Early-Qīng 清 philological master of kǎojù 考據. Native of Tàiyuán 太原 in Shānxī; family relocated to Shānyáng 山陽 in northern Jiāngsū. Zì Bǎishī 百詩; hào Qiánqiū 潛丘. Lifedates 1636–1704 are firm.
In Kāngxī 18 / 1679 he was nominated for the Bóxué hóngcí 博學鴻詞 special examination, but did not pass. Spent his career as a private scholar and visiting consultant to high officials (Zhāng Pǔ 張溥, Xú Qiánxué 徐乾學, et al.), traveling between Beijing, Tàiyuán, and Shānyáng. Biography: Qīngshǐ gǎo 清史稿 j. 481.
He is the founder — alongside Gù Yánwǔ 顧炎武 (1613–1682) and slightly later Hú Wèi 胡渭 (1633–1714) — of the high-Qīng kǎojù 考據 (“evidential learning”) movement. His most consequential single work is the Shàngshū gǔwén shū zhèng 尚書古文疏證 (KR1b0048) in 8 juǎn — completed in manuscript by the 1690s, partially circulated under Huáng Zōngxī’s 黃宗羲 preface during his lifetime, fully printed only posthumously in 1745 — which marshals 128 separate evidentiary arguments to demonstrate that the 25 Gǔwén Shàngshū 古文尚書 chapters and the Kǒng Ān’guó zhuàn are an Eastern-Jìn forgery. The work supersedes 梅鷟’s earlier Shàngshū kǎo yì (KR1b0038) by elevating the same anti-Gǔwén case to demonstrative-systematic completeness, and was decisive: by the early eighteenth century the case was effectively settled, despite Máo Qílíng’s 毛奇齡 vigorous counter-attack in the Gǔwén Shàngshū yuān cí 古文尚書冤詞.
His other Sìkù-preserved works include the Sì shū shì dì 四書釋地 (a geographical-historical commentary on the Four Books) and the Qiánqiū zhájì 潛邱劄記 (his miscellaneous research notes, also Sìkù-preserved). The Qiánqiū zhájì is partially incorporated into the Shàngshū gǔwén shū zhèng as digressive supplementary material, which the Sìkù compilers identify as a structural weakness.
The Shàngshū gǔwén shū zhèng set the methodological template for the entire eighteenth-century Qīng kǎojù movement: the comprehensive marshaling of textual, citational, geographic, institutional, and chronological evidence to establish or refute the authenticity of received canonical texts. Yán Ruòqú’s specific case against the Gǔwén Shàngshū remains the single most influential individual demonstration in the history of Chinese philology.