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Chinese astrologer and historian (c. 165–110 BCE) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sima Tan (traditional Chinese: 司馬談; simplified Chinese: 司马谈; pinyin: Sīmǎ Tán; Wade–Giles: Ssu-ma T'an; c. 165–110 BCE) was a Chinese astrologist, astronomer, and historian during the Western Han dynasty. His work Records of the Grand Historian was completed by his son Sima Qian, who is considered the founder of Chinese historiography.
Sima Tan studied astronomy with Tang Du, the I Ching under Yang He, and Daoism under Master Huang.
He was appointed to the office of Court Astronomer (Chinese: 太史令; pinyin: tài shǐ lìng) at age 25 in 140 BCE, a position which he held until his death. Although Sima Tan began writing the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), he died before it was finished; it was completed by his son, Sima Qian. The year of Sima Tan's death (110 BCE) was the year of the great imperial sacrifice fengshan (zh:封禅) by Emperor Han Wudi, for which the emperor appointed another person to the rank of fangshi, bypassing Sima, probably causing him much consternation.
An essay by Sima Tan has survived within the Records of the Grand Historian. The essay is the last of the Shiji, called Yaozhi or Essential Points. It discusses the strengths and weakness of six kinds of governance. It did not necessarily occur to Tan that anyone would use them as historical categories, or put people under them.
Using the concept of 'Jia', which can mean "family" or "expert", the essay invents the categories of Yin-Yang, Fajia, Mingjia and Daojia. Tan's descriptions of the Jia are all flawed, orbiting the 'empty' Daojia. Together with Mohism and Confucianism, he compares their purported strengths and weaknesses in promotion of what he dubs the Daojia, taking the essential points of the others. Neither Tan nor Sima Qian name anyone under them. Likely popular by their time, imperial archivists Liu Xiang (77–6BCE) and Liu Xin placed the figures, using them as categories in the imperial library a hundred years after Sima Qians death, connecting them with purported ancient Zhou dynasty departments. Daojia comes to mean something like Daoism around the same time. They become categories of texts in book catalogues, namely the Book of Han.
Those later termed Daoists did not early know each other; the first part of the Zhuangzi doesn't demonstrate familiarity with the Laozi. Although disconnected, as later used the Mingjia school of names would at least seem to represent an actual social category interacted with by the Mohists, earlier referred to by the Zhuangzi as debaters. They have different philosophies. All Han dynasty thought involves yin-yang thinking, even the military has it.
Connected with a department of prisons, Fajia comes to mean something like Legalism, which contains Shang Yang and figures Sima Qian had described as Huang-Lao, as an early form of what would termed be Daoism. It would be questionable if Sima Qian himself believed or intended that Shen Buhai, Shen Dao and Han Fei go there, or he probably would have either used his father's categories, or at least discussed the figures alongside Shang Yang rather than Laozi and Zhuang Zhou. He gives Shang Yang his own individual chapter.[1][2][3]
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