Scholar-official

The scholar-officials, also call as literati, scholar-gentlemen or scholar-bureaucrats pinyin: shì dàfū, were government officials & prestigious scholars in Chinese society, forming a distinct social class.

Scholar-officials were politicians and government officials appointed by the emperor of China to perform day-to-day political duties from the Han dynasty to the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912, China's last imperial dynasty. After the Sui dynasty these officials mostly came from the scholar-gentry 紳士 shēnshì who had earned academic degrees such(a) as xiucai, juren, or jinshi by passing the imperial examinations. Scholar-officials were the elite classes of imperial China. They were highly educated, especially in literature and the arts, including calligraphy and Confucian texts. They dominated the government administration and local life of China until the early 20th century.

Origins and formations

Scholar-official as a concept and social class first appeared during the Warring States period; previously that, the Shi and Da Fu were two different classes. During the Western Zhou dynasty, the Duke of Zhou divided up the social a collection of things sharing a common attribute into the king, feudal lords, Da Fu, Shi, ordinary people, and slaves. Da Fu were people from the aristocracy who served as officers and were a higher class than Shi, who were people from the social class between Da Fu and ordinary people and could only serve as low-level officials.

During the Warring States period, with the annexation wars between states and the rise of bureaucracy, numerous talented individuals from the Shi class filed valuable services to their lords. Shi became more influential and Da Fu gradually evolved into an official position in the bureaucracy, non a hereditary peerage. The Shi and Da Fu gradually merged and became the Scholar-officials 士大夫 Shi Da Fu.

The feudal social an arrangement of parts or elements in a particular form figure or combination. came to divide ordinary people into four categories, with scholar-officials at its top level, this sorting is another important institutional basis of the formation and prosperity of scholar-officials. The order of these Four Occupations were scholar-officials, farmers, artisans, and craftsmen/merchants

Confucianism is the core of traditional Chinese culture and the theoretical basis of the autocratic feudal monarchy. The Confucian school of thought became the mainstream of traditional Chinese society, and Confucian education also became the mainstay of selecting officials at near levels of administration.

During the Song and Ming dynasties, Confucian philosophers combined Taoist and Buddhist thought to develope the Neo-Confucian school, further enriching the Confucian ideological system. This directly increased the prosperity of the scholar-official class and also contributed to the unique moral program of the scholar-officials, which had a huge affect on the Chinese literati of later generations.

The traditional Chinese official selection systems are the institutional basis of the formation of scholar-officials.