The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

One is even inclined to say that Sima Tan and Sima Qian must somehow have benefi
ted from Gongsun Qing’s success.
The Han shu passage in which Gongsun Qing is depicted as Sima Qian’s colleague
cooperating with him in preparing the new calendar for the Han agrees well
with Gongsun Qing’s obvious insider knowledge in calendrical matters as described
in the Shiji. Thus the above mentioned assumption that Ban Gu in his Han shu
might have intended to discredit Sima Qian and only for this reason have put him
side by side with Gongsun Qing is certainly not plausible.
If we view the matter in this light we may, however, be even more puzzled as to
how the critical or even derogatory attitude which is made so plain in the “Treatise
on the Feng and Shan Sacrifi ces” of the Shiji should be explained.
Perhaps a key to answering this diffi cult question, which seems to touch a secret
hidden in the Shiji, lies in the very distinction made in the Shiji between the true followers
of Zou Yan on the one hand, and the deceivers, those who only serve their private
ends by abusing the emperor’s confi dence and his weak points, on the other. 190
In fact, we saw that the aspect criticized most sharply by the Shiji author with regard
to Gongsun Qing’s engagement was that he had misled the emperor by making him
believe that he might not only become able to enter into communication with the
gods, but even achieve personal immortality. This was the bait that Gongsun Qing
had laid out and which secured him and his colleagues a safe position at court.
It seems, however, that precisely this aspect of Gongsun Qing’s initiative became
the one attacked most sharply by the person who was responsible for the historical
record. As we argued above, among the two main contributors of the Shiji – Sima
Tan and Sima Qian – it seems that Sima Qian had a much more rationalistic
approach to the matters related to the calendar than his father Tan. It seems that
with regard to Gongsun Qing the same rationalistic attitude becomes plain, and at
the same time a very critical attitude toward someone who – no matter whether in
good faith or not – applied methods which were in his eyes irrational and esoteric
and which seems to have served primarily as a means of convincing the emperor
of the importance and supremacy of a particular strand of thought. Viewed in this
light, it seems plausible that it is Sima Qian who should be regarded as the historiographer
whose critical and derogatory attitude toward Gongsun Qing is refl ected
in this chapter and who thus should be regarded as the person responsible for this
chapter’s fi nal compilation.
Assuming that this critical attitude belongs to Sima Qian, one might ask why
he would not attack his father Tan for his ideological tendency. The answer is not
diffi cult to guess. Simply for reasons of fi lial piety, Sima Qian would not have dared
to direct his criticism against his own father. On the contrary: as the reader is told in
the last chapter of the Shiji, Sima Tan on his deathbed had begged his son Qian to
continue what he himself had begun, but was not able to bring to an end. And we
read in the record that Sima Qian upon hearing his father’s words knocked his head
on the fl oor saying:
190 Cf. p. 282.
BMFEA 74 · 2002
THE POWER OF AN ALLEGED TRADITION
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