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The Yinshu (引書) is an ancient Chinese medical text from the Western Han dynasty discovered in 1983 as part of the Zhangjiashan Han bamboo texts.
Written in clerical script, the Yinshu is 3,235 words long and comprises some 113 bamboo slips, some of which had already been damaged prior to their excavation. The text, presented as the "way of Peng Zu" (彭祖之道也) discusses the causes of sickness and introduces gymnastic exercises and sexual practices that are named after either animals or the specific ailments that they are thought to target. The exercises—which Livia Kohn likens to in yoga—and their benefits are summarised in twenty-four mnemonic statements.
The Yinshu concludes by surmising that unlike "noble people", members of the lower social classes were more prone to "(having) many illnesses and (dying) easily" because they were ignorant of daoyin and regulating their qi. The Yinshu echoes content found in the Huangdi Neijing, while a range of exercises listed in the former text are illustrated in the Daoyin Tu discovered at Mawangdui; Charles Buck writes that the Yinshu "clarifies" the Daoyin Tu, citing an example of the former text explaining a "leading and declining" exercise illustrated in the latter work.
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