1. Some recent studies belonging to the xingupai “trust antiquity faction” stress the degree to which modern historians can rely upon early extant sources, including the Shiji. For one example of this approach, see Cijun, He , Shiji shulu (Beijing: Shangwu, 1958)Google Scholar. Bozan, Jian , “Sima Qian de lishi fangfa” , Shiliao yu shixue (rpt., Beijing: Beijing daxue, 1985), 88–96 Google Scholar, also intends to show the scrupulous care and advanced techniques with which Sima Qian handled his sources. Most studies of the Shiji, however, see the book as a skillful weaving of fact and legend. See, for example, Katsuhisa, Fujita , “ Shiki Ro kō hongi ni mieru Shiba Sen no rekishi shisō” , Tōhōgaku 86 (1993), 21–35 Google Scholar. Three examples of the lyric/romantic approach are Changchi, Li , whose Sima Qian zhi renge yu fengge (Shanghai: Kaiming, 1948)Google Scholar has Sima Qian caught between the romantic spirit of the southern Chu culture and the “classical” culture of Zhou ; Zehou, Li , Liang Han meixueshi (Hong Kong: Jinfeng, 1987), 120–43Google Scholar (especially p. 132, which emphasizes lyricism and creativity); and Durrant, Stephen W., The Cloudy Mirror: Tension and Conflict in the Writings of Sima Qian (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

2. For example, Sima Qian visited the site of Confucius's birthplace, where a kind of museum had been set up in a temple dedicated to the Sage. See Shiji (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959; hereafter, SJ)Google Scholar, 47.1945, 1947. Sima Qian also visited numerous sites in the course of preparing his biographies and treatises, including the ruins of Daliang , Huaiyin , the Great Wall, and many of the major waterworks in China. See SJ 77.2385, 92.2629, 88.2570, 29.1415. For a survey of the works presumably consulted by Sima Qian, see Dejian, Jin , Sima Qian suo jian shu kao (Shanghai: Renmin, 1963)Google Scholar.

3. The quotation comes from SJ 13.505, which cites the Guliang commentary to the Chunqiu . See Chunqiu jingzhuan yinde (Harvard-Yenching Sinological Index Series, supplement no. 11; rpt., Taibei: Chengwen, 1966)Google Scholar 29/Huan 5/1 Gu. For one example of Sima Qian's determination to sift through contradictory accounts, see the appraisal appended to SJ 1.46.

4. Watson, Burton Ssu-ma Ch'ien: Grand Historian of China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1958), 128 Google Scholar. On p. 16, Watson also talks of the “rationalistic spirit” pervading Sima Qian's writing.

5. Sima Qian tells us that both he and his father had access to collections of texts because of their official position (SJ 130.3296). He continues, “Others before and after … had access to these [same] records, yet none of them wrote a book like theirs. It was not their duty.” See Peterson, Willard J., “Sima Qian as Cultural Historian,” in The Power of Culture: Studies in Chinese Cultural History, ed. Peterson, Willard J., Plaks, Andrew H., and Yü, Ying-shih (Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, 1994), 73 Google Scholar.

6. Gu's, Ban statement, in Hanshu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1962; hereafter, HS), 62.2738 Google Scholar. Xiang's, Liu assessment, cited in Sanguozhi (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1982), 13.418 Google Scholar, calls Sima Qian a “good scribe” (liangshi ) who has written a “true account” (shilu ). Ban Gu ascribes that same viewpoint to both Liu Xiang and Yang Xiong in HS 62.2738, although Yang's Fayan (Zhuzi jicheng ed.), 10.32 (as opposed to Li Gui's commentary to Yang's work), contrasts the Shiji unfavorably with the Zuozhuan , arguing that the Shiji is less concerned with rating the moral quality of historical figures than the Zuo. Obviously, evaluations of Sima Qian as a “true historian” presume his record to be shi (having “substance,” “reality,” and “accuracy"). Note also that Fayan, 7.19, and HS 62.2738 both accuse Sima Qian of preferring the Laozi to the “Confucian” classics.

7. According to HS 62.2732, Emperor Wu kept Sima Qian's father “for sport and amusement, treating him the same as the musicians and jesters.” What was worse, Wudi refused to allow Sima Tan to attend the feng and shan ceremonies, though the state archivist should have been in attendance. This humiliation apparently caused Sima Tan to expire from frustration and anger. See HS 62.2732; SJ 130.3295.

8. Although HS 62.2717, for example, uses kongwen to mean something like “abstract theorizing,” HS 62.2735 employs the same phrase to mean something more like “self-expression,” as the phrase occurs in the context of “venting one's frustration” (shu qi fen ). Sima Qian says that, “[earlier great writers] thought to pass down kongwen in order to make themselves appear [to later generations].” Certainly, the Great Preface to the Odes—often attributed to Wei Hong of the first century a.d. but in reality a “loose synthesis of shared truths” ( Owen, Stephen Readings in Chinese Literary Thought [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992], 38)Google Scholar embodied in early traditions about the Classic—establishes the idea that “the historians [i.e., shi “archivists”] of the states … sang their feelings to criticize those above” (Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, 47). For a judicious assessment and translation of the Preface, see Owen, Readings in Chinese Literary Thought, ch. 2 (“The Great Preface”), with 37–38 and 47–48 especially relevant to this discussion.

9. Thucydides reminds us that he intends to compose a “work of art enduring for all time”; he also announces his authorial decision not merely to transcribe the most important speeches of the Peloponnesian war, but to fashion “improved” versions of those speeches that will better represent the true positions of his various speakers. As he states in section 22 of The Peloponnesian War, “So my method has been, while keeping as closely as possible to the general sense of the words that were actually used, to make the speakers say what, in my opinion, was called for by each situation.” For this translation, see The History of the Peloponnesian War, trans. Warner, Rex (London and Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1954), 47 Google Scholar. Christoph Harbsmeier has questioned whether the pre-Buddhist Chinese had any concept of history (in our modern social-scientific sense). See his “Some Notions of Time and of History in China and in the West, with a Digression on the Anthropology of Writing,” in Time and Space in Chinese Culture, ed. Huang, Chun-chieh and Zürcher, Erik (Leiden: Brill, 1995), 49–71 Google Scholar (especially p. 60).

10. For more on my general distrust of historical analyses that presume individualism or the autonomous self, see “Confucian Piety and Individualism,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 116.1 (1996), 1–27 Google Scholar. Certainly, the Shiji provides a number of examples of Han notions of the self. In SJ 47.1909, for example, Laozi teaches Confucius the important lesson that, “a son does not consider that he has his own self.” It is unlikely that Sima Qian wrote primarily to reveal his own emotions, since he constructed a parallel in SJ 130.3300 between the composition of his own work and that of Lü Buwei (among others), though Lü was no particular model of morality or introspection. Note also that Sima Qian explains Confucius's reasons for compiling a history in terms of the Supreme Sage's desire to “be known to later ages.” See the remarks of Nagai Sekitoku and Cui Shu quoted by Kametarō, Takikawa , Shiki kaichū kōshō (Tokyo: Tōkyō daigaku Tōyōbungaku kenkyūjo, 1956–60), vol. 6, 82Google Scholar.

11. On the paucity of reliable records for the period prior to Yao, which Sima Qian readily admits, see SJ 47.1937. In SJ 129.3253, Sima Qian confesses “complete ignorance about the time prior to Shennong.” Karlgren, Bernhard “Legends and Cults in Ancient China,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 18 (1946), 199–365 Google Scholar, alerts us to the many inconsistencies among the extant pre-Han texts narrating the stories of the early figures of the Chinese past.

12. For example, the Central States’ (Zhongguo ) past, according to materials preserved in the Five “Confucian” Classics, began with Yao, not with the Yellow Emperor. For the Classics as an arbiter of truth, see SJ 130.3296, 61.2121. Numerous scholars, some for patriotic reasons, would like to extend “Chinese history,” largely on the basis of the Shiji, to the Xia and pre-Xia periods. See, for example, Yitian, Xing , Qin Han shilun gao (Taibei: Dongda, 1987), 3–4 Google Scholar.

13. As Hayden White, among others, has demonstrated, the boundaries between history and literature are ill-defined, perhaps non-existent, since both types of composition are similar in form and aim (the projection of immanent order onto the world). See White's, Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth Century China (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1973)Google Scholar.

14. For questions of authorship in the Shiji, see Hesheng, Zheng , Shi Han yanjiu (Shanghai: Shangwu, 1930)Google Scholar, ch. 1, which reviews traditional discussions of authorship; and Xiuliang, Cang , Shiji cidian (Shandong: Jiaoyu, 1991)Google Scholar. We have no idea how much of the extant Shiji was composed in draft by Sima Tan, but we know that Han thinkers considered history-writing a family affair. See, for example, Lunheng jijie , ed. Pansui, Liu (rpt., Beijing: Guji, 1957), 29.576 Google Scholar (“Duizuo” ), which refers to what we now call “Ban Gu's Hanshu” as the work of his father, Ban Biao .

