Properties: Sweet, slightly bitter, slightly cold

Meridans Entered:
Primary: Lung, Stomach and Liver

1. Clears Lung Heat and transforms Phlegm
   Cough with gasping
2. Soothes the Liver, harmonises the Middle Jiao and resolves Toxicity
   Dizziness
   Vomiting
   Leucorrhoea
   Sores and boils
   Pinkeye

Suggested Daily Dosage: 6-12g in decoction.

Cautions: It is contraindicated for spermatorrhea, enuresis, collapse from qi deficiency and pregnant women.

Notes:

Analysis of the ancient script forms of 參 Shen suggest it is simplified from 曑 (晶 -> 厽) making an ideogrammic compound of 晶 ("stars") + 光 ("light; brightness") + 彡 ("light rays") meaning the Three Stars astrological mansion (referring to the three stars of Orion's belt in western astronomy at the centre of this constellation). 彡 also acts as a phonetic component. 光 may also be interpreted as 卩 ("kneeling person"), representing someone looking at the shining stars above him or be the original character for 簪 a hairpin and thus someone with a ceremonial hat of stars. These interpretations suggest a great reverence for these herbs crossing into the cosmological and religious in a culture where many gods were celestial.

參 also has alchemical overtones, appearing in the title of the legendary 參同契 Cantong Qi translated as The Seal of the Unity of the Three, composed by Wei Boyang in the mid-second century CE, where it refers to the unity of cosmology, daoism and internal alchemy.