White Tiger Hall 白虎觀

This blog entry is Part Two of Exploring the Tang Ye Jing . If you haven't already, check out Part One  here.  And when you're finished, you can move on to Part Three . In the first part of this article series, I introduced the Tang Ye Jing, its mysterious history, and its relevance to the contemporary practice of Chinese Medicine. In this next article, we're going to dive right into the Tang Ye Jing's theory of flavor, how that differs from the standard TCM theory of flavor, and how we can understand both by looking at the Nei Jing. As I mentioned previously, Tang Ye Jing's materia medica consists of twenty five herbs, grouped in sets of five according to Flavor and Phase identification. Thus there are five Acrid herbs belong to Wood, five Salty herbs, which belong to to Fire, five Sweet herbs which belong to Earth, five Sour herbs which belong to Metal and five Bitter herbs, which belong to Water. Nested within each of the five phases, this five fold pattern repea

This is Part One of the series  Exploring the Tang Ye Jing . The Decoction Classic, or Tang Ye Jing (湯液經), is an ancient text of Chinese Medicine that describes Chinese herbs and their interactions in terms of the Five Phases (五行) and the dynamics of the Five Flavors (五味). It contains a set of twenty five herbs, which it organizes in groups of five according to flavor (one group for each of the Five Phases), and also contains formulas composed of these herbs to tonify and drain each of the Phases. It is the first text we know of solely devoted to herbal formulas, and it is said to be one of the major influences on Zhang Zhong Jing ( 張仲景 ), author of the Shang Han Za Bing Lun ( 傷寒雜病論 ). To say that the Tang Ye Jing is a mysterious text is an understatement. Despite its status as a foundational text of Chinese Medicine, very little is known about it. Attributed to an author called Yin Yi ( 伊尹 ), we have no exact date for its composition, although it is referenced in many other c