Prescription cave

The prescription cave is located between Fengxian Temple and Guyang cave in the west mountain of Longmen. It was excavated in the late Northern Wei Dynasty. There are more than 140 ancient prescriptions carved on both sides of the cave door. The prescription refers to the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. This is the earliest existing stone prescription in China and a precious heritage of medical science and pharmacology in the early Tang Dynasty.

Prescription cave

The prescription cave is located between Fengxian Temple and Guyang cave in the west mountain of Longmen. It was excavated in the late Northern Wei Dynasty. There are more than 140 ancient prescriptions carved on both sides of the cave door. The prescription refers to the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. This is the earliest existing stone prescription in China and a precious heritage of medical science and pharmacology in the early Tang Dynasty.

brief introduction

The statue is one Buddha, two disciples and two Bodhisattvas. The main Buddha on the main wall has a strong body and a solid and heavy shape. Buddha and Bodhisattva's clothes are loose with sparse wrinkles. Its statue features, clothing and knife techniques all have the basic characteristics of Xiangtangshan grottoes. There are more than 140 ancient prescriptions engraved on both sides of the cave gate, involving internal medicine, surgery, gynecology, pediatrics, ENT, neurology, etc. The preparation methods include pills, powders, ointments, soup, etc., involving more than 120 kinds of drugs, including plants, animals, minerals, etc.

name

The prescription cave is named for the Tang Dynasty prescriptions engraved on the door of the cave. It was first built in the late Northern Wei Dynasty, after the Eastern Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty, to the early Tang Dynasty, there are sculptures. There are five Buddha statues in the cave. They are hard, straight and less curvy. Their necks are short and thick, and their bodies are strong. The belts on both sides of the Bodhisattva's head crown are very long, and they hang down to the upper part of their arms. These are the characteristics of the statues of the Northern Qi Dynasty. There are more than 150 prescriptions engraved on both sides of the cave, most of which are plant, animal and mineral medicines. The prescription involves internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, ENT and so on. The herbs involved can be found in rural areas. To a large extent, it is convenient for the people.

legend

One day in 650 A.D., a group of monks in Longmen temple in Luoyang were discussing something. It turned out that they wanted to preserve the folk prescriptions that they had painstakingly collected, so they decided to carve them in the grottoes. However, just before the construction began, they encountered another problem, which cave should they carve them in? It was up to you to discuss When the discussion began, a young monk stood up and said in a loud voice, "a few days ago, I happened to see a stone tablet in a grotto. The tablet reads like this: if you don't build precious statues, how can you stoneware them? If you don't plant medicinal trees frequently, you can't cure deafness. That is to say, investing money to open niches for statues is like planting medicinal trees frequently, which can relieve the pain of deafness, blindness and other diseases. I think the meaning of the stone tablet in the cave coincides with our good intentions of carving prescriptions to save people, so we should just carve the prescriptions on the stone wall of the cave. "After hearing what the little monk said, other monks nodded and agreed to engrave the prescriptions on the stone wall In the cave, and named it "prescription cave". In this way, several monks carried prescriptions and carving knives and went to the grottoes for several months. They lived in Longmen Grottoes without going down the mountain. Finally, more than 140 prescriptions were completely carved. Since then, many poor people who had no money to see a doctor came here to look for prescriptions, and the prescription cave began to be known by people.

Next year, there will be another legend. During the reign of Emperor Xiaowen of the Northern Wei Dynasty, a family surnamed Wang in Luoyang made a living by buying deer meat for generations. One day, the queen mother got sick, and her medicine was ineffective. She became more and more serious. She searched all over the Central Plains for good doctors, but they were not good. As a filial son, Wang made a big wish to save his mother. So he went to Yijue (Longmen) mountain in the eastern suburb to pray for a lot of money. Halfway up the mountain, he saw a female deer lying under a tree and shooting an arrow with a bow. However, he saw that the deer was neither frightened nor left. So he was curious and came near. It was a sick deer, so he felt compassion and didn't hurt it. Just a stone's throw away, another deer ran towards the mother deer with a round covered long stemmed red grass in her mouth. Wang was curious and went back to peep. She fed the mother deer with the grass in her mouth on the second day and the third day. Sooner or later, the mother deer recovered and could walk. Wang hid in the tree and peeped for four days. People said that deer were gods and could understand human nature, indeed.

