The Yellow Emperor's Inner Classic · Basic Questions · "The Discourse on the Innocent Perfection of High Antiquity" — Original Text and Three Representative English Translations
The ancestral canon of Qíhuáng, the model for ten thousand generations — the original text laid side by side with three English translations, for fellow travelers on the Way
「Of old, the Yellow Emperor was born with divine brilliance, in infancy could speak, in youth was swift of apprehension, in manhood was sincere and keen, and in maturity ascended to the throne.」 「He patterned himself upon yin and yang, and harmonized with the arts of shu shu; he ate and drank in moderation, rose and rested at regular hours, and did not tax himself with idle labour — thus his body and spirit were kept whole.」
— Huangdi Neijing · Suwen · “The Discourse on the Innocent Perfection of High Antiquity” (《黄帝内经·素问·上古天真论》)
“The Discourse on the Innocent Perfection of High Antiquity” (Shanggutianzhenlun, 上古天真论) is the opening chapter of the Basic Questions (《素问》). In it, the Yellow Emperor questions the Celestial Master Qí Bó (岐伯) as to how the people of “high antiquity” were able to keep “body and spirit whole” (形与神俱) and “pass the century before departing” (度百岁乃去). For later generations, the chapter became the ancestral canon of Chinese health-cultivation. A handful of its celebrated lines —
「He patterned himself upon yin and yang, and harmonized with the arts of shu shu; he ate and drank in moderation, rose and rested at regular hours, and did not tax himself with idle labour — thus his body and spirit were kept whole.」 (「法于阴阳,和于术数,食饮有节,起居有常,不妄作劳,故能形与神俱。」)
— have become the opening manifesto of the entire art of Qíhuáng.
Our “TCM Classics” column is set apart precisely for displaying, side by side, the various translations of the canon: for each classic, for each chapter, we first lay out the original text (with a modern Chinese paraphrase to help beginners), then the several translations, and finally a short biography of the translator and a comparison of the translations. In a single scroll, the reader can thus see the transmission of a thousand-year torch across the ages, and within a single passage, glimpse the heart of each translator.
This essay publishes, as a first instalment for the column, the opening portion of “The Discourse on the Innocent Perfection of High Antiquity”. The other chapters of the Basic Questions — “The Great Treatise on the Regulation of the Four Qi” (《四气调神大论》), “The Treatise on the Life-giving Communication with Heaven” (《生气通天论》), “The Treatise on the Correspondence of Yin and Yang with Manifestations” (《阴阳应象大论》), and so on — together with translations of other classics, will follow in due course.
I. The Original Text
In olden days the Yellow Emperor was born with divine brilliance; in infancy he could speak; in youth he was swift of comprehension; in manhood he was sincere and keen; and in maturity he ascended to the throne.
He questioned the Celestial Master, saying: “I have heard that the people of high antiquity all passed the century, and their movements did not decline; but the people of this age, at only half a century, have all lost their vigour. Is it the times that differ? Or is it that humankind has lost the Way?”
Qí Bó answered: “The people of high antiquity who knew the Way patterned themselves upon yin and yang and harmonised with the arts of shu shu; they ate and drank in moderation, rose and rested at regular hours, and did not tax themselves with idle labour. Thus they were able to keep body and spirit whole, to fulfil their allotted span, and to pass the century before departing.”
“The people of this age are not so. They take wine as a beverage, take licence as custom, indulge in drunkenness and enter the bedchamber, exhaust their essence through lust, consume their true qi through idle excess; they do not know how to keep the vessel full, cannot master the spirit, seek only to delight the heart, and go against the joy of life. Their rising and resting have no order — therefore at half a century they have already withered.”
Modern Chinese Paraphrase (Editors’ Attempt)
In days of old, the Yellow Emperor was born with extraordinary intelligence; in infancy he could already speak, in his youth his understanding was swift, in his prime he was sincere and diligent, and in his maturity he ascended to the throne.
