Jìnshū 晉書
The Book of Jìn by 房玄齡 (Fáng Xuánlíng, 579–648) et al., by imperial commission of Tang Tàizōng; Qing collation notes (kǎozhèng) by 孫人龍 (Sūn Rénlóng).
About the work
The fifth of the Twenty-Four Histories, in 130 juǎn — 10 jì, 20 zhì, 70 lièzhuàn, with an additional 30 zǎijì 載記 (records of the Sixteen Kingdoms states surrounding Jìn) — covering the Western Jìn (265–316) and Eastern Jìn (317–420). Compiled in Zhēnguān 18–22 (644–648) by an editorial team including Fáng Xuánlíng (chief), Lǐ Yánshòu 李延壽, Lìnghú Détén 令狐德棻, Jìng Bō 敬播, and others — the standard Tang court committee for the Wǔdài shǐ project. Tang Tàizōng personally composed four of the lùn — those of Sīmǎ Yì 司馬懿 (Xuāndì jì), Sīmǎ Yán 司馬炎 (Wǔdì jì), Lù Jī 陸機, and Wáng Xīzhī 王羲之 — flagged in the text by the formula “Zhì yuē” 制曰. The work superseded eighteen earlier “Jìnshǐ” projects of the Six-Dynasties era; the Yīnyì 音義 (3 j.) by Hé Chāo 何超 (Tang) is appended at the end.
Tiyao
By Fáng Qiáo [Xuánlíng] et al., by imperial commission of the Táng. Liú Zhījī’s Shǐtōng outer chapters say: in Zhēnguān, an edict noted that the eighteen previous Jìn shǐ were not perfect, and ordered the historiographical office to re-edit. From that point those who spoke of Jìn shǐ all abandoned the old texts in favour of the new compilation. Yet Tang scholars — Lǐ Shàn in his Wén xuǎn zhù, Xú Jiān in his Chūxué jì, Bái Jūyì in his Liù tiē — still cite Wáng Yǐn 王隱, Yú Yù 虞預, Zhū Fèng 朱鳳, Hé Fǎshèng 何法盛, Xiè Língyùn 謝靈運, Zāng Róngxù 臧榮緒, Shěn Yuē 沈約; the jì of Xú Guǎng 徐廣, Gān Bǎo 干寶, Dèng Càn 鄧粲, Wáng Sháo 王韶, Cáo Jiāzhī 曹嘉之, Liú Qiānzhī 劉謙之; Sūn Shèng’s 孫盛 Jìnyángqiū; Xí Záochǐ’s 習鑿齒 Hàn Jìn yángqiū; Tán Dàoluán’s 檀道鸞 Xù Jìnyángqiū — so the older texts were not in fact discarded. Perhaps from the day the new book came out it was disliked by the consensus.
In the new book, only the biographies of Lù Jī and Wáng Xīzhī carry lùn introduced by “Zhì yuē” — these are Tang Tàizōng’s own composition. Of the Western and Eastern Jìn dynasties’ political successes and failures, the quality of personnel — countless matters could have been picked out — but the imperial pen flowed only to praise these two: a good prose-stylist and a good calligrapher. The work’s general orientation can be inferred. Its judgements pass over substance for ornamental style; its selections favour minor anecdotes (much from Liú Yìqìng’s Shìshuō xīnyǔ with Liú Xiàobiāo’s notes — virtually all of the Shìshuō is integrated into the Jìnshū word for word) and slight orthodox documentation. A current of bàiguān (vulgar fictional anecdote) sweeps through it.
(The tíyào then enumerates omissions — the Mǎ Qiān 馬汧 epitaph in Wén xuǎn showing Mǎ Qiān as a meritorious officer dying unjustly, missing from the Jìnshū entirely; the Tàipíng yùlǎn citation of Wáng Yǐn on Guō Qí 郭琦’s twice-refusing office in defence of his loyalty to Wǔdì, also missing; many more. It singles out Huáng Cháoyīng’s 黃朝英 Xiāngsù zájì mockery of the Jìnshū’s having put the Shìshuō anecdote of “Hé Qiáo soaring like a thousand-zhǎng pine” into both the Hé Qiáo biography and (because of the homonym character 嶠) the Wēn Qiáo biography — a genuine textual confusion. The tíyào concludes that of all the zhèngshǐ, only the Jìnshū and the Sòng shǐ have been so often re-written by later hands, “with reason”; but the Jìnshū has no rival in the field — the eighteen-house pre-Tang Jìn histories all being lost — and so it has been preserved across the ages.)
