Evolution of Academic Carriers in the Earlier and the Later Han

This chapter will continue to discuss books and scholars as academic carriers through the Han Dynasty. For the books, both the Earlier Han and the Later Han continued the policy of “collecting books” employed at the beginning of the Han Dynasty. Many libraries were built in the imperial capital, which were divided into “outside books” libraries for officials in various offices and “inside books” libraries for royal members in the royal court. In addition to official libraries, private libraries owned by ordinary families became increasingly popular, especially after Cai Lun invented paper. As for the scholars, most of them were actively engaged in teaching. The imperial government stressed education, especially the teaching of Confucianism, so it built colleges in the imperial capital and local schools of different levels all over the empire. Often, the teaching of one Classic developed into different schools or the “shifa”, which then developed further into different parties or the “jiafa”. Han scholars were also actively engaged in collating books; thus, many of our present versions of classics were actually determined by Han scholars. Most significantly, Han scholars were also actively engaged in writing books. They wrote books not only to interpret the Classics but also to study new social and natural phenomena.