The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

establishment of two new cults, or, perhaps more aptly, with two cults which had
existed before, but which were now for the fi rst time made part of the great imperial
cults which Emperor Wu performed in person: the cult of Houtu ��, the deity of
Earth, and the cult of Taiyi ��, the Grand Unity. 73 The advice to establish the cult
for Houtu as a new cult of the empire is the fi rst instance in which the advice given
by the taishigong in ceremonial matters is explicitly mentioned in the Shiji account.
It is recorded for the winter of the year 113 B.C., the year in which the precious
tripod had been discovered in Fenyin, that
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The offi cials debated with the Lord the Grand Scribe and the Minister in Charge
of Sacrifi ces, Kuan Shu, and made the following announcement: “In the past, at
the sacrifi ces to Heaven and Earth, oxen with horns as small as silk cocoons or
chestnuts were used. Now if Your Majesty wishes to sacrifi ce in person to Houtu,
it is necessary to set up fi ve altars on a round hill in the middle of a swamp. At
each altar a yellow calf and a set of three sacrifi cial animals should be offered,
and when the ceremony is completed these should all be buried in the earth.
All persons attending the ceremony should wear vestments honoring the color
Yellow.” 74
It is important to note that it had been a sacrifi ce dedicated to Houtu, the Deity of
Earth, performed by a shaman priestess in Fenyin, during which the precious tripod
had been discovered. This cult, which had formerly been a regional cult, thus seems
to have been co-opted by the emperor and made part of the central imperial cult.
Kuan Shu, the successor of the fangshi Li Shaojun, 75 and the Grand Scribe must have
been very familiar with this cult and instructed the emperor with regard to the sacrifi
cial tools and the color of the ceremonial vestments. The second account in which
the taishigong is explicitly mentioned in the Shiji text is related to the establishment
of a ceremony addressed to the Grand Unity, Taiyi ��. As the Shiji records,
Emperor Wu performed this sacrifi ce for the fi rst time on a xinsi day, a day
which coincided with the fi rst day of the new moon of the eleventh month, a day
on which simultaneously the winter solstice occurred, just before daylight. 76 The
73 As Gu Jiegang pointed out in “Taiyi de boxing ji qi yu Houtu de bingli ��������������(1936),
Taiyi was conceived at that time as the deity of Heaven, thus being complementary to Houtu as the deity of
Earth and simultaneously as the Supreme Deity which was identifi ed with the highest Thearch, Shangdi, whom
the Feng and Shan sacrifi ces on Mount Tai were dedicated to. See his “Sanhuang kao ���” in Gu Jiegang gushi
lunwen ji ��������, vol. 3 (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1996), especially 59–65. See also the chapters “Taiyi ming
de laiyuan ���������” ibid., 55–56, and “Tianshen guizhe Taiyi ji Sanyi��������������
ibid., 57–58.
74 Shiji 28/1389; 12/461; in the parallel account in Han shu 25A/ 1221, the word Tan � is added. Cf. the translation
by B. Watson, Records II, 44.
75 Shiji 28/1386.
76 Shiji 28/1395; 12/470. ��������������������� This date agrees strikingly with the
astral confi guration which Gongsun Qing in his prophetic message had predicted would occur in the winter of
the same year in which the tripod had been found in Fenyin (see the translation on p. 249). Whereas this date
is thus confi rmed as actually having happened by the Shiji record there seems to be a deviation from this with
regard to the date indicated in the annals of Emperor Wu in Han shu 6/185. Although the main elements of
the day constellations (xinsi day, eleventh month, winter solstice) are repeated there, the year under which this
event is recorded is the year Yuanding 5 (i.e. 112 B.C.) and not 113 B.C. The explanation might be simply that
the dates recorded in this part of the Han shu are based upon a different calendrical system, but one could also
suggest that the fulfi llment of the prediction given by Gongsun Qing is intentionally denied here.
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