Liu Xie (, ca. 465–522),

courtesy name A courtesy name ( zh, s=字, p=zì, l=character), also known as a style name, is an additional name bestowed upon individuals at adulthood, complementing their given name. This tradition is prevalent in the East Asian cultural sphere, particula ...

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

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

. He was the author of

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

's greatest work of literary

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

, '' The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons'' (文心雕龍). His biography is included in the '' Liangshu''.

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) and ...

, Liu's traced his ancestry to

Shandong Shandong is a coastal Provinces of China, province in East China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history since the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River. It has served as a pivotal cultural ...

. 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 Buddhadharma and Dharmavinaya, is an Indian religion and List of philosophies, philosophical tradition based on Pre-sectarian Buddhism, teachings attributed to the Buddha, a wandering teacher who lived in the 6th or ...

with

Sengyou Sengyou (; 445–518 AD) was a Buddhist monk and early medieval Chinese bibliographer and noted chiefly for being the author of ''Collected Records Concerning the Tripitaka'' (出三藏記集 '' Chu sanzang ji ji'', T 2145), which includes a cata ...

and helped edit

sutra ''Sutra'' ()Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a ...

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

Liang Dynasty The Liang dynasty (), alternatively known as the Southern Liang () or Xiao 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 pre ...

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

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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, be ...

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

External links

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