The Power of an Alleged Tradition - CHINA Buchservice

anew. On hearing these words, the Yellow Thearch computed the days by the
help of calculation [stalks] 33 and came to the conclusion that after twenty years
the winter solstice would again occur at dawn of a day of the new moon. 34 After
twenty of such reckonings, making three hundred and eighty years, the Yellow
Thearch ascended to Heaven as an immortal.”
The text of the zhashu starts with a fl ashback to the time of Huangdi. One of his
assistants, Guiyu Qu ��� – evidently his specialist in calendrical matters and also
Huangdi’s teacher – explains to his ruler the special meaning of the year in which
he obtained a precious tripod. Upon his assistant’s advice, we learn, Huangdi then
computed the precise date when he himself would ascend to Heaven. Both dates –
the day he obtained the tripod and the day of his ascension to Heaven – fell on a day
on which the new moon coincided with the day of the winter solstice.
If we compare the main content of the zhashu with Gongsun Qings fi rst sentence,
we fi nd a rather mysterious parallel between conjunctions of phenomena that
happened or would soon happen when Gongsun Qing talked to Emperor Wu and
certain phenomena that happened during the time of Huangdi. The discovery of
the tripod at Fenyin has its precedent in Huangdi’s discovery of a tripod at Yuanqu,
a parallel which is given additional stress by the statement that in the winter of
the same year the solstice had occurred on a day that was also the day of a new
moon (only the position of the days within the sexagenary cycle differed). Moreover,
Gongsun Qing’s advice to Emperor Wu parallels the advice given by Guiyu Qu to
his ruler Huangdi. Obviously the central lesson to be drawn from Gongsun Qing’s
words is that certain astral confi gurations during the Han dynasty would be running
parallel to events that happened during Huangdi’s time. But up to now, Gongsun
Qing’s words had not even reached the emperor’s ear. Suo Zhong, the imperial
censor, 35 even seems to have done his utmost in order to prevent Gongsun Qing’s
mysterious message from reaching his addressee at all. We read:
�����������������������������������
�����������������������������������
�����������������������������������
������������������
[Gongsun] Qing had hoped he might submit it to the imperial throne with the
support of Suo Zhong. Suo Zhong who saw that his text [written on the wooden
tablet] was not in accord with the established orthodoxy was suspicious that this
33 The expression ying ri tui ce����� can also be found in the annals of Huangdi. Cf. Shiji 1/6. The Jijie commentary
(Shiji 1/8) adds an interesting explanation according to which precalculating yin ri was reckoned among
the arts of foretelling the future.
34 The hint of an interval of 20 years after which the same constellation – the coincidence of the winter solstice
with the fi rst day of a new moon – would recur probably refers to the early observation by Chinese calendar
experts of a phenomenon as Nathan Sivin has already pointed out. He writes: “Nineteen years is the smallest
interval in which winter solstice and new moon [or any other combination of solar and lunar events] will recur
on the same day.” See N. Sivin, “Cosmos and computation in early Chinese mathematical astronomy,” T’oung Pao
55 (1969): 15.
35 According to Fengsu tongyi (quoted in Shiji 117/3063), Suo Zhong had the position of a jian dafu����. Yan
Shigu (quoted in Han shu 24B/1171) writes that Suo here is the family name (xing��) and Zhong the personal
name (ming��), that Suo Zhong was a right-hand man of Emperor Wu and that the man mentioned here is the
same as the one mentioned in the chapter on Sima Xiangru.
BMFEA 74 · 2002
THE POWER OF AN ALLEGED TRADITION
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