15. I am indebted to Christoph Harbsmeier for this observation.

16. For the bojia, see Petersen, Jens Østergard, “Which Books Did the First Emperor of Qin Burn? On the Meaning of Pai chia in Early Chinese Sources,” Monumento Serica 43 (1995), 1–52 Google Scholar.

17. According to Sima Qian, the Shiji was in “rough draft” at the time of the Li Ling affair. See HS 62.2720.

18. Wang Chong writes that the Shiji “lacks inventions of the heart” (wuxiong zhi zao ) and that it “seldom speaks from the heart.” See Lunheng, 13.281 (“Chaoqi” ; Forke, A. Lun-heng [rpt., New York: Paragon, 1962], vol. 2,297); 29.570 Google Scholar (“Anshu” ; Forke, Lun-heng, vol. 1, 466).

19. See Mencius 3A/2 and 5A/4. Xiaojing ( Xiaojing yinde [Harvard- Yenching Sinological Index Series, supplement no. 23; rpt., Taibei: Chengwen, 1966]Google Scholar), zhang 1, equates making the family name with the “ultimate expression” (zhong ) of filial piety. For the conflation of family duty and making a name for oneself as the “end of all action,” bringing favor to “family and friends,” see HS 62.2727. Typical of early writings is the remark recorded in HS 62.2732, which insists that the “best [act] is not to bring shame to one's forebears, and next best, not to bring shame upon one's own person.”

20. Here I borrow Durkheim's classic formulation on religion: “a unified system of beliefs and practices relative to sacred things, that is, things set apart and forbidden—beliefs and practices which unite into one single moral community … all those who adhere to them.” See The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Swain, Joseph Ward (London: Allen and Unwin, 1915), 47 Google Scholar. According to Durkheim, religion perpetually makes and remakes the collectivity by creating in the person the strong desire to submerge himself—sometimes at great personal sacrifice—in the larger whole. At the same time, the common religion of the early empires in China not only did not condemn “expediency,” but even presumed it. For further information, see Mu-chou, Poo In Search of Personal Welfare: A View of Ancient Chinese Religion (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1998)Google Scholar. Religion, in any case, is far more than the attempt to communicate with occult powers through magical means. Students of comparative thought may find useful parallels in McPherran, Mark L., The Religion of Socrates (University Park: Pennsylvania State Press, 1996)Google Scholar.

21. I suspect that the physical loss to Sima Qian's family line was important, as Mencius 4A/26 says that the most unfilial act is to fail to bear a son.

22. Sima Qian is also preoccupied with pinpointing the exact nature of “pivotal” or “incipient” change (ji ) versus gradual, cumulative causality (jian ), following the lead of the Changes. For example, compare SJ 11.449 with the Changes “Wenyan” commentary to Hexagram 2 ( Zhouyi yinde [Harvard-Yenching Sinological Index Series, supplement no. 10; rpt., Taibei: Chengwen, 1966]Google Scholar 4/2/Yan). That knowing “nature and fate” is the goal of man's inquiry is suggested by SJ 49.1967, 14.229. For the dividing line between Heaven and Man, see, for example, the speech by Shen Baoxu : “I have heard it said that a human multitude can overcome Heaven, but that what Heaven has determined breaks men, too” (SJ 66.2176); and the speech attributed to Confucius: “A person may magnify the Way, but what can he do against fate?” (SJ 49.1967). Heaven's favor is notoriously “inconstant” towards individual men and dynasties in that “its mandate does not last forever. … Heaven's favor cannot be counted upon. … Taking Heaven's favor for granted, wise men do not do this” (SJ 72.2326, citing the Documents).

The Shiji provides numerous examples of men who inexplicably suffer despite their innocence; for example, Prince Jianglü , who was unjustly executed by the Second Emperor of Qin. But it also shows that many humans who claim to be innocent merit their own downfalls, as in SJ 88.2570. In general, as Stephen Durrant notes, the Shiji affirms “the doctrine of an intimate and comprehensible relationship between the movement of celestial bodies and man's fate” (Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror, 126). But Yang Xiong, among other Ru, was distressed that Sima Qian's comments on the dividing line between Heaven and Man were not “in accord with the sages, so that his judgments were somewhat in conflict with the classics” (HS 87B.3580). For this reason, says the Hanshu, Yang Xiong wrote the Fayan, devoting several chapters to “corrections” of Sima Qian's judgments on this issue; he also “continued” the Shiji, bringing it up to date for later reigns.

23. See, for example, the appraisal for SJ 48, recorded in SJ 130.3310: “When [the archetypal evil rulers] Jie and Zhou sank into evil, Tang and Wu rose to replace them. When the way of Zhou faltered, the Chunqiu was composed. When Qin's rule failed, Chen She made tracks.…” Such lines point to the same conclusion reached earlier by Confucius: “If Heaven had intended to let this culture die, a latter-day mortal would never have been able to link himself to it as I have done” (Analects 9/5).

Note also that parts of the Shiji's format claim analogies between the heavenly and Central States orders, as in SJ 130.3319. For the importance of the Central States’ unification, see SJ 20.1027; for “the past and present [as] one single body,” see HS 62.2733.

24. For the citation, see HS 62.2732. Sima Qian specifically links his work with the immortal dead when he writes that his completed work is to be deposited and “hidden away in Fame Mountain and passed on to the proper people” (HS 62.2736). Sima Qian thus likens his history to inscriptions composed for mountain sacrifices designed to communicate with spirits and immortals. Such inscriptions were then buried in famous mountains in the hopes that they would last for all time.

25. For the indivisibility of practical and spiritual aims in this literature, see Henry, Eric “The Motif of Recognition in Early China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 47.1 (1987), 5–30 CrossRefGoogle Scholar (especially p. 9).

26. For the first citation, see HS 62.2732, which plays upon the same analogy as Xunzi's talk of “human portents” in his “Discussion on Heaven” chapter. See Xunzi yinde (Harvard-Yenching Sinological Index Series, supplement no. 22; rpt., Taibei: Chengwen, 1966)Google Scholar 63/17/32. For the second, see HS 62.2716, which refers to the gods’ “acceptance of the calendrical record that governs the cycle of worship.” See also the Lüshi chunqiu assignment of deities to each part of the ritual calendar in the yueling sections of that work.

From Shang times, the archivists were specialists in charge of military and ritual operations (war and sacrifice), especially those associated with the ritual re-enactment of the primal act of Zhou merit, the conquest over the Shang, no less than being the specialists who kept written accounts of these activities. While many scholars disagree about the exact nature of the archivists’ service at court, all agree that it was essentially of a religious nature. The earliest known “histories,” of course, were compiled to record the relationship of the ruler to his own ancestors. For further information, see Hanjing, Xi , Zhoudai shiguan yanjiu (Taibei: Fuji wenhua, 1983)Google Scholar; Zhangyang, Lai and Xiang, Liu , “Liang Zhou shiguan kao” , Zhongguo lishi 1985.2, 97–108 Google Scholar; Rishichirō, Yokoto , “Chūgoku kodai taishi no seikaku shokushō to sono hensen” , Kanbun gakkai kaihō 31 (1986), 45–59 Google Scholar; and Cook, Constance A., “Scribes, Cooks, and Artisans: Breaking Zhou Tradition,” Early China 20 (1995), 241–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar (especially pp. 250–55).

27. Sima Qian is often treated as sole author of the Shiji, though Sima Tan by Sima Qian's report began the monumental project. We do not know the date of completion for Sima Qian's work, but we do know that in the century after his death (ca. 86 b.c.) several authors added to his work, as some Shiji passages describe events after 90 b.c. Only those passages added by Chu Shaosun (d. ?30 b.c.) are marked clearly as being authored by another. In the first century a.d., scholars noted that ten chapters were missing from the Shiji text. These chapters then were apparently “reconstructed” from other sources. Some modern scholars now argue the initial disappearance of many additional chapters in Western Han, followed by their reconstruction in the third to fourth centuries a.d. from Honshu materials. For further information, see Jiaxi, Yu , “Taishigong shuwang pian kao” , Furen xuezhi 15.1–2 (1947), 1–191 Google Scholar; Simian, Lü , Lü Simian du shi zhaji (Shanghai: Guji, 1982), 513–14Google Scholar, citing Zhiji, Liu ; Hulsewé, Anton “The Problem of the Authenticity of Shih chi 123, the Memoir on Ta Yüan,” T'oung pao 61 (1975), 83–147 Google Scholar; and the entry by Hulsewé, in Early Chinese Texts: A Bibliographical Guide, ed. Loewe, Michael (Berkeley: Society for the Study of Early China and Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, 1993), 405–14Google Scholar.