Wang suddenly realized that if he could use this red grass to cure his mother, it would be effective? So, on the fifth day, Wang went up the mountain with an arrow and hid behind the tree. He wanted to shoot deer for grass, but the two deer didn't reappear. When it was dark, just as he was hesitating to leave, he saw the deer appear. He took the red grass in his mouth and ran towards the tree. He abandoned the grass under the tree and then ran away. So Wang Bao went down the tree to pick up the grass and went home in the starry night. Divide the herb into 5 portions, one portion a day, and feed it to her mother with Decoction. She gets better and better every day. In less than a week, her mother's disease turns mild. On the 10th, she can walk on the ground. In less than half a month, she has completely recovered.

Wang was grateful to Lu for saving his mother by carrying divine grass, so he shut down the ancestral Deer House, stopped killing deer all his life, concentrated on collecting medicine and practicing medicine, and rescued more patients. For more than 30 years, he collected hundreds of miraculous prescriptions from the people and helped countless local people. In order to pass on to later generations, Wang made a vow to build a prescription cave on the cliff of Yijue mountain in the eastern suburb, burn the collected folk prescriptions on it, and exhort future generations to continue to supplement from generation to generation. After more than 200 years, the descendants of Wang's family just filled it up until the age of Empress Wu Zetian of Tang Dynasty. There were 147 prescriptions, mainly one or two single or simple prescriptions. Many people who had no money to see a doctor heard of them and heard about them one after another Come here to find a prescription, and after use, it is effective. Therefore, this prescription cave is famous all over the world and is well known by the world.

For this reason, posterity left, treasure deer holding Zhi to save his mother, prescription hole universal

influence

These prescriptions can not only treat common diseases, but also treat difficult and miscellaneous diseases, such as: therapeutic choking prescription can treat esophageal cancer. Among them, 95 prescriptions were included in yixinfang by a Japanese scholar in the 10th century, which shows its value and influence. Prescription cave is the earliest existing stone prescription in China, which plays an important role in the study of Chinese medicine.

Related reports

In 1998, Henan Medical University Press published a rather strange medical book. It is strange because the prescriptions introduced in it are not the clinical achievements of modern Chinese medicine, but come from the prescription hole. The prescription cave is located in Longmen Grottoes in Luoyang, an ancient city in Henan Province. People pay more attention to it because there are more than 100 ancient prescriptions carved in the cave. The prescription cave is about 4 meters high and 3 meters wide. There are octagonal lotus pillars carved on both sides, and each of them has a strong and powerful man. The shape is very exquisite. From the stele above the cave gate, we can know that this cave is a "prescription cave". It was first excavated in the late Northern Wei Dynasty, and then after the Eastern Wei Dynasty and the Northern Qi Dynasty, there are still sculptures until the early Tang Dynasty. Therefore, the sculpture presents a variety of artistic styles of different times.

Entering the cave, you can see five statues with the style of the Northern Qi Dynasty: one Buddha, two disciples and two Bodhisattvas. They have big heads, round shoulders and chests, and their bodies are like pillars, which are different from the thin and vigorous shapes of the Northern Wei Dynasty. It can be said that it is a "transitional type" from the "xiugu Qingxiang type" in the Northern Wei Dynasty to the "baoyibo belt type" in the Tang Dynasty.

In the center of the cave top, there is a double lotus caisson, surrounded by four flying bodies holding Sheng, flute, Panpipe and other musical instruments, with different styles and high spirits.

In the prescription cave, the most attractive one is not these exquisite and long-standing grotto statues, but some dense words carved on the wall of the cave entrance. They are ancient prescriptions for various diseases.

After textual research, there are more than 140 ancient prescriptions carved on the stone wall of the prescription hole, which can treat more than 40 diseases. The subjects involved include internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, gynecology, oncology, etc. What's more amazing is that most of the drugs used in it are plant medicine, animal medicine and mineral medicine which are common in rural China, and most of them are still used in the folk.

Address: between Fengxian Temple and Guyang cave in West Mountain of Longmen

Longitude: 112.4759979248

Latitude: 34.551700592041

Chinese PinYin : Yao Fang Dong