祝融：神话历史的复活——四重证据法重建楚版上古史谱系（14祖）.pdf

4 Ye Shuxian is professor and doctoral supervisor of the Institute of Mythology at Shanghai Jiao Tong University.He is also research fellow in the Institute of Literature at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.E-mail:Resurrecting the Mythological History of Zhurong:Reconstructing the Fourteen-Generation Genealogy of the Chu State in High Antiquity through the Quadruple-Evidence MethodYe ShuxianAbstract:Zhurong,the legendary god of fire,has played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of the mythological history of high antiquity since the Querying Antiquity school questioned the authenticity of Chinese mythology in the early twentieth century.Adopting the quadruple-evidence method of literary anthropology,the present author reconstructs a relatively complete fourteen-generation dynastic genealogy of the state of Chu in the light of the dual evidence rejected by Sima Qian and the narrative of the immortals coming out of the Bear Cave in The Classic of Mountains and Seas.This reconstruction begins with the immortals living in the Bear Cave of Bear Mountain,whence the celestial bear descended,connects the creation myth attributed to the celestial bear(Fuxi)in the Chu Silk Manuscript,illuminates the origin of the regnal title“Youxiong”of Shaodian and the Yellow Emperor,and thus explains the whys and wherefores of the Xiong family of Chu kings since Zhuanxu,Laotong,and Zhurong.Finally,using the third and fourth layers of evidence,the author sheds light on the mythology of the celestial bear riding the dragon back and forth between earth and heaven and traces it back to the totemic belief in the bear in Paleolithic Europe,Asia,and the Americas,thus clarifying the prototype of the celestial bear mythology.Keywords:Zhurong,riding the dragon,descending from Heaven,celestial bear,Fuxi,Shaodian,Youxiong,Yellow EmperorThe traditional history of Chinese high antiquity as told in the“Annals of Five Emperors”五帝本纪 of The Grand Scribes Records 史记 was thought to be overturned and disproved in the early twentieth century by the Querying Antiquity school,a group of radical Chinese historians who questioned the authenticity of Chinese mythology.Precisely because of their work,the traditional history of early ancient times before the Shang(16001046 BCE)and Zhou(1046256 BCE)dynasties was denigrated as mere myth or pseudohistory.In the wake of the reform and opening up,literary anthropology gradually 5came to the fore in China,leading the way in the application of the quadruple-evidence method,an interdisciplinary endeavor.1 It is through this new method that present-day Chinese scholars of humanities and social sciences can make full use of new research materials and,in doing so,go beyond both Sima Qians 司马迁(b.ca.145 BCE)limitations and the Querying Antiquity schools prejudices.The present paper,having its argument based on a heterogenous chain of evidence,reconstructs the complete dynastic genealogy of the state of Chu in high antiquity,beginning with the myth of the celestial bear and revolving around Laotong 老童,Zhurong 祝融,and Xuexiong 穴熊.It goes further to reconstruct the unbroken fourteen-generation ancestry of Chu kings consisting of Xiongyi 熊绎 and his predecessors before the creation of the enfeoffed state of Chu in the reign of King Cheng of Zhou(r.10421021 BCE).It attempts to show how the ten-thousand-year-old bear totem in prehistoric Europe,Asia,and America prepared the way with significant cultural genes for five thousand years of Chinese history,and to explain what the academic impact of the rediscovery of these ten-thousand-year-old cultural genes will be.The reconstructed fourteen-generation ancestry of Chu is as follows:(1)The celestial bear descended from Heaven.According to“The Classic of the Central Mountains”中山经 of The Classic of Mountains and Seas 山海经 and the Bamboo Slips of the Warring States collected by Anhui University,the Bear Cave on Bear Mountain was inhabited by immortals and was open in summer and shut in winter.(2)According to the unearthed Chu Silk Manuscript,the celestial bear,known as Fuxi 伏羲,created the World.The celestial bear,as explained in Qu Yuans 屈原(ca.340ca.278 BCE)“Questions to Heaven”天问,was an immortal who rode a dragon back and forth between heaven and earth.(3)Shaodian 少典 was the son of Fuxi,according to the inscriptions on the Stele of the Temple of Three Sovereigns,and founded the state of Youxiong(有熊),as related in the New-Text Bamboo Annals 今本竹书纪年 and Qiao Zhous 谯周(ca.201270)comments on The Grand Scribes Records.(4)Shaodian sired the Yellow Emperor,who inherited Shaodians regnal title of Youxiong.This can be corroborated by the“Discourses of the State of Jin”晋语 in the Discourses of the States 国语,the“Virtues of Five Emperors”五帝德,and The Grand Scribes Records.