28. See SJ 61.2124–25 for debates on the place of luck and virtue in the determination of fate. Compare Dong Zhongshu (179–104 b.c.), cited in HS 56.2500: “Confucius said, ‘Man is able to enlarge the Way; the Way is not able to enlarge man.’ Hence order and disorder, destruction and revival, rest with oneself; they are not inviolable commands sent down from Heaven.” The simplistic notion that good is invariably requited with good and evil with evil is associated with Zixia , a disciple of “Confucian” ethics, but most mainstream Han classicists believed that the operations of cosmic retribution were more complicated than that. See Bohutong (Guoxue jiben cong-shu ed.), 8.327–29, on destiny ( Som, Tjan Tjoe, Po hu t'ung: The Comprehensive Discussions in the White Tiger Hall [Leiden: Brill, 1949], vol. 2, 573Google Scholar). (Note that the Bohutong treats longevity immediately after the emotions and human obligations.)

29. The Shangshu ( Shisanjing zhushu ed.; rpt., Taibei: Dahua, 1977 Google Scholar), “Kang gao” , 14.9a, explicitly enjoined the filial heir to pursue his father's goals, saying that if a son does not respect and undertake his father's affairs, he will do grievous harm to his father's heart/mind (xin ).

30. The postface to the Shiji begins by bearing witness to the Sima family's hereditary position as astrologer-archivist (shi) at courts of the Central States from antiquity, under Emperor Zhuanxu . See SJ 130.3285, 3299, 3319. For the dying wish of Sima Tan for the continuation of the family project, see SJ 130.3295. For the Shiji as a compilation of “those events the ancestors had gotten hold of,” see SJ 130.3319; and HS 62.2727, 2729, 2736. The letter to Ren An remarks movingly upon the contempt with which most people regarded his father, some part of which seemed to have been due to the lowly nature of his job as taishi. And surely it is significant that Sima Qian's book was promoted by members of his own family, including Yang Yun , Marquis of Pingtong , who was a maternal grandson. See HS 66.2889, 62.2737. See HS 80.3324 for the unsuccessful application to have an imperial copy of the Shiji made available for his perusal.

31. As stated in HS 62.2732–33. See also HS 62.2727, which defines wisdom in terms of cultivating the body, while expressing horror at both mutilation to the body and shame to the ancestors.

32. HS 62.2737.

33. Like Thucydides, who insisted upon the distinctive culture of the Athenians in his “Archaeologia” section of the History of the Peloponnesian War, Sima Qian insists upon the distinctive culture of the Central States, defined, in large degree, by the fact that its civilized residents, in contrast to the barbarians, are more likely to requite good and evil. See SJ 129.3258. For the conflation of Sima Qian's work of history and China's own past, see Levi, Jean Le Fils du ciel et son annaliste (Paris: Gallimard, 1992), 10 Google Scholar: “The history of China, from its origins down to 100 b.c.e., is mixed to one degree or another with the history of one man.” Note that the Shiji, unlike later dynastic histories, is relatively unconcerned with political elites. For this reason, Shigeki, Kaizuka , Kaizuka Shigeki chosaku shū (Tokyo: Chūō, 1976–78), vol. 7, 233–43Google Scholar (especially p. 239), and Peterson, “Sima Qian as Cultural Historian,” have dubbed the Shiji a “cultural history.”

For the exchange between god and man (“You sacrifice to me; I will bless you”), see Chunqiu jingzhuan yinde 220/Cheng 5/fu. Sima Qian may have thought that the unquiet dead, filled with resentment at the injustices inflicted upon them in life, would be profoundly grateful for having their stories told. But a strong sense of obligation is incurred by all who are “known” and commemorated, akin to the obligations that a child feels toward the parent. See Henry, “The Motif of Recognition,” 9.

In light of the prevailing views of his time, it is significant that Sima Qian believes that the main difference between Chinese and barbarians is that the civilized Chinese can be counted on more often to repay their obligations (monetary and moral). That may explain Sima Qian's decision to devote relatively little space to recording barbarian affairs, for (1) the barbarians might not be “civilized” enough to repay Sima Qian and his family for their commemoration; and (2) the Ssu-ma dead, in any case, might well refuse to accept offerings from those unrelated by blood.

34. For Sima Qian's admiration for those who “do not relinquish their own commitment,” see, for example, SJ 19.977, 47.1945, 61.2126, 83.2465–66, 86.2521. In SJ 47.1931, Confucius chides his student Zigong for failing to “cultivate his own way,” and rather seeking to accommodate himself to others: “Your commitment is not far-reaching enough!” On Sima Qian's own presumption that his readers and subjects alike are committed to regard the past as mirror, see SJ 18.878.

In many cases, commemoration was offered to potent individuals who had attained high rank or met with unjust fates. See, for example, SJ 124.3181, where “disciples keep him in mind (zhi ) tirelessly.” According to SJ 26.1256 (part of the Shiji “Treatise on the Calendar”), Sima Qian believed in the potential of the spirits to offer “bright favors” (mingde ) to those humans who please them. Nivison, David S., “Royal ‘Virtue’ in Shang Oracle Inscriptions,” Early China 4 (1978–79), 52–55 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, has noted that charismatic power (de ) accrues to the giver of favors in situations requiring requital (bao). For requital as the central notion in common religion, see Lien-sheng, Yang “The Concept of ‘Pao’ as a Basis for Social Relations in China,” in Chinese Thought and Institutions, ed. Fairbank, John King (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1957), 291–309 Google Scholar. For the concept of bao in Han, see Toshihiko, Uchiyama , “Kandai no ōhō shisō” , Tōkyō Shina gakuhō 6 (1960), 17–32 Google Scholar; and Poo Muchou, In Search of Personal Welfare. For one representative Han statement relating bao , the “Unity of Heaven and Man” (tianren heyi ) theory, and aesthetic theory, see Zhongguo meixueshi ziliao huibian (Taibei: Mingwen, 1983), 112 Google Scholar (citing Dong Zhongshu ).

35. The phrase in quotation marks, of course, plays off Pericles's famous funeral oration, which called upon the worthy men of Athens, in bearing witness to the fallen dead, “to fall in love with Athens.” See The History of the Peloponnesian War, 149 (Book II, section 43). Regarding Sima Qian's criticisms of the Han, an Odes tradition held that songs of criticism about bad rulers had been written by earlier court “archivists” (see above, n. 8). Still, there is no sign that Sima Qian questioned the basic legitimacy of Han rule.

36. Infinite variety was linked with the enduring Dao in numerous Han writings, for Dao spawned a multiplicity of transformations.

37. The Han shu biography of Sima Qian tells us that Qian before the Li Ling affair had worked hard to secure the personal favor of his ruler (HS 62.2729), forsaking other commitments to family and friends. After his castration, Sima Qian, like Li Ling before him, came to see that unswerving loyalty to the throne had profited him nothing. He looked, then, for other objects of commitment to which he could entrust his complete devotion. Why entrust the family name to the course of Chinese history itself? It was the single force over which he had a measure of control. Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror, 14, at one point comes close to propounding the religious reading: “One might even say that the frustrated scholar becomes a ‘textual’ shaman who speaks for the dead in a later generation. And as the scholar-historian bestows immortality on others, he garners the same precious gift for himself.”

38. The term “riding on” (cheng) occurs repeatedly in pre-Han and early Han literature. See, for example, the Zhuangzi, where men are told to ride on the “rightness of Heaven and Earth,” to ride on “the winds and clouds,” and to ride on “things”; Zhuangzi yinde (Harvard-Yenching Sinological Index Series, supplement no. 20; rpt., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1956)Google Scholar, 2/1/21,6/2/72,10/4/52. Comparable models for “riding on time” are found throughout the Shiji; for example, in chapters devoted to the money-makers, whose “arts” require them to watch the complex inter-play of supply and demand to determine their next investments (SJ 129.328; note that Sima Qian uses the same phrase of himself, yushi juyang , in HS 62.2736.)

It is hardly coincidental that Sima includes only narratives of the most extraordinary men in his historical record, as stated in HS 62.2735. The greater the force of character, the more likely that the dead would be able to advance Sima Qian's goal. Moreover, according to Sima Qian, only the most extraordinary humans remember to repay their obligations. Lesser persons are far too inconstant in their likes and dislikes to be trusted. To cite but three illustrations that Sima Qian gives in the Shiji: (1) from the tale of Mi Zixia , whose conduct was valued by his acquaintances not according to its intrinsic worth, but according to the ruler's assessment (SJ 63.2154); (2) from the tale of Su Qin , whose very own relatives treat him differently when his status rises (SJ 69.2262); and (3) from the tale of Lord Mengchang , whose friends and retainers “naturally” abandon him when his fortunes are down (SJ 75.2362).

