ABSTRACT
Some time during the second half of the second century CE, a man called Jiao Xian was born in northern China near modern-day Sanmenxia. He seems to have led a quiet and uneventful life made remarkable by his selflessness, rejection of social convention and apparent supernatural powers. He may have lived into his late eighties, or to more than one hundred, or possibly he never died. He is remembered in particular, it would appear, for going out of his way not to be noticed. He had apparently no lasting influence and, as far as we know, quickly ceased to be of interest to those institutions which were responsible for producing what we now regard as historical materials: the court, great families, the organisations of scholarship and those of religion. We only know about him now from a few short biographical accounts and references that have survived, none of which attained the status of a formal biography in a dynastic history. This is not entirely surprising as Jiao seems to have been remembered precisely for living his life outside the expectations of his time.
