Appendix 2 - The dates of the Han-shu 56 memorials

Summary

For centuries historians have debated the dates of Tung Chung-shu's three memorials to Emperor Wu in Han-shu 56. Of the many positions proposed on the issue, the most plausible has been that Tung composed them in either 140 or 134 b.c.e. The conflict derives from the historical records that describe the context in which Tung composed the memorials, as well as their content. Han-shu 56 and Shih-chi 121 record that Tung participated in an imperial inquiry ‘after Emperor Wu assumed the throne’ (shang chi wei) and that the emperor promptly appointed him administrator to the kingdom of Chiang-tu. They suggest that Tung Chung-shu became administrator the first year that Emperor Wu assumed the throne in 140 b.c.e. However, the Han-shu ‘Annals of Emperor Wu’ indicates that Tung wrote his memorials in 134 b.c.e., not in 140 b.c.e. This chapter records that Tung Chung-shu and Kung-sun Hung distinguished themselves in an imperial inquiry of 134 b.c.e. An additional passage from the Han-shu ‘Treatise on Ritual and Music,’ which cites the first of Tung's memorials in Han-shu 56, also supports a 134 b.c.e. date for at least one of Tung's memorials.