Body, Mind, and Spirit in Early Chinese Medicine

Abstract

Medical texts especially of the Huangdi neijing 黃帝內經 tradition provide an important counterpoint to philosophical debates about the relation of body and mind in early China and in particular to the understanding of the “mind” (xin 心), since medical texts must address the role of the xin-heart as one of the visceral systems. This paper surveys accounts of both “mind” and “spirit” (shen 神) in the Huangdi neijing and proposes a view of a person in which cognitive and affective faculties are decentralized and corporeal, rather than being centered in the mind.