Occupation Historian Died 110 BC, Luoyang, China Name Sima Tan | Relatives Sima Qian (son) Religion Huang-Lao (Daoism) Children Sima Qian | |
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Born 165 BC Longmen, Han Dynasty
(now Hejin, Shanxi) | ||
史記 / Records of the Historian
Sima Tan (traditional Chinese: 司馬談; simplified Chinese: 司马谈; pinyin: Sīmǎ Tán; Wade–Giles: Ssu-ma T'an, c. 165 BC – 110 BC) was an early Chinese historian who worked under the Western Han. He studied astronomy with Tang Du, the I Ching under Yang He, and Daoism under Master Huang. He held the position of Court Astrologer (太史令) between 140-110 BC. While Sima Tan had begun the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), he died before it was finished. It was left to his son, Sima Qian, to complete. The year of Sima Tan's death is the year of the great imperial sacrifice fengshan zh:封禅 by Han Wudi, for which the emperor appointed the fangshi, leaving Sima behind and thus probably causing him much frustration.
An essay by him has survived within the Records of the Grand Historian. In this essay, Sima Tan speaks of six philosophical lineages or "schools" (家 jiā): Confucianism (儒家 Rú jiā), Daoism (道家 Dào jiā), Legalism (法家 Fǎ jiā), Mohism (墨家 Mò jiā), School of Names (名家 Míng jiā), and School of Naturalists (陰陽家/阴阳家 Yīnyáng jiā) – the central figure of this last "school" being Zou Yan. This organization of the philosophers of the past into six schools was somewhat original. As for his assessment of these schools, it is rather biased towards Daoism as Sima Tan was a follower of Huang-Lao, an early Han form of Daoism.