(Ebook) The Divine Farmer's Materia Medica A Translation of the ShenNong Ben Cao ling by Yang Shorr-zhong, scanned by ShenNong Ben Cao ling, Yang Shorr-zhong ISBN 9780936185804, 9780936185897, 0936185805, 0936185899

(Ebook) The Divine Farmer's Materia Medica A Translation of the ShenNong Ben Cao ling by Yang Shorr-zhong, scanned by ShenNong Ben Cao ling, Yang Shorr-zhong ISBN 9780936185804, 9780936185897, 0936185805, 0936185899

Publisher's Foreword The Shen Nong Ben Cao Jing (The Divine Farmer's
Materia Medica Classic) is one of the 10 premodern classics of Chinese
medicine selected in the People's Republic of China as nationwide
research priorities within the Chinese medical literature. Also referred
to as the Shen Nong Ben Jing, the Shen Nong Ben Cao, the Ben Cao Jing,
and simply the Ben Jing, it is one of the two most important of these 10
preeminent Chinese medical classics. The Huang Di Nei Jing (The Yellow
Emperior's Inner Classic) is the locus classicus of Chinese medical
theory and especially acupuncture and moxibustion, while the Shen Nong
Ben Cao Jing is the locus classicus of so-called Chinese herbal
medicine. All the rest of the Chinese medical literature, both premodern
and contemporary, is built on the foundation of these two seminal
texts. Therefore, it is not difficult to understand why we have chosen
to publish this first English language translation of the Shen Nong Ben
Cao Jing as part of Blue Poppy Press's Great Masters Series.

Shen
Nong is one of the three greatest heroes of Chinese culture, the other
two being the Yellow Emperor and Fu Xi, the revealer of the eight
trigrams. These three legendary divine beings are credited as being the
fountainhead of Chinese lifearts. The name Shen Nong can be translated
as Divine Farmer, Divine Peasant, Divine Agriculturist, or Divine
Husbandman. Among his numerous discoveries and revelations, Shen Nong is
credited with teaching the Chinese people how to farm -- thus his most
common name. The first reference to a connection between Shen Nong and
Chinese herbal medicine is found in the Huai Nan Zi (The South of the
Huai Master) written by Liu An who died in 122 bce.

"Ancient
people ate grasses and drank water. They gathered the fruit from trees
and ate the meat of clams. They frequently suffered from disease and
poisoning. Then Shen Nong taught people for the first time how to sow
the five grains, to observe whether the land was dry o