论司马迁的黄帝观

SIMA Qian’s view of the Huang Emperor

司马迁撰写《史记》,以黄帝为首,其中体现的黄帝观影响后世深远,值得专门研究。学界研究黄帝,多以司马迁的记载为基本材料,但目前尚未见到专门研究司马迁黄帝观的论著。根据司马迁《史记》文本,从材料出发,用历史学方法归纳、概括司马迁黄帝观的内容,分析和揭示其背后的历史背景和条件,有助于今人科学认识历史上的黄帝观。研究认为,在司马迁之前,黄帝只是神话传说,司马迁一变而为正史实录,从根本上改变了中华文明起源的书写形式,完善了中华文明史系统;从司马迁描写的黄帝看,黄帝实有其人,有家有业,有家人,有后裔,而且有生有死,“黄帝崩,葬桥山”,传说中的人物由此变成了客观存在的历史人物.而和司马迁同时的汉武帝却惑于神仙方术,相信黄帝铸鼎飞升;司马迁的黄帝观以理性的描述内容,抑制了当时一些人神秘化历史人物的消极倾向.司马迁在描述中还隐含了道德史观在内,在他看来,黄帝之所以做出了杰出历史贡献,是因为黄帝“修德”;所以,司马迁表彰黄帝就在“彰明德”。这一观念,延续了西周以来的道德史观传统,更加凸显了道德在历史上的作用。

SIMA Qian wrote the Historical Records, in which the Huang Emperor was considered the most important ancestor, and the concept of the Huang Emperor has a far-reaching impact on future generations and deserves dedicated research.Academic circles mostly use SIMA Qian’s records as basic materials to study the Huang Emperor, but so far there have been no works specializing in SIMA Qian’s view of the Huang Emperor.According to the text and based on the materials of SIMA Qian’s Historical Records, this paper uses historical methods to generalize and summarize the content of SIMA Qian’s view of the Huang Emperor, and analyses and reveals the historical background and conditions behind the view, which is helpful for people today to scientifically understand the view of the Huang Emperor in history.It is found that before SIMA Qian, the Huang Emperor was only a myth and legend.SIMA Qian changed the myth into an official historical record, which fundamentally reformed the writing form of the origin of Chinese civilization and improved the system of the history of Chinese civilization.From SIMA Qian’s description of the Huang Emperor, we can see that the Huang Emperor was a real person with residence, land, family and descendants, and that he had actually lived and died.“The Huang Emperor passed away, and was buried in Qiaoshan”.A legendary figure thus became an objective historical figure.Martial emperor of Han dynasty in the same era as SIMA Qian, however, was obsessed with immortal magic and believed that the Huang Emperor had casted a tripod and flown up to heaven.SIMA Qian’s view of the Huang Emperor suppressed the negative tendency of some mystifying historical figures at that time with a rational description.His description also implies the concept of moral history.In his view, the reason of the Huang Emperor made outstanding historical contributions was that the Huang Emperor “cultivated morality”.Therefore, SIMA Qian praised the Huang Emperor in that he “promoted and exhibited morality”.This concept inherited the tradition of moral history since the Western Zhou dynasty and highlighted the role of morality in history.