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by combing through all of Ruan Yuan's publications, more than 30 published chronological biographies (lie zhuan) of Ruan Yuan of various lengths in Chinese; one essay each about him written in English, French, German and Japanese; numerous annotated catalogues of Qing writings; literally hundreds of biographies or biographical notes of Ruan Yuan's contemporaries who might have had an affiliation with Ruan Yuan; and as many informal writings by these scholars as I could locate and tolerate. I did not include anyone, no matter how well-known, whose association with Ruan Yuan appeared to be only incidental. For instance, I did not include Commissioner Lin Zexu (1785-1859) who paid a courtesy call on Ruan Yuan in Yangzhou after he was dismissed from office in 1840 or 1841.
I have found information on these 200 individuals, some more complete and others only sketchy. The main reason for their association with Ruan Yuan was a common interest in scholarly pursuits, encompassing calligraphy, textual criticism, ancient inscriptions, phonetics, etymology, historiography, poetry, and, in a less expected area for 18th and 19th century China, a concern for the environment, but Ruan Yuan also had among his associates people with lesser scholarly achievements, perhaps, but with greater claim to his largess, for instance, relatives, townsmen, and other scholars he had to accommodate.
Through Zhu Gui, Shao Jinhan (1743-1796) and Wang Niansun (1744-1832), had exposed the young Ruan Yuan to the new vistas of the School of Han Learning as well as the application of the empirical method devised by Dai Zhen (1727-1777) to investigate the Classics. Ruan Yuan was to become a powerful exponent of Han Learning. Bi Yuan had introduced to Ruan Yuan the excitement of studying ancient inscriptions on stone. Zhang Xuecheng had written to Ruan Yuan “about collecting antiquities in Zhejiang, an activity Ruan Yuan might be interested in in his leisure time.” Zhang also decried that "there were many libraries and a strong historical tradition (in Zhejiang in the past); many of the scholars who worked on the Yuan and Ming histories came from this area, and there were better historical collections here than elsewhere, But all is scattered and lost!" In time, Ruan Yuan was to cajole private collectors to preserve and catalogue their libraries, and looked for titles which had not been included in the Si ku chuan shu.
A number of senior scholars received largess from Ruan Yuan. Two
50
by combing through all of Ruan Yuan's publications, more than 30 published chronological biographies (lie zhuan) of Ruan Yuan of various lengths in Chinese; one essay each about him written in English, French, German and Japanese; numerous annotated catalogues of Qing writings; literally hundreds of bigraphies or biographical notes of Ruan Yuan's contemporaries who might have had an affiliation with Ruan Yuan; and as many informal writings by these scholars as I could locate and tolerate. I did not include anyone, no matter how well-known, whose association with Ruan Yuan appeared to be only incidental. For instance, I did not include Commissioner Lin Zexu #✯ (1785-1859) who paid a courtesy call on Ruan Yuan in Yangzhou after he was dismissed from office in 1840 or 1841.
I have found information on these 200 individuals, some more complete and others only sketchy. The main reason for their association with Ruan Yuan was a common interest in scholarly pursuits, encompassing calligraphy, textual criticism, ancient inscriptions, phonetics, etymology, historiography, poetry, and, in a less expected area for 18th and 19th century China, a concern for the environment, but Ruan Yuan also had among his associates people with lesser scholarly achievements, perhaps, but with greater claim to his largess, for instance, relatives, townsmen, and other scholars he had to accommodate.
Through Zhu Gui, Shao Jinhan (1743-1796) and Wang Niansun (1744-1832), had exposed the young Ruan Yuan to the new vistas of the School of Han Learning as well as the application of the empirical method devised by Dai Zhen E (1727-1777) to investigate the Classics. Ruan Yuan was to become a powerful exponent of Han Learning. Bi Yuan had introduced to Ruan Yuan the excitement of studying ancient inscriptions on stone. Zhang Xuecheng had written to Ruan Yuan “about collecting antiquities in Zhejiang, an activity Ruan Yuan might be interested in in his leisure time. 28 Zhang also decried that "there were many libraries
and a strong historical tradition (in Zhejiang in the past); many of the scholars who worked on the Yuan and Ming histories came from this area, and there were better historical collections here than elsewhere, But all is scattered and lost!"'29 In time, Ruan Yuan was to cajole private collectors to preserve and catalogue their libraries, and looked for titles which had not been included in the Si ku chuan shu. 30
A number of senior scholars received largess from Ruan Yuan. Two
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