Liu Xin (scholar)
A scholar of the Old Texts school, he was attracted to the Zuozhuan's earlier graphical forms, whose inaccessibility deterred the compound exegesis found in the rival Chunqiu commentarial traditions.
[6] In editing the Zuozhuan with the assistance of Yin Xian (尹咸), Liu rearranged the material into chronological order to map more neatly onto the Chunqiu chronicle as the Gongyang and Guliang commentaries did.
[9] Liu Xin was attracted to guwen texts, and his position in the imperial library meant he was well placed to ensure that these versions would officially be considered the authoritative ones.
[10]: 212–213 From the 19th through early 20th centuries, antiquarians and historians, beginning with Kang Youwei, accused Liu of excessive editing, to the point of falsifying historical texts.
According to their theory, first articulated by Qian Mu in 1930,[12] Liu edited ancient texts for political purposes, particularly the Rites of Zhou, the Zuozhuan,[13]: 49 and the Mao commentary to the Shijing.
The possibility of Liu Xin's forgeries became a crucial question for the Doubting Antiquity School in their search for a rationalist past for China.
[21] Sinologist Joseph Needham inspected it in Beijing, describing it as follows: The standardised chia liang hu (has) a square with each side 1 chhih (foot) long, and outside it a circle.
As Emperor of Xin, Wang Mang attempted to return to the lost ways of the ancient sage-kings, a legendary golden age of order and peace.
As part of the rebranding schema implemented across the government, Liu Xin gained the noble title "Eminence of New Excellence" (嘉新公).
The jialiang hu used to calculate pi was designed as the standard for the five measures of liquid volume stipulated by statute, and was constructed with a separate compartment for each of them.
[25] This text records detailed information about Han dynasty mathematics, measures of length and volume, harmonics, weights and balances, and the calendar via wuxing theory.
[29] Liu additionally developed a new more accurate model of astronomy, the Triple Concordance calendar (三統歷; San tong li), for predicting the motion of heavenly bodies.
