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 (1737) 29/57a; see bibl. under ; Haenisch. E., T'oung Pao, 1913, p. 110.]

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 YAO Nai 姚鼐, Jan. 17, 1732–1815, Oct. 15, author and calligrapher, was a native of T'ung-ch'êng, Anhwei. His great-great-grandfather, Yao Wên-jan 姚文然 (若侯, posthumous name, 端恪, d. 1678); was a chin-shih of 1643 who served under the Manchus as president of the Board of Punishments (1676-78). Yao Nai owed much of his early education in the Classics to his uncle, Yao Fan 姚範, a chin-shih of 1742. He also studied under the great teacher of ku-wên 古文, Liu Ta-k'uei 劉大櫆, who was likewise a native of T'ung-ch'êng. Yao Nai became a chü-jên in 1750 and a chin-shih in 1763. Appointed a bachelor of the Hanlin Academy, he was detached from it in 1766 and was made a second class secretary in the Board of War and later, in the Board of Ceremonies. After several promotions he became (1771) a department director in the Board of Punishments. During this period he was appointed supervisor of the provincial examinations in Shantung (1768) and Hunan (1770), and examiner in the metropolitan examination of 1771. While in Peking he associated with such scholars as and  and, after 1773, served for more than a year on the editorial staff for the compilation of the catalogue of the Imperial Library, Ssŭ-k'u ch'üan-shu tsung-mu t'i-yao, (see under ). Requesting in 1774 to be relieved, he left Peking in the following year, and declined all invitations to office, preferring to teach in various Academies in such cities as Yangchow (1776–78), Anking (1780–87), Shê-hsien (1788) and Nanking (1790–1801, 1805–15). In the meantime he edited part of the Lu-chou fu-chih in 1803 (see under ), and was the chief-editor of the 江寧府志 Chiang-ning fu-chih of 1811. In 1810, on the sixtieth anniversary of his passing the provincial examination, he was given therank of a fourth grade official in the central government. He died in the Chung-shan 鍾山 Academy at Nanking, at the age of eighty-five (sui).

During forty years as head of various academies Yao Nai gathered many disciples who exerted a powerful influence in promoting the principles of ku-wên prose-writing which he espoused, although he himself regarded and Liu Ta-k'uei as the originators of those principles. Owing to the fact that all three were natives of T'ung-ch'êng, the group came to he known—sometime in the seventeen-sixties—as the T'ung-ch'êng School. Yao, like his predecessors Fang and Liu, advocated the philosophy of the Sung Neo-Confucianists, but unlike them stressed the importance of investigation (k'ao-chêng 考證, literally "search for evidence") which was the slogan of the "School of Han Learning" (see under ). It is reported that Yao once hinted to that he would like to be a follower of the latter's school, but that Tai politely declined to receive him. Yao himself never achieved much in the scientific study of the Classics, preferring to devote his energies to the promotion of ku-wên literature. He asserted that prose literature of the best type is short, to the point, "unadorned" (平淡), and makes use of simple language. As concrete examples of such writing he edited an anthology, entitled 古文辭類纂 Ku-wên ts'ŭ lei-tsüan, 75 chüan, which was completed in 1779 and was first printed about 1820 by K'ang Shao-yung (see under ). It consists of selections from the ancient histories such as the 國語 Kuo-yü, the 戰國策 Chan-kuo ts'ê, the 史記 Shih-chi and the 漢書 Han-shu; from the collected works of eight masters of the T'ang and Sung dynasties (see under ), and from the writings of Kuei Yu-kuang (see under ), Fang Pao, and Liu Ta-k'uei. The selected articles were divided according to form into thirteen classes, such as essays, letters, epitaphs, etc. This anthology has been frequently reprinted and supplemented (see under ). Also popular are the collection of Yao's own ku-wên essays in the 惜抱軒文集 Hsi-pao hsüan wên-chi, 16 chüan (1800), and its supplement, Hsi-pao hsüan wên hou-chi (後集), 10 chüan. Unlike Fang Pao, Yao wrote verse which appears in two collections: Hsi-pao hsüan shih-chi (詩集), 10 chüan (1798), and a supplement of the same title in 1 chüan printed in 1816. He left 8 chüan of miscellaneous notes which were printed in 1821 by a disciple, Mei Tsêng-liang 梅曾亮. These and several other titles comprise Yao's collected works, known as the Hsi-pao hsüan ch'üan-chi (全集). A collection of three previously unpublished works entitled Hsi-pao hsüan i-shu san-chung (遺書三種) appeared in 1879. One of these, the Hsi-pao tsüan shu-lu (書錄), 4 chüan, is a series 900