The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

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“I, [your] little son, though ignorant and unworthy, shall try my best and set forth
in full the ancient reports passed down to us from our predecessors. I shall not
dare to be remiss.” 191
Words such as these may convey an impression of how deep the confl ict between
piety and opposition may have been in a critical mind such as that of Sima Qian.
If one contrasts the attitude displayed toward his father with the sharp criticism
directed against Gongsun Qing – a man whose ideological background seems to have
been very similar to that of his father – one may assume that as an object of his
criticism, Gongsun Qing might have served Sima Qian as a suitable scapegoat, as he
obviously did not feel himself to be obliged to him either by blood-relation or in any
other way.
Last but not least, one might be tempted to fi nd an answer to the question
raised in the section on Sima Xiangru, namely, whether it would be plausible to
assume that although Sima Xiangru was related by blood to Sima Tan and Sima
Qian, any hint of such a relationship was intentionally omitted in this chapter. As
mentioned earlier, it seems as if the person responsible for Sima Xiangru’s biography
had tried to lay stress on the fact that Sima Xiangru, though outwardly fl attering
Emperor Wu by denoting him as someone worthy of communicating with the
immortals and roaming through the skies, had tried, but vainly tried, to dissuade the
emperor from his growing inclination toward the cult of immortality by writing his
eulogy in a perhaps ironical vein. It thus seems that the major reproach which is
implicitly directed toward Sima Xiangru in his biographical account is that he failed
to make use of his elevated position to open the emperor’s eyes and thus did not
prevent that in the end a ruler who turned out to be not a worthy one was encouraged
to proceed to the solemn Feng and Shan sacrifi ces.
Once again, the question of who may have been responsible for this remark can
scarcely be answered with certainty. Sima Tan may well have compiled almost the
whole of Sima Xiangru’s biography. The remark at the very end of the chapter in
which an inner bond is established between the death dates of Sima Xiangru and
Sima Tan and the emperor’s fi rst performing of the Feng and Shan sacrifi ces 192 is,
however – simply due to the fact that Sima Tan did not live to experience the actual
performance of the sacrifi ces on Mount Tai – a strong indication that it was Sima
Qian who was at least the fi nal compiler of this chapter. But perhaps an even more
convincing argument supporting the thesis that it was Sima Qian and not his father
Tan who wrote the biographical account may be that the reason for keeping silent
with regard to the fact that they were closely related by blood was due to a certain
embarrassment, shame or even anger that someone of his own clan was so closely
involved in an initiative that had encouraged Emperor Wu in his growing tendency
toward personality cult and megalomania – even though this ultimately may have
been the result of a tragic misunderstanding.
191 Shiji 130/3295; cf. B. Watson, Ssu-ma Ch’ien, 42 ff.
192 See p. 271.
DOROTHEE SCHAAB-HANKE
BMFEA 74 · 2002