"Complete Works of Jingyue"

Introduction

"Complete Works of Jingyue"

This page is cultural documentation, not medical advice.

A 64-volume comprehensive medical encyclopedia compiled by Zhang Jingyue (1563–1640), completed around 1624. The core text of the Ming-dynasty "warming and tonification" school and the principal vehicle of the "yang is not in excess, true-yin is often insufficient" thesis.

Zhang Jingyue, styled Jingyue and self-styled Tongyizi, is traditionally cited as the culminating figure of the late-Ming "warming-tonification" (温补派) school. His signature thesis — "yang is not in excess, true-yin is often insufficient" (阳非有余, 真阴不足) — reformulated earlier Song-Jin-Yuan debates around a substantive "true-yin" (真阴) and "true-yang" (真阳) axis, rejecting the more aggressive purgation and draining of the Song-Jin era in favor of carefully calibrated supplementation. The text preserves the Zuǒ Guī Wán and Yòu Guī Wán pairs, the canonical "pure-tonification, no-draining" kidney-yin and kidney-yang formulas, alongside the "newly organized eight formulas" (新方八阵) and the "ancient-formula eight formations" (古方八阵) classification system. The book is, in short, the philosophical counterweight to the "tonify + drain" tradition represented by the Liùwèi Dìhuáng Wán line, and remains one of the most cited late-Ming medical syntheses in modern Chinese-medicine curricula.