華佗

Talking about Zhang Zhongjing (張仲景), you may be more familiar with the other giant of traditional Chinese medicine at the same era: Hua Tuo (華佗).

But, you know what, Hua was a mysterious existence. Unlike Zhang and other contemporaries, Hua's name or remedy was not mentioned by other mainstream Chinese medical literature (if I could use this term at all) in the following centuries. The life and doings of Hua were outlined by Records of the Three Kingdoms (三國志) and Book of the Later Han (後漢書) - both formal historical records. But, the two descriptions were substantially contradicting. For example, his year of birth differed by some 80 years.

Discerning readers would note that both the Records and the Book were written around the time of Wei (魏) and Jin (晉) - an era when the major interest of Chinese scholars was Qingtan (清談), which, translating into modern Cantonese, is blowing water (吹水).

Some modern scholars, notably Chen Yinke (陳寅恪), believed that Hua was merely a fictional character; the name Hua Tuo was the phonemic translation of Agada - the god of medicine and toxicology - in Hindu. (The usual way of translating Hindu to Chinese during the Jin dynasty was to omit the first A sound, and Agada would become Gada.) I believe that's too drastic an explanation. A flesh and blood Hua Tuo likely did exist (although his real name we never know), and he probably learned Hindu (also known as Ayurveda) medical techniques from Buddhist missionaries, which accounts for his slightly extraordinary treatment.