©Edward Burman; April 2016
One of the four corners of a square shrine within the residence of Sun Simiao at Yaowang Mountain, in Tongchuan, north of Xi’an, each of which has a large representation of an acupuncture needle hanging from the eaves.
Sun Simiao was one of the masters of ancient Chinese medicine whose two thirty-volume works are key documents in its history, especially his chapter ‘On the Absolute Sincerity of Great Physicians’, which is considered the Chinese equivalent of the Hippocratic Oath.
He retired to this mountain, whose name “Yao Wang” means “Medicine King” (yao being herbal medicine), and died here in 682 AD.