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史記

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Text ID
KR2a0001
Date
-104–-86
Dynasty
漢

Shǐjì 史記

Records of the Grand Scribe by 司馬遷 (Sīmǎ Qiān, ca. 145–ca. 86 BCE), with the sānjiā zhù 三家注 of 裴駰 (Péi Yǐn, jíjiě 集解, fl. 425–438), 司馬貞 (Sīmǎ Zhēn, suǒyǐn 索隱, fl. 745), and 張守節 (Zhāng Shǒujié, zhèngyì 正義, fl. 725–735); Qing collation notes (kǎozhèng 考證) by 張照 (Zhāng Zhào, 1691–1745).

About the work

The foundational Chinese universal history, in 130 piān 篇 (later juǎn 卷) covering the period from the Yellow Thearch (Huángdì 黃帝) to the reign of Hàn Wǔdì 漢武帝 (r. 141–87 BCE). Sīmǎ Qiān succeeded his father Sīmǎ Tán 司馬談 (?–110? BCE) as Tàishǐ lìng 太史令 in 108 BCE and inherited the project from him; the work was substantially completed shortly before his death, around 91 BCE according to the most common reckoning, with continuous additions by the author down to ca. 87 BCE. The Wényuāngé edition prints all three Tang and pre-Tang commentaries — the Jíjiě of Péi Yǐn, the Suǒyǐn of Sīmǎ Zhēn, and the Zhèngyì of Zhāng Shǒujié — in interlinear form, with Qiánlóng-era kǎozhèng by Zhāng Zhào appended. Sīmǎ Qiān’s five-part structure of běnjì 本紀 (basic annals, 12), biǎo 表 (chronological tables, 10), shū 書 (treatises, 8), shìjiā 世家 (hereditary houses, 30), and lièzhuàn 列傳 (biographical profiles, 70) became the template for all subsequent dynastic zhèngshǐ 正史.

Tiyao

(WYG tiyao not present in the local source files; translated from the Kyoto Zinbun digital Sìkù tíyào, Shǐbù 1, 0097202.)

By Sīmǎ Qiān of the Hàn, with supplements by Chǔ Shàosūn 褚少孫. Qiān’s career is fully covered by his biography in the Hànshū. Of Shàosūn, Zhāng Shǒujié’s Zhèngyì, citing Zhāng Yàn 張晏, makes him a man of Yǐngchuān, a Bóshì of the YuánChéng era; he again cites the Chǔ Yǐ jiā zhuàn 褚顗家傳 to make him grandson of Chǔ Dà, the younger brother of the Liáng minister Chǔ; he became Bóshì under Xuāndì, lived in retirement at Pèi, and studied under the great scholar Wáng Shì, whence the title Xiānshēng. The two accounts diverge, but the end of Xuāndì’s reign and the beginning of Chéngdì’s are at most seventeen or eighteen years apart, and so the figures cannot be far separated.

According to Qiān’s own postface, the work consists of twelve běnjì, ten biǎo, eight shū, thirty shìjiā, and seventy lièzhuàn, in all 130 piān. The Hànshū biography records that ten piān were lacking — present in the table of contents but without text. Zhāng Yàn glossed these, in a comment incorporated by Pei Yin, as the basic annals of Jǐngdì and Wǔdì, the treatises on lǐ, on music, and on the army, the year-table of Han chancellors and grand commandants, the lièzhuàn of the diviners, the shìjiā of the Three Kings, the lièzhuàn on tortoise-and-stalk divination, and the biography of FùJǐn. Liú Zhījī 劉知幾 in his Shǐtōng 史通, however, holds that the ten piān had been left unfinished — the table of contents alone — and rebuts Zhāng Yàn. Examination of the chapters on the diviners and on tortoise-and-stalk divination shows that both contain “the Tàishǐ gōng remarks” and also “Master Chǔ remarks,” which is plain proof of supplementation of fragmentary drafts; Zhījī’s view is to be preferred. Yet the Hànshū yìwénzhì lists the Shǐjì among Chūnqiū-class works at 130 piān with no mention of lacunae: by that time the official copy must already have absorbed Shàosūn’s continuations into a single redaction. Both diviners’ chapters contain the phrase “While I was a Lángzhōng…”, which surely indicates submission to the throne. The “Master Chǔ remarks” tags were probably added by later hands as identifying marks.

