Kǒng Ānguó 孔安國 (conventional dates ca. 156–74 BCE), zì Zǐguó 子國, was an early-Western-Hàn Confucian scholar and official, the eleventh-generation descendant of Confucius (孔子十一世孫). Native of Lǔ (modern Qūfù 曲阜, Shāndōng 山東). He held the offices of Adviser (Jiànyì dàfū 諫議大夫) and Director of the Imperial Stables (Línhuái tàishǒu 臨淮太守) under Emperor Wǔ 武帝.
Kǒng Ānguó is the central figure in the early-Hàn transmission of the Shàngshū gǔ wén 尚書古文 (ancient-script Shàngshū) tradition. According to the Hàn shū rúlín zhuàn 漢書儒林傳, when Lǔ Gōngwáng 魯恭王 (a Hàn imperial collateral) was renovating the old Confucius residence ca. 156 BCE, he discovered a cache of pre-Qín bamboo and silk texts in the wall, including a gǔ wén (ancient-script) version of the Shàngshū — substantially longer than Fú Shēng’s 伏生 jīn wén (modern-script) recension. Kǒng Ānguó was credited with editing this gǔ wén Shàngshū and composing a commentary (zhuàn 傳) on it.
The textual history is complicated. Whether the surviving “Pseudo-Kǒng Ānguó zhuàn” 偽孔安國傳 — appearing in the late-Western-Jìn 西晉 transmission of Méi Zé 梅賾 — actually represents Kǒng Ānguó’s authentic commentary or is a Western-Jìn forgery is one of the most consequential questions in the history of Chinese classical scholarship. The Sòng (Wú Yù 吳棫, Zhū Xī 朱熹) suspected the forgery; Yán Ruòqú 閻若璩 (1636–1704) in his Shàngshū gǔ wén shū zhèng 尚書古文疏證 demonstrated through systematic philological evidence that the 25 additional pian and the accompanying zhuàn are post-Hàn fabrications. The Sìkù editors broadly accepted Yán’s demolition.
Kǒng Ānguó’s other classical works include the Lúnyǔ xùn jiě 論語訓解 (now lost in independent form), a Xiào jīng 孝經 commentary, and editorial work on the Lǐjì 禮記.