39. SJ 88.2568, which refers literally to “keeping oneself intact.”

40. Kaizuka Shigeki, Chosaku shū, vol. 7,237, emphasizes the newness of this literary form of liezhuan. Jian Bozan, “Sima Qian de lishi,” 88, similarly remarks that the “Basic Annals,” “Hereditary House” sections, and biographical sections are unusual in placing individuals at the center of events. By this account, Sima Qian composed the chronological “Tables” section to put these individuals securely in time, on an analogy with the carefully composed genealogies preserved in ancestral temples.

41. For an example of the decline of the moral way, see SJ 33.1548. The notion of variety extends to the variety of readers who, immersed in a range of human types, enhance the probability that Sima Qian's family stories will be celebrated forever.

42. SJ 49.1967, where Sima Qian speaks about the necessity to continue the family line (here, the dynastic line) through the physical propagation.

43. Compare Laozi 33 (last line), which defines long life (shou ) as “to die but not be forgotten.” In this, I follow the two versions of the Laozi found at Mawangdui, and the interpretation accepted by Gao Heng . See Qianzhi, Zhu , Laozi jiaoshi (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1984), 134 Google Scholar.

44. For examples of the standard hero and perceptive patron, see Henry, “The Motif of Recognition.”

45. Hence, the wonderful stories, such as that told in SJ 48.1950, in which Chen She manufactures omens by stuffing carp with silk scrolls announcing his appointment as emperor.

46. See n. 33 above.

47. Analects 7/30; compare 19/21.

48. See n. 26 above.

49. HS 62.2735. This same phrase implies the desire to integrate different scholastic traditions, as noted in Pi Xirui , Jingxue lishi (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1959), 149 Google Scholar. For the importance of the paronomastic gloss in Warring States and Han literature, see Girardot, Norman J., Myth and Meaning in Early Taoism: The Theme of Chaos (huntun) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983)Google Scholar, especially ch. 2 (47—66); and Boltz, William G., The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System (New Haven: American Oriental Society, 1994), 90–92 Google Scholar. For the sense that jia as “scholastic lineage” would be anachronistic in mid-Western Han, see n. 96 below.

50. For example, Burton Watson, Grand Historian, 11, compares Sima Qian with Herodotus, arguing that both men wrote histories “of all time and all people.”

51. An authoritative text of the Documents classic came together shortly before Sima Qian's era, though several different versions of it circulated in the Warring States period. See Masaaki, Matsumoto , Shunjü sengoku ni okeru Shōsho no tenkai (Tokyo: Kazama, 1966)Google Scholar; and Michael Nylan, The Five “Confucian” Classics (forthcoming), ch. 3. For the sacredness of “holding fast to the beginning” and “promoting the beginning,” see below. As authority for the statement that this sense of the Central States having a continuous history is relatively new, see Jiegang, Gu “Qin Han tongyi de youlai he Zhanguoren dui yu shijie de xiangxiang” , Gushibian (Shanghai: Pushe, 1926–11), vol. 2,1Google Scholar: “China prior to Qin and Han was just a disunified group of small states. The result of their wars and integration, in which small states became big states, was to arouse the will to unify” (that had earlier been non-existent).

52. Sima Qian observes a number of “natural” laws underpinning human nature, including the following: (1) “rites are born in plenty and abandoned in want” (SJ 129.3255); (2) “riches are what all men desire by human nature, even without having to be taught” (SJ 129.3271); (3) protegés, clients, and friends will inevitably abandon former associates who have lost power (SJ 75.2362); (4) men will die happily for someone who recognizes their humanity, and women for someone who recognizes their beauty (SJ 65.2166, 86.2525; HS 62.2725); (5) it is virtue, not strategic position, that protects one's possessions (SJ 65.2166); (6) the desire for revenge is one of the most powerful motives for action (SJ 66.2183); (7) “doers don't always talk; talkers don't always do,” a quote from Laozi (SJ 65.2168); (8) one must often set aside minor scruples to achieve great things (SJ 66.2182); (9) “prolonged enjoyment of fame and noble rank is unlucky” (SJ 41.1752); (10) men should step aside when their work is done, as shown in SJ 79; (11) the very wisest of men are those who recognize what is “in the nature of things” (SJ 41.1755); and (12) men are likely to succeed “when desperation goads them on” (SJ 79.2425).

In this willingness to “let things be,” in imitation of the Dao, I see the influence of Zhuangzi and the HuangLao school. In the willingness to consider simultaneous, but contradictory influences, I see a parallel with Five Phases theory, which imagines several overlapping cycles (e.g., the “destructive,” “productive,” and Hongfan cycles) in simultaneous operation, whose operations sometimes “mask” or “exacerbate” an effect.

53. Among the fundamental cycles propelling the Central States evolution are those of wen and zhi , refinement and simplicity, and the perpetual alternation of fives and threes. According to Sima Qian, Confucius verified the alternating cycles of wen and zhi operating through history (SJ 47.1936, 30.1442). In the treatise on astrology (SJ 27.1344), Sima Qian discourses on “cycles of Heaven” that occur at intervals of thirty, 100, 500, and 4,500 years. Talk of the cosmic and political alternations of three and five is found in SJ 68.2229 and 79.2419. Finally, for the Three Dynasties theory, by which Xia, Shang, and Zhou history evolved, see SJ 8.393. Note that talk of threes and fives may itself be a pun, for the phrase sometimes means merely, “the ins and outs of a situation,” as in SJ 88.2569. Still, the Shiji pays relatively little attention to the operations of yin/yang and the Five Phases, as compared with later Chinese works. The divine division of space is outlined in the fenye system.

54. This follows arguments in Zhouyi 45/Xi B/2 and in Xunzi 28/9/59, which celebrate the complexity of the Central States divisions of power and wealth. For the latter, see Kjellberg, Paul “Sextus Empiricus, Zhuangzi, and Xunzi,” in Essays on Skepticism, Relativism, and Ethics in the Zhuangzi, ed. Kjellberg, Paul and Ivanhoe, Phillip J. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 18–19 Google Scholar.

55. Compare Xunzi 71/19/31, contra the rule-makers.

56. From the “Basic Annals” we see that the founders of dynasties (and frequently lesser figures) enjoy divine births. The First Emperor of Qin and Han Wudi, by contrast, intend through their megalomaniacal search for physical immortality to circumvent the ordinary convention that makes them reliant on those who follow them for the conferral of immortal fame.

57. Analects 12/20 defines the difference between fame and influence: fame is being known by everyone; influence is making a difference in other people's conduct. For examples of lasting influence, see SJ 32.1513,34.1562,36.1586,41.1756. For an example of celebrity, see SJ 85.2514; for the extraordinary fickleness of the popular will, see SJ 120.3113.

58. On the power of the word, see SJ 76.2368, where the “three-inch tongue” (i.e., the powers of persuasion) is said to be mightier than the force of a million strong, greater than the Nine Cauldrons and Great Lü Bells. At the same time, the phrases “empty words” and “empty writing” are used repeatedly in SJ 130, HS 62, and SJ 47 in connection with Confucius, often in contrast with “real deeds” (which can be viewed as more or less powerful, insofar as they are inextricably tied to specific—and so limited—times and places). See Makoto, Imataka , “Kūgen to Kūbun kō” , in Iriya kyōju Ogakawa kyōju taikyū kinen Chūgoku bungaku, gogaku ronshū (Tokyo: Chikuma, 1974), 117–85Google Scholar. The same phrases in other contexts (e.g., SJ 8.379, 63.2144, 81.2440) clearly refer to verbal tricks.

59. SJ 61.2127.

60. This dual lack has led some recent scholars, Grant Hardy among them, to assume that Sima Qian is something like the first post-modernist interested in telling stories from multiple perspectives. See Hardy, Grant “Can an Ancient Chinese Historian Contribute to Modern Western Theory?,” History and Theory 33.1 (1994), 20–38 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Some historians believe that this apparent lack of a unified narrative only induces frustration in the reader. See, for example, Jian Bozan, “Sima Qian de lishi,” 89. Zhu Ziqing argues that the Shiji's fragmented narratives were designed to allow Sima Qian at once to honor and criticize his subjects. See his “Shiji daodu” , in Shiji lumuen xuanji , ed. Peirong, Huang (Taibei: Chang'an, 1982), 231–42Google Scholar. But Sima Qian is more interested in what tends to happen “naturally” than in what ought to happen. For example, he writes in SJ 129.3260 that those of great wealth are treated “with the courtesies reserved for lords of a state of ten thousand chariots”; and Sima Qian—to do justice to the memories of each of his subjects—must also show them as they appeared to themselves and to others.

