Chéng Gōngsūi 成公綏
Style name Zǐ’ān 子安. Native of Báimǎ 白馬 (modern Huaxian, Henan). Western Jin polymath — writer, musician, cosmologist. No CBDB record has been identified.
Chéng Gōngsūi is placed in the literary biography section of Jìnshū 晉書 juǎn 92 together with other Western Jin wénxué figures. He was a close associate of Zhāng Huá 張華 (232–300), the foremost literary arbiter of the early Western Jin, who praised his learning enthusiastically. He served in several official posts under Emperor Wu of Jin (r. 265–290).
He is known for three principal areas of achievement. First, his mastery of the xiào 嘯 — the meditative vocalized whistle used in Daoist and arcane spiritual practice — which he theorized in his 〈嘯賦〉 (Xiào fù, Rhapsody on the Whistle/Free Cry), one of the most important documents for understanding this practice in the Wei-Jin cultural milieu. Second, his cosmological 〈天地賦〉 (Tiāndì fù, Rhapsody on Heaven and Earth), in the tradition of Zhāng Héng 張衡. Third, his court poetry, including the 〈中宮二首〉 (Two Poems on the Empress’s Palace), which is attributed to him by name in Yìwén lèijù 藝文類聚. He was also skilled in music and mathematical calculation (suàn 算). His literary remains are gathered in KR4b0083.