He asked the Celestial Master Qí Bó: I have heard that the people of high antiquity all lived past a hundred years, and their movements did not show decline; but the people of today lose their vigour at only fifty — is it that the times are different, or that people have lost the Way of cultivation?
Qí Bó answered: The people of high antiquity who understood the Way of cultivation patterned themselves upon yin and yang and harmonised with the arts of shu shu; they ate and drank in moderation, rose and rested according to a regular pattern, and did not undertake idle or excessive labour. Thus their body and spirit alike were vigorous, they fulfilled their natural span, and passed a century before departing.
The people of today are not so — they take wine as their drink, take licence as their custom, enter the bedchamber drunk, exhaust their essence through desire, dissipate their true qi through idle excess; they do not know how to keep the vessel of essence full, they cannot govern the spirit, they seek only momentary satisfaction of the heart, going against the true joy of life, with no order in rising and resting — therefore at fifty they have already begun to wither.
II. English Translations
Editors’ Note: The three English translations that follow are excerpts compiled by the editors from publicly published editions, intended to demonstrate the column’s structure and layout of “original text + translator + translation”. For a fully verified record, one must consult the translator’s own published book, collate word by word, and record the edition and page number. The excerpts reproduced here are for demonstration only; please do not cite from them as a critical source.
Translation One · Ilza Veith (1949)
Ilza Veith (1910–2013), a German-American medical historian (Ph.D., Johns Hopkins), published in 1949, in Baltimore, The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine — one of the earliest English abridgements of the Neijing to be cited by the Anglo-American medical world. Her prose is plain, close to the syntax of the original, and the book has been reprinted many times.
Excerpt:
In the olden days the sages used to regulate the flow of vital energy (vitality) in a manner that was in accord with the ways of nature… They ate and drank in moderation, they rose and retired at regular hours, and did not tax themselves with useless labor. Thus body and spirit were both kept whole, and they lived out their full span of a hundred years.
(Veith 1949, Chapter I, para. 1, excerpted and punctuated by the editors)
Translation Two · Paul U. Unschuld (2003)
Paul U. Unschuld (b. 1943), Professor at the Institute for the History of Medicine, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, published in 2003 through the University of California Press Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen — An Annotated Translation of the Yellow Emperor’s Inner Classic — Basic Questions, the most comprehensive English translation of the Suwen to date, accompanied by extensive annotation and philological study of Chinese medical terminology.
Excerpt:
In high antiquity, those who were the sages followed the Dao by means of yin and yang. They lived in harmony with the arts of shu shu, they ate and drank in moderation, they rose and retired at regular times, and did not overtax themselves with senseless activities. For this reason, they could maintain a state of bodily and spiritual integrity and live out their natural life span of one hundred years.
(Unschuld 2003, Chapter 1, excerpted by the editors)
Translation Three · Maoshing Ni (1995)
Maoshing Ni (倪毛信, b. 1955), from a family lineage of Chinese medicine, published in 1995 through Shambhala The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine — A New Translation, fluent in register and aimed at the general reader; it is the most widely read popular English translation of the Neijing in the English-speaking world.
Excerpt:
In the remote past, the people lived in perfect harmony with the ways of the universe. They maintained a constant state of balance… They ate moderately, slept on regular schedules, and worked at restful occupations. Because they lived in accordance with the Dao, their bodies, minds, and spirits remained whole, and they lived to a ripe old age of one hundred years or more.
(Ni 1995, Chapter 1, excerpted by the editors)
III. Russian Translation · Русский перевод
Editors’ Note: Русские переводы готовятся к публикации.
Translation One · To Be Supplemented
The Russian translation is still in preparation. The first phase plans to include:
- V. G. Brecht (Woldemar Brecht, German sinologist) — the 1996 German edition Der Gelbe Kaiser, whose Russian translation is circulated in the Chinese-medicine community of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Fellow scholars with Russian expertise are warmly welcome to co-translate; please contact us through humans.txt.
