Sun Yirang (1848–1908) was a Chinese

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

 philologist. A native of Wenzhou

Wenzhou

Wenzhou is a prefecture-level city in southeastern Zhejiang province, People's Republic of China. The area under its jurisdiction, which includes two satellite cities and six counties, had a population of 9,122,100 as of 2010....

, Zhejiang

Zhejiang

Zhejiang is an eastern coastal province of the People's Republic of China. The word Zhejiang was the old name of the Qiantang River, which passes through Hangzhou, the provincial capital...

 province, he retired from official employment early in his life to devote himself to scholarship. His most important works are Mozi Jiangu (墨子間詁), a corrected, definitive edition of Mozi

Mozi

Mozi |Lat.]] as Micius, ca. 470 BC – ca. 391 BC), original name Mo Di , was a Chinese philosopher during the Hundred Schools of Thought period . Born in Tengzhou, Shandong Province, China, he founded the school of Mohism, and argued strongly against Confucianism and Daoism...

, and Zhouli Zhengyi (周禮正義), an important commentary on the Rites of Zhou

Rites of Zhou

The Rites of Zhou , also known as Zhouguan, is one of three ancient ritual texts listed among the classics of Confucianism. It was later renamed Zhouli by Liu Xin to differentiate it from a chapter in the Classic of History which was also known as Zhouguan.Though tradition ascribed the text of the...

. He also contributed to the studies of the bronzeware script

Bronzeware script

Chinese Bronze inscriptions are writing in a variety of Chinese scripts on Chinese bronze artifacts such as zhōng bells and dǐng tripodal cauldrons from the Shāng dynasty to the Zhōu dynasty and even later...

 and oracle script. His work Qiwen Juli (契文舉例), published posthumously by Luo Zhenyu

Luo Zhenyu

Luo Zhenyu , courtesy name: Shuyun was a Chinese classical scholar, philologist, epigrapher, antiquarian and Qing loyalist.-Biography:...

, was the first work of decipherment

Decipherment

Decipherment is the analysis of documents written in ancient languages, where the language is unknown, or knowledge of the language has been lost....

 of the oracle bone script.

External links

Biography at Guoxue Mozi Jiangu and other works by Sun Yirang at Chinese Text Project

Chinese Text Project

The Chinese Text Project is a digital library project that assembles collections of early Chinese texts. The name of the project in Chinese literally means "The Digitization Project of Chinese Philosophy Books", showing its focus on books related to Chinese philosophy...