论“尝粪示孝”兴起与普遍化的原因

A Discussion of the Reasons of Rising and Popularization of “Tasting Feces for Filial Piety”

一种奇怪的行为——"尝粪"经常出现在古代的孝子烈女传中,特别是元、明、清时期。"尝粪"的对象基本上是父母,偶尔也为其他人,其目的是为了察看病情的发展,即所谓"尝粪辨疾"。可是,这种诊法从未见载于古代的中医书籍,故而有人怀疑这可能是从古印度随着佛教传入中国的。然而这种说法也不准确,因为"尝粪辨疾"的理论更可能出自于先秦时期内侍官员管理贵族生活的知识总结。为父母"尝粪辨疾"通常被视为极致的孝行,可是这种孝行在两宋以后才大量地见载于史册。其中原因可能有两个:其一是活字印刷术的发展,使得记录和流传的可能性加大;其二是两宋以来,各朝政府和精英分子持续地以舆论宣传、以身示范和奖惩制度等多种方式,逐层地将孝顺的理念建构到民众的日常生活中。

＂Tasting feces＂ is a strange behavior often appeared in ancient Chinese biography of those dutiful sons and daughters, especially in Yuan, Ming and Qing Dynasties. By tasting their parents＇ and occasionally others＇ feces, people concerned want to observe the latter＇ s medical condition. However, this kind of diagnostic method had never been recorded in theory of traditional ancient Chinese medicine. Therefore, some scholars thought this diagnostic method was introduced to China with the dissemination of Buddhism from India. The author argues that the above statement is not accurate. Tasting feces to diagnose disease for parents was often regarded as extreme filial conduct, but this kind of piety had been recorded a lot only since Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, which maybe resulted from two reasons, firstly, the development of typography made it possible to record and spread the filial conduct, secondly, since Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, both the government and the elite encouraged the populace to do filial conduct by means of many es and reward and punishment system.