Guo Pu

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Guo Pu (AD 276–324), courtesy name Jingchun, was a Chinese historian, poet, and writer of the Eastern Jin dynasty. He is best known as one of China’s most important early commentators on ancient texts and for helping preserve many old works. He was also a Taoist mystic, geomancer, and collector of strange stories. He edited old texts and explained difficult words and allusions, so later readers could understand them. He is often called the father of feng shui because of his Book of Burial, the first major work to explain feng shui ideas.

Guo Pu came from Wenxi County (now in southwestern Shanxi). He studied Daoist occultism and prognostication, and worked as a predictor for local officials and leaders. In 307 his family moved south after a Xiongnu invasion, eventually settling in Jiankang (modern Nanjing). He served as an omen interpreter for powerful leaders and later held official posts in 318 and 320.

In 323 he joined the staff of warlord Wang Dun, but was executed in 324 after failing to provide a favorable omen for Wang’s plan to seize the Jin throne. Guo Pu was highly learned; he wrote commentaries on many ancient works (Chu Ci, Shan Hai Jing, Mu Tianzi Zhuan, Fangyan, Erya) and on several dictionaries. His glosses are often the only way to understand these texts. He was also a poet, with 11 surviving fu poems, and famous pieces like Fu on the Yangtze River and Wandering as an Immortal.

Much of his writing was lost over time, but some survives in the Wen Xuan anthology and through quotations in other works. The Records of the Sui dynasty credited him with 17 volumes; by the Tang only 10 remained, and by the Song most of the rest had vanished.