TCM Health Cultivation
01 · Historical Records
The time-honored brand 'Lingyuan Wanying Tea' was developed by Master Mujiang, the 31st-generation senior monk of Lingyuan Chan Temple, a famous monastery in the Quannan area of Jinjiang, Fujian. It was first created in the first year of the Hongwu reign of the Ming dynasty (1368) and has a history of more than 630 years.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Traditional Chinese medicine holds that human life and health are a process of adaptation between the human being and nature, and a process of change in the body through birth, growth, maturity, aging, and decline. Disease is the result of imbalance between the internal and external environments, and it has three causes: first, external causes, referring to the influence of climatic and natural changes; second, internal causes, referring to disorders of the body's own regulation; and third, causes neither internal nor external, referring to the invasion of accidental injuries, with internal causes playing the principal role. Therefore, traditional Chinese medicine attaches great importance to the body's active maintenance, regulation, and prevention; this is TCM health preservation, also called 'nourishing life' (she sheng). The idea of health preservation should run through a person's whole life, but care and maintenance before the onset of disease are especially important. The content of TCM health preservation covers the living environment, diet and daily routine, mental hygiene, and prevention before disease. The Yellow Emperor's Inner Canon holds: 'In high antiquity, those who knew the Way followed the patterns of yin and yang, harmonized with the arts of calculation, ate and drank with moderation, kept regular hours in daily life, did not overexert themselves, and therefore could keep body and spirit together and enjoy their full natural lifespan.' This means that life should accord with the way of heaven and earth and adapt to changes of climate; diet should be temperate and meals should be nourishing; life should be regular and sexual activity not excessive; work and rest should be combined, with body and mind kept healthy. In later ages, through practice in daily life, people created many methods and experiences of health care, dietary regulation, and 'treating disease before it arises', continually enriching the content of TCM health preservation. Master Mujiang gathered 17 kinds of green herbs unique to Lingyuan — mountain tea, Bidens pilosa, sweet wormwood, Euphorbia hirta, Rostellularia procumbens, Scoparia dulcis, and Eclipta prostrata, among others — and, together with Chinese medicinal herbs, carefully prepared them into 'Bodhi Pills' (puti wan) to relieve the suffering of the world and benefit all beings. This medicated tea has the functions of dispersing wind and releasing the exterior, regulating the stomach and strengthening the spleen, and resolving phlegm and draining dampness; it is markedly effective for common cold with fever due to wind damage, heatstroke and dysentery, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea, and is an ideal medicinal tea for preventing heatstroke and cooling the body. To relieve the suffering of the local people, for six hundred years the monks and nuns of the temple have inherited this secret formula generation after generation in keeping with Master Mujiang's aspiration to 'bestow it widely upon the people without seeking reward'. Later, when the monks of the temple returned to lay life, they also passed the secret formula and its method of preparation on to the people of Lingshui and Zenglin villages.
Preparing the Bodhi pills
The monk gathered seventeen local herbs—camellia, bidens, wormwood and others—blended them with Chinese drugs and compounded them into pills.
Dispersing wind
Its first action is to disperse wind and release the exterior, used for colds and fever, a formula that answers the damp windy coast of southern Fujian.
Regulating digestion
The second action, regulating the stomach and spleen, covers abdominal pain, vomiting and dysentery—whether drunk as tea or taken in pills.
Clearing phlegm and damp
Clearing phlegm and damp alongside the other two actions, it serves both as a remedy for fever and as a cooling tea against summer heat.
From the monastery to the villagers
For six hundred years the monastery kept the formula; when monks returned to lay life they carried it to the villagers of Lingshui and Zenglin.
Wanying tea today
What began as Bodhi pills is now Wanying tea, produced at scale yet still a common prophylactic along the Fujian coast.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
Lingyuan Wanying Tea has thus become an essential product for the people of southern Fujian, especially the coastal region, in preventing disease and improving health.
Other submitting regions for the same item: TCM Health Cultivation · TCM Health Cultivation · TCM Health Cultivation · TCM Health Cultivation.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Through more than six hundred years of evolution, inheritance, and development, the 'Bodhi Pills' have become today's Lingyuan Wanying Tea. Although Lingyuan Wanying Tea is now produced on a large scale, it has suffered the impact of Western medicine and pharmaceuticals; in the broader environment of a depressed traditional Chinese medicine sector, Lingyuan Wanying Tea has not escaped the fate of endangerment and urgently needs vigorous protection from the state.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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