Fan Ye (398 – 23 January 446),

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 ...

Weizong (蔚宗), was a Chinese historian and politician of the

Liu Song dynasty Song, known as Liu Song (), Former Song (前宋) or Song of (the) Southern Dynasty (南朝宋) in historiography, was an imperial dynasty of China and the first of the four Southern dynasties during the Northern and Southern dynasties ...

during the

Southern and Northern dynasties The Northern and Southern dynasties () was a period of political division in the history of China that lasted from 420 to 589, following the tumultuous era of the Sixteen Kingdoms and the Eastern Jin dynasty. It is sometimes considered as ...

period. He was the compiler of the historical text ''

Book of the Later Han The ''Book of the Later Han'', also known as the ''History of the Later Han'' and by its Chinese name ''Hou Hanshu'' (), is one of the Twenty-Four Histories and covers the history of the Han dynasty from 6 to 189 CE, a period known as the Lat ...

''. The fourthThe age order of Fan Ye and his brothers was listed in Fan Tai's biography in ''Book of Song'' (volume 60) son of

Fan Tai Fan Tai (355– 21 September 428According to Liu Yilong's biography in ''Book of Song'', Fan Tai died on the ''renxu'' day of the 8th month of the 5th year of the ''Yuanjia'' era of his reign. This corresponds to 21 Sep 428 on the Julian calendar ...

(范泰), Fan Ye was born in present-day

Shaoxing Shaoxing (; ) is a prefecture-level city on the southern shore of Hangzhou Bay in northeastern Zhejiang province, China. It was formerly known as Kuaiji and Shanyin and abbreviated in Chinese as (''Yuè'') from the area's former inhabitant ...

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 ...

, but his ancestral home was in

Nanyang, Henan Nanyang is a prefecture-level city in the southwest of Henan province, China. The city with the largest administrative area in Henan, Nanyang borders Xinyang to the southeast, Zhumadian to the east, Pingdingshan to the northeast, Luoyang to the ...

. He was a noted atheist who heavily criticised

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 ...

Yin and Yang Yin and yang ( and ) is a Chinese philosophical concept that describes opposite but interconnected forces. In Chinese cosmology, the universe creates itself out of a primary chaos of material energy, organized into the cycles of yin and ya ...

, and the concept of the

Mandate of Heaven The Mandate of Heaven () is a Chinese political philosophy that was used in ancient and imperial China to legitimize the rule of the King or Emperor of China. According to this doctrine, heaven (天, '' Tian'') – which embodies the nat ...

. To this end, he cited

Zhang Heng Zhang Heng (; AD 78–139), formerly romanized as Chang Heng, was a Chinese polymathic scientist and statesman who lived during the Han dynasty. Educated in the capital cities of Luoyang and Chang'an, he achieved success as an astronomer, mat ...

's scientific studies as evidence. Fan has a biography in the ''

Book of Song The ''Book of Song'' (''Sòng Shū'') is a historical text of the Liu Song Dynasty of the Southern Dynasties of China. It covers history from 420 to 479, and is one of the Twenty-Four Histories, a traditional collection of historical records ...

'' (volume 69).

References

Sources

* Tan, Jiajian
"Hou Hanshu" ("Book of Later Han")
''

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.

References

Sources

Further reading