Sima Tan studied astronomy with Tang Du, the I Ching under Yang He, and Daoism under Master Huang.
He was appointed to the office of Court Astronomer (Chinese: 太史令; pinyin: tài shǐ lìng) at age 25 in 140 BCE, a position which he held until his death. Although Sima Tan began writing the Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji), he died before it was finished; it was completed by his son, Sima Qian.
An essay by Sima Tan has survived within the Records of the Grand Historian. In this essay within the larger work, Sima Tan describes six philosophical lineages or "schools" (家 jiā):
Using the concept of 'Jia' or 'family' in their Records of the Grand Historian, Sima Tan and Sima Qian invented the Yin-Yang, Fajia, Mingjia and Daojia. Together with Mohism and Confucianism, they compare their purported strengths and weaknesses in promotion of what they dub the Daojia or Dao-school, which comes to mean Daoism a century after Sima Qian's death. Their descriptions of the schools are all flawed, orbiting the 'empty' dao-school. They do not name anyone under them.[1] Imperial Archivists Liu Xiang (77–6BCE) and Liu Xin placed the figures, using them as categories in the imperial library a hundred years after Sima Qians death. They become categories of texts in the Book of Han.
The year of Sima Tan's death (110 BCE) was the year of the great imperial sacrifice fengshan (zh:封禅) by Emperor Han Wudi, for which the emperor appointed another person to the rank of fangshi, bypassing Sima, probably causing him much consternation.
Graham, A.C. (1989). The Disputers of the Tao. La Salle, IL: Open Court.
Sima Qian (1993). Records of the Grand Historian of China – Qin Dynasty. The Research Centre for Translation. Translated by Watson, Burton (hbk ed.). Hong Kong, ZH; New York, NY: The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Columbia University Press. ISBN0-231-08168-5. ISBN0-231-08169-3 (pbk ed.)
de Bary, W.T.; Bloom, I. (1999). Sources of Chinese Tradition. Vol. 1 (2nd ed.). New York, NY.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)