Zhèng Xuán 鄭玄
Style name Kāngchéng 康成. Native of Gāomì 高密 in Běihǎi commandery 北海郡 (modern Shāndōng). The pre-eminent Confucian classicist of the Eastern Hàn and the foundational figure of the Hàn Yì (image-and-number) and ritual-classics traditions. Studied first with Dìwǔ Yuánxiān 第五元先 (Jīng Fáng 京房 / Mèng Xǐ 孟喜 line of Yì learning), then in his maturity with Mǎ Róng 馬融 at Fúfēng 扶風, where he absorbed the older Fèi Zhí 費直 Yì, the Sānlǐ, the Shī, the Lúnyǔ, the Xiàojīng, and the apocryphal-classics (chènwěi 讖緯) literature. After returning to the East, he refused all official summonses, lived in semi-retirement in Gāomì, and produced commentaries on virtually the entire classical corpus.
His Zhōuyì zhù 周易註 (KR1a0003 / KR1a0004) was lost in the Sòng and survives only through Wáng Yīnglín’s late-Southern-Sòng compilation and Huì Dòng’s Qīng augmentation; his Sānlǐ zhù 三禮註 (on Zhōulǐ, Yílǐ, Lǐjì) survives in full and underlies the standard zhèngyì 正義 of the Three Rites; his Máoshī zhèng jiān 毛詩鄭箋 became the canonical layer of the Shījīng commentary tradition. Note the post-Táng convention of writing his given name 玄 as 元 to avoid the taboo on Lǐ Lóngjī’s grandson, the Táng emperor Xuánzōng’s name (also 玄); he is therefore frequently called “Zhèng Yuán” 鄭元 in Suí, Táng, and Sòng catalogues.
The Hòu Hànshū devotes a long liè zhuàn biography to him (juan 35). The Northern Sòng erected him into the temple register of the Wén miào 文廟; he is the canonical patron of the Hàn xué 漢學 revival of Qīng evidential scholarship.