tianhuafen), bitter ginseng (kushen), Chinese angelica (danggui), ephedra, tongcao (Akebia stem), peony (shaoyao), 蠡实 (lǐshí, Iris lactea seed), qumai (Dianthus herb), 元参 (xuanshen, figwort root), Qin jiao (large-leaf gentian root), lily bulb, anemarrhena (zhimu), fritillaria (beimu), white angelica (baizhi), epimedium (yinyanghuo), skullcap (huangqin), dog spine fern (gouji), ranunculus sceleratus (shilongrui), imperata root (baimaogen), purple aster (ziwan), purple gromwell (zicao), patrinia (baijiangcao), dictamnus root bark (baixianpi), 酸酱 (suanjiang, Physalis alkekengi), 紫参 (zishen, purple ginseng/salvia), Ligusticum (gaoben), pyrrosia leaf (shiwei), Dioscorea hypoglauca (bixie), Cynanchum atratum (baiwei), duckweed (shuiping), Trichosanthes cucumeroides (wanggua), burnet root (diyu), seaweed (haizao), Lycopus lucidus (zelan), Stephania tetrandra (fangji), coltsfoot flower (kuandonghua), tree peony root bark (mudan), Pedicularis (maxianhao), centella asiatica (jixuecao), 女菀 (nüwan, Aster fastigiatus), 王孙 (wangsun, Paris polyphylla), 蜀羊泉 (shuyangquan, Solanum lyratum), 爵床 (juechuang, Rostellularia procumbens), 假苏 (jiasu, schizonepeta/jingjie), 翘根 (qiaogen, root of Forsythia suspensa).
- Wood — Middle (seventeen items): mulberry root bark (sangbaipi), bamboo leaves, Evodia fruit (wuzhuyu), gardenia fruit (zhizi), 芜荑 (wuyi, Siberian elm fruit), bitter orange (zhishi), magnolia bark (houpo), ash bark (qinpi), 秦菽 (qinshu, Sichuan pepper / qinjiao), Cornus fruit (shanzhuyu), trumpet creeper flower (ziwei, lingxiaohua), polyporus (zhuling), 白棘 (baiji, whitebush), longan fruit (longyan), usnea (songluo), Euonymus alatus (weimao), albizzia bark (hehuan).
- Beasts — Middle (seven items): horse penis (majing), velvet deer antler (lurong), ox horn sheath (niujiaosai), male goat horn (guyangjiao), male dog penis (mugou yinjing), antelope horn (lingyangjiao), rhinoceros horn (xijiao).
- Birds — Middle (two items): swallow droppings (yanshi), bat droppings (tianshu niao, bat guano).
- Insects/Fish — Middle (seventeen items): hedgehog skin (weipi), wasp nest (lufengfang), turtle shell (biejia), crab (xie), cicada molt (zhachan), grub (qicao, scarab larva), cuttlefish bone (wuzei yugu, haipiaoxiao), white silkworm (baijiangcan), snake slough (sheyujia), 椿鸡 (chunji, Chinese toon insect), 活蝓 (huoyu, slug), 石龙子 (shilongzi, skink), 木虻 (mumeng, horsefly), 蜚虻 (feimeng, deer fly), 蜚廉 (feilian, cockroach/black beetle), 䗪虫 (zhechong, ground beetle), 伏翼 (fuyi, bat).
- Fruits — Middle (one item): smoked plum (meishi, wumei).
- Grains — Middle (three items; four listed in original — possible scribal error): soybean sprout (dadou huangjuan), red adzuki bean (chixiaodou), millet (sumi), broomcorn millet (shumi).
In sum, middle-grade medicinals sit between the “upper grade — nourishing fate” and the “lower grade — treating disease.” They combine attack and supplementation, nourish with some therapeutic action, representing the backbone of clinical herbal practice in traditional Chinese medicine. 🌿
🧠 Deep Understanding
Core Principle 💡
“Middle grade serves as minister, nourishing one’s nature in correspondence with the human” is one of the central ideas in the three-grade classification of the Shennong Bencao Jing. This system posits a triadic “Heaven—Human—Earth” correspondence within medicinal hierarchy:
- Upper grade (120 items): “sovereign” — primarily nourishes fate (ming), responding to Heaven; mostly non-toxic; can be taken long-term, e.g., ginseng, licorice, Rehmannia.
- Middle grade (120 items): “minister” — chiefly nourishes nature/disposition (xing), responding to the Human; includes both toxic and non-toxic substances, requiring careful judgment.
- Lower grade (125 items): “assistant/courier” — chiefly treats disease, responding to Earth; mostly toxic; cannot be taken long-term.
“Nourishing one’s nature” differs from the pure tonification of “nourishing fate” as well as from the vigorous attacking of “treating disease.” The word “nature” (xing) here refers to the state of one’s vital activities and constitutional peculiarities — the core action of middle-grade medicinals is to regulate hyperactivity or insufficiency within the body, restoring imbalanced functional states to equipoise and harmony. The phrase “curb disease and fortify debility” reveals the dual function of middle-grade medicinals: they both suppress pathogenic influences (eliminating evil) and supplement deficiencies (supporting uprightness), representing the interstitial zone of simultaneous attack and tonification.
This classification concept also implicitly embodies the sovereign-minister-assistant-courier principle in formula construction: middle-grade medicinals frequently act as “ministers” — assisting the sovereign drug, enhancing its effects, and addressing secondary symptoms. For example, in Mahuang Tang (Ephedra Decoction), ephedra is sovereign (promotes sweating and releases the exterior), cinnamon twig is minister (supports ephedra in inducing sweat), and apricot kernel is assistant/courier (downwards-disciplines lung qi) — cinnamon twig appears among the middle grade precisely matching its “ministerial” role.
