Sima Tan

Who is Sima Tan?

Sima Tan 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 between 140-110 BC. While Sima Tan had begun the Records of the Grand Historian, 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": Confucianism, Daoism, Legalism, Mohism, School of Names, and School of Naturalists – 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.