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266 DOROTHEE SCHAAB-HANKE �� 97 �� “Earlier, the offi cials in charge of the matter said that the measures concerning the [position and motion of the] heavenly bodies have not yet been fi xed correctly. 98 Although I have upon this ordered to reinforce the efforts to inquire about the laws of the [position and motion] of the celestial bodies, [the measures] still cannot be confi rmed. I have heard that in ancient times the Yellow Thearch achieved perfect [harmony] and thus never died. 99 Examining the names and verifying the measures [of the celestial bodies] he distinguished the pure and the impure [tuning of the pitch pipes?], started off the Five Departments 100 and established the categories and numbers of the ethers [of the year] 101 and living beings. But this all belongs to high antiquity: the fact that [in our time] the scriptures are fragmentary and the music has gotten out of tune is something about which I have been much concerned. [Now] by meticulously strengthening our efforts to distribute the days [within the astronomical calendar], we took advantage of [the principle] of the element by which Water was overcome. 102 Nowadays we have adjusted to the summer solstice; Huangzhong is the basic tone, Linzhong the second, Taizu the third, Nanlü the fourth and Guxi the fi fth [of the pentatonic music scale]: having achieved this, the ethers [of the year] has returned to correctness, the tone of the note Yu sounds pure, and the names are made correct again, so that the winter solstice will fall on a zi 103 day. As the fi rst day of the eleventh month which is a day of the new moon and at the same time a jiazi day and on which the winter solstice will occur has already been calculated as lying ahead, we will replace the 7th year of Yuanding by Taichu [i.e. Great Beginning], fi rst year. The name of the year will be yanfeng zhetige, 104 the name of the [fi rst] month will be biju. The day [provided for the new beginning] will be the [cyclical day] jiazi , at midnight [of this day] the day of the new moon will start and at dawn the winter solstice will occur.” 105 There are many remarkable things to be discussed with regard to this passage. Per- 97 According to the punctuation of the Zhonghua edition, everything that follows after this is still part of the imperial edict, but a comparison with the Han shu parallel rather suggests that the edict ends here. 98 According to Wang Liqi, Shiji zhuyi, II, 918, this refers especially to the Five Planets and to the 28 lunar mansions (xiu��). 99 The meaning of the term he � has been explained by E. Chavannes as follows: “Le mot � indique que Huangdi avait su réaliser l’accord entre le Ciel et la Terre gráce á un calendrier parfait. L’immortalité avait été la récompense. L’empereur Ou n’était pas sans espérer parvenir a la vie éternelle en faisant, comme Hoang-ti, un calendrier exact.” See E. Chavannes, Mémoires Historiques III, 330, n. 4. 100 The term Five Departments �wubu ��) is, according to Chen Jiujin. “Shiji ‘Tianguan shu zhuyi’,” 266, n. 7, synonymous for the Five Elements (wuxing��). 101 This refers to the 24 divisions of the year, the ethers of the seasons. 102 This refers to the element Earth which, according to the conviction of specialists of that time, was the virtue favoring the Han dynasty. 103 This means a day within the sexagenary cycle falling on the earthly branch zi��. According to the Suoyin commentary, the winter solstices of Shang, Zhou and Lu should occur on a zi day. See Shiji 26/1255. 104 Yanfeng�� is explained to be synonymous with the celestial stem jia��zhetige�� with the earthly branch yin��, the combination of both – yanfeng zhetige – meaning a jiayin year. Jiayin is, according to the Suoyin commentary, the fi rst year of the very fi rst calendar which was even prior to the mythical Thearchs Huangdi and Zhuanxu, the “Taichu calendar of the very fi rst beginning” (shangyuan taichuli��). See Shiji 26/1255. 105 Shiji 26/1260; cf. the translation of E. Chavannes, III, 330–332; cf. Han shu 21A/975. The exact day on which the Taichu calendar was installed corresponds, according to N. Sivin, “Cosmos and Computation,” 10, with December 24th, 105 B.C. BMFEA 74 · 2002
