Mid-Míng polymath, zì Yòngxiū 用修, hào Shēngān 升庵, of Xīndū 新都 (Sichuan). Son of the grand councillor Yáng Tínghé 楊廷和. Granted jìnshì zhuàngyuán (first place) in Zhèngdé 6 (1511) at age 24; held Hànlín xiūzhuàn, Jīngyán jiǎngguān. In Jiājìng 3 (1524), as a leader of the protest against the Dà lǐ yì (the Great Rites Controversy), he was beaten with court rods and exiled to Yúnnán; remained there for the rest of his life (1524–1559), refused permission to return even after the legal expiry of his sentence. The most prolific Míng xiǎoxué scholar; some 400+ works attributed to him. Two of his philological works are preserved in the Sìkù under KR1j: Qízì yùn KR1j0044 and Gǔyīn piánzì KR1j0045, both products of his exile-period scholarship. The Sìkù’s overall judgment is that Yáng Shèn’s lexicography is enormous in scope but uneven in critical method; his contemporary Jiāo Hóng 焦竑 called him “the most precise scholar of zì-learning of the [Míng] dynasty.” Catalog meta gives lifedates 1488–1559, in agreement with the standard biographical record. No CBDB entry can be confirmed.