Sūn Jué 孫覺
Style name Xīnlǎo 莘老. Native of Gāoyóu 高郵 (modern Jiāngsū). Northern-Sòng classicist and senior court official; a jìnshì of the Huángyòu 皇祐 era (1049–1054), pupil of Hú Yuán 胡瑗 (one of the Sòng chū sān xiānshēng) at the HúSū 胡蘇 academy. The Sòng shǐ (juan 344) gives him a substantial biography. Lifedates 1028–1090.
Held a sequence of senior court posts including Yùshǐ zhōngchéng 御史中丞 (Censor-in-Chief), Lóngtúgé xuéshì 龍圖閣學士 (Hanlin-style honorary lectureship), and Tíjǔ Lǐquánguàn 提舉醴泉觀 (Director of the Lǐquán Daoist temple, a retirement sinecure). Politically aligned with Sīmǎ Guāng 司馬光 (1019–1086) and the conservative Yuányòu 元祐 faction against Wáng Ānshí 王安石’s New Policies. Was friend and frequent correspondent of Sū Shì 蘇軾 (1037–1101), Sū Zhé 蘇轍 (1039–1112), and Huáng Tíngjiān 黃庭堅 (1045–1105) — Huáng’s mother was Sūn’s wife’s elder sister, making the two men nephews-by-marriage.
His principal scholarly work is the Sūnshì Chūnqiū jīng jiě 孫氏春秋經解 in 13 juan (KR1e0025) — also catalogued under the alternative title Chūnqiū xué zuǎn 春秋學纂 (the Sìkù tíyào clarifies that they are one work). The work transmits the lost Chūnqiū teachings of Hú Yuán in extended form, organised around Hú’s principle “suppress hegemons, honour the king” (yì bà zūn wáng 抑霸尊王), with the Gǔliáng as primary commentary. Contemporary tradition credited Sūn’s work with deterring Wáng Ānshí from his planned imperial Chūnqiū commentary — Wáng on seeing Sūn’s text “conceived a deep envy and disparaged the Chūnqiū” (Zhōu Línzhī’s postface, cited in the Sìkù tíyào).
Also wrote a Chūnqiū jīngshè yào yì 春秋經社要義 in 6 juan (lost) and a substantial collected works Sūn Xīnlǎo wén jí 孫莘老文集 (largely lost; some pieces preserved in Quán Sòng wén 全宋文).
CBDB id 1521. Buried at Gāoyóu; epitaph by Sū Zhé.