About the author
Cai Yong was an important scholar and man of letters in Eastern Han China. Publicly available information about his life is quite limited, and neither his dates nor his place of origin is clearly recorded. As for the works held in this collection, he is the author of two titles, Dueduan (Solitary Judgments) and Qincao (Treatises on the Qin). The former is a study of institutional and ceremonial matters, while the latter concerns qin melodies and related lore, with a strong emphasis on music and the organization of documentary material. Though different in subject, both books reflect Cai Yong's scholarly style: concise and orderly in expression, attentive to the origins and distinctions of names, institutions, and objects, and careful to preserve old records and traditions. Works of this kind have often been regarded as classics; they serve as references for the study of ancient ritual and qin scholarship and reflect the Han scholar's awareness of organizing texts and tracing their sources. Given the limited surviving material, his biography should not be speculated upon; readers may instead approach his scholarly orientation through these two works.