The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

272
DOROTHEE SCHAAB-HANKE
When fi ve years had gone by since Sima Xiangru’s death, the Son of Heaven for
the fi rst time sacrifi ced to Houtu. The eighth year [after his death] 125 was [the
year] when he fi rst exercised the rites on the Middle Peak, then performed the
feng [sacrifi ces] on Mount Tai and [fi nally] proceeded to Mount Liangfu to perform
the shan [ceremonies] at Suran [peak]. 126
The causal link drawn between Sima Xiangru’s death and the steps taken by the
emperor toward establishing fi rst the sacrifi ces for Houtu and then performing
the Feng and Shan sacrifi ces on Mount Tai reminds one very much of the passage
cited earlier, in which an inner connection was established between Sima Tan and
Emperor Wu as well, i.e. between the year in which Sima Tan died and the emperor’s
fi rst performing of the Feng and Shan sacrifi ces and the installation of the new
calendar. 127 The striking parallel raises many questions, but the primary question to
investigate here will be how Sima Xiangru, the poet who became famous primarily
for his outstanding prose poetry (fu �), might have been connected with Emperor
Wu’s Feng and Shan sacrifi ces.
In fact, there is one text written by Sima Xiangru the title of which explicitly
reveals a close connection with the sacrifi ces: his “Fengshan wen ���”�(Prose on
the Feng and Shan), the only text recorded as left in Sima Xiangru’s home after he
had died. 128 Suo Zhong 129 who was sent by the emperor to Sima Xiangru’s home
to take all the remaining texts in the poet’s home, was told by his widow 130 that
her husband had kept no texts in his home, because each time he had written something,
someone had come to take it away. She went on:
����������������������������������
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Before Changqing 131 died, he made one juan [quan?] shu. 132 He told [me]: “In
case that an envoy would come and look for texts, present it to him.” The text
written on a wooden tablet he had kept [in his home] talked about the Feng and
Shan matter. When Suo Zhong submitted it to [the emperor], the emperor was
surprised at it. 133
125 As the year 117 B.C. was the year in which Sima Xiangru died and the year 113 B.C. was, according to evidence
from Shiji as well as from Han shu, the year in which Emperor Wu for the fi rst time sacrifi ced to Houtu, the
time indication ba nian er���� here again, as in the above discussed passage in Shiji 130/3296 where the time
indication was wu nian er ��������where it was related to Sima Tan’s death, can only refer to Sima Xiangru’s
death.
126 Shiji 117/3072; cf. Han shu 57B/2600.
127 See Shiji 130/3296 and the translation below.
128 Shiji 117/3063.
129 As for comments that the Suo Zhong mentioned here is the same man as the one who later tried to keep Gongsun
Qing away from the emperor, cf. n. 35.
130 His wife was Zhuo Wenjun ���. As the reader learns from the beginning of Sima Xiangru’s biography, she had
fallen in love with Sima Xiangru when he had played the zither in her father’s home. See Shiji 117/300–301.
131 Changqing was the style (zi��) of Sima Xiangru. Cf.�Shiji 117/2999.
132 Whereas juanshu��� is not to be found elsewhere in the Shiji and seems to be unusual as a compositum, the
similar word quanshu��� (� being, according to the Hanyu da zidian, vol. 1, 316, frequently used as a synonym
for �) appears three times in Shiji 75/2360. A quanshu is, according to Hanyu da cidian, vol. 2, 648, a treaty,
an offi cial document. The problem which arises if one regards the juan in yi juan shu as a numerical adjunct,
“one roll book (indicating a text written on paper or silk and rolled up) was mentioned by Yves Hervouet, Le
Chapitre 117 du Che ki: Biographie de Sseu-ma Siang-jou (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1972), 204, n.4,
who remarks in a note on the term zhashu: “Contrairement à ce qu’indiquerait le kiuan qui précède, il semble
d’après le tcha que nous avons ici le manuscrit de Sseu-ma Siang-jou qui ait été écrit sur des tablettes.”
133 Shiji ibid.
BMFEA 74 · 2002