MA TUAN-LIN

flourished 13th century, , China Pinyin Ma Duanlin Chinese historian who wrote the Wen hsien t'ung k'ao (General Study of the Literary Remains), a huge encyclopaedia of general knowledge. This work, with the works of two other historians of the Sung dynasty (9601279), Cheng Ch'iao (110866) and Ssu-ma Kuang (101986), is considered one of the greatest institutional histories ever written on China and, as such, was a model for many later historians. Ma insisted that a knowledge of institutional history was just as necessary to the Confucian official as knowledge of the Confucian Classics.