The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

Shiji. He explicitly refers to a Wudi de���� (Virtue of the Five Thearchs) and a
Dixi xing���� (Clan Names in the Genealogy of the Thearchs). By doing so, he
seems to have intended to justify the choice of Huangdi as the paragon of rulership
on the textual evidence of noncanonical scriptures. 159
One also fi nds that the decision to put Huangdi in the fi rst place has an impact
on the overall conception of the Shiji. 160
First, Huangdi as the ancestor of what is called here the “clan of the Yellow
Thearch” (Huangdi shi ���) is not only depicted as the ancestor of the mythical
rulers following in the sequence of the Five Thearchs, but also as the one from whom
even the rulers of the various feudal states have descended. 161 Moreover, Huangdi
seems not only to be the primogenitor for all Chinese rulers but also for those rulers
who are reckoned in the Shiji among the Barbarians. 162 This is a remarkably allencompassing
claim, and illustrates the consequences that the choice of Huangdi
had for the work. 163
Furthermore, the choice of Huangdi as the fi rst ruler in the sequence also fi nds
its expression in the periodization of history. The connection between dynasties,
beginning with the mythical rulers, with particular virtues, elements and colors,
recurs in the “Annals” of the Shiji.
In Chapter One, “Annals of the Five Thearchs” (Wudi benji�����), the origin
of the name Huangdi – “Yellow Thearch” – is explained as the “style of the One who
had received the auspicious portents of the virtue of Earth.” 164 Thus the correlation
of Huangdi with the color Yellow and the element of Earth, as it is found in the Lüshi
chunqiu and propagated by Gongsun Qing seems to be confi rmed here in the very
beginning of the Shiji.
159 Shiji 1/46. Both titles are identical or almost identical with titles of chapters in the received texts of the Da Dai
Liji. Cf. Da Dai Liji, chapters 62 (���) and 63 (��), the fi rst being also contained in Kongzi jiayu, chap. 23. It
is noteworthy that the author not only by his decision to put Huangdi at the very beginning of his work but even
more by seeking support for this decision by referring to a source which did not belong to the then acknowledged
orthodoxy, must have intentionally acted against the current of his times. Otherwise he would have referred to
other sources, such as the Shangshu, according to which the earliest testifi ed documents go back to Yao and not
to Huangdi, and accordingly would have reserved the place on top of the historical record for him.
160 For a discussion of several different hypotheses pertaining to the question what might have caused the author of
the Shiji to put Huangdi at the very beginning of his work, see Li Weitai ���, “Shiji xushi heyi shi yu Huangdi
zhushuo shuping ���������������” in Huangdi yu zhongguo chuantong wenhua xueshu taolun hui
lunwenji������������������ (Xi’an: Shaanxi renmin, 2001), 16–24.
161 The idea that the Five Thearchs as well as the rulers of the fi rst three dynasties Xia, Shang and Zhou were all
conceived as Huangdi’s direct descendants in the Shiji is illustrated most clearly at the beginning of the table in
Shiji 13/488. Cf. the study of Zhang Dake ���� “Shiji yili he Sima Qian de lishiguan ����������
��,” in Shiji wenxian yanjiu��������� (Beijing: Minzu, 1999), 203–241, and esp. the instructive chart
illustrating this, 228–29 (“Shiji dayitong lishi guan ��������”).
162 As Chi Wanxing ����has argued, by stressing Huangdi as a common primogenitor of all peoples including the
“Barbarians,” the Shiji mirrors Sima Qian’s favoring unity of the peoples of All-under-Heaven. See his Sima Qian
minzu sixiang chanshi���������� (Xi’an: Renmin jiaoyu, 1995), esp. 130–36.
163 The importance of the “fact” that the historical record begins with Huangdi is further stressed by three remarks
in the Shiji in which Huangdi appears as the starting point, but slightly varying with respect to the ending point:
in one instance it is the capture of the unicorn, in the second the ending point is given with now, and in the third
it is the era Taichu. Cf. the accounts in Shiji 130/3300 (here, somewhat curiously, the name Taotang, i.e. Yao, is
given as the starting point before returning to the time from Huangdi until the unicorn), 3319 (from Xianyuan,
i.e. Huangdi, until now and 3321 (from Huangdi until the Taichu period). A closer analysis of these variations
may confi rm the hypothesis that the original temporal frame as it has been conceived by Sima Tan was later
enlarged – and perhaps in some respect changed – by Sima Qian.
164 Shiji 1/6: �����������
278
DOROTHEE SCHAAB-HANKE
BMFEA 74 · 2002