(5)Zhuanxu 颛顼 was the grandson of the Yellow Emperor,also known as Xuandi(Emperor of the North),God of the North,and God of Winter,according to the“Virtues of Five Emperors,”the“Genealogy of Emperors”帝系,and The Grand Scribes Records.1 The basic theoretical innovation of literary anthropology was to advocate an integrated study that broke down the boundaries between literature,history,philosophy,art,religion,and politics.In the face of the conventional disciplinary division between literature and history,literary anthropologists advocated integrated concepts such as the mythological history,meaning that since there was no purely objective,scientific history in ancient times,all historical narratives must be subjected to the mythological view of the universe and history of the time and historical narrative must be mythological.Literary anthropologists have been methodologically creative,proposing a triple-evidence method in 1994,followed by a quadruple version in 2005.As far as the present paper is concerned,a large number of newly unearthed Chu bamboo slips,into which it delves,provide the first two layers of evidence;popular beliefs and oral mythologies and rituals are the third layer;and excavated objects(especially images)form the fourth layer.Such an evidence-based study constitutes a true reconstruction of cultural history.See Ye Shuxian 叶舒宪,“Investigation and Expectation of Evidentiary Methods Applied to Conventional Chinese Textual Criticism:Proceeding from One-Dimensional Evidence to Quadruple Evidence”国学考据学的证据法研究及展望从一重证据法到四重证据法,Evidence Science 证据科学,no.4(2009):389404;Ye Shuxian,A Course in Literary Anthropology 文学人类学教程(Beijing:China Social Sciences Press,2010),343409;Yang Li 杨骊 and Ye Shuxian,eds.,A Study of the Quadruple-Evidence Method 四重证据法研究(Shanghai:Fudan University Press,2019).Resurrecting the Mythological History of Zhurong6(6)Laotong,whom Sima Qian mistook for Juanzhang 卷章,was the son of Zhuanxu,according to“The Classic of the Great Wilderness:The West”大荒西经 of The Classic of Mountains and Seas.The present paper treats this story as saying that the bear ended its hibernation and walked out of the cave,meaning metaphorically that an immortal descended from Heaven.Laotong was also known as Qitong 耆童,an immortal who could renew his youth.For more details,readers can consult“The Classic of the Western Mountains”西山经 of The Classic of Mountains and Seas.(7)Laotong(the bear)fathered Chongli 重黎,the official who regulated fire,who was also known as Zhurong(the bear),according to The Grand Scribes Records.The Chu Silk Manuscript and the“Discourses of the Kingdom of Zhou”周语 of the Discourses of the States indicate that Zhurong was the God of the South,an immortal descending from Heaven.“The Classic of Regions beyond the Seas:The South”海外南经 of The Classic of Mountains and Seas says that Zhurong rode two dragons.Laotong and Zhurong were the first two of the three great ancestors of Chu,as recorded in the inscriptions of Chu Slips unearthed in Baoshan and Wangshan.(8)The younger brother of Chongli,Wuhui 吴回,was also known as Zhurong.He fathered Luzhong 陆终,whose six sons were created out of his wifes ribs,as recorded in the“Genealogy of Emperors”and The Grand Scribes Records.In addition,“The Classic of the Great Wilderness:The West”says that Taizi Zhangqin 太子长琴 was the son of Zhurong.(9)According to The Grand Scribes Records,Luzhong fathered Jilian 季连(bear).The“Capital Relocations of Chu”楚居 of Tsinghua Bamboo Slips says Jilian was an immortal descending from Heaven.(10)Jilian fathered Shizushi 什祖氏(a.k.a.Fuju 附沮),who was the father of Neixiong 内熊(a.k.a.Xuexiong),as evidenced by the“Genealogy of Emperors”and The Grand Scribes Records.The name“Xuexiong”can be found in the Chu Slips of Geling and the“Capital Relocations of Chu.”The Bamboo Slips of the Warring States collected by Anhui University sheds light on the truth about the nomenclature of“Xuexiong.”(11)One of Xuexiongs descendants was Yuxiong 鬻熊,who tutored King Wen of Zhou,as related in The Grand Scribes Records.As the legend goes,Yuxiong authored the Sayings of Master Yu 鬻子.The name“Yuxiong”can be found in the Chu Slips unearthed in Baoshan and Wangshan.(12)Yuxiong fathered Xiongli 熊丽,according to The Grand Scribes Records.(13)Xiongli fathered Xiongkuang 熊狂,according to The Grand Scribes Records.(14)Xiongkuang fathered Xiongyi,who was enfeoffed by King Cheng of Zhou as the founding sovereign of the state of Chu,according to The Grand Scribes Records.