The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

and Shan Sacrifi ces,” the reader will get the general impression that Gongsun Qing
was nothing but an ignorant and esoteric charlatan who by winning and abusing the
emperor’s trust and confi dence merely served his own ends. We will have to examine
critically whether that picture is plausible or not.
The temporary triumph of one faction of the cosmologists
But what was the overall framework of the ideology behind the message conveyed
by Gongsun Qing? He was only one of many representatives of the group of fangshi
who rose to prominence during the time of Emperor Wu by presenting all sorts of
methods by which a capable adept would be able to achieve immortality. Immortality,
however, is but one aspect of a much wider range of ideas related to the relationship
between Heaven and Earth and the role of Man. For want of a better term, I
shall hereafter call the representatives of this ideology “cosmologists.” 46
Even a short historical survey of the teachings of the cosmologists must necessarily
begin with Zou Yan �� (roughly 3rd cent. B.C.). In the Shiji, the specialists
who discuss the cyclical growth, fl ourishing and decay of dynasties, are called
“followers of master Zou” (Zouzi zhi tu ����). 47 There is a short biographical
account devoted to Zou Yan in the Shiji, interspersed between those of the philosophers
Meng Ke �� and Xun Qing ��, before and after some other descendants of
the Zou family and followed by other philosophers somehow related to the Jixia �
� academy in Qi, one of the intellectual centers that fl ourished in the third century
B.C. 48 According to the biographical data given there, Zou Yan was a man of Qi who
lived shortly after the philosopher Meng Ke. The ideas he taught, we learn, were
rather uncommon in his time: he tried to explain the political decline he witnessed
in his days by drawing parallels between the rise and downfall of states and the
rhythmic change of Yin and Yang. In his teachings, which he based on Huangdi as the
ancestor of rulership he postulated the ideas of the Ends and Beginnings (zhongshi �
�) and of the “Cycles of Rule” (zhu yun���). We also learn from the Shiji account
that according to Zou Yan there would be a regular alternate succession of fi ve different
powers or virtues (wude zhuanyi�����). Each reign was favored by one
of these virtues (zhi ge you yi�����); auspicious signs would accompany these
events. Kings, dukes and high ministers, when fi rst confronted with his teachings,
46 Nathan Sivin, “The Myth of the Naturalists,” in Medicine, Philosophy and Religion in Ancient China: Researches and
Refl ections (Aldershot, Hampshire: Variorum, 1995, IV), 1, calls the followers of Zou Yan the “school of Naturalists,”
as Joseph Needham had earlier done. Cf. Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation in China, vol. 2: History
of Scientifi c Thought (Cambridge: University Press, 1956), 232–253. I would, however, prefer the term cosmologists.
The terminology Modernists versus Reformists which Michael Loewe proposed to use for the representatives
of the two ideological camps at the beginning of the Han dynasty does not seems to me to be apt as applied
to the context given here. See Michael Loewe, The Former Han dynasty, in: Cambridge History of China, vol. 1:
The Ch’in and Han Empires, 221 B.C.A.D. 220., ed., Denis Twitchett and Michael Loewe (Cambridge: University
Press 1986), esp. 104–105 (defi nition of the terms Modernists and Reformists), and 153–79 (“The Full Force of
Modernist Policies”).
47 Shiji 28/1368.
48 Shiji 74/2344. For an analysis based on the surviving fragments related to Zou Yan see Wang Meng’ou ���,
Zou Yan yishu kao�������(Taibei: Shangwu, 1966). See also J. Needham, Science and Civilisation in China,
vol. 2, 232–44.
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DOROTHEE SCHAAB-HANKE
BMFEA 74 · 2002