haps the most striking detail is the fact that again the coincidence of the day of the new moon with the winter solstice – the constellation Gongsun Qing had prophesied to be of special signifi cance – was chosen as the date on which the new calendar of the Han was established. In this case, apart from the start of a new yearly cycle and that of a new month cycle, the start of a third cycle is added, namely the beginning of a sexagenary day cycle (jiazi��). 106 Even more remarkable is a detail in the imperial edict, namely that Emperor Wu refers to the fact that Huangdi “had achieved perfect [harmony] and thus never died.” If we recall the enthusiastic reaction of this emperor who, according to the testimony of the Shiji, upon hearing Gongsun Qing’s report of Huangdi’s ascent to Heaven would regard the thought of quitting his wife and children as being no more than casting off one’s slippers, 107 this remark – surprisingly enough found in an offi cial document – matches perfectly with the historical account. Given that the edict is authentic, one cannot but get the impression that the emperor’s endeavor to achieve harmony between microcosm and macrocosm in fact originated in his hope to achieve immortality. According to Gongsun Qing’s words, Huangdi alone – the fi rst calendar maker – had achieved this before. It has been suggested above that the matching of the dates prophesied in Gongsun Qing’s message with Emperor Wu’s actual calendar reform would have been intentionally brought about by the specialists entrusted with the installation of the new calendar. 108 This, of course, was not so diffi cult to achieve for a person who was responsible both for the prophecy and for the task of making it come true. As for the persons who were ordered to take steps to prepare for the calendar of the Han, the passage in the “Monograph on Pitch Pipes and the Calendar” (Lüli zhi��) of the Han shu continues: �� Then [the Emperor] ordered [Gongsun] Qing, [Hu] Sui, [Sima] Qian together with the Attendant Gentleman Zun, the Offi cial in Charge of the [observation of the] Planets, Yi Xing and others to deliberate on the question of how to establish a calendar for the Han. 109 106 One might perhaps expect that the change of the calendar should have taken place in the very same year when the Feng and Shan sacrifi ces had been performed for the fi rst time. An indication that this probably was the original idea is given at the beginning of the part pertaining to Emperor Wu in the “Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifi ces” (Shiji 28/1384; 12/452). As mentioned earlier, it is recorded at the beginning of this chapter that all the high dignitaries at court had hoped that the emperor would soon proceed to perform the sacrifi ces and change the calendar. Later in the same chapter we fi nd the entry that on the jiazi day in the eleventh month, when the winter solstice occurred on the day of the new moon the calendar specialists took this date as the basis for the new beginning (Shiji 28/1401; 12/481: ��). Only after having accomplished this, the emperor was allowed to proceed to perform the Feng and Shan sacrifi ces on Mount Tai. But shortly after that we also read that in the fi rst year of the era Taichu that the calendar was changed (Shiji 28/1402; 12/483). It is open to speculation whether Sima Qian and his colleagues originally planned to establish the new calendar simultaneously with the performance of the Feng and Shan sacrifi ces, but – for whatever reasons – there was a delay. 107 Cf. the translation on p. 253. 108 I am grateful to Licia DiGiacinto (Bochum) who directed my attention to an article by Christopher Cullen in which he had already pointed out that Emperor Wu, by establishing the new calendar, satisfi ed Gongsun Qing’s expectations. See his “Motivations for Scientifi c Change in Ancient China: Emperor Wu and the Grand Inception Astronomical Reforms of 104 B.C.” in Journal for the History of Astronomy 24 (1993), 199. As Aihe Wang argued, it was Jia Yi’s proposal which Emperor Wu’s court put into practice when he decided to change the calendar. See Aihe Wang, Cosmology and Political Culture in Early China (Cambridge: University Press, 2000), 148. 109 Han shu 21A/975. BMFEA 74 · 2002 THE POWER OF AN ALLEGED TRADITION 267
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