Ban Zhao as depicted in the Wu Shuang Pu (無雙譜, preface 1690) by Jin Guliang(via Wikipedia)

 

Life

Ban Zhao was born soon after the beginning of Eastern Han, sometime between 45 and 51 CE where the feudal social structures from the Zhou was replaced by a centralised empire unified by cultural and moral ideas, which were being spread by Confucian scholars. ¹ Ban Zhao descended from a noble family of highly educated scholars and government officials. Her grandfather was a staunch confucianist who devoted his life to studying history, her father was also a confucian scholar and her uncle was a follower of Lao-Zhuang (a Taoist school of thought inspired by the philosophers Laozi and Zhuangzi).²  As a result, both her and her two brothers were highly educated and exposed to multiple schools of thought. Ban Chao’s great-aunt, the writer Ban Jieyu, was also an influence of hers for setting the precedent for Ban Zhao’s literary training. ³

Her brother Ban Gu was writing Han Shu (The Book of Han) but died before he could write the eight biao (categorical tables) and “Tian Wen Zhi” (Treatise on Astronomy) sections. Emperor He of Han ordered Ban Zhao to complete those parts, and possibly even revise the entire book. ⁴ She wrote other books like her seven-chapter treatise called “Lessons for Women” dedicated to women’s education, and likely several biographies of other influential women. ⁵ She was hence respected as a teacher by the empress and “ladies of honourable rank” in the palace, teaching them “classical writings and history as well as astronomy and mathematics”. ⁶ Moreover, she even taught male scholars the Han Shu, which was at the time a difficult intellectual piece to comprehend. Among her students was Ma Rong, whose younger brother Ma Xu later continued Ban Zhao’s work to finish “Tian Wen Zhi”. ⁷

When Empress Hexi (Deng Sui) took control of the royal court after Emperor He’s death in 105 CE (he was succeeded by a baby and then a thirteen-year-old boy), she turned to Ban Zhao to confer over stately affairs. Ban Zhao’s authority was unquestionable: notably, in her management of the empress’ brother’s resignation, the Liu Song dynasty historian Fan Ye wrote that “at one word from Mother Pan the whole family resigned.” ⁸

 

Intellectual work

“Tian Wen Zhi” encompassed and preserved Han cosmological theories in note form. ⁹ Fellow Eastern Han astronomer Cai Cong asserts that mastering the calendar (weather and seasonal patterns) requires “rod calculus as foundation, astronomy as practice” meaning that Ban Zhao must have mastered rod calculus to become an expert in astronomy. ¹⁰

The “Treatise on Astronomy” is split into the sections:
“经星”: Jupiter and its moons – which was assumed to be a separate galaxy.
“五星” (“the five stars”): Jupiter, Mars, Saturn, Venus and Mercury, in this order. 
“二曜” (“the two brights”): The sun and moon, including their positions and paths, the latter used frequently in cosmology.
“异星” (“irregular stars”): Often stars that bring certain omens.
“望气” (“watching air”): Cloud cosmology that analyses their colours, shapes and movements.
“候岁” (“watching Jupiter”): Ancient Chinese calendar, which followed the movement of Jupiter.
“总论”: Conclusion commenting on the link between celestial and the human phenomena. ¹¹

A French epitaph of Ban Zhao apparently translated from one written by her daughter in law (the original Chinese version was never found) suggested that she wrote commentary on her father and brother’s works, as well as edited books in the imperial library. That latter supports claims that Ban Zaho “rearranged, edited and supplemented” Liu Xiang’s “Biographies of Eminent Women” or even wrote biographies of women from the past. ¹²

 

Experience and recognition as a woman scientist in Ancient China

Ban Zhao became a widow relatively young. ¹³ This could have had an impact on the progression of her career. Her involvement in writing Han Shu was also the direct result of her brother Ban Gu’s early demise. Her father was a source of inspiration but was likely not involved in Ban Zhao’s education as he died in 54 CE when she was still a young child. ¹⁴

Despite being the only woman in Ancient China to have worked on a major historiographic and intellectual text, Ban Zhao remained unappreciated for many centuries, save for two historians from the Tang and Song dynasties respectively. This is related to the fact that most of the time her brother was credited as the sole author of Han Shu, as well as the tragic loss or destruction of most of her other writings in the “turmoil” era (4th-6th centuries), where imperial libraries were burned. ¹⁵

 

Bibliography

“《汉书·天文志第六》全文欣赏” 快学网 (KXUE.com), accessed June 27 2024, http://www.kxue.com/m/gushi/guwen/521407.html.

Swann, Nancy L. Pan Chao: Foremost Woman Scholar of China. University of M Center for Chinese Studies, 2001.

Weiping, Wang “东汉才女班昭“. 女性与数学 Ed. Qiu Chengtong, Ji Lizhen, Yang Le. 数学与人文 (Mathematics & Humanities) Vol. 4. Higher Education Press, 2011.