Jizi
| Jizi | |||||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 箕子 | ||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 箕子 | ||||||||
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| Korean name | |||||||||
| Hangul | 기자 | ||||||||
| Hanja | 箕子 | ||||||||
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Jizi (Chinese:箕子) (Gija in Korean)[1] was a semi-legendary Chinese sage who is said to have ruled Gojoseon by theory in the 12th century BCE. His family name was Zi (子) and given name was Xuyu (胥餘/서여 xūyú/seoyeo, or 須臾/수유 xūyú/suyu).
Legend
The typical narrative of the legend of Jizi is as follows:
Jizi was a relative of Zhou, last king of the Shang Dynasty and known as one of the three wise men of Shang, along with Weizi and Bigan. Some identify him as Grant Tutor of the king. He was imprisoned by the corrupt king because he remonstrated against the misrule (One variant states that he pretended to be a madman after Bigan was killed by King Zhou. In any case, he was imprisoned). After Shang was overthrown by the Zhou Dynasty, he was released by King Wu. He gave King Wu advice on politics when the king visited him. King Wu enfeoffed Jizi on Joseon, which is identified as northwestern Korea today. There he taught the people rites, agriculture, sericulture and weaving.
Evolution of the legend of Jizi
As time has passed, legends about Jizi have become more and more numerous, leading many to argue that much of his story is fictional.
It is not easy to date classical Chinese texts, but pre-Qin Dynasty documents including the Analects of Confucius, the Shangshu and the Bamboo Annals simply say that he was a virtuous man from the Shang royal family. He was never associated with Joseon. In addition, these texts make no mention of Jizi's descendants.
The earliest known source that states Jizi went to Joseon is the Shangshu dazhuan (2nd century BC?). The Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) by Sima Qian records a similar but more detailed story, but unlike the Shangshu dazhuan, it says that Jizi did not became a subject of King Wu although he was enfeoffed by the king. In the Shiji, this story is placed at the section of the Song ruling family (宋微子世家), whose founder was Weizi from the former Shang, but is not mentioned at the section of contemporary Joseon (i.e. northwestern Korea), where Wei Man's kingdom had flourished until being conquered by the Han Dynasty. Thus the location of Joseon as in these earlier sources is not clear. Among Han-Dynasty sources, the Hanshi waizhuan mentions to Jizi but not to Jizi's migration to Joseon.
The Hanshu (1st century AD) makes no mention to Jizi in the section of Joseon but adds Jizi's education in the section of Dilizhi (地理志): He taught the people of Joseon rites, agriculture, sericulture and weaving. In addition, a sentence in the Hanshu has been interpreted as Jizi's introduction of the law of "Eight Prohibitions" in Joseon.[2]
The Weilüe, which was complied during the Kingdom of Wei (220-265) or later, inserts a record about Jizi's descendants and connects Jizi to Wei Man's kingdom in northwestern Korea: Jizi's descendants remained in Joseon and claimed themselves as king after the Zhou Dynasty declined. Last king Jun (準) was expelled in 192 B.C. by Wei Man, who was a Yan Chinese and had fled to Joseon. Jun fled to the south and proclaimed himself the King of Han (韓).
According to a commentary to the Shiji, Du Yu (first half of the 3rd century) stated that the tomb of Jizi was located in Meng Prefecture of the State of Liang (modern-day Henan). This suggests that the story of Jizi's association with Joseon was not necessarily prevailing although the narrative seen in the Hanshu later became common.
According to the Old Book of Tang, the people of Goguryeo, who had already conquered the former Chinese commanderies, worshipped Jizi as one of the major deities.
Relationship with historical facts
Because it is confirmed that early Chinese history books reflect historical facts at least from the late Shang Dynasty onwards, the Jizi described in pre-Qin sources is generally considered a real character. Cultural material evidences suggest that a small city state in Liaoning was ruled by Jihou (㠱侯) or Lord Ji under the Yan Kingdom.[3] Jihou may be the model of Jizi.
As for post-Qin sources, the story in the Weilüe is controversial because it contains information that cannot be found in preceding materials. Japanese scholar Imanishi Ryū presumed that this story had spread to China because of Chinese direct rule of the northwestern part of the Korean peninsula during the Han dynasty and that the source of information would have been the influential Chinese Han clan of the Lelang Commandery, who might have claimed themselves as descendants of Jizi.
Acceptance of the legend of Jizi in Korea
During the Goryeo Dynasty, King Sukjong identified a mound near P'yŏngyang as Jizi's tomb. He built a mausoleum to enshrine him in 1102. The mausoleum was rebuilt in 1324 and repaired in 1355. In the Samguk Yusa (1281?) and the Jewang Ungi (1287), the story of Jizi follows that of the Weilüe, but unlike Chinese sources, they add that Jizi succeeded Dangun, who had ruled Gojoseon (old Joseon). Most subsequent Korean history books follow this narrative.
The succeeding Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910) intensified state worship of Jizi because it advocated Neo-Confucianism. The name "Joseon", which was given by Ming, was derived from Jizi's dukedom. Ritual rites in honor of Jizi performed in P'yŏngyang were refined during the reign of King Taejong. In 1429, King Sejong separated Dangun from the mausoleum of Jizi. King Sejong also put up a monument in honor of Jizi.
Around this time, agricultural fields allegedly developed by Jizi became known in P'yŏngyang. These fields came to prominence among Ming Chinese too. In 1570, King Seonjo erected a monument there that instructed people to alight from horses (out of respect for Jizi).
