Cài Biàn 蔡卞
Zì Yuándù 元度. Native of Xìnghuà 興化 Xiānyóu 仙遊 (modern Fújiàn). Jìnshì of Xīníng 3 (1070), in the same examination as his elder brother Cài Jīng 蔡京. Rose to Guānwén diàn xuéshì 觀文殿學士. The Sòngshǐ (juan 472) gives him a biography in the Jiānchén zhuàn 姦臣傳.
Son-in-law of Wáng Ānshí 王安石, with whose New Policies and Zì shuō 字說 (etymological dictionary) he was closely associated. Together with Lú Diàn 陸佃 (Wáng’s pupil and author of the Pí yǎ 埤雅), Cài Biàn formed the small circle of natural-history and míngwù 名物 (“names and things”) scholarship that grew out of the Zì shuō tradition. His Máoshī míngwù jiě 毛詩名物解 (KR1c0011) is the principal monument of this school’s Shī learning.
The Sìkù editors, while critical of Cài Biàn’s political alignment with his brother — they call him “wicked, traitorous, and corrupt, drawing universal hatred” — defended his philological work as still containing material independent of Kǒng Yǐngdá and Lù Jī worth preserving: “an inch of length, not to throw away the words for the sake of the man.” His connection to the Zì shuō school explains why his commentary leans heavily on graphic etymology, often to the detriment of plain reading.