Zhōu Mì in his Qí dōng yě yǔ 齊東野語 cites the zàn of the Sīmǎ Xiāngrú biography, which contains Yáng Xióng’s verdict that the fù “advocates a hundred and chastens one”; he also cites the Gōngsūn Hóng biography, which mentions an edict of Píngdì Yuánshǐ enfeoffing Hóng’s descendants. Jiāo Hóng’s Bǐchéng notes the Jiǎ Yì biography’s reference to “Jiǎ Jiā loved learning the most, and reached high office under XiāoZhāo.” All these are matters Qiān could not have witnessed. Wáng Mǒuhóng’s Báitián zázhù further notes that the Shǐjì records reign-years but no era-names; the gēngshēn jiǎzǐ characters now found at the head of the year-table of the twelve feudal lords are later additions. So the work is not merely partially lost but has also been subject to later interpolation; with the passage of so many centuries, much can no longer be ascertained. Yet though characters and phrases may have been disordered, the work as a whole still preserves Qiān’s original. Jiāo Hóng’s claim, based on Rú Chún’s note to the Zhāng Tāng biography, that the work was continued by Féng Shāng and Mèng Liǔ, and on the Hòu Hànshū biography of Yáng Jīng (where Yáng is said to have abridged Qiān’s text into a hundred-thousand-character work), that today’s Shǐjì is therefore not Qiān’s original — none of this stands.

From the Jìn and Táng down, the transmitted text shows no major divergences. Only in Kāiyuán 23 (735) was an edict issued promoting the Lǎozǐ biography above the Bóyí biography. Qián Céng’s Dúshū mǐnqiú jì 讀書敏求記 records a Sòng impression in this form, but it is no longer to be seen. The Southern Sòng Guǎnghàn man Zhāng Cái once printed an edition that excised Shàosūn’s continuations; Zhào Shānfǔ, finding it incomplete, took Shàosūn’s text and printed it separately as an appendix; neither of these is now extant. The current circulating text is this one alone. The “Xī Shī gold coins” anecdote quoted from the Shǐjì by Sūn Shì in his Mèngzǐ shū is not in the present text — a Sòng forgery passed off as ancient, not a lacuna in the present text. Further, the Xuéhǎi lèibiān contains a forged Shǐjì zhēnběn fánlì 史記真本凡例 attributed to Hóng Zūn, which arbitrarily prunes the original and claims to be the very draft that Qiān deposited at the Famous Mountain. Like the supposedly authentic Hànshū of the Liáng prince of Póyáng, it is preposterous and not to be relied upon.

Of the early commentators, only Péi Yǐn, Sīmǎ Zhēn, and Zhāng Shǒujié are extant. Originally each circulated separately; only in the Northern Sòng were they combined into a single text. The Ming Guózǐjiàn editions had numerous excisions and emendations: the Nánjiàn edition even prefaced the work with Sīmǎ Zhēn’s reconstruction of the Sānhuáng běnjì placed above the Wǔdì běnjì, gravely disfiguring the old order. Yet by collecting all the explanations together in one place, lookup and collation are made easier; we have therefore included this combined version for ease of use, while separately recording the three commentators’ works to preserve their full form.

Abstract

The Shǐjì is the prototype of the Chinese jǐzhuàntǐ 紀傳體 history. Sīmǎ Qiān’s life and family background are known principally from his autobiographical postface (Shǐjì 130, Tàishǐ gōng zì xù 太史公自序) and the biography in Hànshū 62, the latter incorporating his celebrated letter to Rèn Ān 任安 (Bào Rèn Ān shū 報任安書). Qiān succeeded his father as Tàishǐ lìng 太史令 in 108 BCE; in 99 BCE, after his defence of the surrendered general Lǐ Líng 李陵 before Wǔdì, he was sentenced to death and chose castration in order to complete the work, which he largely brought to a finished state by the closing years of Wǔdì’s reign. The composition window is set here at 104–86 BCE, anchored on the Tàichū 太初 calendar reform of 104 BCE that Qiān helped to promulgate (his terminus a quo for serious composition) and on his death by ca. 86 BCE; the terminus ante quem non in the běnjì of Wǔdì extends in places to ca. 91 BCE.

By Bān Gù’s day (1st c. CE) ten piān of the Shǐjì had already been lost or left unfinished; the names of the missing chapters are given in Zhāng Yàn’s note preserved in Péi Yǐn’s Jíjiě (běnjì of Jǐngdì and Wǔdì; treatises on rites, music, and the army; year-table of Han chancellors; lièzhuàn of the diviners, of turtle-shell divination, and of Fù Jǐn; shìjiā of the Three Kings). Most of these were filled in by Chǔ Shàosūn 褚少孫 (fl. YuánChéng era, ca. 50 BCE) and other hands; their interpolations are signalled in the transmitted text by the formula “Chǔ xiānshēng yuē” 褚先生曰. Liú Zhījī 劉知幾 (661–721) in the Shǐtōng argued that the missing piān were never written rather than lost; the Sìkù editors follow him.

