Illustrated Classic of Acupoints on the Bronze Figure
Wang Weiyi standardises point locations and casts bronze figures for teaching.
Tong Ren Tu Jing (铜人腧穴针灸图经)Meridians and Points
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
The English is translated from the Chinese vernacular. The original text and its pinyin sit beneath each sentence in smaller type; hide them whenever you prefer to read the translation alone.
Wang Weiyi, physician of the Hanlin academy, collated the acupuncture channels and cast a bronze figure as a model, laying out the viscera and the twelve channels, marking beside them where the points meet, and engraving their names.
ORIGINAL翰林医官王惟一考订针灸经络，铸铜人为式，分脏腑十二经，旁注腧穴所会，刻题其名。
hàn lín yī guān wáng wéi yī kǎo dìng zhēn jiǔ jīng luò，zhù tóng rén wéi shì，fēn zàng fǔ shí èr jīng，páng zhù shù xué suǒ huì，kè tí qí míng。
So that the beholder sees it clearly and in order, and the doubtful are released as ice melts.
ORIGINAL使观者烂然而有第，疑者涣然而冰释。
shǐ guān zhě làn rán ér yǒu dì，yí zhě huàn rán ér bīng shì。
—— 《铜人腧穴针灸图经·夏竦序》
Commissioned by imperial order in 1026, Wang Weiyi produced a text fixing the location of the acupoints and, with it, two bronze figures marked with the points and drilled to receive needles. Students located a point by feel and were tested by whether the needle entered the hole and the wax covering it was pierced.
This was the first attempt at a national standard for point location, and it established the pattern that later dynasties followed. The bronze figures are the origin of the standard meridian charts in use today, and the impulse behind them, standardisation for teaching and examination, is recognisably modern.
ANNOTATION
Bronze man (铜人): a life-size human figure cast in bronze, used for teaching and examination in acupuncture.
Clearly ordered (烂然有第): set out in distinct sequence, each part in its place.
Wang Weiyi (王惟一): a Northern Song medical official, at one time physician in the Hanlin medical academy and in the imperial pharmacy service.
COMMENTARY
The significance of the bronze figure goes far beyond a teaching aid: it marks the passage of acupuncture from oral transmission between master and pupil to standardised instruction. The making of the WHO standard point locations carries on the same spirit.