Shì Jiǎorán 釋皎然 (ca. 720–798)
The principal shīsēng 詩僧 (monk-poet) of the Dàlì and early Zhēnyuán periods. Zì Qīngzhòu 清晝; lay surname Xiè 謝, fǎmíng (dharma-name) Jiǎorán 皎然 (“Bright”). Native of Wúxìng 吳興 (modern Húzhōu, Zhèjiāng); abbot of the Miàoxǐ sì 妙喜寺 at Zhùshān 杼山, in the Tāihú 太湖 region. He claimed direct descent from the LiúSòng poet Xiè Língyùn 謝靈運 (385–433), the founding figure of the Chinese shānshuǐ tradition; his lay biographer Yú Dí 于頔 calls him a “tenth-generation descendant of [Xiè] Língyùn” and reads his poetry as the literary inheritor of the Xiè family lineage in the Wúyuè 吳越 monastic context.
A senior figure of the late-Tang Niútóu 牛頭 Chán lineage, and the principal Wúyuè literary patron of his generation. Closely associated with Yán Zhēnqīng 顏真卿 during Yán’s Wúxìng governorship (768–771; Jiǎorán was a contributor to Yán’s collaborative philological project the Yùnhǎi jìngyuán 韻海鏡源), with Wéi Yìngwù 韋應物 during Wéi’s Sūzhōu governorship, and through them with the broader Dàlì literary world.
His extant corpus comprises (a) the Zhùshān jí KR4c0031 in 10 juǎn — his secular biéjí, deposited in the Jíxián diàn yùshūyuàn 集賢殿御書院 by imperial order in Zhēnyuán 8 (792); and (b) the Shī shì 詩式 (transmitted separately, in 5 juǎn) — his poetry-critical treatise, foundational for late-Tang shīhuà 詩話 theory. His theoretical innovation in the Shī shì — including the doctrine of jìng 境 (scene-realm), the formal analysis of fēnggé 風骨, and the doctrine of poetic transcendence (chū yán wài, wàng yán nèi 出言外忘言內) — makes him one of the principal mediating figures between High-Tang practice and late-Tang theory.
CBDB has cbdbId 94595 / 94596 but no fixed dates; the ca. 720–798 figure is the standard scholarly bracket.