Page 545 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

HUANGDI 505

the central sector and instead given a place as an acolyte of the Great One
among the other emperors grouped around him.
The character huang Jt (yellow) is often used in ancient literature as equiva-
lent to hang ~ (august, venerable, superior). But Huangdi ~ * or "august
emperor" is the name of the heavenly god Shangdi J: *. Thus, the Yellow
Emperor was placed on th~ same level as the highest heavenly god, and the
four emperors personifying the points of the compass were subordinated to
him. The prestige attached to Huangdi as a heavenly god and an ancestral
father of nearly all the noble families in China was one reason Huangdi was
chosen as a patron of Taoism and of medicine.

Prototype of the wise ruler. Chapter I of the Shiji (Records of the Historian)
places the perfect kingdom of the first emperor and cultural hero Huangdi
at the beginning of the history of mankind. In Taoism, he is presented as the
model emperor since he turns to the wise old masters for advice, as described
in the *Zhuangzi (chapter n; trans. Watson 1968, n8-20). Just as Laozi was the
model of the wise counsel or who served as a minister under virtuous rulers,
so Huangdi was the ideal ruler who took the advice of such wise counselors.
This is evident in numerous records of dialogues in which Huangdi consults
his ministers and counselors. While the *Huangdi neijing (Inner Scripture
of the Yellow Emperor) is the most notable example (Seidel 1969, 50-51), he
appears as a questioner already in the first four dialogues of a *Mawangdui
manuscript, the Shiwen + ro~ (Ten Questions; trans. Harper 1998, 385-4n), in
which ten *yangsheng specialists respond to questions.

Patron of mantic and medical practices. In ancient times, Huangdi was also
closely linked to the families or guilds of potters and blacksmiths, who were
the direct forefathers of the alchemists. Thus, *Li Shaojun taught Han Wudi
the way of making gold as the "art of achieving immortality, as practiced by
Huangdi" (Shiji 28; trans. Watson 1961, 2: 39).
In the *Huang-Lao tradition, which flourished in the first half of the second
century BeE, the Yellow Emperor was seen as model "emperor-turned-im-
mortal" (Yti Ying-shih 1964, I02 ff.) associated with the unofficial transmission
of various mantic and medical practices, which appear to have made him an
important figure for one faction at the courts of Han Wendi (r. 180-157 BeE)
and HanJingdi (r. 157-141 BeE; van Ess I993a).
The affiliation of texts with mythical sage-rulers of antiquity, such as the
Divine Husbandman (Shennong :f$.) and the Yellow Emperor, became in-
creasingly common during the Han. In the bibliography of the Hanshu (History
of the Former Han), the Yellow Emperor is associated with works classified
under Divinities and Immortals (shenxian .f!~ {ill), Medical Classics (yijing If t.~ ),
Arts of the Numbers (shushu !J&1*J), and Methods and Techniques (*fangji).