A WHO’S WHO OF LEGENDARY AND HISTORICAL SAGES

 

Legendary figures

 

Yao    堯       For Confucians, Yao represented the beginnings of history and civilization.  He is credited with fashioning the first human institutions by reinterpreting the patterns of the Heavens and the seasons as a calendar to order human activities.  He was also celebrated for passing his throne on to a worthy man rather than to his son, thus representing the meritocratic values of the Classical philosophers.  Zhuangzi enjoyed making fun of Yao.

 

Shun  舜  The successor to Yao.  Shun’s worthiness was a function of his supreme filiality.  Despite the fact that Shun’s family was comprised entirely of people whose morals would make a Mafia don look saintly, Shun never wavered in his love of and service to them.  For this, he was made emperor (think about it when you next go home for a visit).  Like Yao, he passed the throne to a worthy man and founded no dynasty.

 

Yu    禹     Originally a figure in a popular flood myth, Yu was recreated as a bureaucrat and king in Confucian lore.  As Minister of Public Works under Shun, Yu singlehandedly planned and administered the control of Noah-scale flood waters, a task that his evil father had previously failed to fulfill.  Unlike Yao and Shun, Yu passed his throne on to his son, and thus became the founder of a dynasty, the Xia.  (In the Mencius, a questioner reveals that some Confucians were less than enthusiastic about Yu because of this.)  Yu was the most admired sage of the Mohists, who celebrated his tireless altruism during the flood years.  (Mohists also embraced Yao and Shun, but with less enthusiasm.)

 

Historical figures

 

Tang  湯   Also called “Tang the Successful,” he was the founder of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1500), Tang was a good but not great local leader during a time when the reigning Xia Dynasty king was a tyrant devoted only to his sexy young wife and evil ministers (or so the story goes).  Tang was awakened to the need to overthrow the debased Xia Dynasty by an obscure man who became his chief minister, Yi Yin.

 

Yi Yin  伊尹  Minister to Tang.  According to Mencius, Yi Yin was a sage who lived in obscurity until the debauchery of the last Xia ruler made him seek out a decent leader whom he could guide to conquer the Xia and found a new dynasty.  Mencius discusses Yi Yin’s character in some detail.  (The historic Yi Yin was actually a cousin of Tang and a very powerful man in his own right, but these facts were not known during the Classical era.)

 

King Wen  文王  In a story remarkably like the last days of the Xia, the Shang Dynasty was said to have come to a close under the rule of another evil king besotted by his sexy young wife.  King Wen was the leader of the Zhou tribe, members of the Shang polity.  During his long reign (c. 1100-1050), he is said to have transformed the Zhou from a semi-barbarous tribe to a cultured people (hence his posthumous title, “The Patterned King”).  Although he forbore to overthrow the last ruler of the Shang (whose name was, perversely, Zhòu 紂 -- different from the name of the dynasty that supplanted him: Zhou 周), he laid the groundwork for the Zhou conquest.  Confucians celebrated King Wen without reservation, both for the excellence of his cultural achievements, and because he attempted to mitigate the evil of the Shang without resorting to arms.