61. See Youzeng, Zhu , Yi Zhou shu jixun jiaoshi (Changsha: Shangwu, 1940), 93 Google Scholar (“Shifa” ); Xun, Ouyang , Yiwen leiju (Shanghai: Guji, 1985), 725 Google Scholar.

62. Line from a hymn ascribed to Madame Tangshan , consort of Gaozu , and set to music in 193 b.c. (HS 2.1046).

63. A close paraphrase of Carruthers, Mary The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 260 Google Scholar. By Carruthers's definition, in a memorial culture to intone dedicatory texts was not to repeat a construct of words, but rather to engage in a mental exercise, for thinking, insofar as it attained the object of one's thoughts, was believed to eliminate the distance between the thinker and the subject of his thoughts. The physical process whereby one internalizes a text's message was seen to rely on the person intoning or reciting chosen texts, rather than merely scanning them with the eyes. Intoning the text then became “not merely a passive memorial; it was rather a tool within the process of recollection,” insofar as it allowed the person to move beyond surface reality to a deeper vision of the community of the living and the dead. See Brashier, Kenneth E., “Evoking the Ancestor: The Stele Hymn of the Eastern Han Dynasty” (Ph.D. diss., Cambridge University, 1997), 96 Google Scholar. For further information, see Cherniack, Susan “Book Culture and Textual Transmission in Sung China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 54.1 (1994), 53–55 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

64. Liji yinde (Harvard-Yenching Sinological Index Series, no. 27; rpt., Taibei: Chengwen, 1966) 24/1–2 Google Scholar; trans, modified from Legge, James Li Chi, Book of Rites (rpt., New York: University Books, 1967), vol. 2, 210–11Google Scholar. Most scholars believe that the Liji chapters are based upon ritual traditions elaborated earlier by Xunzi and his disciples. That such notions of sacrifice continued later in Han is shown by Lunheng, 22.448 (“Dinggui” ), where Wang Chong states that, “the ghosts existing between heaven and earth” are “evoked by people's intensive thinking and preserving them in their thoughts.”

65. That is why the paragon of virtue, King Wen, is said to have experienced joyful feelings during the sacrifice but a renewed sense of loss after it. See Liji 24/7 (Legge, Li Chi, vol. 2,213).

66. Mencius 4A/19 ( Lau, D.C. Mencius: Translated with an Introduction [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970], 125 Google Scholar). Compare Mencius 4A/13 (Lau, Mencius, 130), which states that the treatment of parents after death is even more important than filial duties performed during their lifetimes. Note also that Mencius writes, “the greatest thing a dutiful son can do is to honor his parents, and the greatest thing he can do to honor his parents is to let them enjoy the Empire.” See Mencius 5A/4 (Lau, Mencius, 142).

67. Xunzi 75–76/19/117–27. SJ 47.1925 shows Confucius engaging in an act of imaginative immersion into the dead spirit of King Wen, as confirmation of Confucius's inherent greatness.

68. For the association between filial piety (xiao ) and sacrificial obligations to those outside the immediate family circle, see Knapp, Keith “The Ru Reinterpretation of Xiao ,” Early China 20 (1995), 195–222 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For seeing the past through the heart-minds of the most sacred dead, see DongZhongshu (?), Chunqiu fanlu (Sibu congkan ed.), 6.3a, cited in commentary to Honshu buzhu , ed. Xian-qian, Wang (rpt., Taibei: Xinwenfeng, 1975), 62.10a (p. 1224)Google Scholar. Note that it is these very sage-kings who purportedly “utilized the awesome influence of ghosts and gods to put down” their enemies, as stated in SJ 6.246.

69. See Taixuanjing , as translated in The Canon of Supreme Mystery, trans. Nylan, Michael (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 453 Google Scholar (“Hsüan wen” ).

70. Mencius 7A/4 (Lau, Mencius, 182). Note that the phrase in quotations appears in many different texts, including those ascribed to Huizi .

71. Xunzi 80/21/41–44.

72. Zhuangzi 14/5/43–46; translation from Watson, Burton The Complete Works of Chuang Tzu (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), 73–74 Google Scholar. Compare Zhuangzi 16/6/20 (Watson, Chuang Tzu, 80): “Life and death are fated—constant as the succession of dark and dawn, a matter of Heaven…. If a man is willing to regard Heaven as a father and to love it, then how much more should he be willing to do for that which is even greater!” For the sage's delight in everything that he witnesses, see Zhuangzi 15/6/11. There are comparable passages in Lüshi chunqiu (Sibu beiyao ed.), including 1.5b, 15.8b, 17.10b-lla.

73. Zhouyi 2/1Yan.

74. For the development of microcosm/macrocosm analogies around this time, see Sivin, Nathan “Body, State, and Cosmos in the Last Three Centuries b.c.,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 55.1 (1995), 5–37 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also, Graham, A.C. Disputers of the Tao (La Salle: Open Court, 1989), 383–88Google Scholar.

75. Xunzi 89/23/69.

76. Charles Le Blanc has noted in connection with the Yellow Emperor that the title of supreme “ancestor” does not always go to he who is first in the hereditary line; instead, it tends to be located in the person of greatest exemplary power. See his “A Re-Examination of the Myth of Huang-ti,” Journal of Chinese Religions 13–14 (1985–86), 54 Google Scholar.

77. HS 62.2735. The founder of a line was not necessarily the earliest progenitor but one who contributed significantly to its standing.

78. For the sage's pursuits cast as extraordinary acts of bravery, see Xunzi 9/4/1626; Zhuangzi 44/17/64; Jia Yi, Xinshu (Sibu beiyao ed.), 6.11b; and Yang Xiong, Fayan, 11.33. The Xunzi also notes the superior valor required to “stand alone and without fear” when “the world does not recognize you” (Xunzi 90/23/84). Many texts, including Hou Hanshu (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1965 Google Scholar; hereafter, HHS), 79A.2551, associate this particular strength of character with being able to “live in the present” but on some level “act through the past.” From this association between the good and the brave, perhaps, evolved the legend that Confucius once himself had acted as a strong man, “raising the barrier of a kingdom's gate” with one hand. See Lüshi chunqiu, 15.4b.

79. For example, Mencius 6A/14 defines “greatness” in terms of the capacity to discriminate between greater and lesser entities and the determination to put oneself in service of the greatest one, as do Zhuangzi 1/1/10–17 and Xunzi 1/1/3–4, 3/1/43–45. Sima Qian refers to this discourse in his famous letter to Ren An (HS 62.2732), when he remarks upon the potential for one's death to be “as weighty as Mt. Tai or as light as a feather.”

80. Zhuangzi 13/5/11–13 (Watson, Chuang Tzu, 73).

81. Ying-shih, Yü “Life and Immortality in the Mind of Han China,” Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 25 (1964–65), 80–122 Google Scholar, shows that the preoccupation with “no death,” which had been slowly escalating from the eighth century b.c., reached new heights of frenzy at the time of Han Wudi (p. 96). At that time, special sacrifices to the dead were thought to be linked to the pursuit of immortality (p. 99); also, in Wudi's time there developed the idea that a single act could assure the immortality of one's entire family (p. 107).

82. See Harper, Donald “Wang Yen-shou's Nightmare Poem,” Harvard journal of Asiatic Studies 47.1 (1987), 239–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

83. Zheng Xuan (127–200), therefore, in speaking of ritual sacrifice linked three different things: the ancestors’ beauty (of character), the excellence of the inscription written to memorialize that character, and the self (meaning, the reader of the inscription). See Xidan, Sun , Liji jijie (Taibei: Wenshizhe, 1973), 1146 Google Scholar. The best modern analysis of the text as potent religious intermediary in early China is Kenneth Brashier, “Evoking the Ancestor,” which focuses, however, on mid- to late- Eastern Han memorial inscriptions.

84. See Changdong, Shi , Handai meixue sixiang shuping (Beijing: Zhonghua, 1981), 1–24 Google Scholar. Of course, works of art had always been employed in making offerings to the gods, but it is in late Warring States and Han that we find charts presupposing direct revelations from the gods through art.

Supposedly, a particularly lifelike mural depicting the spirit realm was built in Lu , by the same king who discovered the guwen (Archaic Script) texts. As Wang Chong tells us, accurate depiction of the spirits was associated with “no death for thousands of years.” See Lunheng, 2.32 (“Wuxing” ). The context for that comment is Wang's concern with the process of natural metamorphosis and the relation between visual depiction and a conferral of immortality.

