Lù Démíng 陸德明
Given name Yuánlǎng 元朗, by which he is also known; zì (style name) Démíng 德明, the form under which his philological works became canonical and which is now the conventional citation form. Native of Wú prefecture (modern Sūzhōu 蘇州). Lifedates conventionally given as ca. 550–630 (born under the Liáng, active under the Chén, the Suí, and the early Táng).
Held office under three dynasties: Erudite of the Imperial Academy (Guózǐ xué jì jiǔ 國子學祭酒) under the Suí, Erudite of the National Academy (Guózǐ jiànxiū 國子監修) under the early Táng. The Jiù Tángshū (juan 189) and Xīn Tángshū (juan 198) both give him biographies in the Rúlín section.
His single epoch-defining work is the Jīngdiǎn shìwén 經典釋文 (“Phonetic and Philological Glosses on the Canonical Texts”) in thirty juan, completed late in the Suí (preface dated 583, final compilation in the Suí–Táng transition). The work assembles, classic by classic, the variant readings, phonetic glosses (yīn 音), and philological commentary across the major mediaeval commentary traditions for the Yì, Shū, Shī, Sānlǐ, Chūnqiū sān zhuàn, Lúnyǔ, Xiàojīng, Lǎozǐ, Zhuāngzǐ, and Ěryǎ, plus a short prefatory bibliographic monograph (Xùlù 序錄). It is the irreplaceable single witness to the textual state of the medieval canon and the foundation of all subsequent textual collation; the Yì portion is incorporated as the yīnyì layer of the standard Shísān jīng zhùshū recension (= KR1a0007).
Wrote also a Lǎozǐ shū yì 老子疏義 (lost) and a Yìshū 易疏 (lost). Beyond the Shìwén, no major commentary of his survives.