Multicultural China in the Early Middle Ages. Sanping Chen
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the Tuoba emperor Xiaowen's wholesale sinicization drive, in which the emperor took personal responsibility for abolishing even the leisure dress of the Xianbei women (Wei shu 19.469 and 21.536), official records clearly state that most of the so-called regular dresses during the Tang were of the Tuoba military tradition (Jiu Tang shu [The Old History of the Tang Dynasty] 45.1938, 45.1951; Xin Tang shu 24.527–28; and Tang huiyao 31.577–78). However, as to how this was viewed by the traditional gentry, I note that the felt hat personally popularized by Zhangsun Wuji, Emperor Taizong's brother-in-law, was later labeled by the Confucian historians as “devilish” (Xin Tang shu 34.878). Another telltale case, according to an early Song dynasty source Tang yulin (Anecdotes of the Tang, 4.101) and corroborated by Xin Tang shu (125.4407), was Emperor Xuanzong's feeling of alienation merely because of his chief minister Zhang Yue's “Confucian dress.” These incidents again point to a gap between the Tang ruling class and the Confucian gentry in this regard.
5. Social mores. Several notable customs practiced by the Li clansmen, such as breast-sucking and foot-kissing, betrayed the clan's non-Hàn cultural heritage. Again we owe these two important observations to Liu Pansui's already cited pioneering study, albeit Liu's citations are far from complete. The customs' origins are certainly worthy of further exploration, especially a possible relationship between foot-kissing and the well-known ancient Iranian custom of proskynesis documented by Greek authors from Herodotus on down, and particularly with respect to Alexander the Great. But to me the most famous (or notorious) custom was the Li clan's record on levirate and other scandalous matrimonial relations. The practice, as I point out in a later chapter, reflected a key northern legacy in the Tang house, namely the lack of clearly defined and recognized generational boundaries on the Steppe. In addition to the many well-known cases, I note the tomb inscription of the wife of the Türk general Ashina Zhong unearthed in the 1970s, which reveals yet another marriage of Emperor Taizong's with his former in-laws.21 The case was not reported anywhere in existing records, suggesting even more such incidents that were similarly suppressed in the official histories. As to how this would have been looked upon by the Confucian gentry, suffice it to say that when the Tang house's ethnicity finally became an open issue in the Southern Song, “violations of the Confucian standard governing a women's proper behaviour” was the first question raised.22
6. Another interesting cultural trait was the “Barbarian” childhood names fashionable among the Northern aristocracy, the Sui and Tang houses included. Both Sui emperors Wendi and Yangdi had such names: the father's childhood name was Nanluoyan (Taisho No. 2060, 667c) and the son's Ame (ZZTJ 179.5577). So did Yang Yong and Li Jiancheng, the two one-time crown princes, under the founding emperors of the Sui and Tang dynasties, respectively. The former's childhood name was Gandifa (ZZTJ 179.5575), which can be identified with a similar childhood name, Qizhifa, the “Xian-bei-ized” warlord Feng Ba of the Tuoba Wei period (Wei shu 97.2126). Li Jiancheng's childhood name was Pishamen (Xin Tang shu 79.3540). As shall be discussed later, these two princes shared more than having a “Barbarian” childhood name and being an unsuccessful heir apparent. There is good evidence that many of these names were of Buddhist origin, but the real point is their nonsinicized forms. For example, Sui Wendi's name Naluoyan was also the name of a Central Asian Türk chief (ZZTJ 212.6735). An intriguing story is that a passage in Jiu Tang shu (64.2415) indicated unmistakably that Emperor Taizong also had such a childhood name. But nowhere could this name be found in any records. One can only conclude that the emperor made sure his “Barbarian” name became an absolute imperial taboo. Another case is the childhood name Zhinu of Li Zhi the future emperor Gaozong (Jiu Tang shu 64.2415) His father's use of a proverb “Having borne a wolf…” to describe Li Zhi's character (ZZTJ 197.6208) leads me to submit that this seemingly Hàn name was but a corrupted or masked proto-Mongolian term for “wolf.” This term was well attested as the clan name Chinu, which became Lang, “wolf,” in Tuoba emperor Xiaowen's sinicization drive (Wei shu, 113.3013). As Peter Boodberg pointed out in “The Language of the T'o-pa Wei,” another likely attestation was the popular personal name Chounu.
