Exploration on the characteristics of classification in Huangdi nei jing tai su

Taishu, a book compiled by Yang Shangshan by imperial order, and completed in the reign of Gaozong of the Tang dynasty is the earliest complete commentary of Neijing now extant as well as early monograph interpreting Neijing by classification. By analysing the text of Taishi, Lingshu, Suwen and Jiayijing, this paper summarizes the characteristics of Yang Shangshan's classified compilation of the classical text. First, the whole text was classifiedly compiled from whole chapters or large paragraphs, with the text from Jiujuan (9 volume) arranged before those from Suwen. Second, deletion of duplicated text. For the duplicated text, those from Juijuan were mostly adopted, with those from Suwen discarded. Third, there are overlapping texts of eight strange channels, indicating the compilors' preference of the theory of channels. Fourth, systematization of Neijing theoretical system by dividing the chapters on the basis of different classes.