The Yīnyì in 3 juǎn by Hé Chāo of the Táng — zì Lìngshēng 令升, calling himself a man of Dōngjīng — with a preface by Yáng Qíxuān 楊齊宣 — the careful sound and graph distinctions are quite illuminating. As in the older copies, it is here appended at the end.
Abstract
The Jìnshū is the Tang court’s authoritative replacement for the eighteen pre-Tang Jìnshǐ projects, none of which now survives complete. It covers the Western Jìn (265–316) and Eastern Jìn (317–420) — a 156-year period in two parts marked by the Yǒngjiā catastrophe of 311 and the loss of the north — and adds, uniquely among the zhèngshǐ, a section of 30 Zǎijì 載記 documenting the parallel “Sixteen Kingdoms” of the northern non-Hàn states (Shí Lè’s Hòu Zhào, Liú Yuán’s Hàn Zhào, Fú Jiān’s Qián Qín, Mùróng Huáng’s Qián Yān, Yáo Cháng’s Hòu Qín, Tuòbá Guī’s Dài / Northern Wèi pre-history, etc.). The Zǎijì are a Tang innovation in zhèngshǐ form, integrating non-Hàn polities into a unified imperial framework while marking their non-orthodox status.
The compilation team was the standard Tang Wǔdài shǐ committee — Fáng Xuánlíng as chief editor, Lǐ Yánshòu 李延壽 (later author of the Nán shǐ and Běi shǐ, KR2a0024–25), Lìnghú Détén 令狐德棻 (later compiler of the Zhōu shū, KR2a0022), Jìng Bō 敬播, and many others — working ca. Zhēnguān 18 (644) to Zhēnguān 22 (648). The work was presented in 648, just before Tang Tàizōng’s death in 649. Tang Tàizōng’s four personally-composed lùn (on Sīmǎ Yì, Sīmǎ Yán, Lù Jī, Wáng Xīzhī) — flagged by the imperial formula “Zhì yuē” — give the work its peculiar slant towards literary connoisseurship and away from political analysis.
The Jìnshū yīnyì 音義 in 3 juǎn by Hé Chāo 何超 of the late Tang or Five Dynasties (with a preface by Yáng Qíxuān 楊齊宣 of Tiānbǎo 6 = 747) is the standard pre-modern philological apparatus and was appended at the end of the WYG. The Wényuāngé text further carries Qing kǎozhèng by Sūn Rénlóng 孫人龍 (catalog meta gives extent as 53 juǎn of kǎozhèng).
The standard modern punctuated edition is the Zhōnghuá Shūjú Jìnshū (10 vols., 1974, ed. Wú Zé 吳則); a revised Xiūdìngběn is in preparation.
Translations and research
No complete English translation. The principal partial translations: Achilles Fang, The Chronicle of the Three Kingdoms (Harvard, 1952–65) — incorporates extensive Jìnshū material via the Zīzhì tōngjiàn; Charles D. Holcombe, In the Shadow of the Han: Literati Thought and Society at the Beginning of the Southern Dynasties (Hawai’i, 1994) — extensive use of Jìnshū biographies; Albert E. Dien, Six Dynasties Civilization (Yale, 2007) — uses Jìnshū zhì throughout; Étienne Balazs and Yves Hervouet, A Sung Bibliography (Hong Kong, 1978) — bibliographic apparatus on the Jìnshū tradition. Major studies: Andrew Eisenberg, Kingship in Early Medieval China (Brill, 2008); Mu-chou Poo, In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion (SUNY, 1998) — uses the Wǔxíng zhì of the Jìnshū. Standard Chinese-language scholarship: Wú Shìjiàn 吳士鑑 and Liú Chénggàn 劉承幹, Jìnshū jiàozhù 晉書斠注 (1928); Zhōu Jiālù 周家祿, Jìnshū jiàokānjì 晉書校勘記 (Qing); Tāng Yòngtǒng 湯用彤 and Táng Yījié 湯一介, Wèi Jìn xuánxué lùngǎo 魏晉玄學論稿; Tián Yúqìng 田餘慶, Dōng Jìn ménfá zhèngzhì 東晉門閥政治 (Beijing Univ., 1989; classic on Eastern Jìn institutional history).
Other points of interest
The Jìnshū contains the only surviving full text of the Wáng Xīzhī zhuàn (juǎn 80), which preserves a copy of the Lántíng xù 蘭亭序 and is the principal textual source for the great calligrapher’s career. The Yìshù zhuàn 藝術傳 (juǎn 95) is a major source for early-medieval astronomy, divination, alchemy, and Buddhist activity in northern China.