The Yellow Emperor – Man or Myth?

by Ernie Diaz

To Chinese, the Yellow Emperor is Adam, Abraham, and Yaweh rolled into one. The common ancestor of all Han, their original patriarch, and the locus of all ancestor worship, Huangdi’s story is equal parts myth and history. Therefore, he cannot be written off as pure legend, at least not any more lightly than western deities. Yet for all that, his mausoleum makes few China “must see” lists, and his story is usually only well known to school children who have just studied it.

A marvel of feng shui propitiousness, the Yellow Emperor’s mausoleum sits at the foot of Qiaoshan, ensconced in a grove of ancient cypress trees overlooking the peaceful Jushui River. A massive stele inscribed “Tomb of the Yellow Emperor” stands next to an altar for offerings, long since washed of the blood that sanctified it for thousands of years. The close forest stillness, and perhaps the accumulated reverence displayed here over millennia, make the mausoleum one of the most somber corners of China.

Close by is Xuanyuan Temple, bearing the Yellow Emperor’s original name. For revered historian Sima Qian recorded in his Historical Records that the Yellow Emperor was indeed a man born of woman, one Sun Xuanyuan, son of Sun Shaodian, of the Yan clan. Thus do Yans around China claim a special kinship to the father of civilization, and have been making offerings at the temple from time immemorial.

A baker’s dozen pavilions laid out with painstaking feng shui correctness, their intricate carvings and calligraphy, resemble ten thousand other notable spots around China. What set this particular temple apart are the sixteen ancient cypress trees gracing the innermost courtyard. The tallest and most stately is reputed to be over five thousand years old, planted by none other than he to whom the temple is dedicated.

But one doesn’t become the progenitor of a race by haunting temples and planting trees, at least not all the time. And although the mausoleum and temple sit squarely on Shaanxi Province’s loess plateau, the Yellow Emperor was born on a hill in what is now central Henan’s Xinzheng City. At the time of his birth, the country there round was known as Youxiong, “Has Bears”. A central China with bears not otherwise dancing miserably or attached to bile drainers was a much wilder place indeed.

Not so wild as to not have already had its own culture, as archeologist discovered in 1977, digging up the remains of the Peiligang People, distinguishing themselves from the Neolithic some eight thousand years ago. By contrast, the leadership of Youxiong country by Sun Xuanyuan’s father, Shaodian, seems not so distant. Furthermore, various historical documents from the Yi Tong Annals to the Generations of Imperial Capitals declare that Xuanyuan first ruled in Xinzheng “in the country known as having bears”. Naturally, Yan descendants still regularly descend on Xinzheng to pay respects to the Yellow Emperor and otherwise lay claim to past glory.

Ironic then that Xuanyuan began his path to immortality by first defeating the reigning emperor of the Yan State, assuming the title, then forming an alliance with his vanquished foe to stave off an invasion of nine savage tribes. If it seems subjective to call the invaders “savage”, in comparison to the new Yan Emperor and his people they surely were. For Xuanyuan in peacetime gave his people the secrets of agriculture, teaching them the science of sowing and reaping in season. For all their charms, no hunter gatherers can know extensive civilization, nor its discontents.

With his people secure in the knowledge of coaxing bounty from the earth, Xuanyuan originated the practice of medicine. Roaming the uncultivated hills, he spent years collecting wild plants and herbs, testing their properties and assigning them to the maladies that plagued his newly civilized folk. His own guinea pig, Xuanyuan poisoned himself seventy two times. It was on such an occasion, green in the gills unto dying, that he stumbled on an aromatic plant, which steeped in boiling water brought him through. Camilla sinensis, better known as tea, has been a boon to the Chinese ever since. So too was Xuanyuan’s pharmacopeia, China’s first, cataloguing some 365 plants and their uses.

Renaissance men justly draw admiration, but what to say of a naissance man such as the Yellow Emperor? He did the whole uniting tribes and capital-building bit, like so many after him. Such martial politicking is reckoned to keep the most vigorous men busy into their senescence. Yet the Yellow Emperor, aside from doing it first, then originating agriculture and medicine, set about on a streak of cultural innovation his Qin Emperor descendant would envy. The calendar, the compass, ship building, archery, all are credited to the protean genius of the first true Han.

How he found time is anyone’s guess, yet the Yellow Emperor managed to produce twenty-five sons, fourteen of them legitimate enough to bear his name. Their sons and their sons went on to found the Xia (2070 – 1600 BCE), Shang (1600-1046 BCE) and Zhou (1046-256 BCE) Dynasties. All were unequivocal in claiming his blood. The practice didn’t end there. Today, people from the Mainland, Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong alike gather at the Yellow Emperor’s mausoleum on Qingming in an inspiring display of unity. Whatever the veracity of his other feats, that may just be the neatest trick of all.

Han of all national stripe, united in Qingming respect for their common ancestor, at his mausoleum

Related posts:

1. Advice Fit for an Emperor
2. The Man Who Would Be Emperor
3. The China Expert: Myth or Misnomer?
4. The China Expert: Myth or Misnomer?
5. Sooth Your Soul on Fabled Yellow Mountain 3-Day, $811 USD – China Highlights

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.