Cài Shìyuǎn 蔡世遠 (1682–1733), zì Wénzhī 聞之, hào Liángcūn 梁村 (“Beam Village”), posthumously Wénqín 文勤 (“Cultured and Diligent”), of Zhāngpǔ 漳浦 (Zhāngzhōu prefecture, Fújiàn). CBDB id 66243; catalog meta gives 1683–1734 but CBDB gives 1682–1733 — a one-year discrepancy. The CBDB dates are followed here per the principle of preferring externally verified figures.
Jìnshì of Kāngxī 48 (1709, jǐchǒu), rose to Lǐbù shìláng (Vice-Minister of Rites). Posthumously canonized Wénqín under the Qiánlóng emperor.
A leading Yōngzhèng-era Lǐxué official. The Yōngzhèng emperor (then still qīnwáng) wrote a personal preface for Cài’s collected works in gēngxū (Yōngzhèng 8, 1730) — preserved as the opening of KR4f0043 Èrxītáng wén jí. The preface explicitly identifies Cài with ZhōuChéngZhāngZhū (the Sòng Lǐxué synthesis of Zhōu Dūnyí, the Chéng brothers, Zhāng Zǎi, and Zhū Xī).
Cài lectured at the famous Áofēng 鼇峯 Academy in Fúzhōu, training a generation of Fújiàn Lǐxué scholars including 雷鋐 Léi Hóng of Nínghuà 寧化 (later editor of the Èrxītáng corpus). His pedagogy emphasized zhōngxìn xiàotì rényì (loyalty, trust, filial piety, fraternal love, humaneness, righteousness) and traced the LiánLuòGuānMǐn (ZhōuChéngZhāngZhū) line.
The studio name Èrxītáng 二希堂 — “Hall of the Two Hopes” — derives from Cài’s own jì note explaining: “In learning, I dare not look to 朱熹 Wéngōng, but hopefully toward 范希文 Fàn Zhòngyǎn’s true [Xīyuán] (i.e., the xī yuán hope of becoming a sage); in undertaking, I dare not look to Zhūgě 諸葛亮 the martial marquis, but hopefully toward 范希文 Fàn Zhòngyǎn’s hope.” Both xī (希) targets are sage-figures named Xī — Hú Yuán 胡瑗 (hào Xīyuán) and Fàn Zhòngyǎn (hào Xīwén) — playing on the xī (希 hope/aim) homonym.