Sīmǎ Zhēn 司馬貞
Zì Zǐzhèng 子正. Active in the early to mid-eighth century; Cháoyì dàfū 朝議大夫 and Hóngwén guǎn xuéshì 弘文館學士 under Tang Xuánzōng. Native of Hénèi 河內 (modern Qìnyáng 沁陽, Hénán). Floruit ca. 720s–740s.
Author of the Shǐjì suǒyǐn 史記索隱 in 30 juǎn (KR2a0001 Shǐjì; separately KR2a0003 Shǐjì suǒyǐn), completed in the late 720s or early 730s. The Suǒyǐn concentrates on textual criticism, geographical and lexical glossing, and reconciliation of variant readings, and incorporates a vast array of Six Dynasties and early Tang commentators now otherwise lost. Until the Northern Sòng it circulated independently of the main text, in 30 juǎn against the Shǐjì’s 130, with a separate xù 序 and fánlì 凡例.
Sīmǎ Zhēn is also the author of the controversial Sānhuáng běnjì 三皇本紀 (Basic Annals of the Three Augusts), an attempt to supplement what he regarded as a defect in the original Shǐjì; the Ming Nánjiàn edition placed it before the Wǔdì běnjì and the Sìkù editors strongly disapproved.