| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 歷史學系 === 103 === This thesis is a study of the images of Yellow Emperor in the texts from Warring States to Han, not his true deeds. The author tries to inquire following questions: what images of Yellow Emperor were depicted in texts of that period, how did those images change, and why did those changes happen. I hope that this study could eventually cause me reflex our understanding of relevant historical subjects.
Since the turn of twentieth century, the positions of Yellow Emperor in the genealogy of kinship / culture have been one of the major concerns of Chinese national historians. However, not all kinds of images were concerned equivalently. Besides, those images of Yellow Emperor in ancient Chinese texts were sometimes neglected, or even distorted by modern historians according to their contemporary needs. Consequently, I try to rediscover the images of Yellow Emperor in the ancient Chinese texts as it were and try to explore their political, social, cultural, and religious implications in their own term.
Though the images of Yellow Emperor had already enjoyed high profile from Warring states to Han dynasty, they were different from the modern popular knowledge and were shaped in different historical contexts. For example, the image as a common ancestor of ancient people is a fabrication / construction based upon the different needs of historical explanation and family identity. The images as a sage king, though admired by ancient scholars, imitated by ancient rulers, never reached consensus. People in that era might highly appraise his images in daily and religious life, but those images were far from consistent. Interestingly, though inconsistent they were, they gave him positive evaluations.
Disputes about images of Yellow Emperor were not rare, especially in Han Period. Scholars and royal court kept on trying to rearrange and filter the historical status of Yellow Emperor. One of the representative works is the “Basic Annals of the Five Emperors (五帝本紀)” by Ssuma Chien (司馬遷). However, those versatile and vivid images could not be regulated, by royal court or by scholars, into a unified one, they were able to stride over the barrier between grand and little tradition, and help to spread those legends of Yellow Emperor.
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