Xinzheng, in Henan Province, is best known as the birthplace of Huangdi, the “Yellow Emperor.” I am going to attempt to make some sense of the Huangdi legends. However, I should point out that what we actually know about Huangdi is approximately nothing, so anything I say may be almost as useless as everything else people say about him. Tradition says that Huangdi was born in Xinzheng about 4700 years ago. This is contemporary with the 4th Dynasty of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the dynasty which built the great pyramids at Giza. Huangdi had a younger brother (cousin, relative, or whatever) named Yandi, or Emperor Yan. One story says Huangdi and Yandi fought a series of bloody battles for control of the North China Plain. Some say Yandi was the ancestor of the Korean people. Some versions of the story say the two reconciled and, presumably, lived happily ever after.
Huangdi is credited with the invention of boats, wagons, the bow and arrow, clothing, silk, ceramics, writing, the calendar, and possibly the Internet. An ugly (but wise) wife of Huangdi is honored as the inventor of weaving, while another wife allegedly started sericulture, the raising of silkworms. And it wasn’t Huangdi himself, but rather a minister commissioned by Huangdi who actually invented writing. Likewise, Yandi is honored as the originator of farming, Chinese medicine, and irrigation. Huangdi was also the first of five great Sage Emperors who ruled before the first historic dynasty.
What, if any, of this can be believed?
Most scholars, especially in the West, are inclined to dismiss the stories as mere legend. After all, the first written records which have survived didn’t appear until some 2500 years after he lived. That’s a long time to transmit an oral tradition with any accuracy, although, I suppose, one could argue that perhaps the stories were once written down long ago and later lost.
We do believe that sericulture was invented at about this time period, and that writing could have been invented about this same time. The oracle bones found at the Shang capital of Yin (modern Anyang) date to around 1300 BC and contain some 5000 characters. A language of this complexity would have taken hundreds of years to evolve, which puts its origins at least in the same millennium as Huangdi. However, there are some elements of the legends which do not seem to fit the facts.
For example, Huangdi is credited with inventing chariots, or wagons. I suppose anything is possible. But the first archaeological evidence for chariots appears at Yinxu (Anyang) at about 1200 BC, some 1500 years after Huangdi lived. Most scholars believe the technology was learned from the peoples of the steppes.
Then there is the famous South Pointing Cart which Huangdi allegedly invented and used to defeat an enemy during a fog. It is a mechanical wagon with a standing figure whose outstretched arm always points south. This is done through a series of gears connected to the wheels, so that no matter which way the wagon turns, the arm still points in the same direction. It is ingenious, and we actually do have such a machine in Chinese history. But it is attributed to an inventor during the Northern Song, about 3700 years after Huangdi. At any rate this is the first verifiable record of this invention.
While I have seen nothing in the legends which state that Huangdi carried a massive William Wallace-type sword, nevertheless, he is usually depicted carrying one. It looks impressive, but the fact remains that the jian – the Chinese double-edged bronze sword – does not appear in the literary or the archaeological record until around 600 BC, some 2000 years after Huangdi.
The portrait of Huangdi from which all the heroic images and statues of today derive comes from a Ming encyclopedia published in 1607. Interestingly, kings and emperors depicted there ranging over a 2500-year period are all shown wearing the same headdress, which looks something like a Western graduation mortarboard. I realize that China is a very conservative culture, but 2500 years of following the same style does seem a bit unlikely. I don’t really think anyone has a clue as to what Huangdi actually looked like.
Now here I am going make a statement which I cannot defend, namely, that I believe Huangdi really existed. The more I study ancient cultures, the more respect I have for the essential validity of oral tradition. I don’t agree with many of the details, but I do think there is an historical person behind all the legends. Let me propose the following scenario:
Huangdi was probably a tribal leader who lived and ruled for a long time. During his lifetime people began to make the transition from a hunting and gathering culture to an agricultural culture. Many of the inventions which helped make up civilization came into being around this time. Probably he was remembered as a wise leader. People tended to attribute to him personally events and inventions which began during his reign. During the following centuries people embellished the story by attributing everything invented in the remote past to him.
