ARI Working Paper Series

Conceptual shift from “gentry” to “local elites” fail to respect the internal relations of gentry and the renouncer, which complementarily constitutes the literati in the imperial Chinese value of “the literati’s vocation is the Way”. Examining the renouncers assessed in The Analects and depicted in the Official Histories, I argue that by keeping the literati’s vocation of the transcendental Dao (the Way) through rejecting the emperor, the renouncers constitute the other-worldly orientation of the literati, complimentary to this-worldly-oriented gentry. As such, the renouncers complete the transcendental nature of the literati.