[A study on "Kyō gige" or "Jing Yijie" mentioned in the Ishinpō]

The Ishinpō written in 984 is the oldest extant medical work in Japan. In this work a unique sequence of characters, [Japanese characters] (Kyō gige in Japanese, Jing Yijie in Chinese) followed by the character [Japanese character], which usually indicates a citation, can be found only once in vol. 25 of the Nakarai-MA [Japanese character]. That is why it has been regarded as a cited book title until now. However, there were no books with the title [Japanese characters] before the time of the Ishinpō. The authors therefore tried to make a historical investigation into this phrase. The following results could be found: (1) The phrase in question has to be seen as one unit together with the last character of the former line [Japanese character] and should be read as [Japanese characters] (Myakukyō Gige in Japanese, Maijing Yijie in Chinese). (2) There are no books extant with the title [Japanese characters], and we see no possibility that such a book might have been written before the time of the Ishinpō. (3) The most possible reason why the phrase [Japanese characters], which is not a book title is given only here is miscopy and mispagination. Originally, there must have been two separate citations, one from [Japanese characters], an annotated book to the Maijing [Japanese characters], and the other from [Japanese characters], a shortened name of the Ryō-no Gige [Japanese characters]. As a result of miscopy and omissions, [Japanese characters] were finally combined to [Japanese characters]. (4) The sentence [Japanese characters] which follows the phrase [Japanese characters] may be a missing part of the [Japanese characters]. (5) There is a possibility that the [Japanese characters] might have been the Maijing Yinyi written in China, or any other unknown book written in Japan.