Ban Gu

Ban Gu

This article contains Chinese text. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Chinese characters.

Ban Gu (Chinese: 班固; pinyin: ban1 gu4; Wade–Giles: Pan Ku, 32–92), courtesy name Mengjian (孟堅), was a 1st century Chinese historian and poet best known for his part in compiling the Book of Han. He also wrote in the main poetic genre of the Han era, a kind of poetry interspersed with prose called fu. Some are anthologized by Xiao Tong in his Selections of Refined Literature in the 6th century. Compiler of the Bo hu tong 白虎通.

Life

See: History of the Han Dynasty; Hanshu

In the 3rd century BC, Ban Gu's ancestors gained prominence on the northwestern frontier as herders of several thousand cattle, oxen, and horses, which they traded in a formidable business and encouraged other families to move to the frontier.^[1]

Ban Gu was born into a scholarly family. His great-aunt Consort Ban was a scholar and poet, and his father, Ban Biao, was a prominent historian. He took over from his father responsibility for writing a history of the former Han Dynasty, a book known in modern times as the Hanshu or Book of Han. However, his work was interrupted by political problems, as his association with the family of Empress Dowager Dou led to his imprisonment and death (either by execution or torture). A few volumes of his book in 13–20th (eight chronological charts) and 26th (astronomical biography), however, was completed by his younger sister, Ban Zhao, and became a model for many other works about later dynasties.

The modern historian Hsu Mei-ling states that Ban Gu's written work in geography set the trend for the establishment of geographical sections of history texts, and most likely sparked the trend of the gazeteer in ancient China.^[2]

Ban Gu's family

• Ban Biao (班彪; 3-54 CE; father)
  • Ban Gu (班固; 32-92; first son)
  • Ban Chao (班超; 32-102; second son)
    • Ban Xiong (班雄; ?-after 107; Ban Chao's eldest son)
      • Ban Shi (班始; ?-130; Ban Xiong's son)
    • Ban Yong (班勇; ?- c. 128; youngest son of Ban Chao)
  • Ban Zhao (班昭; 49-140; daughter)

See also

Poetry portal

• Han poetry
• Twenty-Four Histories

Notes

References

• Bielenstein, Hans. “Pan Ku’s Accusations against Wang Mang.” In Chinese Ideas about Nature and Society: Studies in Honour of Derk Bodde. Ed. Charles Le Blanc and Susan Blader. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1987, 265-70.
• Clark, Anthony E. Ban Gu's History of Early China (Amherst: Cambria Press, 2008). [1]
• Hsu, Mei-ling. "The Qin Maps: A Clue to Later Chinese Cartographic Development," Imago Mundi (Volume 45, 1993): 90-100.
• Van der Sprenkel, O. B. Pan Piao, Pan Ku, and the Han History. Centre for Oriental Studies Occasional Paper, no. 3. Canberra: Australian National University, 1964.
• Yü, Ying-shih. (1967). Trade and Expansion in Han China: A Study in the Structure of Sino-Barbarian Economic Relations. Berkeley: University of California Press.