(Xiongyi fathered Xiongai 熊艾,forefather of nearly thirty Chu kings bearing the regnal title Xiong in later centuries.)It should be noted that,although the above list includes fourteen generations of ancestors,the true number of ancestors preceding Xiongyi,the founder of the state of Chu,should be larger.For example,between the fourth and fifth generations,there should be Changyi 昌意,son of the Yellow Emperor and father of Zhuanxu;and in the tenth generation,there was Shizushi,son of Jilian and father of Xuexiong.Since there were no narratives about Changyi and Shizushi,they were not included in the list;however,if they had been,there would have been sixteen generations.On the other hand,if the account of the immortal emerging from the Bear Cave on Bear Mountain in The Classic of Mountains and Seas could be understood as the celestial bear descending onto earth in accordance Confucian Academy Vol.9,No.4(2022)7with mythic logic,then the second-generation celestial bear called Fuxi in the Chu Silk Manuscript would be synonymous with the immortal coming from the Bear Cave and thus the fourteen-generation lineage should be reduced to a thirteen-generation lineage.History in Its Original Shape:The Mythological HistoryRefer to page 5 for Chinese.Similarly hereinafterFor what reason does the present paper piece together the fourteen ancestors of Chu scattered among different ancient books?The reason is that detecting the dynastic genealogy of high antiquity must be closely related to the oral transmission of the“great tradition”of culture.The capacity of oral transmission is beyond what intellectuals who depend on writing can imagine.The writing system,which initiates the“little tradition”of culture,is subject to rigorous limitations:the length of written records is subject to the physical limits of the forms of the writing system,such as oracle bones,silk manuscripts,and bamboo slips.Consequently,the written record can by no means carry a tremendous amount of oral transmission but instead must be abbreviations and summaries.The Book of History and The Grand Scribes Records are such cases.In selecting,abridging,adapting,and rewriting old historical texts,the authors must follow their own compositional principles and intellectual tendencies.There have already been a considerable number of unearthed bamboo slips attributed to Chu.2 Even though these primary sources still cannot formulate a grand narration of history due to the limits on length imposed by the writing technologies,it is academically worthwhile to piece together all written records about ancestries in high antiquity.This endeavor is not a simplistic patchwork.Rather,it figuratively chains together scattered beads in accordance with the Chu peoples deep,totemic belief in the bear and the myth of the celestial bear,which should be the key spiritual element in the reconstruction of the history of high antiquity.At present,we try to fill in the gaps in Sima Qians works by including materials that could not or did not dare to be included for reasons of contemporary ideology,in the hope of creating an opportunity to completely reconstruct Chus history in high antiquity.The reconstruction of the thirteen generations preceding Xiongyi,the founding king of Chu,is a tentative effort and may be incomplete,considering that it is a groundbreaking work.Earlier scholars did not have the benefit of so much unearthed literature,and they strictly distinguished between mythology and history in the hope of preventing the pseudohistory,or mythology,from manifesting itself in history.However,since 2009,literary anthropologists have focused on advocating theoretical concepts such as“mythological China”and“mythological history”with a view to reviving the true,original history or metahistory in the phenomenological sense.They hold that there cannot be purely scientific,objective historical writing but only a certain mythologicohistoriconarrative genealogy,just as the epics collected by folklorists among preliterate societies who rely on oral transmission.Within the quadruple-evidence method,oral transmission comprises the third layer of evidence.The second form,such as newly-discovered Chu historical narratives,needs to be 2 The present paper extensively consults Fourteen Unearthed Chu Bamboo Slips of Warring States Era 楚地出土战国简册十四种,edited by Chen Wei 陈伟 and published by the Beijing-based Economic Science Press in 2009.This systematic collection of Chu bamboo slips was the outcome of a major research project of philosophy and social sciences supported by the Chinese Ministry of Education.In addition,the bamboo slips preserved in Shanghai Museum and Tsinghua University and Chu bamboo slips made public since 2009 are all supplements to this collection.A worthy direction for future research is to study how much of these bamboo slips content was used by Sima Qian and how much was completely lost after the Qin and Han dynasties.Resurrecting the Mythological History of Zhurong8checked against it.Those familiar with oral folk literature and intangible cultural heritage know that such narratives always begins with the creation of the world and humankind and then move immediately to the origin of a specific ethnic group and its genealogy.One example is the Ancient Songs of the Miao Ethnic Group 苗族古歌 compiled by Yanbao 燕宝,who specializes in the folklore of the Kaili region of Guizhou.The“Ancient Songs”is a living,orally transmitted specimen of mythologicalhistorical narration.The epic consists of four parts:the creation of the universe,in which the Miao peoples remotest ancestor,a demigod,created heaven and earth;the birth of humanity from maple,in which the origin of humankind,or the direct ancestors of Miao peop