The title “emperor,” however, only adds to the confusion. We must not think of emperor here as someone like Caesar or Napoleon. A better analogy would be a tribal chieftain like Geronimo. I actually used this analogy with a visiting delegation from the Apache Nation in Arizona, and they understood and appreciated it. A week later I again used it with another group of visitors from the Northern Flyover Zone, and someone in that group took such offense to my analogy that I was fired from giving the rest of my history lectures. Having thought about it since, I now realize my Geronimo analogy was misguided. I think Sequoyah would be a much better example. Sequoyah, like Huangdi, presided over the development of a written language. Likewise, Sequoyah represents a settled, agricultural culture rather than a nomadic hunting and gathering one. Nevertheless, I stand by my tribal analogy. Huangdi did not live at Versailles, nor did he control a mighty empire. At best he was head man over a village or a developing town and its surrounding agricultural zone. Even the words “capital” and “city” are too anachronistic at this early stage of Chinese civilization.
The problem of Huangdi goes to the very heart of the problem of the uses and abuses of history. The Huangdi stories are not perpetuated by serious historians who seek an accurate understanding of the past. Huangdi is more important as a symbol than as an actual person. As a symbol, he serves a contemporary cultural and political agenda.
A brief history of the Huangdi Temple in Xinzheng is in order. The temple itself was first built during the Han Dynasty, at the site where people had honored the birth of Huangdi for over 2500 years. Like most temples in China, it was renovated many times over the centuries. It suffered destruction during the Cultural Revolution in the campaign to eliminate Old Thinking. In the 1980s it was rebuilt and greatly enlarged. At that time many other temples throughout China were also rebuilt. I suspect that part of the reason may have been a sincere desire to atone for the excesses of the past. But also, part of the reason may have been to send a message to the Chinese outside the mainland. The message, in my opinion, was something like, “your ancestral faith is now safe in China.” This message was aimed particularly at Chinese living in Hong Kong and Taiwan. At that time it was not yet certain that Hong Kong would be returned to China following its 150-year occupation by the British. Having viewed the excesses of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese population of Hong Kong was pretty apprehensive about the possibility of rejoining the mainland.
Hong Kong, of course, returned to China peacefully in 1997. Today, some eleven years later, the threat of oppression from the mainland has been put to rest. The people’s worst fears proved unfounded. The city is fabulously prosperous, while individual liberties have not diminished one bit. But in 1980, one could have hardly predicted it. In my opinion, the decision to rebuild the temples was part of a plan to peacefully win over the people of those two regions, to demonstrate to them that religion was now safe to practice in China. The Huangdi story assumed even greater significance, in that the majority of the Chinese people consider him their First Ancestor. The appeal then became, “come back to China, the land of your ancestors.”
Xinzheng now hosts an annual Huangdi celebration every spring. Thousands of Chinese visitors come to hear speeches and offer incense at the shrine of their ancestor. Thousands of townspeople and students from Sias University line the main highway, drumming and lion-dancing, as busses of visitors pass by on their way to the temple. Just a few years ago an entire city block was torn down to make room for the temple’s expansion, which includes a wall listing some 3000 family names of all the Chinese people.
Nearby in Zhengzhou a giant statue of Huangdi and Yandi, complete with a large altar, was recently erected overlooking the Huang He or Yellow River. One Internet source states that it is the fourth tallest statue in the world. Of course, the revival of Huangdi worship is not in isolation. The government is stressing the virtues taught by Kongzi (Confucius), has rebuilt many Daoist and Buddhist temples, and created a new Buddhist theme park on Hainan Island. (See my photo album for “Sanya & Hainan Island,” posted at my website under “Chinese Scenic Places.” The 108-meter tall statue of Bodhisattva Guanyin is reputedly the second-tallest statue in the world.) Moreover, the official Three Self Protestant Church has constructed many new church buildings, including a large, cathedral-sized one across the street from my own campus. While the Communist Party is still officially atheist, and the government publicly discourages superstition, religion is making a major comeback in China and religious liberty appears very much a reality today.
The link at the end will take you to a photo album of the Huangdi Temple and celebration in Xinzheng, along with other photos illustrating points made in this essay.
November 19, 2008
Gary L. Todd, Ph.D.
Professor of History
Sias International University
Xinzheng, Henan, China
http://picasaweb.google.com/GaryLeeTodd/HuangdiWorshipOtherReligiousCenters#
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