Gān Bǎo 干寶 (zì Lìngshēng 令升; fl. 317–336) was an Eastern Jìn 東晉 court historian, classicist, and anomaly-anthologist, native of Xīncài 新蔡 (in modern Hénán). His standard biography is preserved in the Jìn shū 晉書 (juàn 82), grouped with the other Eastern-Jìn historians. Recommended through the patronage of Wáng Dǎo 王導, he was appointed zhùzuò láng 著作郎 (Director of the Imperial Archives) under Jìn Yuándì 元帝 (r. 317–322) with the formal commission to compile the dynastic history; he later rose to sǎnqí chángshì 散騎常侍 (Cavalier Attendant-in-Ordinary). His principal historiographic work, the Jìn jì 晉紀 in 20 juàn — a chronicle of the Western Jìn from Sīmǎ Yì through to Mǐndì — was praised by Liú Tán 劉惔 as “excellent in the historians’ talents” (liáng shǐ cái yě 良史才也); it survives only in fragments quoted in later compilations.
Gān Bǎo was also a Yìjīng commentator (a Zhōu Yì zhù 周易注 in 10 juàn is recorded by the Suí shū jīngjí zhì; fragments remain) and a ritualist, and held positions on the Lǐyí 禮儀 commissions of the early Eastern Jìn. He is, however, principally known to later tradition not as a historian or classicist but as the compiler of the Sōushén jì 搜神記 (KR3l0099) — the foundational anthology of the zhìguài 志怪 (record-of-anomalies) genre. The compilation, according to his preface and biography, was prompted by two prodigies in his own household: his father’s concubine, buried alive in the family tomb, was found living when the tomb was reopened ten years later; and his elder brother, pronounced dead, revived and reported visions of the spirit-world. These events, Gān Bǎo writes, persuaded him that “the way of spirits is not a fabrication” (shén dào zhī bù wū 神道之不誣), and he assembled the Sōushén jì as a documentary demonstration of the reality of the supernatural — explicitly modelled, in its preface, on the apologetic protocols of canonical historiography.
CBDB (local dump cbdb_20260328.sqlite3) has no entry for Gān Bǎo, consistent with CBDB’s TángQīng coverage focus; no c_personid is recorded here. His core dates are conventionally given in Chinese reference works as roughly 286?–336 (the Zhōngguó dà bǎikē quánshū gives 286–336; some Japanese reference works give c. 280–351), with the floruit clearly anchored by his Yuán-dì-era zhùzuò láng appointment (317–322) and the death of his interlocutor Liú Tán in the Dàníng reign (323–326). The dates here are left blank as the Jìn shū gives no firm year for either birth or death; the floruit is documented in KR3l0099.
In the Kanripo corpus he appears as compiler of KR3l0099 Sōushén jì and as the attributed author of KR3a0154 Gānzǐ 干子 (a zǐ-house treatise on natural philosophy and biànhuà, also cited as Zìrán lùn, extant only as a Qing-era jíyì). Other lost works (the Jìn jì, the Zhōu Yì zhù, the Chūnqiū Zuǒshì hángū 春秋左氏函詁) are not in the corpus.