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Religion and Politics in the China of the Ts'in and the Han
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 July 2024
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When, in the year 221 B.C., China found itself unified under the authority of the lord of Ts'in, the latter decided that his title of king (wang) no longer corresponded to his actual glory. After deliberating with his counselors, he decided that from then on his title would be Houang-ti, an expression which we translate as emperor. And if the dynasty founded by Ts'in Che houang-ti was ephemeral, the title Houang-ti was destined to remain that of the Chinese monarchs until the revolution of 1911. This term, formed by two characters, was a neologism; the monarchs of preceding historical dynasties, Yin and Tcheou, were kings (wang). But if the double expression was new, houang and ti were two very ancient words, belonging to religious terminology.
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- Copyright © 1961 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)
References
1 The Ts'in Dynasty founded by Ts'in Che houang-ti collapsed in 207 B.C. For good résumés of Chinese history and civilization, see Aspects de la Chine, Volume LXIII of the Bibliothèque de Diffusion of the Musée Guimet (Paris, 1959), in which are gathered the talks given on Radio Française by several specialists in 1954 and 1955.
2 The Chang or Yin Dynasty is the first that one can consider historical; it remained in power until about the middle of the eleventh century B.C. Traditional history places a Hia Dynasty before the Yin, but no one knows whether or not it really existed. The Tcheou Dynasty succeeded that of the Yin and remained in power, at least in theory, until 249 B.C. These three dynasties, Hia, Yin and Tcheou, are sometimes called the three royal dynasties, because their sovereigns bore the title of king (wang).
3 The leaders were the princes to whom the king had, by special investiture, given preeminence and police rights over a part of the territory. Their power was purely military and was thereby opposed to the religious or moral authority granted to the ancient sovereigns.
4 The Five Elements are bound to the directions and colors as follows: wood, east, green; fire, south, red; earth, center, yellow; metal, west, white; water, north, black. The above order is that of "production" or "generation" and is different, as we shall see, from that of "triumph."
5 Sseu-ma Ts'ien wrote, around 100 B.C., a general history of China, the Che-ki, which inaugurated the series of 24 dynastic histories. The 47 chapters have been translated into French by Edouard Chavannes under the title Les Mémoires historiques de Sseu-ma Ts'ien, 5 vols., Paris, 1895-1905. In the third volume of this translation, chapter 28, entitled "Les Sacrifices Fong et Chan", is of great importance for the religious history of ancient China.
6 Mémoires historiques, III, p. 449.
7 Ibid., p. 328.
8 Che-ki, ch. 74.
9 Mém. hist. II, pp. 128 ff.; Granet, La Civilisation chinoise, pp. 41-42. Numbers were associated with the elements and the directions, the number 6 corre sponding to Water, the North, and Black.
10 Mém. hist. III, pp. 421 ff. Cf. Granet, Danses et Légendes de la Chine ancienne, Paris, 1926 (new edition 1959), pp. 572 ff.
11 Mém. hist. II, pp. 145 ff.
12 Mém. hist. II, pp. 330-332.
13 The Han Dynasty which ruled from 206 B.C. to 220 A.D. was interrupted from 9 to 24 A.D. by the reign of the usurper Wang Mang who wanted to found a new dynasty. This is why history distinguished between the earlier Han (206 B.C. to 9 A.D.) and the later Han (25-220 A.D.) Dynasties.
14 The fox has always played an important role in Chinese folklore. The three old foxes were considered to be gifted with great magic powers, or even capable of entering into relations with the celestial divinities.
15 Mém. hist. II, pp. 473 ff.
16 W. Eberhard, The Political Function of Astronomy and Astronomers in Han China in Fairbank, ed., Chinese Thought and Institutions, Chicago, 1957.
17 M. Granet, Civilisation chinoise, p. 449.
18 Edouard Chavannes has devoted an important work to this mountain: Le T'ai chan, essai de monographie d'un culte chinois, Paris, 1910. In an appendix there is a fine study of the god of the Earth.
19 The history of the five sacred peaks (the four directions and the center) is not well known, but their institution, such as it existed under the Han, must go back to the time of the Combatant Kingdoms, although they are given a much greater antiquity by myths.
20 Granet, Danses et Légendes, pp. 213 ff.
21 Chavannes, Le T'ai chan, ch. III: "Textes relatifs aux sacrifices Fong et Chan".
22 There is a French translation of the Li-ki by S. Couvreur, S.J., Ho kien fou, 1913; the Yue-ling is described in Volume I, pp. 330 ff. of this translation.
23 The frame of reference is naturally that of the Five Elements, but you will note that the system applied here is not reconcilable with the Five Virtues: 1) the latter succeed each other in the order of triumph, while the elements succeed each other in the order of the seasons, which is also the order of generation. 2) in one case, the color of the ritual ornaments of the emperor is determined once and for all by the dynastic virtue, while in the other he changes ornaments with each season.
24 Tradition had it that the emperor undertook a tour of the empire every five years, beginning with the East and following the route of the sun. Cf. Granet, La Pensée chinoise, pp. 102 ff.
25 In addition to the Li-ki, the Yue-ling occurs as well, but with some textual differences in these two works. The Houai-nan-tseu was edited under the reign of the emperor Wou.
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