Xǔ Shèn 許愼
Style name Shūzhòng 叔重. Native of Zhàolíng 召陵 in Rǔnán commandery 汝南郡 (modern Yǎnchéng 郾城, Hénán). The leading classical philologist of the Later Hàn and author of the Shuōwén jiězì 說文解字 (121 CE), the earliest comprehensive analytical dictionary of Chinese characters and the foundational work of xiǎoxué 小學. He studied under Jiǎ Kuí 賈逵 in the Ancient Script (gǔwén 古文) tradition and was sufficiently learned in the Five Classics that contemporaries gave him the epithet Wǔ jīng wú shuāng 五經無雙 (“none his match in the Five Classics”).
His chief surviving works are the Shuōwén jiězì and the Wǔjīng yìyì 五經異義 (a survey of disagreements among Hàn classical traditions, lost as a self-standing work but partially recoverable through Zhèng Xuán’s Bó Wǔjīng yìyì 駁五經異義 (KR1g0001) and through Táng and Sòng lèishū citations). He served as a commandery clerk and later as Chief of the TàiwèiJìjiǔ 太尉祭酒 secretariat under Mǎ Róng 馬融’s patron Zhāng Bó 張伯, retiring to private teaching in his old age.
The Hòu Hànshū gives him a brief biography (juàn 79b, Rúlín liè zhuàn). His traditional dates of c. 58–c. 147 are derived from the dedication of the Shuōwén (presented by his son Xǔ Chōng 許沖 in 121) and from the entry in the Hòu Hànshū; the CBDB record (c_personid 439189) gives 30–124, which is at variance with the standard scholarly bracket and not followed here.