Jiang Fan 江藩

Jiang Fan 江藩 (1761-1830), courtesy name Ziping 子屏, style Zhengtang 鄭堂 or Jiefu 節甫, from Yangzhou 揚州, Jiangsu, was a scholar of the high Qing period 清 (1644-1911).

He was a disciple of Hui Dong 惠棟 (1697-1758), Jiang Sheng 江聲 (1721-1799) and Yu Xiaoke 余蕭客 (1732—1778) and specialised in historiography. He was, however, not inspired by the contemporary trend of admiration of Tang- 唐 (618-907) and Song-period 宋 (960-1279) writings, and his "River Rhapsody" Hefu 河賦, written in highly adorned language, was heavily criticised. Jiang owned a huge library, but caused by a famine, he had to sell the largest part of it to buy rice.

Ruan Yuan 阮元 (1764-1849), a great scholar and governor-general of Guangdong, once asked Jiang Fan to compile the local gazetteer of the province, Guangdong tongzhi 廣東通志. As a reward, he was paid richly and could live from this money until the end of his life. For long years, he was head of the Lizheng Academy 麗正書院.

His scholarly interest was the Han period 漢 (206 BCE-220 CE). His most prominent book is (Guochao) Hanxue shicheng ji (國朝)漢學師承記, which made a great contribution to the study of scholarship on the Han period. In imitation of Lu Deming's 陸德明 (c. 550-630) comprehensive commentary on the Classics, Jingdian shiwen 經典釋文, from the Tang period, Jiang added the catalogue Guochao jingshi jingyi mulu 國朝經師經義目錄, which gives an overview of Qing works on Han-period writings.

Other scholarly products of Jiang Fan are Songxue yuanyuan ji 宋學淵源記, Lijingwen 隸經文 and Zhouyi shubu 周易述補. Miscellaneous writings of Jiang are found in the collection Bingzhushi zawen 炳燭室雜文.