He Yan
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.