Shen Buhai

Part of a series on
Chinese legalism
Figures Guan Zhong Marquess Wen of Wei Li Kui Duke Xiao of Qin Shang Yang Shen Buhai Wu Qi Shen Dao Zhang Yi Han Fei Li Si Qin Shi Huang
Han figures Jia Yi Emperor Wen of Han Emperor Wu of Han Chao Cuo Gongsun Hong Zhang Tang Huan Tan Wang Fu Zhuge Liang
Later figures Emperor Wen of Sui Du You Wang Anshi Li Shanchang Zhang Juzheng Xu Guangqi
Relevant texts Guanzi The Book of Lord Shang Shenzi (both books) Han Feizi Wuzi Wei Liaozi Annals of Lü Buwei Huang-Lao
Relevant articles Rectification of names Wu wei Discourses on Salt and Iron Criticize Lin, Criticize Confucius
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Shen Buhai (Chinese: 申不害; c. 400 BC – c. 337 BC)^[1] was a Chinese statesman, reformer and diplomat. According to the Shiji, Shen Buhai served served as Chancellor of the Hann state under Marquis Zhao of Han, for around fifteen years to his natural death in office in 337 BC, ordering it's government and doctrines emphasizing administrative technique (Shu),^[2][3] though the term is Han Fei's.^[4] A contemporary of syncretist Shi Jiao and Shang Yang, Shen was born in the State of Zheng, likely serving as a minor official there. After Hann completed the conquest and division of Zheng and Wei in 376 BC, he rose up in the ranks of the Han officialdom, reforming it's administration and military defenses only about a half century after its founding.^[5]

Although Michael Loewe would caution against attributing too much to any one individual, Sinologist Herrlee G. Creel saw in Shen Buhai the "seeds of the civil service examination," and perhaps even the first political scientist, seeming to play an influence on Han dynasty reformers. With the imperial examination extending in influence to the European civil service, A.C. Graham still took seriously the possibility that Shen Buhai was a founder in world bureaucracy.^[6][7]: 95

Despite this later influence, by the standards of the late Han Feizi Shen Buhai was only partly successful in reforming the newly formed Han state, not consolidating its laws as Shang Yang had in the Qin state. His administrative ideas were influential enough to become one of the Xun Kuang's critiqued "Twelve Masters" in the later Warring States period, and might have been renowned by the time of the Han Feizi. But as compared with Shen Dao, it is not as evident that he was earlier well known as a philosopher.^[8] A figure in the Stratagems of the Warring States, Chapter 5 of the Han Feizi recalls him alongside Laozi. Sima Qian discusses Han Fei and Shen Buhai alongside Laozi and Zhuang Zhou in Chapter 63 of the Shiji.

Though more conciliatory, Shen Buhai's fragments most resemble the Han Feizi, which contrasts him with Shang Yang. After the Han Feizi, Shen Buhai was often recalled together with Shang Yang. But Shen Buhai was not necessarily familiar with Shang Yang, and by contrast appears to have opposed punishment, in hopes that a strict, efficient administration would "abolish" the need for it. Nonetheless, his administrative ideas were relevant for penal records and practice by the Han dynasty, and Han Confucian archivists likely incorporated him into the Fa or "Legalist" school partly due to the influence of the Han Feizi's syncretic association. They would not seem to attempt to paint him as a Shang-Yangian figure individually.

Although Sinologists Benjamin Schwartz and Hansen (modernly of the Stanford Encyclopedia of Daoism) would take Shen Dao as a more relevant Daoistic forebear, Creel believed that Shen Buhai's correlation between an (Wu-wei) "inactive" ruler, and a handling of claims and titles may have informed the Daoist conception of the formless Dao (name that cannot be named) that "gives rise to the ten thousand things." He is credited with the dictum: The Sage ruler relies on measures and not on wisdom; he relies on technique, not on persuasions.^[9]