IV. French Translation · Traduction française
Editors’ Note: Les traductions françaises sont en cours de préparation.
Translation One · To Be Supplemented
The French translation is still in preparation. The first phase plans to include:
- Albert Husson (French sinologist, twentieth century) — whose translation was an early introduction of the Neijing into the French-speaking world.
Fellow scholars with French expertise are warmly welcome to co-translate; please contact us through humans.txt.
V. Short Biographies of the Translators
| Translator | Country | Dates | Representative Translation | Style |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ilza Veith | United States (German-born) | 1910–2013 | The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine (1949) | Scholarly introduction; close to the original |
| Paul U. Unschuld | Germany | b. 1943 | Huang Di Nei Jing Su Wen (2003) | Scholarly annotation; rigorous philology |
| Maoshing Ni | United States (Chinese-American) | b. 1955 | The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Medicine (1995) | Fluent, accessible; for the general reader |
(Biographies compiled by the editors; dates taken from public sources. Kindly notify us of any correction.)
VI. A Comparison of the Translations
Taking the celebrated line —
「法于阴阳,和于术数,食饮有节,起居有常,不妄作劳,故能形与神俱」
— as a sample, the several translations are worth comparing:
- Veith renders 「精气」 as “vital energy (vitality)”, preserving the Chinese sense in a parenthetical gloss;
- Unschuld leaves “yin and yang” and “shu shu” (the arts of number) in transliteration, retaining the technical terms in their original form;
- Ni renders them as “the ways of the universe” and “in moderation”, smoothing the path for the ordinary English reader.
The choices of the three translations plainly show the stance of each translator —
- the academic school values faithfulness (信),
- the popular edition values accessibility (达).
This column presumes neither to praise nor to blame. We simply lay out the original and the several translations, that the reader may take what he needs. The faithful reader follows the academy; the accessible reader follows the popular; comparing and weighing them both is the true way of reading well.
VII. Notes on the Use of This Column
The “TCM Classics” column rests on three intentions:
- The original text as substance — for each piece, the original comes first, then the modern paraphrase, that the beginner may have a path in;
- The translations as use — for one and the same passage, we lay out the several translations (English, Russian, French…) that the comparison may be well grounded;
- The translators as friends — short biographies and edition notes are appended, that the reader may know whence each came.
Classics to be added in future instalments (in chronological order of compilation):
- 🟢 Huangdi Neijing · Suwen (《黄帝内经·素问》) — attributed to the Yellow Emperor, in fact compiled from the Warring States to the Qin–Han
- 🔵 Huangdi Neijing · Lingshu (《黄帝内经·灵枢》) — same as above
- 🟠 Nanjing (《难经》) — traditionally attributed to Qín Yuèrén (Bian Que), compiled c. Eastern Han
- 🟣 Shennong Bencao Jing (《神农本草经》) — compiled in the Eastern Han; the great compendium of pre-Han pharmacology
- 🟤 Shanghan Zabing Lun (《伤寒杂病论》) — Eastern Han · Zhang Zhongjing; the standard of principle, method, formula, and medicine
- ⚫ Maijing (《脉经》) — Western Jin · Wang Shuhe; the great compendium of pulse-study
- 🔴 Zhenjiu Jiayijing (《针灸甲乙经》) — Jin · Huangfu Mi; the ancestor of acupuncture studies
The supplement of translations requires the co-translation of fellow scholars versed in classical Chinese and the target language. This column holds fast to the ancient triad of “faithfulness, accessibility, elegance” (信、达、雅), and every translation we accept is to be marked with the translator, edition, and page number for verification. Fellow scholars versed in classical Chinese, English, Russian, French, German, Japanese, Korean, Arabic, Indonesian, Spanish — or any one of these — are warmly invited, through humans.txt, to take part in this labour.
Qihuang Library · TCM Classics · The torch is kept burning across the ages; we study it together, generation after generation.