Pān Tiānchéng 潘天成 (1654–1727), zì Xīchóu 錫疇, hào Tiělú 鐵廬 (“Iron-Hut”). Native of Lìyáng 溧陽 (Chángzhōu prefecture, Jiāngsū); registered (jìjí) at Tóngchéng 桐城 (Anhui) as an Ānqìng prefecture student. CBDB id 338426 confirms 1654–1727.
Pān Tiānchéng is one of the most famous Lǐxué loyalty-and-filiality biographies of the Qīng — recorded both in the Lìyáng zhì and in the Qūyuánzhū jí (the Pān xiàozǐ zhuàn). As a child of fifteen he was separated from his parents while they were fleeing local enemies; he begged his way along the Jiāngxī road, searched everywhere, and at last found his parents — escorting them home, supporting them by manual labor and petty trade with extreme exertion. In his nominal off-hours he read books and lectured. He thus became a jìxué scholar at age 74; he ended his life in poverty and starvation, but his Lǐxué identity was settled.
Disciple of 湯之錡 Tāng Zhīqí (the Mòzhāi 默齋 master, of whom Pān’s Mòzhāi xùn yán in juan 1 of KR4f0036 is the record) and of 梅文鼎 Méi Wéndǐng (the Wùān 勿庵 master, of whom Pān’s Wùān xùn yán in the wài jí juan 1 of KR4f0036 is the record). Pān is therefore one of the few documented students of both the leading early-Qīng Lǐxué line (YáojiāngMòzhāi) and the leading early-Qīng astronomy-mathematics scholar (Wùān Méi). His learning’s foundation, the Sìkù tíyào notes, was Yáojiāng (Wáng Yángmíng’s school via Tāng Zhīqí), taking yǎng xīn (heart-cultivation) as substance and jīng shì (statecraft) as use.
His writings — the present Tiělú jí 鐵廬集 (KR4f0036) of 3+2 juan, compiled by his disciple 許重炎 Xǔ Chóngyán — are not formally elegant by the Sìkù’s standards, but the Sìkù compilers explicitly preserve the collection as moral-pedagogical model rather than for literary craft.