Kong Lingyu

01 · Lineage & Regional School

Kong Lingyu, Male, Han, from Zhaoyang, Beijing, is a sixth-batch national representative bearer of TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods (Ⅸ-2). The tradition is documented in Zhaoyang, Beijing. Within the regional tradition and school record of TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods in Zhaoyang, Beijing: The Kong Bohua family medical lineage is a traditional Chinese medical therapeutic method founded by the renowned physician Kong Bohua and passed down for generations within his family. It is distributed mainly in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and Shandong, and has a history of one hundred years to date. Kong Bohua was born in Jinan, Shandong, in 1884, a seventy-fourth-generation descendant of Confucius. He began practicing medicine at the age of 20. In 1910 he was invited to serve as a medical officer at the Beijing Outer City Government Hospital, where he formed his distinctive academic characteristic of “integrating the cold-damage and warm-disease approaches.” In 1929, he united with eminent figures of the traditional Chinese medicine field to jointly advocate the establishment of Beiping's first institution of higher learning in traditional Chinese medicine — the Beiping Institute of National Medicine — which lasted 15 years and trained more than 700 traditional Chinese medicine personnel, many of whom became backbone figures in the cause of Chinese medicine.

02 · Mastery & Signature Works

The bearer record for Kong Lingyu is anchored in the documented technical standards of TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods in Zhaoyang, Beijing. Within the documented technical tradition of TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods in Zhaoyang, Beijing: The academic system of the Kong Bohua family medical lineage takes “first differentiating the two guiding principles, then dividing into the six essentials” and “damp-heat and hidden qi smoldering within the body, then stirred into disease by added pathogenic qi” as its core elements. Its main feature is the emphasis on yin and yang as the “two guiding principles” that command the analysis and treatment of disease, with exterior-interior, cold-heat and deficiency-excess as the “six essentials,” serving as an important theoretical basis for accurate pattern differentiation. It applies the “externally contracted hidden pathogen” theory — centered on the view that “hidden smoldering heat qi (i.e., yin deficiency with internal heat, or accompanied by damp-heat) exists in the body first, and the subsequent contraction of pathogenic qi from heaven and earth is the root of warm-disease onset” — to the treatment of warm-disease-type conditions. It is adept at the diagnostic and therapeutic approach of “clearing heat, nourishing yin and resolving dampness, three methods considered together.” Its practice takes the form of clinical diagnosis and treatment by academic successors, expressed through pattern-based prescriptions, academic writings, teaching materials and plans, and related medicaments. Representative repertoire, works and technical entries recorded for the project include: "Judging the two mainstays first": Yin and yang as the overarching frame, within which all further differentiation and prescribing is done. "The six refinements": Interior and exterior, cold and heat, deficiency and excess refine the general yin-yang reading into checkable specifics. "Latent pathogen brought out by new invasion": The doctrine that heat disease begins with latent internal heat triggered by an external invasion — why febrile illness is held to arise from within. "Clearing heat, nourishing yin and resolving damp": Three methods used together rather than singly, addressing heat and damp in the same patient.

03 · Transmission & Safeguarding Status

In 2025, Kong Lingyu was announced in the sixth batch of national representative bearers for TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods, with Zhaoyang, Beijing as the declared area. Within the documented safeguarding record of TCM Diagnostic and Therapeutic Methods in Zhaoyang, Beijing: The project was inscribed in the national inventory in 2021 (batch 5), with Zhaoyang, Beijing as its declared area, and Kong YiTang (Beijing) Keji Co., Ltd. as its safeguarding unit. Since the project was inscribed in the national inventory, its declared area and safeguarding unit have carried out documentation, transmission and presentation within the national safeguarding framework. Together, the inventory record and the project archive form the public documentary basis for the bearer’s transmission practice.

04 · Associated Heritage Item Dossier

05 · Fellow National Bearers Lineage

National representative bearers recorded under the same item code, ordered from the first to the sixth batch. Batch order is not a teacher–student relationship.

06 · Archival Sources & Bibliography

1. Konglingyu (Zhaoyang, Beijing) · China ICH Official Project Archive
2. Konglingyu · China ICH Official Archive