Liǔ Zōngyuán 柳宗元 (773–819), zì Zǐhòu 子厚, was a major Mid-Táng prose stylist, philosophical-political essayist, and one of the central figures of the late-Táng gǔwén 古文 movement, generally paired with Hán Yù 韓愈. A native of Hédōng 河東 (Yùnchéng 運城, modern Shānxī), he passed the jìnshì in 793 and rose to zhōngsè qǐjūlǎng 員外郎 in the metropolitan administration. His association with the failed Wáng Shūwén 王叔文 reform faction of the Yǒngzhēn 永貞 era (805) led to his banishment first to Yǒngzhōu 永州 (805–815) and then to Liǔzhōu 柳州 (815–819), where he died in office. His major prose work — political-philosophical essays such as Fēngjiàn lùn 封建論, Tiān shuō 天說, and Tiān duì 天對, the natural-historical Bǔshézhě shuō 捕蛇者說, and the Yǒngzhōu bā jì 永州八記 — places him among the founders of late-imperial Chinese literary prose. His textual-critical work on the Fǎ yán 法言 — a partial supplementation of Lǐ Guǐ’s Eastern Jìn commentary — survives within Sīmǎ Guāng’s Fǎ yán jí zhù (KR3a0009). CBDB id 3605, dates 773–819. His collected works, the Liǔ Hédōng jí 柳河東集, occupy KR4 (Bie-jí category) of the Kanripo corpus.