He Yan

He Yan was born in Nanyang, Henan. His great-grandfather was a butcher, and his grandfather, He Jin, was a general and regent of the Eastern Han dynasty. His grandaunt was Empress He, the wife of Emperor Ling of the Eastern Han dynasty. He Yan's father, He Xian (), died at an early age. When He Yan was about six, his mother was taken as a concubine by the warlord Cao Cao, after which she became known as "Lady Yin". After being adopted by Cao Cao, He was raised with the other princes of Wei, including Cao Cao's eventual successor, Cao Pi ( 220-226). Cao Pi resented He for acting as if he were a crown prince, and referred to him by the name "false son" rather than his real name. He later married one of Cao Cao's daughters, Princess Jinxiang, who may have been one of He's half-sisters. As a result of his adoption, He Yan spent a considerable amount of time with Cao Cao during his childhood. He had a passion for reading and study. Cao Cao consulted with him when he was confused about how to interpret Sun Tzu's The Art of War, and was impressed with He Yan's interpretation. He Yan's contemporaries (both in Cao Wei and the Jin dynasty) disliked him, and wrote that he was effeminate, fond of makeup, dissolute and egotistical. The second Wei emperor Cao Rui ( 226-239) refused to employ him because he believed that He was a "floating flower": well known for a life of flamboyance and dissipation. He was reportedly fond of "five-mineral powder", a hallucinatory drug. At the time of He Yan's death, he had a five-year-old son whom Sima Yi dispatched soldiers to arrest. Before the soldiers arrived, He Yan's mother, Lady Yin, who was still alive, hid her grandson and threw herself at Sima Yi's mercy at the palace. She eventually convinced Sima Yi to pardon her grandson, and He Yan's son survived. ==Philosophy==

According to the Wei dynastic histories, He Yan enjoyed and had a great insight into the works of the Daoist philosophers Laozi and Zhuangzi, and into the Book of Changes, from an early age. He wrote a famous commentary that was influential in his own time, the Commentary on the Daode Jing (Daode Lun), but no copies have survived. He was planning on writing a more detailed, interlinear commentary on the Daode Jing; but, after comparing his draft with a similar draft by a younger Wang Bi, He decided that his interpretation was inferior, and the Commentary that he eventually produced was more general and broad. He Yan was a member of a committee that produced an influential and authoritative commentary on Confucian theory, the Collected Explanations of the Analects (Lunyu Jijie), which collected, selected, summarised and rationalised the most insightful of all preceding commentaries on the Analects that had been written by his time. He produced the commentary as a member of a five-member committee (the other four members of the committee were Sun Yong, Zheng Chong, Cao Xi and Sun Yi), but was given almost sole credit as the principal writer by subsequent Chinese scholars, and by the Tang dynasty (618-907) He Yan's name was the sole author associated with the Collected Explanations. Modern scholars are unsure of what evidence led medieval Chinese scholars to believe that He was the sole author, or if he wrote the Collected Explanations out of interest or because he was ordered to by the Wei court, but continue to credit He Yan as the principal author out of convention. After He Yan presented it to the imperial court, the Collected Explanations was quickly recognised as authoritative and remained the principal text used by Chinese readers to interpret the Analects for nearly 1,000 years, until it was displaced by Zhu Xi's commentary in the 14th century. He Yan believed that Daoism and Confucianism complimented each other so that by studying them both in a correct manner a scholar could arrive at a single, unified truth. Arguing for the ultimate compatibility of Daoist and Confucian teachings, He argued that "Laozi [in fact] was in agreement with the Sage" (sic). By promoting the synthesis of Daoist and Confucian concepts, He became a principal advocate of the neo-Daoist school of Xuanxue (along with his friend and contemporary, Wang Bi). As a scholar of Xuanxue, He was notable for exploring the theory of wuwei. He was a prolific writer of poetry and wrote numerous miscellaneous essays on philosophy, politics, literature, and history, some of which still survive. ==Notes==