The Place of Shen-nong in the System of Legendary History of the Apocryphal Text <i>Chunqiu Minglixu</i>

Abstract

Shen-nong (Divine Farmer) is one of the sovereigns who was believed to rule All-Under-Heaven in ancient times. Although from the 1stc. BC onwards his place in the legendary history of China was generally defined, some conflicting accounts still remained. One of these contained in now lost apocryphal text Chunqiu Minglixu, notable for its unique system of ancient history. Although Shen-nong is only twice mentioned in the surviving quotations from this apocrypha, fragments of other lost texts that were influenced by Minglixu testify its special treatment of Shen-nong. They allow to conclude that in this apocrypha’s system of ancient history there were two Shen-nongs: the first one, the August Shen-nong, ruled at the dawn of history and was endowed with cosmogonic activities, while the second one, also called Yan-di from the Da-ting clan, reigned much later and was perceived as a founder of his own dynasty.