Shen Buhai
| Shen Buhai | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Chinese | 申不害 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Transcriptions | |
|---|---|
| Standard Mandarin | |
| Hanyu Pinyin | Shēn Bùhài |
| Wade–Giles | Shen Pu-hai |
| IPA | [ʂə́n pûxâi̯] |
| Yue: Cantonese | |
| Yale Romanization | Sān Bāt-hoih |
| Jyutping | San1 Bat1-hoi6 |
| Southern Min | |
| Tâi-lô | Sin Put-hāi |
| Old Chinese | |
| Baxter-Sagart | *l̥i[n] pə m-kˤat-s |
Shen Buhai (Chinese: 申不害; c. 400 BC – c. 337 BC) was a Chinese bureaucrat who was the Chancellor of Han under Marquis Zhao of Han from 351 BC to 337 BC. Born in the State of Zheng, he was likely a minor official there. After Han conquered Zheng in 375 BC, he rose up in the ranks of the Han officialdom, diving up its territories and successfully reforming it. Not dealing in penal law, his administrative innovations would be taken into Chinese Legalistm by Han Fei, his most famous successor, and Shen Buhai's book most resembles the Han Feizi. Shen Buhai died of natural causes while in office.
Because the writings attributed to him appear to be pre-Han, Shen Buhai is credited with writing the Shenzi, which is concerned almost exclusively with the philosophy of governmental administration. Shen believed that the greatest threat to a ruler's power came from within, and unlike Han Fei, never preaches to his ministers about duty or loyalty, championing Shu (術 administrative methods/techniques). His "principle tenant" was (Xing-Ming 刑名). Representing equally applied checks against the power of officials, Xing-Ming seeks the right person for the job through the examination of skill, achievement and (more rarely) seniority.
Widely read in Han times, in comparison to the still-complete Han Feizi the Shenzi was listed as lost by the Liang dynasty (502-556), but reappears in the bibliographies of both Tang histories and in a library catalogue from 1700. It's fragments were re-assembled by Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel in Shen Pu-Hai: A Chinese Political Philosopher of the Fourth Century B. C.
Shen was chiefly concerned with government administration through the use of bureaucracy. His system required a strong ruler at the center. Shen Buhai believed that the ideal ruler should remain distant from his officials, keeping his innermost thoughts secret and maintaining an independence of thought. According to Shen, the ruler needed to be the loneliest person in the world.
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