Fāng Yǐzhì 方以智 (1611–1671), zì Mìzhī 密之, hào Lùqǐ 鹿起, dharma-name Wúkě 無可 (later Yàodì 藥地 / Hóngzhì 弘智). Native of Tóngchéng 桐城, Anhui. The leading polymath of seventeenth-century China, embedded from birth in one of the most prominent late-Míng scholar-official lineages: father Fāng Kǒngzhào 方孔炤 (Húguǎng xúnfǔ, Yìjīng scholar); grandfather Fāng Dàzhèn 方大鎮 (Hànlín shìjiǎng xuéshì); great-grandfather Fāng Xuéjiàn 方學漸 (Anhui Lǐxué master). One of the Sì gōng zǐ 四公子 of Chóng-zhēn-period Nánjīng with Chén Zhēnhuì 陳貞慧, Hóu Fāngyù 侯方域, and Mào Xiāng 冒襄. Chóngzhēn 13 (1640) jìnshì; appointed Hànlín jiǎntǎo 檢討. Fled south after the 1644 collapse, served briefly under the Southern Míng Lóngwǔ and Yǒnglì emperors, took Chán-Buddhist vows after 1650, and died at Wànān 萬安 (Jiāngxī) in 1671 — almost certainly by self-drowning to evade Qīng arrest. Major works include the Tōng yǎ 通雅 (KR3j0066, an encyclopedic xiǎo xué compendium), the Wù lǐ xiǎo zhì 物理小識 (natural-philosophical encyclopedia), the Dōngxī jūn 東西均 (philosophical synthesis), the Yào dì pǎo zhuāng 藥地炮莊 (a Chán-flavored Zhuāngzǐ commentary), and a body of poetry. CBDB id 54996.