The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

dragons whiskers and Huangdi’s bow fell to the ground and were the only memory
left to the common people who witnessed Huangdi’s ascent to Heaven. 186
However, if we look at the “Annals of the Five Thearchs” we fi nd a laconic
remark at the end of the account devoted to Huangdi’s life that “after Huangdi had
passed away, he was buried on Mount Qiao. 187 The word beng � which denotes the
death of an emperor can well be taken as evidence, if not for the fact that Huangdi
was mortal, then at least for the fact that for the author of this passage, Huangdi did
not become an immortal. It is precisely because the question of Huangdi’s immortality
was so important during the time of Emperor Wu that this remark cannot simply
be regarded as a harmless error.
It would be much more plausible that the statement that Huangdi actually died
expresses the author’s personal conviction that Huangdi was mortal like everyone
else. The conception of Huangdi represented here obviously does not accept his
immortality as a central or even as a credible incident in his life. Of central importance,
however, as it is emphasized here, seems to be his role as the ancestor of rulers
and certainly also as the paragon of perfect rulership. 188 One might perhaps defi ne
this as a more rational approach toward the conception of Huangdi, laying more
stress on the concept he represents than on the dogma of his immortality.
The impression that there is a strong tendency in some parts of the Shiji toward
a more rational approach is confi rmed e.g. by several instances in the later part of the
“Treatise on the Feng and Shan Sacrifi ces” in which the activities of the fangshi and
especially that of Gongsun Qing are examined in terms of their “evidence” (yan��)
and effi cacy (xiao��). One example of this is the following passage:
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After the present Emperor had performed the Feng and Shan sacrifi ces [for the
fi rst time], he came back twelve years later to visit the Five [Sacred] Peaks and
the Four Watercourses [again]. As for the men of techniques, however, who had
been watching out for and sacrifi cing to the spirits and who had been traveling
to the sea on the search for Penglai, in the end they failed to give any evidence.
And as for Gongsun Qing’s watching out for spirits, in spite of his explanations
concerning the giant’s footprints, he didn’t have any effi cacy. As for the Emperor,
he became more and more entangled and put under pressure by the mysterious
and exaggerating words of the fangshi, but until the end he was bound and snared
by them, unable to free himself, because he secretly hoped that there would be
a kernel of truth in them the words. From this time on, the words by fangshi on
186 Shiji 28/1394. See also the ironic treatment of the legend of Liu An’s ascent to Heaven as transmitted by some
“books of the ru” in Wang Chong’s Lunheng (ICS: 24/95/7–9).
187 Shiji 1/10: �������� The Tang commentator Zhang Shoujie who might have had the account of Shiji
28 in mind seems not to have been satisfi ed with the end of the “story” rendered here, as he quotes the story of
Huangdi’s ascent to Heaven from Liexian zhuan����.
188 The opinion that the conception of Huangdi as it is propagated by the cosmologists must have been different
from the Huangdi depicted in chapter.1 of the Shiji has also been raised by Lu Yaodong �����“Han Wudi
fengshan yu Shiji ‘Fengshan shu’ �������������,” in Di san jie shixue guoji yantao hui lunwen ji��
������������ (Taizhong: Qingfeng, 1991): 263–287. I am indebted to Dr. Achim Mittag for directing
my attention to this article.
BMFEA 74 · 2002
THE POWER OF AN ALLEGED TRADITION
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