Eminent Chinese of the Ch'ing Period/P'an Lei
P'AN Lei 潘耒 (T. 次耕, H. 稼堂, 止止居士), 1646–1708, Nov. 11, scholar, was a native of Wu-chiang, Kiangsu, and a younger half-brother of P'an Ch'êng-chang [q. v.]. When the latter was involved in the case of Chuang T'ing-lung [q. v.] P'an Lei lived in disguise in his mother's home under the assumed name of Wu Ch'i 吳琦. He studied under Ku Yen-wu, Hsü Fang [qq. v.] and Tai Li 戴笠 (T. 耘野, H. 曼公, original ming 鼎立, T. 則之), and in 1679 was summoned to Peking to take the special examination known as po-hsüeh hung-tz'ŭ (see under P'êng Sun-yü) which he passed as the youngest scholar on the list. Among the fifty successful competitors only he, Chu I-tsun [q. v.], Li Yin-tu (see under Ch'ü Ta-chün), and Yen Shêng-sun 嚴繩孫 (T. 蓀友, H. 藕漁, 1623–1702) had not previously held an official post nor acquired a degree—a coincidence that caused them to be known as "the four cotton-clothed scholars" 四布衣, or commoners.
Made a Hanlin corrector and appointed one of the compilers of the history of the Ming Dynasty (Ming-shih), he edited the section on political economy, known as shih-huo chih 食貨志, and the biographical sketches (lieh-chuan 列傳) that deal with the early years of that dynasty. Young, scholarly, and unacquainted with the ways of officialdom, he was degraded in 1684 on the charge of being "impatient and petulant". He at once resigned, and although his official title was restored in 1703, he devoted the remaining years to travel and literary pursuits. His collected essays and poems, entitled 遂初堂集 Sui-ch'u t'ang chi, in 40 chüan, printed in 1710; and a work on phonology, entitled 類音 Lei-yin, in 8 chüan, printed in 1712, received notice in the Imperial Catalogue (see under Chi Yün). In 1695 P'an Lei printed the final redaction of Ku Yen-wu's well-known miscellaneous notes entitled Jih-chih lu. About the same time he also printed a collection of ten monographs by Ku, known as T'ing-lin shih-chung (for both works see under Ku Yen-wu).
[1/489/17a; 2/71/9a; 3/118/16a; 4/45/8b; 1:132/14b; 20/1/00 with portrait; 30/2/1b; 32/3/1b; Ssŭ-k'u 44/96 and 183/7b; Lo Chên-yü 羅振玉, 雲窗漫稿 Yün-ch'uang man-kao (1920) 丁/51a; Liu Wên-chin 劉文錦, Lei-yin pa (跋), in Bulletin of the Institute of History and Philology (Academia Sinica), vol. I, part 4 (1930).]
Fang Chao-ying