7. Yet another issue showing the marked contrast between the Tang imperial house and the Confucian gentry was the monarchs' extravagant patronage of the performing arts—music, dance, drama, and other entertainment—much to the horror of the Confucian moralists. Worse still, the Turco-Xianbei emperors often showed little reservation in bestowing on these artists, considered of the same social class as house slaves and prostitutes by the traditional Chinese gentry, prominent and prestigious titles. One such artist was even enfeoffed with a princedom by the Northern Qi (550–57), a precedent the Sui emperor Yangdi once wanted to follow to benefit his favorite and talented Kuchaean musician Bai Mingda, who would continue to serve the Tang with distinction (Sui shu [The History of the Sui Dynasty] 15.397). The first two Tang emperors were both criticized by Confucian ministers for giving similar appointments to these artists (Jiu Tang shu 62.2375–76, 74.2614–15; Xin Tang shu 98.3897, 99.3907–8; and ZZTJ 186.5834, 194.6095). The third, Emperor Gaozong, received similar criticism for according the artists undue privileges (Xin Tang shu 201.5728.). I further remark that Emperor Xuanzong was the last Tang emperor to show this passion for the performing arts. The emperor's biography by Xu Daoxun and Zhao Keyao, for instance, provides extensive details on this subject.23 Interestingly and by no means coincidentally, the same royal fervor was not to be observed until the coming of the Shatuo Turkic regimes (ZZTJ 272.8904.).
These items illustrate the Li clan's cultural identity in the eyes of the contemporary Chinese gentry class. In addition, I find the views on this subject of two other parties, namely the Türks and the Li clanspeople themselves, suggestive also.
First, the Türks in the Orkhon inscriptions, probably the only independent history source of the era, consistently called the Tang power Tabgach, or Tuoba, fully two centuries after the collapse of the last Tuoba regime.24 Because of the paucity of data, it is difficult to ascertain the Türks' exact geographic perception of contemporary East Asia. But Sui shu (52.1341) clearly showed that the Türks were well aware of the existence of the southern state of Chen. Then, even after several hundred years, al-Kasšari stated unmistakably that Tawγac/Tabgach was only part of Sin or China. Moreover, and against the inevitable analogy of the modern Russian word for China, al-Kasšari also gave an etymology of the name Tawγac: It was “[t]he name of a tribe of the Turks who settled in those regions”!25
Second, the attitude of the early Tang regime toward the traditional Chinese gentry can be taken as a most useful indicator of its own self-identity. In addition to the regime's persistent efforts to suppress the prestige of the traditional gentry class as mentioned earlier, Li Yuan, the founding emperor, had this explanation for his son Li Shimin's growing political independence and aspiration (ZZTJ 190.5959): “This boy has long been commanding troops in the provinces. Taught by educated men, he is no longer my son of the old days.” Though the passage has been cited by a great many authors, few have noted the critically important fact that the phrase “educated men” was literally dushu Hàn, “educated Hàn,” in Jiu Tang shu (64.2415–16). Sima Guang, most likely based on a later (Song dynasty) understanding, changed it to the more elegant word shusheng, “educated men,” editing out the crucial implication. Perhaps wholeheartedly corrupted by the “educated Hàn” as the father had charged, the son, according to a Tang author,26 would also call the famous courtier Wei Zheng a tianshe Hàn, “house-owning Hàn peasant,” in the privy imperial quarters and in the presence of his consort Empress Zhangsun, who was of Tuoba descent. Again Sima Guang edited it to a mere tianshe weng, “old house-owning peasant” (ZZTJ 194.6096).
In my view, the two quotations cited earlier are the best reflection of the Li clan's ethnic self-identity, for in the period immediately preceding the Sui and Tang, the term Hàn when occurring in such phrases was always a derogatory appellation used by the Xianbei and related Northerners for the Hàn or otherwise sinicized people. In fact, the very etymology of the character hàn as a vocative, going back all the way to the era of Tuoba domination, is the reason for the term's persistent derogatory connotation today, more than a millennium after the Tuoba's subjugation of the Hàn people to second-class status. As far as I am aware, the Yuan-Ming