85. Zhuangzi 3/2/9. Sometimes this tolerance towards difference has been read as a loss of all moral standards, but Sima Qian intends to show that multiple standards exist for morality, depending upon the object of one's commitment.

86. See n. 6 above.

87. Confucius had insisted that the filial son would remain by his parents' side, doing nothing to worry them. But Mencius and others justified the great exploits of men so long as sons thereby made their fathers famous. In the Shiji, one good example is provided by the tales of the assassin-retainers. Another example comes from SJ 75.2361, where Feng Huan is applauded for an act of disobedience to his master, Lord Mengchang, because Feng's act ultimately “built his lord's reputation.” Feng is shown to have risked life and limb for his master.

Note that Xunzi had long before this insisted that one's attention to the unseen dead represents the single best test of one's general perspicacity and worth, as in Xunzi 75/19/114–22. Sima Qian makes much the same point in the biography of Chen Ping , where Chen's ability to divide the sacrificial meats becomes a true sign of his extraordinary abilities in all areas of social interaction (SJ 56.2052).

88. See, for example, the argumentation of the Xiaojing, zhang 1 and 16. Readers should note that the new definition of filial piety that resulted from this conflation is not especially “Confucian” (as it had been promoted first by the Legalists), nor does it represent truly “ancient” beliefs. See Michael Nylan, “Confucian Piety and Individualism,” passim.

89. There is no indication that Sima Qian thought of Han rule as liable to endure forever. It is more likely, given his severe criticisms of the Han rulers, especially Jingdi and Wudi, that he believed the dynasty to be in decline.

90. For the first quotation, see SJ 61.2124. For the second quotation, see SJ 72.2362, which cites a Documents text to the effect that “Heaven's favor cannot be counted upon…. Taking Heaven's favor for granted—wise men do not do this.” The utter stability of the Central States, then, is all the more surprising in view of the frailties of personal mortality and personal immorality. For Heaven as “constant,” see Xunzi 62/17/1, intended as response to earlier remarks in the Odes and Documents on Heaven's “inconstancy.”

91. Analects 9/5, quoted in SJ 47.1919, says, “If Heaven really intended to let this culture perish, latter-day men would never have been able to act in concert with this culture. And if Heaven does not yet intend to destroy this culture, what have I to fear?”

92. For the Three Dynasties as a stable, sacred tripod symbolizing the stable and sacred character of Central States culture, see SJ 129.3262–63. Note that the power of the tripod symbol was probably enhanced by the find in 113 b.c. of an ancient tripod supposedly associated with the Yellow Emperor (SJ 28.1392).

93. For the divine birth of Liu Bang, see SJ 8.341. Compare SJ 27.1348, where astrological portents signify his divine election. Xiang Yu insisted in SJ 7.344 that Liu Bang would not have secured the throne had it not been for Heaven's divine favor, which allowed Liu at several points in time to miraculously evade capture and death. Still, Xiang Yu's final defeat comes about through his own inability to use other men well according to SJ 7.339, 8.381, 92.2612.

94. Zhuangzi 14/5/43–46 (see the longer translation of the passage on p. 223 above).

95. See Nylan, Michael “Rethinking the Han Confucian Synthesis,” in Imagining Boundaries: Changing Confucian Doctrines, Texts, and Hermeneulics, ed. Chow, Kai-wing Ng, On-cho and Henderson, John B. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1999), 17–56 Google Scholar; and Mark Csikszentmihalyi and Michael Nylan, “Constructing Lineages and Inventing Traditions in the Shiji” (forthcoming).

96. SJ 47.1909. Some respected scholars consider the author of the Shiji to be the “most loyal follower of Confucius next to Mencius” (Li Changchi, Sima Qian de renge, 50); such scholars see the figure of Confucius as a mere “extension of the Han historian himself” (Durrant, The Cloudy Mirror, xviii). In an earlier article, Durrant claims that Sima Qian “identified totally” with the Sage ( Durrant, Stephen “Self as the Intersection of Traditions: The Autobiographical Writings of Sima Qian,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 106.1 [1986], 33–40 CrossRefGoogle Scholar). However, unlike our ideal construct of a Confucian thinker, who supposedly presumed the existence of a “single thread” informing all man-made institutions (the ethical Way of Heaven), Sima Qian looked to multiplicity, variety, and invention in past and present (“the transformations of the ten thousands things”) to convey and insure the perpetuation of life itself, as in SJ 18.878. In a quite typical Han fashion, Sima Qian borrowed ideas from many different thinkers we now assign to separate philosophical “schools.” Parenthetically, Sima Qian experienced distress—not elation or curiosity—when he saw himself cast adrift, isolated from ordinary society, like the archetypal Daoist sage: “sitting at home, befuddled as though he had lost something; going out, not knowing where he is going” (HS 62.2736; my translation has converted first-person pronouns to third).

97. SJ 47.1943. As Sima Tan himself notes in SJ 130.3295, “men of learning down to the present have taken [what Confucius did] as model.”

98. Note that the Shiji is the first extant text to credit Confucius with editing all of the Six Classics. Earlier extant texts simply ascribed Confucius's importance to his mastery of received classics and his authorship of a single classic, the Chunqiu.

99. Nearly all Han works follow the Zhuangzi in linking divinity with the capacity for endless transformation. See Huainanzi (Sibu congkan ed.), 2.2a-b, 9.2a, 9.7a, 20.7b. Sima Qian's desire to catalogue an enormous range of people and events is very much in keeping with the early Han development of the fu rhyme-prose, which aimed to be inclusive in its catalogue of the marvels of the world. For the fragility of moral ways and classical learning, see SJ 130.3319, which recounts the destruction of the classical texts, and SJ 61.2125, which demands to know whether “the so-called Way of Heaven” even exists. SJ 61.2122 and 2127 note that Boyi's song has not been recorded in the Odes, and that it is primarily because of Confucius the historian that the name of Boyi and Shuqi has come down in history; SJ 129.3258 has Confucius owing his fame principally to his promotion by his rich disciple, Zigong (poor disciples, though no less devoted, could never have spread Confucius's fame). Therefore, to promote another, one must not only have the right spirit but also the right opportunity.

100. For the Shiji statement that Sima Qian is not a creator, see SJ 130.3299–3300. For the contrary assumption that Sima Qian's refusal to compare his own enterprise with that of Confucius stems from “political discretion,” see Li, Wai-yee “The Idea of Authority in the Shiji (Records of the Historian), Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 54.2 (1994), 359 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Burton Watson, Grand Historian, 91, inexplicably considers the stock phrase used by Sima Qian (“and thus was made [zuo ] chapter X”) a basic contradiction of Sima Qian's insistence elsewhere that he is not a creator. But one can “make” (i.e., write) a chapter without “creating” the characters in it.

The issue of “creation” versus “transmission” remained a major issue in Han literary works; for example, in Yang Xiong's fu defending his “creation” (zuo) of the Taixuanjing and in Wang Chong's “Defense of Creation” (“Duizuo” ) chapter. For the former, see HS 87A.3565–80 (translated in Knechtges, David The Han Rhapsody: A Study of the Fu of Yang Hsiung [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976], 101–3Google Scholar, especially couplet 113); for the latter, see Lunheng, 29.574–78.

101. The shiji (archivists’ records) were the raw material from which Confucius made his Chunqiu, according to Sima Qian (SJ 121.3115). Therefore, in the Shiji, the protagonist of each tale is allowed to appear in the characteristic attitudes he or she has chosen, without an ethical overlay of praise or blame. As Wai-yee Li, “The Idea of Authority,” 379, notes, “a historical character is often given the chance to reflect on and sum up his existence.” Contrast the Shiji assessment of the Chunqiu given in SJ 130.3297: “Confucius levelled positive and negative criticisms for the 242 years [of the Chunqiu], thereby to create exemplary standards for All-under-Heaven. He criticized the emperor, put the feudal lords in their place, and attacked the high ministers.”

102. SJ 61.2127.

103. SJ 61.2124 specifically rejects the notion that an ethical Heaven rewards or punishes humans for their deeds. Analects 12/5 cites a tradition to the effect that life and death, wealth and rank are due to Heaven's will (i.e., fate).

104. SJ 62.2133. Note that Sima Qian explicitly questions the harsh criticism which some traditions had Confucius leveling at Guan Zhong (Analects 3/22; SJ 62.2136). For Guan Zhong's ability to ignore convention in the pursuit of a reputation, see Liezi (Sibu beiyao ed.), 6.3b-6a.

