Fàn Tài 范泰
Zì Bólún 伯倫. Native of Shùnyáng 順陽 (modern Xīchuān 淅川, Hénán); a leading figure of the Shùnyáng Fàn 順陽范氏 clan, ancestor of the historian 范曄 Fàn Yè (398–445, compiler of KR2a0009 Hòu Hàn shū). Lived 355–428.
Career: served under the Eastern Jìn and then the LiúSòng. Held a sequence of senior offices: Zhōngshū shìláng 中書侍郎, Huángmén shìláng 黃門侍郎, Tàicháng 太常, Sītú 司徒 jìjǐngcānjūn, and ultimately Jīnzǐ guānglù dàifū 金紫光祿大夫 with the title Sīkōng 司空. Closely involved in the court politics of the late Eastern Jìn and the establishment of the LiúSòng; his memorial advocating revival of the Tàixué state academy and the Guózǐjiàn in Yuánjiā 1 (424) was a foundational document of LiúSòng cultural policy. Standard biography in Sòng shū 60 and Nán shǐ 33.
As a writer, Fàn Tài was prolific. His extant works are mostly preserved as fragments: literary collection in 20 juàn (lost; reconstructed in the late-Qīng Quán shànggǔ Sāndài QínHàn Sānguó Liùcháo wén 全上古三代秦漢三國六朝文 Quán Sòng wén section); compiled KR3l0133 Gǔjīn shànyán 古今善言 in 30 juàn (also lost; fragments only); and an anti-Buddhist polemic Yú huìjiè zhī yán 與惠戒之言, exchanged in correspondence with the Tāngyīshān monk Huìyǐ 惠琰 — an important document in the 5th-c. debate about Buddhist economic privilege at LiúSòng court. The Sòng shū records that he was a learned admirer of 陶潛 and the eremitic tradition, though his own career remained at court.
His son Fàn Yè (范曄) inherited his historical-mindedness and applied it to the Hòu Hàn shū; the Gǔjīn shànyán material is one demonstrable channel of transmission between father’s and son’s work. The CBDB does not preserve confident lifedates for Fàn Tài; the dates 355–428 follow the Sòng shū and modern scholarship (Knechtges and Chang, Ancient and Early Medieval Chinese Literature, vol. 1, s.v. “Fan Tai”).