Chén Zǎo 陳藻 (Sòng, fl. late 12th c. – early 13th c.)
Zì Yuánjié 元潔. Hào Lèxuān 樂軒 (“Joyful-Pavilion”). Native of Fúqīng 福清 (Fújiàn). Birth and death years unknown; CBDB id 22966 (no dates).
The third-generation transmitter of the Àixuān school of pre-Zhū-Xī Fúqīng Lǐxué: Lín Guāngcháo 林光朝 (Àixuān, KR4d0225) → Lín Yìzhī 林亦之 (Wǎngshān, KR4d0231) → Chén Zǎo (this generation). His own disciple was Lín Xīyì 林希逸 (1193–1271), the late-Sòng senior official and Daoist-Buddhist commentator.
After Lín Guāngcháo’s death (1178), Liú Kèzhuāng’s preface to Chén Zǎo’s collection KR4d0240 notes, the school’s disciples mostly dispersed and some changed teachers; “only Wǎngshān and Lèxuān faithfully kept the old learning, to the end of their lives without regretting.” The school’s distinctive aesthetic — concision over expansiveness, density over sparseness, refinement over coarseness — gave it an independent place in Southern-Sòng Lǐxué alongside the Cheng-Zhū mainstream.
Surviving in Kanripo:
- KR4d0240 Lèxuān jí (8 juǎn, WYG; edited by his disciple Lín Xīyì with Liú Kèzhuāng preface).