105. Guan Zhong reportedly was delighted to switch loyalties, serving one ruler who had killed Guan Zhong's first master; he was also dishonest and lascivious according to SJ 62.2131. With respect to Guan Zhong, traditions varied in their assessments, with those in the Congyang criticizing Duke Huan for his overly harsh treatment of the barbarians, and the Guliang approving of anything that brought civilization to the barbarians. For a comparable, corroborating example, see the lasting influence credited to Guan Zhong's ruler, Duke Huan, in SJ 32.1513 and 33.1548.

106. Analects 14/18 (trans, after Waley, Arthur The Analects of Confucius [London: Allen and Unwin, 1938], 185 Google Scholar).

107. Analects 14/18. SJ 66.2183 makes much the same point in the biography of Wu Zixu , for Wu ultimately makes his name and avenges his father's death precisely because he is not willing to kill himself in order to accede to mere convention. SJ 68.2229 confirms the justice of Shang Yang's recognition that, “the deeds of noble men will, in fact, be abused by their age, just as thoughts of singular wisdom will surely be despised by ordinary folk.”

108. SJ 100.2735.

109. Sj 84.2500. Compare SJ 94.2649, which suggests that retainers of Tian Heng , however principled, were unworthy, since they could think of no way to save the situation except for mass suicide.

110. The biography of Qu Yuan concludes, “I wondered how a man with Qu Yuan's talents, who could not have failed to find a welcome in any of the states,… brought himself to such a pass” (SJ 84.2502). By my reading, Sima Qian admires Jia Yi, who gave faithful service to the end, more than Qu Yuan for this very reason. Hence the ironical tone of Qu Yuan's biography.

111. See HS 62.2735 for both citations. The issue of regrets and resentments relates to the tale of Boyi and Shuqi, and whether the acquisition of fame in history should be enough to offset feelings of personal rancor.

112. See SJ 124.3182 for Sima Qian's criticism of Boyi and Shuqi, which suggests that their decision to die in protest was useless and inappropriate.

113. Apparently, Zhang Heng (79–139), who held the post of taishiling , was one of many who objected to Sima Qian's decision not to start Chinese history with Fu Xi. See HHS 59.1940.

114. Wai-yee Li, “The Idea of Authority,” 370. See n. 12 above.

115. For Huangdi as spiritual ancestor of both Chinese history and Chinese historians, see the biography of Zou Yan (SJ 74.2344). For Huangdi as ancestor to all the Five Emperors, see SJ 1.45. Compare Ying Shao , Fengsu tongyi ( Fengsu tongyi fu tongjian [Beiping: Centre franco-chinois, 1943]Google Scholar), 5.39. William G. Boltz, “Myth in the Early Empire” (paper presented at the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, Boston, March 25, 1999), also noted Sima Qian's curious insistence that the six great emperors of high antiquity shared the same clan name, and that Sima Qian constructs a “genealogical record fully as detailed and fully as tedious as the Old Testament Book of Chronicles spelling out the Israelite ancestors of the House of David,” in which Boltz saw Sima Qian's attempt to insure the political viability of the empire. (In making the Yellow Emperor ancestor to all Chinese dynasties, Sima Qian ignored other traditions.)

116. For the citation, see Yasui Kōzan and Shōhachi, Nakamura , Chōshū isho shūsei (Tokyo: Meitoku, 1971–92), vol. 3, 97Google Scholar. For the story that the Yellow Emperor, having vanquished his enemy Chi You , then in a time of political upheaval, “had Chi You's image painted, so as to overawe All- under-Heaven,” see Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 6, 89.

117. SJ 1.3 and 26.1256 identify the Yellow Emperor as inventor of the calendar and sedentary agriculture. The Yellow Emperor was also said to have conquered or conducted progresses through most of the geographic area under the Han empire (SJ 1.4). For the Yellow Emperor as immortal, see SJ 12.455; as god of the yellow, Earth cycle, to which Han had returned, see SJ 12.469 and 476,28.1319. For the other contributions of the Yellow Emperor, see Chōshū isho shūsei, vol. 1A, 69; vol. IB, 103,113; vol. 3, 58; vol. 5,119; vol. 6,46.

118. SJ 13.506, speech attributed to Chu Shaosun . The last sentence quoted may apply to certain of Huangdi's descendants as well. Compare SJ 26.1257, quoted in Pankenier, David W., “The Cosmo-political Background of Heaven's Mandate,” Early China 20 (1995), 152–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

119. Lunheng 29.568–69 (“Anshu”).

120. It was Zou Yan who had sketched the breadth and fecundity of the Central States; Zou Yan also who identified the area of the Central States as the “Sacred” (shen ) District of the Red Land—meaning, the area most favored by Heaven (SJ 74.2344). Zou identified the Yellow Emperor as the source of all scholarly endeavor (SJ 74.2344).

121. SJ 74.2344.

122. SJ 74.2344. Compare Fayan, 4.12, which credits Zou Yan with masterly “self-possession” (zichi ). SJ 74.2345 then compares Zou Yan to the famous ministers Yi Yin and Baili Xi , who led their rulers to imagine for themselves an otherwise unthinkable greatness.

123. See n. 33 for Sima Qian's equation of barbarism and the failure to requite good and evil adequately. Sima Tan's outline of the Six Lines (liujia ) criticizes Mohist theories for “making it difficult to be reverent” (SJ 130.3289). For the Mohist teaching, see Yirang, Sun , Mozi jiangu (Taibei: Shijie, 1965), 245 Google Scholar. By contrast, Sima Tan praises the adherents of the Dao (daojia ) for “uniting with the formless” (the unseen world).

124. SJ 87.2539.

125. SJ 86.2522–26.

126. SJ 86.2525.

127. Here I cite Pindar: Selected Odes, trans. Ruck, Carl A.P. and Matheson, William H. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), 203 Google Scholar (Nemea VII), whose thoughts on literature's power to resuscitate the dead recall those of Sima Qian and his contemporaries.

128. SJ 86.2525.

129. HS 62.2733.

130. SJ 92.2629–30.

131. From his talk with Kuai Tong , recorded in SJ 92.2623–25.

132. SJ 92.2630.

133. SJ 92.2628. Han Xin was willing to let himself be viewed as a leech and a coward, for he mooched meals from those better off than he and he refused to exchange insults with a local bully, a man of “ordinary daring.”

134. Contra Jian Bozan, “Sima Qian de lishi,” 107, who assumes that Sima Qian despises the money-makers. Certainly, Ban Gu in HS 62.2738 criticizes Sima Qian for treating them in such an even-handed manner.

135. For examples of classicists who condemned the pursuit of profit, see Mencius 1A/1 and Yantielun ( A Concordance to the Yantielun [Institute of Chinese Studies Ancient Chinese Texts Concordance Series, no. 14; Hong Kong: Shangwu, 1994]Google Scholar) 1.1/1/7. For Sima Qian's assessment of the money-makers, see SJ129.3254,3261, and 3272, which compare the circulation of rich traders and great merchants with that of water's natural flow. SJ 129.3254–55 speaks of four bases for wealth, one of which is commerce, which are in turn prerequisites for the moral life. SJ 129.3282 admits that rich men and women may be described by the phrase sufeng “untitled vassal,” by analogy to Confucius, the suwang “untitled king.” SJ 129.3271, however, decries the commodification engendered by that same pursuit of profit, even when the pursuit has created the surpluses that make civilization possible.

Note that the religious connotations of cowry shells (precursors of metal coins) may be traced back into Neolithic times; also that the origins of the money-trees found in Han tombs may go back to Sanxingdui , a site contemporaneous with late Shang. See Erickson, Susan N., “Money Trees of the Eastern Han Dynasty,” Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities 66 (1994), 5–115 Google Scholar. Markets (where goods were circulated and money exchanged) often symbolized sacred exchange. See Zhouyi 45/ Xi B/2; Taixuanjing, in Nylan, The Canon of Supreme Mystery, 455 (“Xuanyi” ).

136. SJ 129.3258. Bo Gui there is said to be “ancestor” (zu ) of those who engage in moneymaking. Compare the advice of Jiran recorded in SJ 129.3256.

137. SJ 129.3282.

138. SJ 129.3282.

139. This may explain why Sima Qian repeatedly insists in one section of SJ 129 (SJ 129.3261–69) that the Central States’ resources, human and extra-human, are plentiful enough so long as one knows how to utilize them. In making that argument, he parts company with most early thinkers on economic issues, who stressed the limitations of the Central States’ resources.

140. Lü Shang , for example, was given land in a brackish swamp, but he managed to make the area (later the state of Qi ) quite rich, thanks to his diligent management of the local water resources. Compare the descriptions in the same chapter of the Herdsman Lou and of the inhabitants of Lu , who managed to fashion a civilized existence “though [their] land was scarce,” according to SJ 129.3260, 3279.

