Lǐ Xún 李珣 (zì Déruì 德潤, c. 855–945), poet, cí lyricist, jìnshì under the Former Shǔ 前蜀, and author of the Hǎiyào běncǎo 海藥本草 (KR3ec005). The 北夢瑣言 of Sūn Guāngxiàn (10th c.) describes him as a “Persian” 波斯人, the family being descended from Sogdian or Persian merchants who had settled in Zǐzhōu 梓州 (modern Shēhōng 射洪, Sìchuān) by the High Táng. His younger sister Lǐ Shùnxián 李舜弦 was selected as a court woman by the Former Shǔ ruler Wáng Yǎn 王衍 (r. 919–925) and is the earliest named non-Hàn woman poet in surviving Chinese sources.
Lǐ Xún is principally known to literary historians as one of the Huājiān 花間 cí poets — 37 of his lyrics are anthologised in the Huājiān jí 花間集 (940) and his Qióngyáo jí 瓊瑤集 is the foundational anthology of Nán xiāng zǐ 南鄉子-pattern lyrics describing tropical Lǐngnán and South-Sea scenery. To medical historians he is the author of the Hǎiyào běncǎo, a six-juǎn pharmacopoeia of foreign and maritime drugs, which served as the principal Chinese-language conduit for late-Táng / Five-Dynasties knowledge of Indian Ocean pharmacological trade.
The Five Dynasties Lǐ Xún is not securely matched to any CBDB record. Of the multiple Lǐ Xún entries in CBDB, those with dates either fall before his attested floruit (e.g. 174697 fl. 791) or are clearly unrelated.
Primary biography: 鹿虔扆 (cited by Quán Táng wén j.891) and the Běi mèng suǒ yán j.5. For modern studies see Edward H. Schafer, The Vermilion Bird, pp. 49, 154; Pulleyblank, Studies in Chinese and Indo-European Linguistics in Honor of Fang-Kuei Li (1986), p. 421ff.