Scholars › Philosopher / Thinker
Huan Tan
Scholar and musician of the Han-Xin transition who told Emperor Guangwu that he did not read prophetic texts, was nearly executed for it, and wrote the New Discourses
A thatched pavilion open on three sides stands among tall bamboo; one person sits with their back turned at the veranda rail beside a zither and a stack of bamboo slips, while a stone path runs to a calm pond reflecting clouds and distant hills.
Also known as Zi Junshan
Huan Tan, courtesy name Junshan, came from Xiang in Pei; his father was director of music under Emperor Cheng, and through him Huan entered court as a gentleman. He loved music, played the zither, read widely and debated with Liu Xin and Yang Xiong. Under Wang Mang he was a grandee in charge of music and under the Gengshi emperor a palace counsellor, and after Emperor Guangwu took the throne the minister Song Hong recommended him as a court consultant. He opposed deciding affairs by prophetic texts; when the emperor wished to site the observatory by prophecy and asked his view, he said he did not read prophecies and argued they were not classics. The furious emperor ordered him executed as a defier of the sages, relenting only after he knocked his head until it bled. Demoted to assistant governor of Liu'an, he fell ill and died on the way, over seventy years old. His New Discourses (Xinlun) in twenty-nine chapters survives only in collected fragments.
Life and times
Dates c. 43 BCE–c. 28 CE