141. SJ 130.3295.

142. SJ 28.1355,1396,1399–1400,1402.

143. SJ 28.1355,1394.

144. SJ 28.1355, 1369–70. Guan Zhong rightly dissuaded Duke Huan of Qi from performing the feng and shan (SJ 28.1361), but those who tried to dissuade the Qin and Han emperors from performing the same sacrificies were ignored (SJ 28.1397).

145. For example, SJ 28.1355,1375–77,1394,1396,1398.

146. SJ 28.1370, 1401, 1403. Ironically, when Sima Xiangru encouraged Wudi to undertake the feng sacrifice, he predicted that the Han's flood-like virtue would reach down to benefit even the lowest life forms of the empire. Past rulers who had carried out the feng sacrifice, “had engraved their achievements on the Central Peak [= Mt. Tai] in order to manifest their perfect honor, set loose their resplendent virtue, extend the luster of their names, and confer general blessings with which to wash the commoners clean.” See SJ 117.3064–67.

147. SJ 28.1371,1403–4.

148. SJ 28.1371.

149. See, for example, SJ 75.2362 for an unequivocal statement to this effect.

150. SJ 28.1404: “I have accompanied the emperor [= Wudi] when he … went to perform the feng and shan.… I thus have had an opportunity to carefully observe the ideas of the fangshi and officials in charge of sacrifice. Thereafter, I retired to discourse in order upon all that has happened from antiquity in the service of the ghosts and gods…. Later there will be noble men who will be able to peruse [the records].” SJ 130.3299 explicitly states Sima Qian's purpose in writing the Shiji: to publicize the good deeds and bad of the emperors, and to see that the “deeds of the meritorious ministers, feudal families, and worthy officials” do not “fall into oblivion … but are transmitted” to later generations.

151. SJ 28.1387–88 (where Madam Wang is named); HS 97A.3952 (naming Madam Li).

152. HS 97A.3955.

153. For example, in SJ 61.2127,109.3002,130.3298–99. Compare Wang Chong, who writes in Lunheng, 20.413 (“Yiwen” ), that a person whose character has been preserved in writing “becomes a brilliantly colored portrait, and so worthy of honor.”

154. Comments ascribed to the junzi in the Zuozhuan are especially concerned with assessing specific historical actions. Their themes include the importance of preparing for warfare, maintaining friendships, claiming prerogatives due to rank, gaining the services of large numbers of people, maintaining a reputation for good faith, observing ritual prescriptions, and recognizing the need for officials to admonish their rulers. Comments ascribed to Confucius in the same work, by contrast, are both more extensive and more ambiguous; most often they describe the general attributes of a person's character. I am indebted to Eric Henry for these observations, which are to appear in ch. 8 of his forthcoming book on the Zuo. Their pertinence to the case of Sima Qian is suggested in Chen Zhi , “Han Jin ren dui Shiji de chuanbo ji qi pingjia” , Sichuan daxue xuebao 4 (l957), 41–57 (especially p. 51), which argues that Sima Qian writes in imitation of the Chunqiu tradition.

155. The “Tables” (biao ) focus on related concerns, as they stress one of three themes: that a person is defined by what he or she works at (SJ 15.685,14.511,18.878); that a sage is defined by his single-minded drive and extraordinary ambitions (SJ 16.760); and that the system of enfeoffment, along with recent modifications to the system, is designed to ensure the continuation of sacrifices in perpetuity to the worthy (SJ 17.802–3, 18.877–78; compare SJ 106.2836). For “wisdom” as a way to “establish security for ten thousand generations,” see SJ 99.2726.

Note also that the appraisals to certain biographies dismiss the barbarians as unworthy objects of commitment by inhabitants of the Central States (e.g., SJ 93.2642, 106.2836).

156. Here, like most historians, I make the provisional assumption that Sima Qian is the chief author of the appraisals appended to most of the Shiji chapters, particularly those that begin, “the taishigong says” (). (However, since Sima Tan was taishi- gong also, it is possible that he composed some of these appraisals.) In rare cases, the appraisal simply begins with “the tradition says” , as in SJ 126, or with no formal appraisal, as in SJ 74,121,129. As stated above, the religious reading obviates the necessity to assign these appraisals to Sima Qian as single author.

157. See SJ 62.2136–37, which contrasts the strength of commitment of Guan Zhong and Van Ying ; also, SJ 64.2160, 98.2713. I find SJ 81.2451–52 particularly moving as it talks of using one's death to real purpose, with the result that one's reputation can “outweigh Mt. Tai”; compare SJ 109.2878, which says that all men in the empire “whether they knew him or not, grieved for General Li,” so deeply did they trust his sincerity of purpose. Yantielun 4.3/25/12 has Sima Qian deploring the blind commitment that most humans have to profit-making.

158. SJ 68–70, on Shang Yang , Su Qin , and Zhang Yi , none of whom looked beyond personal gain; SJ 89.2586 and 125.3196, which mock the quality of commitments based on mere convenience or sexual attraction; SJ 118.3098, which criticizes the kings of Huainan and Hengshan for devoting their efforts to rebellion, instead of support for the house of Han.

159. SJ 66.2183,79.2425, and 84.2503 query the need for Qu Yuan to have committed suicide. See also, SJ 91.2607,92.2629,100.2735,101.2749.

160. SJ 94.2649 questions whether death is really the only (or even the single best) way to express the absolute quality of one's commitment. SJ 99.2726 applauds Shusun Tong for changing masters and “changing with the times.”

161. SJ 73.2342, 87.2562, 88.2570, 110.2919, 122.3154. However, SJ 95.2672 praises strong commitments to the Han founder as a worthy object of devotion. Still, SJ 102.2761 lauds Zhang Shizhi as a worthy man who refused to toady to the emperor's will; and SJ 104.2779 praises Tian Shu for his refusal to encourage the emperor in his bad behavior. Most interesting is Sima Qian's severe condemnation of the generals Wei Qing and Huo Qubing , who preferred to play it safe rather than risk the royal displeasure (SJ 111.2947).

162. SJ 86.2538,90.2595.1 take it that SJ 96.2685 criticizes its subjects for their lapses in commitment. Compare SJ 102.2761, which praises the art behind Feng Tang's remarks; and SJ 103.2774, which praises Lord Wanshi , Wei Wan , and Zhang Shu for “accomplishing” their objectives. By contrast, SJ 107.2856 blames Guan Fu for failing to master any arts.

163. SJ 93.2642, 107.2856, 122.3154.

164. SJ 95.2673, 79.2425, 108.2865, 112.2962, 120.3113. Note that Sima Qian is less concerned about worthy men who fail to realize their aims since he believes that histories like his exist to vindicate them.

165. SJ 124.3189.

166. HS 62.2736. The Yan Shigu commentary to this passage interprets it to mean, “he would allow later men to witness [or jian ‘visualize’] his own commitment.”

167. See, for example, HS 80.3324; HHS 36.1229, 60B.2006. More nuanced is the final judgment of Ban Gu, which praises Sima Qian's erudition and style while condemning his grave errors in moral discernment (HS 62.2738; HHS 40B.1386). As to later judgments, the remarks of Zhiji, Liu in Shitong tongshi (Shanghai: Shangwu, 1935–37), 1.166 Google Scholar, are only slightly more caustic than many. Liu characterizes Sima Qian as the “betrayer of the Five Classics.”

In 221 b.c., the First Emperor of Qin, of course, to further his wealth-and-power projects, had banned posthumous assessments of past figures, according to SJ 6.236, whenever they entailed passing judgment upon a superior. This sort of impediment to writing history long predates the First Emperor, however, as is clear from the remark attributed to Confucius in Mencius 3B/9. By the religious reading, Sima Qian intended to establish contact with the emperors and kings of antiquity, men far above his own station.

168. HS 62.2737, 66.2889.

169. Maoshi yinde (Harvard-Yenching Sinological Index Series, supplement no. 9; rpt., Tokyo: Japan Council for East Asian Studies, 1962) 264/7 Google Scholar (trans, after Legge, James The Chinese Classics [rpt., Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1960], vol. 4 Google Scholar [The She King], 564). A number of Eastern Han texts, including the Lunheng, treat the Shiji as a neoclassical authority like the Chunqiu, able to make or break the reputations of its subjects. See Lunheng, 28.562 (“Shujie” ). A number of Han stelae explicitly record their subjects’ mastery of the Shiji along with other canonical works. See, for example, Hong Gua , Lishi , in Shike shiliao xinbian , ser. 1 (Taibei: Xinwenfeng, 1977), vol. 9, 12.7bGoogle Scholar (stele of Wu Rong ).