Chē Yìn 車胤
Style name Wǔzǐ 武子. Native of Línlíng 零陵 in Nánpíng 南平 (modern Hubei/Hunan borderlands). Eastern Jin official and ritual scholar, active under Emperor Xiaowu of Jin 晉孝武帝 (r. 372–396). No confident CBDB match has been identified.
Chē Yìn is famous in popular moral exemplar literature for the childhood anecdote — preserved in the Jìnshū biography and later proverbial as nángyíng yìngxuě 囊螢映雪 (“firefly bag and snow reflection”) — of capturing fireflies in a gauze bag to read by their glow because his family was too poor to afford lamp oil. He rose to high office in the Eastern Jin court, eventually attaining the rank of Tàicháng 太常 (Director of Ceremonies), the senior official responsible for court ritual, the sacrifice calendar, and the Erudites (bóshì 博士). His biography is in Jìnshū 晉書 juǎn 83.
As Tàicháng, Chē Yìn produced a series of influential yì 議 (ritual opinions) and shàngyán 上言 (policy memorials) during the Tàiyuán 太元 reign period (376–396), touching on mourning dress (fúzhì 服制) for concubine-mothers, the appointment of Erudites, the Bright Hall (Míngtáng 明堂), Crown Prince investiture protocol, and ministerial dress at audiences. These opinions are cited in the Jìnshū lǐzhì 晉書·禮志 and extensively in Dù Yòu’s 杜佑 Tōngdiǎn 通典. His surviving literary output has been gathered in KR4b0079.