ABSTRACT
Although her life was short, Niu Yingzhen showed her bril liant talents in literature by writing more than a hundred essays and by exhibiting her all-embracing knowledge in all schools of religion and philosophy. Preoccupied with scholarship, she was usually engaged in dialogue or debate with famous literary fig ures such as Wang Bi, Zheng Xuan, Wang Yan, or Lu Ji. In those talks, she was always clear in her thinking and sharp in her viewpoint. The girl who discussed knowledge in her sleep, as she came to be known, sometimes dreamed about “ eating” books; her writings became even more beautiful after she had several such dreams and “ had eaten” several dozens of vol umes. Her peers were astonished at her voracity for learning and her accomplishments.