A number of books on Jizi were published including the Gijaji (箕子志) of 1580, a collection of available materials on him, and the Gija Silgi (箕子實記) by Yi I. Around the same time, many Korean clans started to associate their origins with Jizi. Among them, the Cheongju Han clan (淸州韓氏), the Deokyang Gi clan (德陽奇氏) and the Taewon Seonu clan (太原鮮于氏) claimed that they originated in Jizi although their assertion is based on fictional figures created after typographical errors.[4] They eventually cooked up a complete genealogy of Jizi and his descendants.
Jizi and Korean nationalism
From the 19th century, the upsurge of nationalism shifted the foreign sage to a nuisance. At first, the Korean Empire placed equal importance on Dangun and Jizi (or weighted toward Jizi) to portray Korea as an independent kingdom instead of a vassal state of China. In this context, it was stressed that King Wu of Zhou had not treated Jizi as a subject. The Korean Empire also considered that the Mandate of Heaven was transferred from Jizi to Samhan, Silla and Goryeo, and ultimately to the empire itself. In the process of forming Korean nationalism, however, the symbol of national unification came to be limited to Dangun, and the Chinese sage completely got eliminated.
The problem for Korean nationalists is that, from its earliest known form, the myth of Dangun is connected to Jizi's migration. The elimination of Jizi's existence threatens credibility of Dangun's story which by all means they want to treat as (at least a reflection of) historical facts.
One solution is to identify Jizi as Korean. For example, according to Choe Namseon, the word "Jizi" was a distortion of Korean "gaeaji", which allegedly meant "son of the sun" and was used as the title for a monarch who succeeded Dangun, although the lack of linguistic knowledge made his theory nothing more than a word play.[5] Similarly, Yi Byeongdo claimed that the ruling family of Gija Joseon (Jizi Chaoxian) was actually the Korean Han clan who later falsely claimed descent from Jizi.[6]
Another solution is to place Jizi outside of Korea: Jizi did not come to Korea but was enfeoffed somewhere in China. Candidates for the place of his enfeoffment include Meng Prefecture (modern-day Henan, China), based on Du Yu's above-mentioned statement, and Taigu, Shanxi, China, based on the Spring and Autumn Annals. Cheon Gwanu combined the two solutions and claimed that the Korean Gi tribe, led by Jizi, established Gija Joseon in Hebei and later migrated to P'yŏngyang.[7]
In South Korea, the national-history textbook of high school education drove Jizi's description out of the main text and he was marginally mentioned in a note.[8] The textbook of the latest 7th Curriculum completely eliminates Jizi.
In North Korea, the Juche ideology makes it nearly impossible for scholars to accept that their country was controlled by foreigners like Chinese, even in ancient times. According to Chinese scholar Zong Yan, the mausoleum of Jizi in P'yŏngyang had already been removed without a trace.[9]
Notes
- ^ The character "zi" in "Jizi" does not mean a rank of nobility. It was Shang's tradition that royal family members were called by the combination of the places at which they were enfeoffed and the suffix "zi". See: Chen Pu-qing 陈蒲清: 论箕子的"子"不是爵位 (On the character "Zi" in the Name of "Jizi"), 湖南师范大学社会科学学报 (Journal of Social Science of Hunan Normal University) Vol.32 No.2, pp. 92-93, 2003.
- ^ The Sanguozhi and other later documents interpret the "Eight Prohibitions" in the Hanshu as Jizi's teaching. But it is also possible that the corresponding sentences describe the early phase of Lelang Commandery and is not necessary related to Jizi.
- ^ In Beijing and Kharachin Left Wing Mongol Autonomous Prefecture of Liaoning Province, many bronzes with the character 㠱 inscribed have been discovered. This leads an assumption that the state of Ji was located within the territory of Yan of the Western Zhou Dynasty.
- ^ The original sentence from the Weilüe is: 其子及親留在國者因冒姓韓氏 (his [Jun's] son(s) and relatives who remained in the state pretended to have the surname Han). One source misprinted 及親 as 有親 and the sentence was interpreted as "his son Youqin..." Another source further distorted the sentence and created another nonexistent person Youliang 有諒. See (Imanishi:1970).
- ^ Choe Namseon: Monogatari Chōsen no rekishi, p.15, 1988 (original title: Gukmin Joseon yeoksa 國民朝鮮歷史).
- ^ Yi Byeongdo 李丙燾: Kankoku kodaishi kenkyū 韓国古代史研究, pp. 50-53, 1980.
- ^ (Shim 2002)
- ^ The theory introduced in the national history textbooks of the 5th and 6th Curriculums treats Jizi as a Korean tribe.
- ^ Zong Yan 宗岩: 朝鲜的箕子陵与檀君陵, 中国东北边疆研究, ed. by Ma Dazheng 马大正, p. 122, 2003.
References
- Imanishi Ryū 今西龍: Kishi Chōsen densetsu kō 箕子朝鮮伝説考, Chōsen koshi no kenkyū 朝鮮古史の研究, pp. 131-173, 1970.
- Kuwano Eiji 桑野栄治: Richō shoki no shiten wo tōshite mita Dankun saishi 李朝初期の祀典を通してみた檀君祭祀, Chōsen Gakuhō 朝鮮学報 (Journal of the Academic Association of Koreanology in Japan), Vol. 14, pp. 57-101, 1959.
- Sassa Mitsuaki 佐々充昭: Dankun nashonarizumu no keisei 檀君ナショナリズムの形成, Chōsen Gakuhō 朝鮮学報 (Journal of the Academic Association of Koreanology in Japan), Vol. 174, pp. 61-107, 2000.
- Jae-hoon Shim: A New Understanding of Kija Chosŏn as a Historical Anachronism, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, Volume 62 Number 2, pp. 271-305, 2002.