Hui Medicine
01 · Historical Records
The Tangping bazhen (Eight Diagnostics of the Ewer) therapy originated in the Middle East and was introduced to China by Persian Muslims via the Silk Road.
02 · Core Techniques & Process
Hui medicine is an important component of China's traditional medicine. Hui medicine has a long history. It is the product of the mutual blending of ancient Arabic medicine, traditional Chinese medicine, and the medical systems of the various peoples of the Western Regions, while retaining the Hui people's medical experience, aromatic drugs, and cultural characteristics. The Huihui Yaofang is a representative work of Hui medicine from the Yuan and Ming eras. The original text comprised 36 volumes, of which only 4 survive. A comparatively good critical edition of the surviving volumes of the Huihui Yaofang has also been published. These works have laid the foundation for the inheritance and development of Hui medicine. After more than a thousand years of continuous practice, the eight-diagnosis therapy of China's Hui people developed into a relatively complete set of eight therapies with clear distinctions of priority, which later generations have called "Tangping bazhen". Hui Tangping bazhen therapy comprises eight diagnostic and therapeutic methods: head diagnosis, ear diagnosis, face diagnosis, hand diagnosis, foot diagnosis, bone diagnosis, pulse diagnosis, and qi diagnosis. The main manipulation techniques include pushing, pressing, pinching, plucking, dotting, stroking, and trembling, and the treatment process has a distinct ethnic style, as in the recitation of du'a (supplications) and water therapy with the ewer (tangping). The instruments used in Tangping bazhen therapy include the tangping ewer, ox-horn sticks, ear-diagnosis sticks, and goatshorn boards carved with du'a.
Head, ear and face diagnosis
Diagnosis of head, ear and face reads colour and form of the head surface, using pushing, pressing, pinching and other strokes.
Hand, foot and bone diagnosis
Hand, foot and bone diagnosis rely on palpation of form and warmth, the bone reading checking joints for displacement.
Pulse and breath diagnosis
Pulse reading uses the Hui positions and finger technique, while breath reading judges the strength, depth and length of respiration.
Reciting the Duai during treatment
Treatment is accompanied by the recitation of the Duai, fusing devotional speech with the manual technique.
The thermos-bottle water cure
Warm water in a thermos flask is used with the eight diagnoses; the kit includes flasks, buffalo-horn rods, ear rods and inscribed horn plaques.
Yang Huaxiang's shop and textbook
Yang Huaxiang refined the theory and technique over forty years, opened a wellness shop in 2003 and holds three national patents.
03 · Regional Records & Related Items
For thousands of years it has been transmitted among Muslims in the areas of Xi'an, Henan, and Ningxia by oral instruction and personal example.
Other submitting regions for the same item: Hui Medicine · Hui Medicine.
04 · Cultural Value & Contemporary Safeguarding
Works published in recent years — including Zhongguo Huizu Yiyao (Chinese Hui Medicine), Huizu Yiyao Jianshi (A Brief History of Hui Medicine), Huizu Yiyao Aoyi (The Profound Meaning of Hui Medicine), and Huiyao Bencao (Materia Medica of the Hui) — have provided comprehensive and in-depth introductions to Hui medicine. Hui medicine has distinctive theories and experience in health preservation, Hui medical technique, the use of aromatic drugs, and dietary therapy, and many health-preservation customs, diagnostic and therapeutic techniques, and food-therapy practices have been continuously transmitted and applied by the Hui people. As an element of Hui folk traditional culture, the present state of development of Tangping bazhen therapy is cause for concern, and it faces the prospect of having no successor. Practitioners of Tangping bazhen therapy must possess a grounding in the theoretical basis of traditional Chinese medicine; young people with professional knowledge and a love of Hui culture are needed to study and transmit it, yet for various reasons few young people are willing to learn. Various measures are urgently needed to ensure the transmission of this heritage. Yang Huaxiang (from the official archival record of the associated inheritor): Male, Hui ethnicity, born in August 1952, from Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. In more than forty years of research and practice, he has continually excavated and perfected the theoretical system and manipulative techniques of Hui Tangping bazhen, creating a distinctive national medical culture. His technical manipulations are varied, delicate, refined, plain, and accurate, and his diagnosis and treatment emphasise an overall grasp of the whole body. Representative inheritor of Hui Medicine (Hui Tangping Bazhen Therapy), a project in the fourth national-level batch of intangible cultural heritage. Seventh-generation inheritor of Hui Tangping bazhen therapy; laureate of the third Xinchuan Prize for Inheritors of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage, awarded by the Chinese National Academy of Arts (China Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center). In 2003 he opened the "Tangping Bazhen Health-Preservation Workshop"; he has authored and published six books and been granted three national invention patents. He compiled the textbook Tangping Bazhen, has led or participated in two national research projects, and has trained representative inheritors of intangible cultural heritage projects at the autonomous-region and Yinchuan municipal levels, as well as a large body of technical personnel in Tangping bazhen therapy. He received the Ethnic Medicine Inheritance Contribution Prize of the China Ethnic Medicine Science and Technology Award, conferred by the China Association of Ethnic Medicine.
05 · Associated Representative Bearers
Representative bearers recorded under this item, organized by national nomination batch:
- Zhang Baoyu 04-1951
- Yang Huaxiang 04-1952
- Chen Weichuan 05-2965
- Chen Kun
06 · Authoritative Sources & Bibliography
Sources
China Intangible Cultural Heritage Network (ihchina.cn)
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