Lin Daiyu

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Lin Daiyu, played by Chen Xiaoxu in the CCTV 1986 version

Lin Daiyu (林黛玉 pinyin: Lín Dàiyù), also spelled Lin Tai-yu, is one of the principal characters of Cao Xueqin's classic Chinese novel Dream of the Red Chamber. She is a well-educated and intelligent young woman who is portrayed in a highly sympathetic light. The romance between Daiyu and Jia Baoyu forms one of the main threads of the book and in many readers' eyes, Lin Daiyu is the book's leading lady.

Daiyu is an emotional girl, prone to mood swings. She is described as having been sickly and prone to illness since childhood; indeed, when she is first introduced, a couplet describes her "with a heart like Bi Gan's, yet even more intelligent; and with an illness like Xi Zi, yet even more beautiful". Daiyu Her character contrasts that of Baoyu's other cousin, Xue Baochai. Indeed, it has been suggested that the two women are complements of one another - each has exactly the attributes of Cao Xueqin's ideal woman which the other lacks. Baoyu's maid Skybright (Qingwen, 晴雯) is often considered to be Daiyu's "double," in that they have similar temperaments and a similar "ethereal" beauty.

Daiyu's emotional tirades make sense in the context of the supernatural. It is strongly suggested that Daiyu is a reincarnated vermillion pearl (the "Crimson Pearl Flower" in the Hawkes translation) that through good care by a spirit in the heavens (the reincarnation of which is strongly suggested to be Baoyu) was imbued with life. In exchange for this gift, the Vermillion Pearl vowed to be reincarnated as a human, and pay back her caregiver in the form of as many tears as a girl may weep in a lifetime. Born to a Soochow scholar-official, Lin Ruhai, and Lady Jia Min of Rongguo, a Jia Clan branch in Beijing, she was raised by her parents in her family's mansion in nearby Yangchow, where she gets an excellent education. During her childhood, a Buddhist monk once proposed to take her away as a sacrifice to save her from a tragic fate. This was of course, rejected.

The crater Tai-yu on asteroid 433 Eros was named after her.