Early-Southern-Sòng 南宋 Daoist commentator, hào 本來子 Běn lái zǐ (“Master of the Originally-Thus”), author of the [[KR5c0071|Dàodé zhēn jīng zhí jiě 道德真經直解]] (DZ 688, preface 1159).
Native place. 錢塘 Qián táng — modern Hángzhōu 杭州, Zhèjiāng — which had become the Southern Sòng capital (under the name Lín ān 臨安) in 1138, two decades before the commentary’s composition. Shào Ruòyú was thus a native of the Southern Sòng capital region. His name appears in the bibliography of Sòng commentators Sòng jié jīng xìng shì 宋解經姓氏 appended to DZ 707 Dàodé zhēn jīng jí zhù (Péng Sì 彭耜, 1229), confirming his circulation among the Southern Sòng collected-commentary tradition.
Known work. His sole known surviving work is the [[KR5c0071|Dàodé zhēn jīng zhí jiě 道德真經直解]] (DZ 688) — a four-juàn commentary on the Dàodé jīng with preface dated 1159 (Shào) and epilogue dated 1160 (Chén Yuán qīng 陳元慶). The commentary is distinguished by its editorial radicalism (rejecting the 81-chapter scheme and the upper/lower Dào/Dé division of the received text) and its ambitious Three Teachings synthesis integrating Mādhyamika Buddhism, Chóngxuán Daoism, and Zhōng yōng Confucianism. See the main work note at KR5c0071.
Philosophical orientation. Shào is a quietist (rejecting all external religious practices — fáng zhōng, huángbái alchemy, xiū zhēn regimens — in favour of interior quiescence), a Chóngxuán 重玄 reader of the Dàodé jīng (working through the dialectics of yǒu 有 and wú 無 to the ultimate fēi yǒu fēi wú 非有非無), and a proponent of a distinctive four-step schema mapping the Lièzǐ’s Four Primal Stages (Tài yī, Tài chū, Tài shǐ, Tài sù) onto the Lǎozǐ’s dào shēng yī (ch. 42) sequence.
Associations. His commentary is revised and textually annotated by 張知新 Zhāng Zhīxīn (hào Qīng hé jū shì 清和居士), a fellow Southern-Sòng Daoist figure whose role seems to have been text-critical and philological. The epilogue is signed by a third figure, Chén Yuán qīng 陳元慶.
Dating. Active 1159–1160 (the preface and epilogue dates of DZ 688). No lifedates or other biographical details are recorded. No CBDB record identified.