Ma Rong 馬融

Chen Shou's main text gives Ma Rong no separate biography and does not record his courtesy name, ancestral home, offices, or the dates of his birth and death. His name appears three times, paired with Jia Kui, and only where the classical learning of later scholars is being explained. Records, Shu 12 §47Records, Wei 4 §67Records, Wei 13 §96

According to the passage on Wang Su in Records of Wei 13, Wang Su at first favored the learning of Jia Kui and Ma Rong and disliked that of the Zheng school, that is, of Zheng Xuan. Gathering the agreements and differences among the various interpretations, he wrote explanations of the Book of Documents, the Odes, the Analects, the Three Ritual Classics and the Zuo Commentary, and edited and settled the commentary on the Changes written by his father Wang Lang, all of which were adopted by the official academies. At this time Sun Shuran of Le'an, who had studied under Zheng Xuan, refuted and explained the Evidence from the Sages when Wang Su compiled it to disparage Zheng Xuan. Records, Wei 13 §96–97

According to the passage on Li Zhuan in Records of Shu 12, when the Later Sovereign established the crown prince in the 1st year of Yanxi (238), Li Zhuan came to attend the crown prince. He wrote works on the old-text Changes, Book of Documents, Mao Odes, Three Ritual Classics and Zuo Commentary, as well as the Taixuan zhigui, all of which took Jia Kui and Ma Rong as their standard and differed from Zheng Xuan. Chen Shou wrote that, being far removed from Wang Su, Li Zhuan had never seen his writings, yet the conclusions they reached were for the most part the same. Records, Shu 12 §47

In the 4th month, in summer, of the 1st year of Ganlu (256), Cao Mao, Duke of Gaogui Village, visited the Imperial Academy and questioned the Confucian scholars on the meaning of the classics. When the lecture on the Changes was over and the Book of Documents was being expounded, the emperor asked which was right regarding 'jigu': Zheng Xuan, who said it meant that Yao was one with Heaven, or Wang Su, who said it meant that Yao followed and examined the ancient way and acted on it. The Erudite Yu Jun said that the views of earlier Confucians conflicted and he was not able to decide, but that, in light of the words of the 'Great Plan', 'when three people divine, follow the words of two', since Jia Kui, Ma Rong and Wang Su had all taken it as 'following and examining the ancient way', Wang Su's reading was the better. The emperor countered that Yao's great excellence lay in modeling himself on Heaven. Records, Wei 4 §48 · 60–62 · 67–68