Tuệ Tĩnh (

Chữ Hán ( , ) are the Chinese characters that were used to write Literary Chinese in Vietnam, Literary Chinese (; ) and Sino-Vietnamese vocabulary in Vietnamese language, Vietnamese. They were officially used in Vietnam after the Red River Delta region ...

: 慧靜, 1330– 1389), born Nguyễn Bá Tĩnh (阮伯靜), also known as Lê Đức Toản, was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, physician, and writer. One of the earliest figures in the history of traditional Vietnamese medicine, Tuệ Tĩnh spent his later years in China, having been sent there by his government as a "living tributary present" to the

Ming The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of China ruled by the Han people, t ...

emperor.

Early life and career

Nguyễn Bá Tĩnh was born in 1330 in Nghĩa Phú, a village in

Hải Dương Hải Dương () is a city in Vietnam. It is the capital of Hải Dương Province, Hải Dương, an industrialized province in the Hanoi Capital Region and the Red River Delta in Northern Vietnam. The city is at the midpoint between the capita ...

. After being orphaned at the age of six, he was raised in a Buddhist temple, where he was rechristened Tuệ Tĩnh, meaning "Tranquil Wisdom". According to one nineteenth-century source, he was also known as Lê Đức Toản. He studied both

Buddhism Buddhism, also known as Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

and

Taoism Taoism or Daoism (, ) is a diverse philosophical and religious tradition indigenous to China, emphasizing harmony with the Tao ( zh, p=dào, w=tao4). With a range of meaning in Chinese philosophy, translations of Tao include 'way', 'road', ' ...

and also passed his imperial examinations at the age of 22. However, he declined a job offer from the Chinese bureaucracy and elected to pursue medicine instead. He specialised in

herbal medicine Herbal medicine (also called herbalism, phytomedicine or phytotherapy) is the study of pharmacognosy and the use of medicinal plants, which are a basis of traditional medicine. Scientific evidence for the effectiveness of many herbal treatments ...

and supported the establishment of medical gardens in

pagoda A pagoda is a tiered tower with multiple eaves common to Thailand, Cambodia, Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Vietnam, and other parts of Asia. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most often Buddhist, but some ...

s across Vietnam.

Later years and legacy

From 1385 onwards, Tuệ Tĩnh lived in

Ming dynasty The Ming dynasty, officially the Great Ming, was an Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China that ruled from 1368 to 1644, following the collapse of the Mongol Empire, Mongol-led Yuan dynasty. The Ming was the last imperial dynasty of ...

China, having been designated by the

Trần Trần (陳) or Tran is the second most common Vietnamese surname after Nguyen. More than 10% of all Vietnamese people share this surname. History The Tran ruled the Trần dynasty, a golden era in Vietnam, and successfully repelled the Mongol ...

court in

Đại Việt Đại Việt (, ; literally Great Việt), was a Vietnamese monarchy in eastern Mainland Southeast Asia from the 10th century AD to the early 19th century, centered around the region of present-day Hanoi. Its early name, Đại Cồ Việt,(ch ...

as a "living tributary present" to the Chinese emperor. At the time, Tuệ Tĩnh was regarded as the most accomplished Buddhist monk and medical writer. He arrived at the capital city of

Nanjing Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400. Situated in the Yang ...

at the age of fifty-five and wrote a Chinese-language book on Vietnamese medicine, titled ''Nam dược thần hiệu'' () or ''Miraculous Drugs from the South''. He also reportedly wrote ''Hồng Nghĩa giác tư y thư'' (), partly using Nôm verse. Tuệ Tĩnh died around 1389 in Nanjing and was buried there, although part of the inscription on his tombstone beseeches visitors to take his remains back to Vietnam. A temple in Vietnam was built in honour of him during the mid-nineteenth century. According to Leslie de Vries, Tuệ Tĩnh and Hải Thượng Lãn Ông are often referred to as the "founding fathers" of traditional Vietnamese medicine, after whom several hospitals, schools, and streets are named. Similarly, Claudia Michele Thompson notes that "Tuệ Tĩnh is considered to be the founding father of Vietnamese medicine."

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* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Tuc Tinh 14th-century Vietnamese people 1330 births 1389 deaths