About TCMLens
A search tool for the TCM classics, grounded in the original text
TCMLens lets you ask a question in plain language and search the classical Chinese medicine texts. Wherever the classics record something relevant, the answer names its source, so you can trace it back to the original passage rather than taking the model’s word for it.
Supported classics
Six classical texts are searchable today:
- Shanghan Zabing Lun (傷寒雜病論), the Guilin ancient edition
- Jinkui Yaolue (金匱要略)
- Huangdi Neijing (黃帝內經)
- Shennong Bencao Jing (神農本草經)
- Zhenjiu Dacheng (針灸大成)
- Nanjing (難經), the Classic of Difficult Issues
How fully each text has been reviewed and chaptered varies. What is already organised into public, browsable pages is listed under “Explore” below.
The interface and natural-language queries support Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, English and Japanese, but that does not mean all six texts have a published translation in every language. The classical text itself remains in Literary Chinese; a query in English or Japanese is interpreted and explained by the system, not served from a pre-translated edition.
Core capabilities
Natural-language retrieval
Describe a question or a set of symptoms in plain language and the system finds the relevant passages across the classics — no need to already know the right term or chapter.
Passage citation and provenance
Wherever the classics record something relevant, the answer names the passage it came from. Opening a citation shows the original text, a plain-language gloss, and edition information, so you can check it yourself.
Cross-corpus comparison
Retrieval runs across the classics in parallel. When the same phenomenon appears in more than one text, the answer presents both, each labelled with its own source.
Formula provenance
A formula is shown with its original composition, dosage and source edition, linked to the passages it appears in — never converted into a modern prescription.
Who it is for
- TCM students: locating original sources, gathering passages for exam review, comparing similar patterns.
- Practising clinicians and teachers: finding a citable source quickly for teaching or literature reference.
- Researchers and readers interested in TCM literature: textual variants, cross-corpus comparison, scholarly verification.
- TCM learners outside Taiwan: ask in English or Japanese, and the system interprets and explains the relevant classical passages for you.
Why TCMLens
TCMLens is built around making answers traceable: wherever the classics speak to a question, the citation names its source, locates the passage, and states its edition — so you can go back to the original text and check it yourself.
- Wherever a passage exists, the answer carries a checkable source rather than a description generated from memory alone.
- A formula’s composition and dosage are labelled by edition, never blended across editions or substituted for one another.
- The corpus is a fixed set of classical texts with documented editions and sources for each one.
Scope and limitations
TCMLens helps you understand the medicine. It does not practice medicine.
The system presents evidence from the source text, compares plausible diagnostic directions, and explains the treatment and formulas the classics record for each candidate — even when you describe your own symptoms in the first person. That is ordinary literature search and analysis.
The system does not determine a diagnosis for you, does not prescribe a personalised formula, does not set a dose or course of treatment, and does not advise stopping or changing an existing treatment. Those are clinical decisions that need a qualified TCM practitioner’s own examination.
Read the full medical disclaimerStart exploring
Browse the reviewed, published classics, passages and formulas, or go to the Workspace to start your own research.
The published, reviewed classics, passages and formula pages are currently in Traditional Chinese. View the Traditional Chinese original-text pages