Tibetan Medicine
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. In the 8th century CE, Yutuo Yundan Gongbu, the revered founder of Tibetan medicine, studied the theory of urine diagnosis with diligence and practised it actively, demonstrating the principle that the colour, properties, foam, and smell of urine can distinguish diseases, and recorded it in detail in the classic Tibetan medical work, the Four Medical Tantras. Tibetan urine diagnosis originated earliest in Zhangzhung and flourished in the Tubo period. With the migration of the Tibetan people, cultural exchange, and integration with other peoples, this diagnostic method spread to Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, and other places, and to neighbouring countries including India, Nepal, Mongolia, and Bhutan.
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 urine diagnosis is a diagnostic method distinctive to Tibetan medicine that diagnoses disease through characteristics of the urine such as its colour, steam, sediment, floating matter, and foam. The following conditions must be met when performing urine diagnosis. First, from the day before the examination the patient may consume neither food, drink, nor medicaments that alter the colour of the urine, and may not engage in strenuous exercise. Second, the specimen for examination is urine passed at about five o'clock in the early morning. Third, so that the sediment and floating matter in the urine can be seen and identified clearly, urine diagnosis should be carried out in morning sunlight. Fourth, to avoid the colour of the vessel altering the colour of the urine, the specimen should be placed in a white porcelain bowl. Urine diagnosis proper consists of three stages. In the first, the hot-urine stage, one examines the colour of the urine, the vapour over it, its smell, and its foam. In the second, the vapour-dispersing stage, one identifies the sediment and floating matter in the urine. In the third, the cold-urine stage, one identifies changes in colour and the properties of the cold urine. By means of the above methods of identification one can satisfactorily diagnose the various diseases pertaining chiefly to rLung (Long), mKhris pa (Tripa), Bad kan (Beken), and cold and heat patterns. Tibetan urine diagnosis is the crystallization of wisdom accumulated by the Tibetan people over a long period of living and productive practice in harsh natural environments and in the course of coming to know, understand, and treat disease. The sub-health states and neuroses referred to by modern medicine all fall within the scope of the rLung (Long) diseases of Tibetan medicine, and treatment with Tibetan medicine produces definite curative effects; it may be said that Tibetan urine diagnosis is likewise of considerable significance for the development of modern medical methods of diagnosis.
The hot-urine stage
The first stage, examining colour, vapour, smell and foam while the urine is still warm—the earliest reading of imbalance among the three factors.
The settling stage
As the vapour thins, attention turns to sediment and suspended matter, whose form and weight indicate how deep the disorder lies.
The cold-urine stage
With the urine fully cold, the deeper colour and character show through; only all three stages together distinguish wind, bile, phlegm and cold from heat.
Collecting urine before dawn
The sample is taken around five in the morning, after a day free of foods, drugs or exertion that would alter colour or odour.
The white porcelain bowl
A white porcelain bowl keeps the vessel from colouring the sample, examined in morning sunlight so that sediment and flakes stay legible.
Reading the urine against the three factors
Five classes of sign—colour, vapour, sediment, suspended matter and foam—are read together to diagnose disorders of wind, bile and phlegm and of cold and heat.
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.
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
For critically ill patients, urine examination can be used to assess the prognosis. This highly distinctive Tibetan method of urine diagnosis does not at present receive sufficient attention; protection in terms of theory and practical technique is necessary. Gesang Ciren (recorded in the official file of the associated inheritor): Male, of Tibetan ethnicity, born in August 1965, a native of Shannan City, Tibet Autonomous Region. From the age of ten he studied the theory and basic skills of Tibetan medicine under a master, and through unremitting effort mastered the basic theoretical knowledge based chiefly on the Tibetan medical classic, the Four Medical Tantras. In 2005 he went to work at the former Shannan Tibetan Pharmaceutical Factory. He lays emphasis on the transmission of technique, passing on to the younger generation the clinical experience of several decades of medical practice and his research on Tibetan urine diagnosis. He is a representative inheritor of Tibetan Medicine (Tibetan Urine Diagnosis), a third-batch national-level intangible cultural heritage item. In 1989 the project 'External Treatment and Clinical Research of Tibetan Medicine for Hyperostosis' won the fourth prize of the Science and Technology Progress Award of Shannan Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region. In 1997, on the basis of Tibetan pharmaceutical theory and the principles of hemorrhagic diseases, he developed the Twenty-five-Ingredient Great Decoction Efficacy-Enhancing Pill (Ershiwuwei Datang Zengxiao Wan), which obtained a provincial-level preparation approval number.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Qiangbachilie 01-0220
- Nimaciren 01-0221
- Suolangqimei 01-0222
- Gawu 01-0223
- Duoji 01-0224
- Tangka Angwengjiangcuo 01-0225
- Gesangnima 01-0226
- Mima 03-1450
- Gesangciren 03-1451
- Lixianjia 03-1452
- Danzengpengcuo 03-1453
- Suolangdunzhu 03-1454
- Luosangduoji 03-1455
- Baimajiacuo 03-1456
- Eri 03-1457
- Gamacuoni 03-1458
- Sangjie 03-1459
- Nima 03-1460
- Zhandui 04-1947
- Mingzhu 05-2957
- Suonanwangjie 05-2958
- Nimacairang 05-2959
- Dansongzhaba
- Yujue
- Duojierenqing
- Cirenluobu
- Kanzhaojia
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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