The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

252
DOROTHEE SCHAAB-HANKE
was a heretical text, and he turned down [Gongsun Qings] request, saying: “The
matter of the precious tripod has already been dealt with. Why bring it up again?”
After this, [Gongsun] Qing with the support of one of the emperor’s favorites
succeeded in submitting it. The emperor was greatly pleased, summoned [Gongsun]
Qing to the court and asked him [about the matter]. Qing then told him:
“I received this text from Lord Shen. Lord Shen has already died.” The emperor
asked: “And who was Lord Shen?” “Lord Shen,” [Gongsun] Qing answered, “was
a man of Qi. He communicated with Master Anqi and [through the latter]
received the words of the Yellow Thearch. 36 There is no text [handed down from
that time], except for an inscription written on the tripod 37 saying: ‘After the rise
of the Han, the [constellations] of the time of the Yellow Thearch will recur.’”
Gongsun Qing here reinforces the claim that the time of Huangdi would directly
be related to the Han via a parallel position within the cycles of time. Moreover,
we now learn from the answer which Gongsun Qing gave the emperor that the
mysterious message was something which – according to Gongsun Qing – had been
passed down to him by his teacher, Lord Shen, who had received it from his teacher,
Master Anqi. 38 Gongsun Qing then continues by interpreting the words which –
again according to Gongsun Qing’s testimony – had been incised on the precious
tripod cast during the remote age of Huangdi’s ideal rule:
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�������������������������������
And he [i.e. Gongsun Qing] said: 39 “This means that the Sage of the Han shall be
among the grandsons and great-grandsons of Gaozu. 40 After the precious tripod
appears, he [i.e. the Sage of the Han] will communicate with the deities and
perform the Feng and Shan [sacrifi ces]. Of all the seventy two kings who have
celebrated the Feng and Shan [sacrifi ces], only the Yellow Thearch had succeeded
in performing the Feng [sacrifi ce] on top of Mount Tai.” Master Shen said: “The
ruler of Han will again climb [Mount Tai] to perform the Feng [sacrifi ce]. After
having performed the Feng [sacrifi ce], the emperor will be able to become an
immortal and ascend Heaven.”
By referring to this long chain of oral tradition, Gongsun Qing seems to have appropriated
the method by which the ru had already begun to win the emperor’s confi
dence in the matter of the ceremonial reform. However, there is a difference in
the kind of authority claimed: whereas the ru requested that evidence be drawn
solely from textual authority, based upon those scriptures which had been canonized
shortly before, the authority Gongsun Qing drew upon was one of oral tradition
36 The master Shen referred to here is certainly not to be identifi ed with the ru scholar and Shi exegete Shen Pei �
� who is also referred to in the Shiji as “master Shen” (Shiji 121/3120). This is pointed out by Michael Loewe in
his A Biographical Dictionary of the Qin, Former Han and Xin Periods (221BC – AD 249), (Leiden: Brill, 2000),
469.
37 The context implies that Gongsun Qing claims that the inscription he refers to is the one on the tripod he says
Huangdi had obtained at Yuanqu.
38 Master Anqi has been mentioned above in connection with the fangshi Li Shaojun, an immortal who roamed
about the island Penglai. See p. 247.
39 Cf. the slightly different passages in Shiji 12/467 and Han shu 25A/1228 where the word yue ��(“and he said”)
is lacking.
40 Liu Che �� (posthumously called Han Emperor Wu) was a great-grandson of Liu Bang, posthumously called
Gaozu, the founder of the Han dynasty (r. 206–195).
BMFEA 74 · 2002