This paper aims to scrutinize pharmaceutical materials in Ancient Korea, which were written in Chinese Bencao textbooks 本草書, specifically The Pharmacopoeia of the Zhenghe reign 經史證類備用本草(short for Zhenghe xinxiu jingshi zhenglei beiyong bencao 政和新修經史證類備用本草). It was a book on pharmacology written by the Song scholar Tang Shenwei 唐慎微(1056-1093).
The Pharmacopoeia of the Zhenghe reign conveyed several pharmaceutical materials of the Ancient Korea, from Ancient Joseon to three kingdoms - Goguryeo, Baekje and Silla. It was Ta Hongjing 陶弘景(456-536) who introduced the pharmaceutical materials of Ancient Joseon, Goguryeo and Baekje. Silla's were introduced by Chen Cangqi's 陳藏器(678?-757) Bencao shiyi 本草拾遺. Most of them were known through trades and wars between Ancient Korea and China. The informations of the ancient Korean pharmaceutical materials made the Chinese bencao richer. From the analyse, I realized that the function of the bencao text book was not only providing informations of pharmaceutical materials, but also unifying the names of the materials. The bencao unified the pharmaceutical names which had diverse names in China. After Silla and Japan adopted the bencao textbook in medical education, the Chinese pharmaceutical names of the bencao became official in East Asia.