Liu Xie (, ca. 465–522),

courtesy name A courtesy name (), also known as a style name, is a name bestowed upon one at adulthood in addition to one's given name. This practice is a tradition in the East Asian cultural sphere, including China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.Ulrich Theo ...

Yanhe (), was a Chinese monk, politician, and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, ...

. He was the author of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

's greatest work of literary

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed t ...

, ''

The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons ''The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons'' () is a 5th-century work on Chinese literary aesthetics by Liu Xie, composed in fifty chapters (篇) according to the principles of numerology and divination found in the ''Book of Changes'' or ''I ...

'' (文心雕龍). His biography is included in the ''

Liangshu The ''Book of Liang'' (''Liáng Shū''), was compiled under Yao Silian and completed in 635. Yao heavily relied on an original manuscript by his father Yao Cha, which has not independently survived, although Yao Cha's comments are quoted in seve ...

''.

Life

A native of today's

Zhenjiang Zhenjiang, alternately romanized as Chinkiang, is a prefecture-level city in Jiangsu Province, China. It lies on the southern bank of the Yangtze River near its intersection with the Grand Canal. It is opposite Yangzhou (to its north) a ...

, Liu's traced his ancestry to

Shandong Shandong ( , ; ; Chinese postal romanization, alternately romanized as Shantung) is a coastal Provinces of China, province of the China, People's Republic of China and is part of the East China region. Shandong has played a major role in His ...

. He was orphaned in his youth and chose not to marry, either because of poverty or conviction (or both). Liu studied

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

with Sengyou and helped edit

sutra ''Sutra'' ( sa, सूत्र, translit=sūtra, translit-std=IAST, translation=string, thread)Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an ap ...

s at the Dinglin Monastery () until his death during the

Liang Dynasty The Liang dynasty (), alternatively known as the Southern Liang () in historiography, was an imperial dynasty of China and the third of the four Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties period. It was preceded by the South ...

. It was during his time editing Buddhist scriptures that he wrote his ''The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons.'' He later became a private secretary to Xiao Hong, brother of the Liang emperor

Xiao Yan Emperor Wu of Liang () (464 – 12 June 549), personal name Xiao Yan (蕭衍), courtesy name Shuda (叔達), childhood name Lian'er (練兒), was the founding emperor of the Chinese Liang dynasty, during the Northern and Southern dynasties perio ...

. He also did logistics for a military unit and was later promoted to county magistrate in Taimo (modern day Longyou county,

Zhejiang Zhejiang ( or , ; , also romanized as Chekiang) is an eastern, coastal province of the People's Republic of China. Its capital and largest city is Hangzhou, and other notable cities include Ningbo and Wenzhou. Zhejiang is bordered by Ji ...

province). Eventually, he again worked as a secretary to the emperor's other sons, until he was later sent back to the monastery. When the scripture editing project was finished, Liu decided to continue on at the monastery. Liu also wrote ''The Great Enlightenment'' (''Hong Ming Ji'') and ''On the World'' (''Shijie Ji''), both of which are lost. He also wrote an essay entitled "Treatise on Refuting Falsehood" (''Mie Huo Lun'').

Psychology experiment

Liu Xie conducted a psychology experiment by asking his subjects to draw a circle on a piece of paper with one hand, while the other hand tried to simultaneously draw a square. This test was to measure the level of distraction that could be managed by his subjects. As Liu observed, his students, who were the subjects of his experiment, struggled to perform both tasks simultaneously. What Liu's experiment had demonstrated was that by doing two experiments at once will mean that neither experiment is done correctly.

References

* Yang, Mingzhao
"Liu Xie"
''

Encyclopedia of China The ''Encyclopedia of China'' () is the first large-entry modern encyclopedia in the Chinese language. The compilation began in 1978. Published by the Encyclopedia of China Publishing House, the encyclopedia was issued one volume at a time, begin ...

'' (Chinese Literature Edition), 1st ed.

External links

* Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Chinese spiritual writers Liang dynasty Buddhist monks Liang dynasty politicians Liang dynasty writers Liu Song dynasty people Politicians from Zhenjiang Southern Qi Buddhists Writers from Zhenjiang Rhetoricians {{China-writer-stub