Cai Lun
Sources

The main source of information on Cai Lun is just 300 characters in volume 78 of the Hou Hanshu (後漢書; Book of the Later Han), an official history compiled by the Liu Song dynasty historian and politician Fan Ye. Tsien Tsuen-hsuin, a modern sinologist, noted that while Fan's account is the most comprehensive, it is problematic as it was written nearly 300 years after Cai's death. The primary source Fan used was the 2nd-century Dongguan Hanji (東觀漢記; History of the Eastern Han), in which Yan Du is credited as the author of Cai's biography. Yan's brief 70-character account is near-contemporary but only survives in a reconstructed state from a lost original. Another older source is a brief mention by the 3rd-century scholar Dong Ba, (董巴) who is quoted referencing Cai's papermaking accomplishments in the 10th-century leishu encyclopedia Taiping Yulan (Readings of the Taiping Era).

Later history books, such as the Song dynasty 's Shiwu Jiyuan (事物紀原; Compound Source of Matters and Facts), also include Cai and his work in papermaking. However, some major history books, such as the Annals of the Later Han and Zizhi Tongjian (Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance) do not mention Cai's papermaking achievements. Sinologist T. H. Barrett suggested this was because "Cai Lun was, after all, a palace eunuch, precisely the sort of person normally viewed with antagonism by the regular bureaucrats who controlled the writing of official (and even most unofficial) history."
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