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Tibetan Medicine

Ⅸ-9Traditional MedicineCangyixueyuan, TibetBatch 2 (2008)Extension Item

01 · Historical Records

Its classic work, the Four Medical Tantras, was completed in the second half of the 8th century CE during the Tubo (Tibetan Empire) period, and was written by the famous Tibetan physician Yutuo Yundan Gongbu.

02 · Core Techniques & Process

Tibetan medicine is an important component of China's traditional medicine and an important representative of the country's ethnic-minority medicines. Tibetan medicine has a long history; it is the medical experience accumulated by the Tibetan people in the special environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Tibetan medicine is combined with Tibetan astronomy and calendrical calculation and constitutes a vast and complex medical system. Tibetan medicine takes as its theoretical basis the five-element theory of water, fire, earth, wind, and void and the three-humour theory of rLung (Long), mKhris pa (Tripa), and Bad kan (Beken); it takes as its basic medicaments the plants, animals, minerals, and part of the 'southern medicines' of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau; it adopts modes of practice suited to the plateau environment and to nomadic life; and it has unique curative effects on the common, frequently occurring, and endemic diseases of the oxygen-poor plateau environment. Its health-preserving culture is also receiving ever more attention from the medical world. Tibetan external therapies are methods of treating bodily diseases by means of instruments or externally applied medicaments. Tibetan external therapies include many methods, such as bloodletting, massage, rubbing of the body, fire cauterization and moxibustion, cupping, poulticing (hot and cold), decoction fumigation, puncture, and medicated bathing. Among the representative therapies of Tibetan external medicine are the following. Tibetan 'bloodletting therapy' is a traditional treatment in which an external venous incision is made to drain blood and thereby achieve the therapeutic aim. 'Fire cauterization' employs the heat of fire together with the action of medicaments to calm rLung (Long) disorders and cold-natured diseases at the site of onset, thereby eliminating cold conditions and some heat conditions, with the regulation of qi and the quickening of the blood as its principal approach. The Tibetan 'golden needle therapy' is a treatment in which sharp instruments made of metal, such as needles and knives, are inserted into specified acupoints and parts of the body in order to expel accumulated fluid, pus and blood, masses, foreign bodies, and pathogenic factors.

Bloodletting

Venous incision to draw off diseased blood, classed among the stronger of the external methods and aimed at disorders of blood and qi.

Fire cauterization and moxibustion

Heat and medicinal action used to settle cold and wind disorders at the seat of the illness, regulating qi and blood on the plateau.

Golden-needle therapy

Metal needles and lancets entered at defined points to draw off fluid, pus, lumps and foreign bodies, another of the stronger external methods.

Herbal bath and steam

Decoctions used for immersion or steaming, driving disorder outwards through the skin—on the plateau a means of warming as much as of treating.

Poulticing and rubbing

The gentlest of the external methods: warm or cold compresses for opposite ends, and rubbing with ointment or lotion—easy to apply wherever the patient is.

Cupping and puncture

Cupping draws off local stagnation and puncture drains fluid and pus—both simple, portable and suited to a sparsely populated plateau.

03 · Regional Records & Related Items

Because the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is vast in extent, with high mountains and swift waters, the ethnic and regional characteristics of Tibetan medical culture are relatively pronounced, and the diagnostics, medical techniques, and medicaments of Tibetan medicine often differ by region and by school. In recent decades, with the development of the Tibetan medical enterprise and the wide conduct of academic exchange, the inheritance and advancement of Tibetan medicine have achieved results that have attracted worldwide attention. According to the means employed, external therapies are divided into three grades: mild, strong, and fierce. The mild treatments comprise three methods — poulticing, medicinal bathing, and rubbing application. The stronger treatments comprise three methods — bloodletting, fire moxibustion, and puncture. The fierce external treatments are divided into four methods — excision, severing, scooping out, and extraction.

Other submitting regions for the same item: Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine · Tibetan Medicine.

04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding

Under the impact of modern culture, many proved prescriptions and much of the clinical experience of Tibetan medicine have already been lost or are on the verge of being lost, and Tibetan external therapies are no exception. Much of the experience of elderly Tibetan physicians was transmitted entirely through oral instruction and mental absorption, leaving the chain of transmission extremely fragile; the systematic organization and excavation of this ancient medical tradition admits of no delay. Mima (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Tibetan ethnicity, born in April 1966, a native of Rinbung County, Tibet Autonomous Region. Professor and doctoral supervisor. A personally taught disciple of the famous Tibetan medical master Cuoru Cailang. He is a representative inheritor of Tibetan Medicine (Tibetan External Therapies), a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item. In 2005 he received the first prize of the Science and Technology Progress Award of the Tibet Autonomous Region and the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. In 2007 he received the Outstanding Contribution Award in Science and Technology of the Tibet Autonomous Region. The Detailed Commentary on the Four Medical Tantras, in whose compilation he participated, won the 13th China Book Award in 2002. He undertook and completed two projects — the 'Tibetan Medicine and Tibetan Pharmacology Memorization Syllabus' and the 'Analysis of Difficult Points in Diagnostics from the Four Medical Tantras' — both of which won third prizes for teaching achievement in 2007. He organized and participated in the compilation of the '21st Century Undergraduate Education Planning Textbooks for Tibetan Pharmacy,' which won the second prize of the National Teaching Achievement Award of the Ministry of Education in 2009. For many years he has been engaged in teaching and in clinical diagnosis and treatment at the Tibetan Medical College, training successors in Tibetan medicine, including doctoral students.

05 · Associated Representative Bearers

Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:

06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography

  1. Tibetan Medicine (Cangyixueyuan, Tibet) · China ICH Official Project Archive
  2. Mima · National Representative Bearer Archive

Sources

China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)

Read the official ihchina.cn record ↗

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