Additionally, the phrase “toxic and non-toxic, discern what is fitting” embodies the Bencao Jing's rudimentary awareness of safety tiering of medicines. Mid-grade substances include those with mild toxicity or outright toxicity (e.g., mercury, realgar, Evodia), as well as fully non-toxic agents (e.g., kudzu root, lily, longan). Hence, they must be applied through pattern differentiation and tailored dosing — not uniformly. This spirit of “attentive weighing” is an early pharmacological articulation of traditional Chinese medicine’s treatment based on syndrome differentiation.
Modern Perspective 🌟
From a modern pharmacognostic perspective, the Shennong Bencao Jing's placement of middle-grade medicinal substances holds considerable plausibility, despite historical constraints.
What holds up — Many middle-grade drugs remain commonly used clinically today and demonstrably embody the bidirectional regulation this class claims. Examples:
- Dang Gui (Angelica sinensis): both tonifies blood and activates blood circulation — classic “tonify with movement.”
- Ge Gen (Pueraria root): relieves muscle tension and clears heat (expelling pathogens), while also promoting salivation and elevating yang (supporting uprightness).
- Hou Po (Magnolia bark): moves qi and dries dampness (reducing pathogens), exerting a bidirectional regulatory effect on gastrointestinal function.
- Lu Rong (velvet deer antler): warms and tonifies kidney yang (fortifying the upright), but with a warm-dry quality — excessive dosage can stir blood, evidencing the need for prudence.
Historical limitations:
- Some classifications were unavoidably tethered to the knowledge of their time. For instance, mercury is listed among the middle grade; we now know it has explicit neurotoxicity and renal toxicity, and can never be deemed “safe if judiciously used.” Similarly, realgar contains arsenic and is a toxic metallic mineral.
- Items such as swallow droppings, bat droppings, grubs, and horseflies in birds and insects/fish are virtually abandoned in clinical practice today, with no reliable evidence of efficacy.
- Placing bats (Fuyi) alongside fish and insects attests to the immature zoological taxonomy of that period.
- Animal reproductive organs — e.g., horse penis, dog penis — had a rationale in the archaic logic of “treating an organ with like organs,” but modern pharmacology cannot validate their specific actions.
Modern relevance — The concept underlying this middle tier — “dintegrate and tonify, individualize to person, attentively gauge toxicity” — greatly resonates in modern pharmacotherapeutic thought with the idea of a therapeutic window. Middle-grade agents behave like modern prescription medicines: clearly efficacious yet requiring expert judgment to balance benefit against risk. This holds practical, heuristic value within contemporary clinical Chinese medicine.
Health Preservation Insights ⚡
The middle-grade tenet of “chiefly nourishing one’s nature” may yield the following non-therapeutic insights for daily health:
- Coordination demands restraint: That these medicinals span non-toxic to toxic alerts us that daily preservation must likewise vary by individual and foster right measure. The same practice (e.g., amount of exercise, dietary augmentation) will affect different constitutions in markedly divergent ways; blind copying is unhelpful. Respond to self.
- “Curb disease” takes precedence over “treat disease”: This tier emphasizes halting the advance of disease before it worsens. In daily health, we should watch for early warning signals and rectify routines and emotions in good time — not wait until full-blown illness appears to consult a physician.
- The dialectic of concurrent attack and tonification: Late Bronze thought — “expel pathogens without harming qi, supplement without trapping evil” — suggests that wellness lies neither in mere enrichment nor in constant depletion. Mating motion with arrest, tempering labor with rest is the true path of nurture.
- Stay level-headed about ‘using what lacks something to replace it’ premise: As remarkable as these earth-insight-derived animal products (e.g., deer antler, turtle shell, cuttlefish bone) are, daily dietary regimen should not overdepend on superstitious “eat X to mend Y” notions — smooth, varied nutrition speaks more acutely.
📚 Related Knowledge
- Related Concepts
- Three-Tier Classification: The Bencao Jing divides the 365 medicinal agents into upper, middle, and lower grades, corresponding to the triadic “Heaven—Human—Earth.” Upper-grade enhances fate-life, middle-grade nurtures one’s nature, lower-grade treats illness — China’s first system of drug classification.
- Sovereign–Minister–Adjuvant–Courier: Basic construction of formularies—the middle tier usually fills the “minister” niche, secondary support of “sovereign”, tying in secondary symptoms.
- Four Natures & Five Flavors / Channel (Meridian) tropism, channel distribution: Middle drugs such as fresh root (pungent-hot), gypsum (acrid-cold), angelica (sweet-warm) indeed carry the foundations of concepts matured later.
- Toxicity grading: The “toxic types vs non-toxic types” differential within mid-Tier presages later taxonomy — large-toxicity, toxic, small-toxicity, non‑toxic.
- Further Reading
- Shennong Bencao Jing — Shang Jing (Upper Classic): comprehend exclusive objective of nurturing fate relative to heaven and settle them against middle’s unique “nourish nature + respond to humans.”
- Shennong Bencao Jing — Xia Jing (Lower Classic): become compact with fierce actions aligned against the triad; then seamless.
- Huangdi Neijing · Suwen · “Zhi Zhen Yao Da Lun” chapter for authorities of relationship among majesties‑minister‑invites in present wording.
- Bencao Gangmu — Xu Li (preface):: compare LiShi‑zhen adulations past 350 primary manuscripts—so tie an awareness of evolving materia botanica that conform up.
本文基于中医经典古籍，仅供传统文化学习与研读，不构成任何医疗诊断、用药或治疗建议；如有不适请及时就医。
