Wang Bi

Also known as Zi Fusi

Wang Bi, courtesy name Fusi, belonged to the Wang family of Gaoping in Shanyang. According to He Shao's biography of him, quoted in Pei Songzhi's notes to the Records of the Three Kingdoms (Sanguozhi), the personnel minister He Yan admired him as someone with whom one could discuss the boundary between heaven and humanity. He wrote commentaries on the Laozi and the Book of Changes (Zhouyi), along with an outline of the Changes, reading the hexagrams for their meaning and setting aside the numerological methods of Han scholars. The Book of Jin (Jinshu) says that he and He Yan held that all things in heaven and earth have non-being as their root. After Cao Shuang's fall in 249 he lost his post, and that autumn he died of an epidemic disease at twenty-four sui, leaving no son. Kong Yingda's Tang-dynasty Correct Meaning of the Five Classics built its volume on the Changes on Wang Bi's commentary.