Shèngxián Gāoshì Zhuàn 聖賢高士傳
Biographies of Sages, Worthies, and Lofty Scholars by 嵇康
About the work
Shèngxián Gāoshì Zhuàn 聖賢高士傳 (also known as Gāoshì Zhuàn 高士傳) is a jíyìběn reconstruction of a lost biographical collection of recluses, worthies, and sages by 嵇康 (Jī Kāng, 223–262 CE), one of the most celebrated figures of the Wei-Jin xuánxué 玄學 movement and a member of the “Seven Sages of the Bamboo Grove” (Zhúlín Qī Xián 竹林七賢). At over 2000 lines, it is one of the more substantial reconstructions in this division.
Tiyao
No tiyao found in source. This is a jíyìběn reconstruction.
Abstract
Jī Kāng (styled Shūyè 叔夜) was a poet, musician, philosopher, and alchemist whose principled defiance of the Sīmǎ clan led to his execution at the age of 39. His Shèngxián Gāoshì Zhuàn was compiled as a kind of moral genealogy — a gallery of exemplars who embodied the values of withdrawal, integrity, and self-cultivation that Jī Kāng himself espoused. The work is sometimes confused with Huángfǔ Mì’s 皇甫謐 Gāoshì Zhuàn 高士傳, but appears to have been a separate compilation.
The Suí Shū 隋書 bibliography records the Shèngxián Gāoshì Zhuàn under Jī Kāng’s name. The fragments include biographical notices on legendary recluses from high antiquity (Xǔ Yóu 許由, Cháo Fù 巢父, Shàn Juàn 善卷), Hàn-dynasty worthies who refused office, and figures from the zhuāngzǐ 莊子 tradition of eremitic wisdom. The text was lost after the Táng; the fragments were reconstructed from Táng and Sòng citations.
Translations and research
No substantial secondary literature located.
Other points of interest
That Jī Kāng — a musician, poet, and Daoist philosopher executed for political defiance — should compile a biographical collection of recluses and worthies is not incidental. The Shèngxián Gāoshì Zhuàn can be read as a manifesto in biographical form: a statement of the values of withdrawal and integrity that Jī Kāng himself lived and died by.