Zī zhì tōng jiàn shì lì 資治通鑑釋例
Editorial Conventions of the Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Governance nominally by 司馬光 (Sīmǎ Guāng, 1019–1086, zhuàn 撰); transmitted recension assembled by his great-grandson Sīmǎ Jí 司馬伋 in Qiándào 2 / 1166
About the work
A 1-juan compendium of Sīmǎ Guāng’s editorial principles and rules-of-thumb (fán lì 凡例) for the Zī zhì tōng jiàn (KR2b0007), with two appended letters from Guāng to his collaborator Fàn Zǔyǔ 范祖禹 (字 Mèngdé 夢得) on compositional method. The text as transmitted is not Guāng’s autograph compendium but a Southern Sòng reconstruction by his great-grandson Sīmǎ Jí 司馬伋 in Qiándào 2 (1166), drawing on scattered drafts.
Tiyao
Tōng jiàn shì lì, 1 juǎn. (Imperial palace copy.) By Sīmǎ Guāng of the Sòng. Throughout — the fánlì he established when compiling the Tōng jiàn; appended at the end are two letters to Fàn Zǔyǔ on the compilation. Postface by Guāng’s great-grandson, the Shàngshū lìbù yuánwài láng Jí: “the orphaned drafts being scattered, what was held in the family was very fragmentary; I selected and arranged it into thirty-six categories.” Dated bǐngxū, mid-autumn — that is, Qiándào 2 (1166) of Xiàozōng. Hú Sānxǐng’s preface to the Tōng jiàn shì wén biàn wù states: after Guāng died, the family transmission of Tōng jiàn-learning was broken; later, when a Jīn embassy enquired after Sīmǎ Guāng’s descendants, the court began searching for the southern branch and located the great-great-grandson Jí, charging him with maintaining the ancestral sacrifices; whatever could be ascribed to Sīmǎgōng was then printed and circulated. So Jí’s role.
When he edited this work, an Zhèdōng tíjǔ chángpíng cháyán sī edition existed. Jí’s postface speaks of thirty-six categories; the present text divides into twelve only — apparently counting only the upper-level headings without their sub-divisions. Jí’s postface also says, “where the text is complete but characters are missing, I likewise leave them missing”; the present text leaves no character missing — already not the original printing. Hú Sānxǐng further says: “Wēngōng’s two letters to Fàn Mèngdé on compiling the work were obtained at the Sānqú school; the eleven letters to Liú Dàoyuán [Liú Shù] were obtained from Mr Gāo Wénhǔ. Jí inserted these after the fán lì.” The present text contains only the two letters to Mèngdé; the eleven Dàoyuán letters are not present — perhaps because the Tōng jiàn wèn yí had a separate dedicated edition and these were excised. The work appeared in the post-Crossing-South period; one cannot rule out interpolations and ad-hoc adjustments — it is not necessarily wholly Guāng’s intent. Yet it has been current for a long time; we therefore catalog it together with the Wèn yí for reference.
Abstract
The Tōng jiàn shì lì is the principal documentary source for Sīmǎ Guāng’s compositional method as discussed by Sīmǎ Guāng himself. Its 12 (originally 36) headings cover such matters as: the calendrical rule for which dynasty’s zhèngshuò 正朔 governs synchronous dates; the orthographic rule for honorific naming versus zì-naming of historical figures; the editorial rule for handling apocryphal or legendary material; conventions for the death of emperors versus consorts; rules for foreign rulers’ titulature; rules for marking civil-service appointments and dismissals.
The two appended letters to Fàn Zǔyǔ (then drafting the cháng biān for the Táng and Five Dynasties sections) are particularly important: they are the principal direct evidence for the three-stage cóng mù / cháng biān / zhèng wén compositional procedure that Sīmǎ Guāng describes in compressed form in his memorial of presentation. The letters describe in concrete operational detail how the cháng biān was to be assembled from the cóng mù topic-files, with what density of citation, with what conventions for noting variants, and how Sīmǎ Guāng would then take the cháng biān and compress it to zhèng wén. Together with the parallel collection of letters to Liú Shù (the Tōng jiàn wèn yí 通鑑問疑, separately catalogued), they are the foundational documentary source for the historical method of the Northern Sòng historiographical school.
The transmitted text is not Sīmǎ Guāng’s own compendium but a Southern Sòng reconstruction by his great-grandson Sīmǎ Jí 司馬伋, dated Qiándào 2 / 1166 (bǐngxū). The dating bracket here is therefore set to the wider span of the work’s possible composition (Sīmǎ Guāng’s Tōng jiàn compositional period 1066–1084) through Jí’s reconstruction (1166), since the text as it stands is a collation. The Sìkù editors are explicit in noting that interpolation cannot be excluded.
Translations and research
- Edwin G. Pulleyblank, “Chinese Historical Criticism: Liu Chih-chi and Ssu-ma Kuang,” in W. G. Beasley and E. G. Pulleyblank, eds., Historians of China and Japan (OUP, 1961), 135–166 — uses the Shì lì and the Wèn yí as the principal documentary base for Sīmǎ Guāng’s method.
- Charles Hartman, The Making of Song Dynasty History (CUP, 2021), ch. 2 — discussion of the Shì lì in the context of Northern Sòng historiographical method.
- Discussion in Cuī Wàn-qiū 崔萬秋, Tōng-jiàn yánjiū (1934/1985); Zhāng Xū 張須, Tōng jiàn xué (1948/2010).
Other points of interest
The Shì lì is the principal Chinese historiographical methodological document of the Northern Sòng. The fact that it survives only in Southern Sòng reconstruction and (per Hú Sānxǐng) was not even continuously transmitted in the Sīmǎ family is a striking commentary on the fragility of paratext transmission for even the most canonical works.
Links
- Wikidata Q11084086
- Kyoto Zinbun Sìkù tíyào 0103301.
- Wilkinson, Chinese History: A New Manual §49.5.