Symbolic image of the lung: Chinese/Korean/Japanese

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Description

Symbolic illustration of the lung. One of a set of five illustrations of internal organs from Uibang-yuchwi (Classified Collection of Medical Recipes), section on the Five Viscera.

Uibang-yuchwi is a compendium Yifang leiju -- or Chinese, Yifang leiju -- is a compendium of Chinese medical remedy literature compiled in C.15 Korea by Kim Rye-mong (1406-1469), Yu Seong-won (?- 1456) et al., under the auspices of King Sejong of Korea (r. 1418-1450). It originally comprised 365 juan (volumes), and contained over 50,000 precriptions drawn from 150 medical works ranging from the Qin period (221-206 BCE) to the early Ming (1368-1644). The original text is no longer extant. This image comes from a Japanese facsimile made in 1861 (1st year of the Bunkyu era), which unfortunately lacks juan 155, 156, 09 and 220.

The text says: Lung: Qi of dui (Lake), essence of Metal. Its colour is white. It looks like a suspended rock. Its spirit has the form of a white beast. Lung engenders the po soul, which is transformed into a Jade Child. It is 7 cun tall (1 cun [Chinese/proportional inch] = c. 3 cm). It wears a plain garment and holds a martial rod, and goes in and out of the mansion of the lung. The lung is sometimes said to have seven children and 14 jade women guarding it.

Lettering

Picture Title: Illustration of the Lung. Lettering: Lung; dui (Lake) trigram; Qi of dui (Lake); essence of Metal

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