| The Pre-Qin and Qin-Han dynasties are the important period in evolution of Yellow Emperor’s legend. Based on the existing academic achievements, from the angle of historical evolution, this paper investigates evolutional contrails of appellations, pedigree, stories and worship of Yellow Emperor by arranging the handed-down and unearthed documents comprehensively.The key content of this paper is the basic content of Yellow Emperor’s legend and the worship of Yellow Emperor. Firstly, the meanings of Yellow Emperor’s 3 appellations were credited with several evolutional paths. Secondly, Yellow Emperor’s pedigree in the handed-down documents has a process that developed from the initial condition to the derivative condition. Thirdly, Yellow Emperor’s stories refer to the military achievements, cultural and politic achievements, invention, and other legend stories. These stories were credited with characteristics of era and political backgrounds. The confusion occurred in the circulation of the battle legends of Banquan and Zhuolu had its beginning in the XinShu written by Jia Yi. The record still influences scholars’ study so far. Lastly, the worship of Yellow Emperor in the Pre-Qin and Qin-Han dynasties could be analyzed from three aspects as follows: the sacrifice ceremony dominated by government, the theory of transition among five elements, social faith in Han dynasty. In Han dynasties, the phenomenon of rethinking and criticizing Yellow Emperor’s legend appeared in the society. Yellow Emperor in popular faith was closed to the general life.The main characteristics of the evolvement of Yellow Emperor’s legend can be listed as follows: it has the obvious accumulation; the legend of battle is the principal lines in evolution; the evolution in authority and folk society is different; the accumulation and rethinking coexisted. These main characteristics could be analyzed from the internal and external causes that influenced Yellow Emperor’s legend. The internal cause refers to the trend direction of myths and legends, and the external cause refers to the social condition in the Pre-Qin and Qin-Han dynasties. |
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