Person
Rav Chiya of Meshan רב חייא ממישן
head of Pumbedita around 4460, from Meshan
Rav Chiya headed Pumbedita around 4460. In the list of heads he is called "of Meshan", after a district in southern Babylonia, on the lower Tigris and Euphrates, far from Pumbedita and Sura.
The by-name is nearly all that is said of him, but it says something. The head of an academy was usually a man of its own circle; a name taken from a distant district shows that the circle was not closed and that learning in Babylonia was not confined to two towns.
Neither his words nor his rulings have come down to us.
On the timeline
4349 · 589 CEThe Beginning of the Geonic Era4510 · 750 CEThe Flowering of the Geonic Age and the Sheiltot of Rav Achai
Places
Related
Sources
Rishonim
- Epistle of Rav Sherira Gaon — the list of the heads of Pumbedita by name and year
- Seder Tannaim ve-Amoraim — the list of the Savoraim and the first heads of the academies, put together about a century before the Epistle: the same chain, attested independently of Sherira
Basis: documents and evidence.