relations death_place death_date religion birth_place birth_date article_title name occupation
sima qian -lrb- son -rrb- luoyang , han dynasty 110 bc -lrb- aged 55 -rrb- huang-lao -lrb- daoism -rrb- longmen -rrb- , han dynasty -lrb- now hejin , shanxi 165 bc sima tan
 sima tan historian
sima tan

sima tan -lrb- , c. 165 bc -- 110 bc -rrb- 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 -lrb- 太史令 -rrb- between 140-110 bc .
while sima tan had begun the `` records of the grand historian '' -lrb- `` shiji '' -rrb- , 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 '' -lrb- 家 `` jia '' -rrb- : confucianism -lrb- 儒家 `` rujia '' -rrb- , daoism -lrb- 道家 `` daojia '' -rrb- , legalism -lrb- 法家 `` fajia '' -rrb- , mohism -lrb- 墨家 `` mojia '' -rrb- , school of names -lrb- 名家 `` mingjia '' -rrb- , and school of naturalists -lrb- 陰陽家 `` yinyang jia '' -rrb- -- 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 .
