“象帝之先”辨正——从神性“帝”到本源“道”

Rectifying “Xiang Di Zhi Xian”—From Theistic “Di” to Primordial “Dao”

摘要: 《老子》第四章集中体现了“道”超验遍在的特性，而在“象帝之先”的解释上，研究者多数将其表达为具有时间先后的经验层面的“道”。此处涉及“帝”与“道”之间的关系，须重新考察“帝”所具有的深层内涵，对“帝”范畴作梳理。殷商晚期“帝”由至上神演变为祖先神，最终成为可名可形的实体。“道盅”“渊兮”“湛兮”诸语在《老子》第四章作为线索，揭示老子所言的“道”是超越的、遍在万物的、不可对象化的存在。据此，“象帝之先”并非时间先后意义上的“帝之祖”，而是说一切可称述的至上神观念尚未萌生时，“道”已如其本然地显现。老子借此颠覆殷周以来的神–祖实体化传统，将思想引回不可名言、唯在体证的“道”自身。

Abstract: Chapter 4 of the Laozi epitomizes the supra-empirical and omnipresent character of “Dao”. Most readers, however, still render the phrase “Xiang Di Zhi Xian” as if it merely placed “Dao” before “Di” on a temporal, hence empirical, axis. Such a reading presupposes a relation between “Di” and “Dao” that must itself be questioned. By retracing the deep semantics of “Di”, we find that in late-Shang religion the term slid from highest deity to an ancestral god and finally to a nameable, figurable entity. Within Chapter 4 the cluster “dao zhong”, “yuan xi”, and “zhan xi” functions as a hermeneutic clue: “Dao” is portrayed as utterly transcendent, ubiquitously immanent, and forever resistant to reification. Therefore “Xiang Di Zhi Xian” is not a genealogical slogan—“the ancestor of Di”—but a radical statement: before any conceivable supreme god is even thinkable, “Dao” already shines forth exactly as it ever is. With this stroke Laozi overturns the Shang-Zhou legacy of reified god-ancestors and turns thought back to the nameless, ungraspable “Dao” that can only be realized in lived attestation.