Dai Zhen

Also known as Zi Shenxiu · Zi Dongyuan

Dai Zhen, courtesy names Dongyuan and Shenxiu, came from Xiuning in Huizhou and studied ritual, astronomy and phonology with Jiang Yong of Wuyuan. Moving to Beijing to escape a feud, he won the friendship of Ji Yun, Zhu Yun, Qian Daxin and Wang Mingsheng. He passed the provincial examination in 1762 but repeatedly failed the metropolitan one; when the Four Treasuries office opened in 1773 he was recommended as a compiler, and in 1775 the emperor granted him jinshi status and a Hanlin post. In the office he collated the Commentary on the Water Classic and recovered seven mathematical works, including the Nine Chapters, from the Yongle Encyclopedia. Holding that meaning must be reached through script, sound and glosses, he wrote studies of rhymes and dialect words and, in his Evidential Commentary on the Meanings of Terms in the Mencius (Mengzi ziyi shuzheng), attacked Song Confucians for judging people by abstract principle. He died in Beijing in 1777; his pupils Duan Yucai and Wang Niansun became leading philologists.