It was also the second attack on a civil rights campaigner in as many weeks.
About nine people, including two officials, punched and kicked Chen Guangcheng on Monday when he tried to force his way out of his home in Dongshigu village, Shandong province, to greet two friends barred from entering his home, RFA quoted a villager surnamed Han and Chen's cousin as saying.
"(They) started beating and kicking him. He fell to the ground five or six times. He is a blind man. He could not see them," the cousin, Chen Guangli, was quoted as saying.
But a village official told Reuters that Chen Guangcheng had berated his assailants before the scuffle broke out and bit one of them for refusing to let him go out.
Chen and his family could not be reached for comment. His mobile phone was turned off and his home phone was cut.
On October 8, Lu Banglie was beaten by thugs when he tried to help a British reporter from the Guardian enter Taishi village in the southern province of Guangdong to interview villagers seeking to vote out their elected chief over allegations of corruption.
Four days earlier, Chen, whose whistleblowing prompted the government to sack and detain several officials in Shandong's Linyi city, was beaten and found bleeding on a street in his home village when three lawyers arrived to negotiate with local officials to free him from house arrest.
Officials from Yinan county, which administers Dongshigu, forcibly brought back Chen to his home from a hiding place in Beijing in September.
RFA said Tuesday's attack left Chen bleeding in the right temple area. His left eye and left temple area also hurt and he could not bend his fingers, it said, adding that officials refused to let Chen seek medical treatment.
But the official said by telephone: "His life is not in danger. His injury is not a big deal."
RFA said 20 people were guarding Chen's house in three shifts, each shift led by two cadres.
Chen's freedom was restricted after officials accused him of providing "intelligence" to foreigners about forced abortions and sterilisation's as part of strict family planning rules, the official said by telephone. Asked if putting Chen under house arrest broke the law, the official said: "It's orders from above. It's not us."
"No one in the village is bad mouthing Chen Guangcheng. We all support him," the official said.
"But whoever helps him will be detained. Whoever goes to his home and talks to him will be detained," the official said when asked why the village mayor, a distant cousin of Chen, did not help the activist. The whereabouts of Chen's guests are unknown. "I don't know where they are now and I am concerned," his cousin told RFA.