Three early commentaries are bound together in the standard sānjiā zhù běn 三家注本 used by the Wényuāngé: the Jíjiě 集解 of Péi Yǐn 裴駰 (mid-5th c.; based on Xú Guǎng’s 徐廣 Shǐjì yīnyì 史記音義, 2,216 glosses), the Suǒyǐn 索隱 of Sīmǎ Zhēn 司馬貞 (fl. 745), and the Zhèngyì 正義 of Zhāng Shǒujié 張守節 (fl. 725–735). Until the Northern Sòng the three circulated separately; the Sìkù tíyào notes that the Wényuāngé inherits the consolidated tradition. Independent printings of each commentary as a separate work appear in the catalog as KR2a0002, KR2a0003 and KR2a0004.

The earliest extant complete printed edition with all three commentaries is the Jiàn’ān Huáng Shànfū kānběn 建安黃善夫刊本 of 1196 (held by the Japanese National Museum of History). The standard modern edition is the Zhōnghuá Shūjú Shǐjì dianjiào ben Èrshísì shǐ xiūdìng běn 史記點校本二十四史修訂本 in 10 vols. (Zhào Shēngqún 趙生群 et al., 2014), revising the 1959/1982 punctuated edition of Gù Jiégāng 顧頡剛 et al. The Qiánlóng kǎozhèng attached to the WYG appendix is by Zhāng Zhào 張照 (1691–1745, jìnshì 1709), one of the chief Wǔyīngdiàn editors.

Translations and research

Complete or near-complete translations: Édouard Chavannes, Les mémoires historiques de Se-ma Ts’ien, 5 vols. (Leroux, 1895–1905; corrected reprint with additions by Max Kaltenmark and Jacques Pimpaneau et al., 9 vols., Youfeng, 2015) — French; William H. Nienhauser, Jr., et al., The Grand Scribe’s Records, 9 vols. published 1994–2022 (IUP / Nanjing UP), still in progress (vols. 3 Chronological tables, 4 Treatises, and 5.2 Hereditary houses II forthcoming) — English, the standard scholarly translation; Rudolf Vyatkin et al., Istoricheskie zapiski (Shi tszi), 9 vols. (1972–2010) — Russian, complete. Major partial translations into English include Burton Watson, Records of the Grand Historian, rev. ed., 3 vols. (Columbia / Renditions, 1993; treating most of the Hàn material), and the Hong Kong Yáng Xiànyì / Gladys Yang Selections from Records of the Historian (1979).

Standard scholarly studies of the editions: An Píngqiū 安平秋, “Shǐjì bǎnběn shùyào” Shǐjì 史記版本述要, Gǔjí zhěnglǐ yǔ yánjiū 1 (1987): 16–40; He Cìjūn 賀次君, Shǐjì shūlù 史記書錄 (Zhonghua, 1958; repr. 2019); Zhāng Yùchūn 張玉春, Shǐjì bǎnběn yánjiū 史記版本研究 (Shangwu, 2001) and Shǐjì Rìběn cángběn zhùběn lùnjí 史记日本藏本注本论集 (2018). On the three commentators: Yīng Sānyù 應三玉, Shǐjì sānjiā zhù yánjiū 史记三家注研究 (Fenghuang, 2008); Zhāng Yùchūn and Yīng Sānyù, Shǐjì bǎnběn jí sānjiāzhù yánjiū (Huawen, 2005). On Sīmǎ Qiān: Stephen W. Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror (SUNYP, 1995); Grant Hardy, Worlds of Bronze and Bamboo (Columbia, 1999); Hans van Ess, Politik und Geschichtsschreibung im alten China, 2 vols. (Harrassowitz, 2014); Esther Sunkyung Klein, Reading Sima Qian from Han to Song (Brill, 2018). On the biǎo: Michael Loewe, “The tables of the Shiji and the Han-shu,” in his The Men Who Governed Han China (Brill, 2004), 208–78; Michael Nylan and Mark Csikszentmihalyi, eds., Technical Arts in the Han Histories (SUNYP, 2021).

Other points of interest

The Wényuāngé text is the Diàn běn 殿本 lineage (1739, Wǔyīngdiàn) descended ultimately from the Ming Běijiàn edition (1598). The Qiánlóng kǎozhèng by Zhāng Zhào is one of the most extensive of all Sìkù kǎozhèng annexes (the catalog meta lists “(42)” juǎn of kǎozhèng); Zhāng Zhào was concurrently chief editor of the Mìng diào kǎo 明調考 and the Yuèfǔ texts in the same compilation.

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