Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c6.s2.t3.16

v1.c6.s2.t3.16

Sun Simiao’s works have been dramatically influenced by foreign culture with great absorption of Buddhism and Indian medical knowledge. Among them, *Essential Recipes for Emergency Use-Volume One* adopted the theory of the “404 Diseases” from Buddhist texts, but changes the idea of the “disorder of ‘earth’, ‘water’, ‘fire’ and ‘wind’, the cause of diseases” into the “irregularity of Qi, the cause of diseases”. Sun Simiao also copied the theory of *General Treatise on the Cause and Symptoms of Diseases* (by Chao Yuanfang) in his book. In *Essential Recipes for Emergency Use-Volume 27*, he said, “Various diseases can deteriorate the functions of the five internal organs; each of the organs corresponds to 81 kinds of illnesses; coldness, heat, wind and Qi altogether can lead to 404 kinds of illnesses in total”.