Boshi (Erudite) was the formal title of an official appointed under the Han dynasty imperial academy to expound one of the Five Classics as authoritative state doctrine, institutionalising Confucian scholarship as the basis of imperial administration. Unlike the general scholar-official ideal named by Ru, Boshi named a specific salaried government post with real institutional standing.
Facts
Status
Status Within the TraditionThe office required formal appointment and represented state sanctioned orthodoxy in the transmission of the Confucian classics, rather than independent scholarly authority. 1 Status TodayHistorical; not practised continuously 1 Current StatusExtinct as an imperial office with the fall of dynastic China. 1 Significance
Sacred RoleAn imperial academic post created under the Han dynasty, in which a scholar was officially appointed to expound one of the Confucian classics at the imperial academy, giving Confucian learning state sanction. 1 Origins
Origin of the NameThe term boshi survives today as the ordinary Chinese and Japanese word for the academic doctoral degree, unrelated in modern use to its ancient imperial meaning. 1 Connections
Belongs to Tradition
Source Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 1Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (eds)
Related To
Sources
1. Sources of Chinese Tradition, Volume 1
Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (eds), Columbia University Press, 1999on the Han imperial academy and the Boshi postView the Source Reader Challenges (0)
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